23 Cannons: The Victor's Compendium
by cjborange
Summary: In the many, many years since the enactment of the Hunger Games, thousands of boys and girls have competed. Only a few have left alive. These symbols of bravery and sacrifice, dubbed victors, have inspired us all and will continue to inspire us for as long as this great country may exist. Here is the summary of every Hunger Games ever enacted upon the citizens of Panem. (100/100)
1. Preface

**23 Cannons: The Victor's Compendium**

 _By Ornum Pixyl, a Capitol resident and Hunger Games enthusiast_

The Hunger Games are one of Panem's most prized traditions. The annual event is one of the most if not the most beloved pageant ever held. Those in the Capitol watch it on television for entertainment. For those in the districts, it serves as an opportunity for young men and women to channel their love for their country and to prove their honor, courage, and sacrifice.

Throughout the history of the Games, thousands of teenagers have entered. Very few of them have left alive. These courageous girls and boys, known as victors, have inspired us all and will continue to inspire us for as long as this great country may exist.

Compiled in this lengthy tome is the story of every Hunger Games ever enacted on the citizens of Panem. Each of the games will follow the same format so that readers may easily and quickly find the portion of the compendium that they are looking to read, and at the end of each chapter will be listed how many victors each district has and what their names are.

Without any further ado, I sign away and let you read my masterpiece.

 **A/N: Hello readers, and welcome to my newest fic! I hope you enjoy, and please review if you're able! I'll try to get in one or two updates a week :D**


	2. The 1st Hunger Games

**The 1st Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

The head gamemaker for the first ever Hunger Games was a thirty-year old woman named Jaycen Malix, who had worked most of her life as a fashion designer. Her creativity caught the attention of President Cornelius Wayne, so the two met together in the presidential mansion and sketched out an arena together. The arena was very simple: a heavily wooded area with a clearing in the center for the cornucopia. The arena was much smaller than all of those after it; it was a circle with a radius of about 1.3 miles. The technology was less advanced then, so save the simple things like fire and flooding the gamemakers couldn't throw in any surprises to make the games more interesting. All twenty-four tributes were reaped, making it the only Hunger Games in history with zero volunteers. The second Hunger Games onward all had at least one volunteer (exceptions: various Quarter Quells). The Capitol also offered its citizens to bet on who they thought would win. Few people actually did, though, since the entertainment factor would not be fully introduced until the next year's games. At the beginning of each chapter in this lengthy tome will be a list of all of the tributes for reference, the male tribute preceding the female in each district. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Prince Gabree, 17, (7) 10-1 and Victoria Faye, 14, (6) 28-1

District 2: Jason Herrera, 12, (3) 43-1 and Eklipsa Olsen, 17, (7) 12-1

District 3: Cordin Frey, 18, (10) 4-1 and Danica Barns, 13, (4) 50-1

District 4: Max Amato, 12, (2) 99-1 and Lana Gibbens, 18, (10) 6-1

District 5: Hix Courtney, 18, (9) 4-1 and Pixyl Shrier, 15, (6) 15-1

District 6: Carson Flecker, 18, (5) 32-1 and Tonya Maier, 17, (7) 26-1

District 7: Umber Glabey, 14, (2) 72-1 and Clary Faciana, 16, (6) 25-1

District 8: Justin Hastings, 13, (1) 176-1 and Opal Spaventa, 18, (7) 23-1

District 9: Dhrake Sade, 17, (5) 47-1 and Demeter Surey, 12, (1) 1289-1

District 10: Clos Adolpha, 15, (5) 25-1 and Mara Tudge, 13, (3) 64-1

District 11: Rye Audet, 17, (5) 27-1 and Marla Darrow, 15, (3) 32-1

District 12: Dani Cleaves, 18, (10) 6-1 and Amber Sheikh, 16, (5) 18-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The games began with a very boring and uneventful start; only three tributes would die in the initial fight that would later be dubbed the bloodbath.

When the gong rang, many were too stunned to even move. The only two tributes who actually ran into the cornucopia at first were Hix and Cordin, who jogged forward and began rummaging through the supplies. The other tributes followed their example and sauntered for the horn, trying to avoid each other as they grabbed supplies. Several tributes turned tail and fled, realizing that the bloodbath was just a scheme to make sure a few tributes died at the beginning.

There were a few minutes of complete uneventfulness as the tributes rummaged through the supplies. That was, until Prince received a knife from the very heart of the golden horn. Wielding the blade and knowing that the tributes had to do some killing for the games to end, Prince snuck up on a distracted Dhrake who was rummaging through a bin containing loaves of bread. Prince brought down his knife and plunged it into the back of Dhrake's neck. He was too stunned to even scream as he keeled over in death, the very first tribute to die in the Hunger Games.

 _Dhrake Sade, District 9 Male: 24th, Killed by Prince, Bloodbath_

At this, total chaos ensued as many of the tributes ran for their lives. Notable was Danica, who fled into the woods screaming with her hands in the air. Dani Cleaves, the very strong and confident District 12 boy who knew he had to kill to increase his chances of survival, chucked a curved sickle through the air. It flipped end over end as it flew through the air, faster and faster, until it impaled Danica's chest. She slumped to the ground, passing out twenty-two seconds later and passing away ninety-three seconds later.

 _Danica Barns, District 3 Female: 23rd, Killed by Dani, Bloodbath_

The third and final death of the first ever bloodbath occurred when Hix acquired a long, heavy metal rod with which to kill other tributes. Hix snuck up behind Victoria and smashed her in the back of her head. Fortunately for her, she passed out instantly so she didn't feel any pain at all. She never woke up.

 _Victoria Faye, District 1 Female: 22nd, Killed by Hix, Bloodbath_

The night of Day 1, none of the tributes could sleep. They physically couldn't. They all knew that, at any moment, a tribute could sneak up behind them and kill them. The first night passed deathless. The birds sang in the trees as the morning of Day 2 finally arrived. Prince, who had made the first kill and therefore intrigued the audience, hid in a cove near a small lake with the intent to ambush any weary tributes that came along. It was too easy. Clary strolled down to the lake to wash her limbs and face, which were smeared with dirt and grime from the long night. Prince pounced upon Clary, smothering her screams by forcing her underwater. He held her underwater for three minutes. Clary struggled and struggled, but it was no use. She died of suffocation four minutes later.

 _Clary Faciana, District 7 Female: 21st, Killed by Prince, Day 2_

Day 3 passed deathless. However, the gamemakers noticed that Prince and Hix were walking towards each other, and would meet around the morning of Day 4. They were curious what would happen when the two boys met.

The tributes were jolted awake by the sound of a cannon the morning of Day 4. Amber died of dehydration when she was unable to find any water to drink. Her death was the very first of natural cause in the arena.

 _Amber Sheikh, District 12 Female: 20th, Dehydration, Day 4_

On the morning of Day 5, Hix and Prince crossed paths while walking through the arena. Instead of attempting to kill one another, they shook hands as allies, creating the first every alliance in the history of the Hunger Games. Later that day, they allowed Cordin to join their alliance because of high training score and his age. The pack of three boys spent the rest of the day sweeping through the arena, searching for their first kill. Prince had his knife, Hix his baton, and Cordin his curved sickle. Hix stumbled upon Pixyl, his very own district partner, who was sleeping soundlessly under a bed of leaves on the floor of the forest. Uncovering her and nudging her into a prone position, Hix smashed her in the back of the bed, cracking her skull instantly.

 _Pixyl Shrier, District 5 Female: 19th, Killed by Hix, Day 5_

Day 6 passed deathless. However, while searching around the arena, Cordin found Max wandering around the arena aimlessly. Cordin spent the whole day stalking Max, until the morning of Day 7 arrived and he slit Max' throat with a curved blade.

 _Max Amato, District 4 Male: 18th, Killed by Cordin, Day 7_

Day 8 was not unlike Day 6. Cordin spent the entire day stalking Tonya just like he did to Max. Around noon, Cordin snuck up behind Tonya and stabbed her it the back with his blade. She passed away twenty-seven minutes after Cordin left her to die.

 _Tonya Maier, District 6 Female: 17th, Killed by Cordin, Day 8_

Ten long days passed completely deathless, one of the longest gaps between kills of any Hunger Games ever. On Day 18, the threesome of Prince, Cordin, and Hix met up at the cornucopia and decided to hunt down their next victim together. Around three o'clock p.m., they found Eklipsa hiding in the bough of a tree. Cordin ran to the cornucopia and retrieved a bow and arrow before running back to a terrified Eklipsa and shooting her in the torso.

 _Eklipsa Olsen, District 2 Female: 16th, Killed by Cordin, Day 18_

Day 19 saw two deaths: another dehydration death and a tribute that collided with the force field accidently.

 _Justin Hastings, District 8 Male: 15th, Dehydration, Day 19_

 _Rye Audet, District 11 Male: 14th, Collided with the Force Field, Day 19_

Two tributes died on Day 20. The career pack hunted down Clos, and Cordin slashed her in the torso with his curved sword. Then, Umber ate a batch of poisonous berries he believed were edible.

 _Clos Adolpha, District 10 Male: 13th, Killed by Cordin, Day 20_

 _Umber Glasbey, District 7 Male: 12th, Poisonous Berries, Day 20_

The threesome spent two days sweeping through the arena, looking for their unlucky next kill. They finally found it on Day 22. They snuck up upon an alliance consisting of Jason and Carson. Hix amputated Jason's left leg with a blade he retrieved from the cornucopia.

 _Jason Herrera, District 2 Male: 11th, Killed by Hix, Day 22_

Upon the death of his ally, Carson fled. He ran and ran as fast as he could, but he was no match for the three boys. Cordin shot Carson in the neck when he was attempting to shinny up a nearby tree and escape.

 _Carson Flecker, District 6 Male: 10th, Killed by Cordin, Day 22_

A tribute died of dehydration on Day 23.

 _Dani Cleaves, District 12 Male: 9th, Dehydration, Day 23_

On Day 24, another tribute died of dehydration.

 _Opal Spaventa, District 8 Female: 8th, Dehydration, Day 24_

Day 25 passed void of conflict. Day 26 saw the first death of the three-way alliance; Prince fell out of the tree he was camping in in his sleep. His head smacked against a hard rock and he bled to death four painful hours later.

 _Prince Gabree, District 1 Male: 7th, Fell out of a Tree, Day 26_

Hix and Cordin, the two remaining members of the alliance, swore that they would kill another tribute soon in Prince's honor. They swept through the arena a few times before finding Mara hiding behind the log of a large oak tree, shaking. As soon as she saw the two boys sneaking up behind her and wielding their weapons, she stormed over to a nearby bush sporting poisonous berries and shoved them into her mouth in order to avoid a much more painful death.

 _Mara Tudge, District 10 Female: 6th, Suicide, Day 27_

Around noon on Day 28, the audience's attention was diverted to Demeter, a girl who had hid in a tree for over three weeks eating snakes and spiders that she found. She was bitten by a venomous viper snake and died a few hours after.

 _Demeter Surey, District 9 Female: 5th, Venomous Snake, Day 28_

The gamemakers wanted to wait for one more death before driving the tributes inward for a bloody showdown. Marla gave it to them when she died of dehydration.

 _Marla Darrow, District 11 Female: 4th, Dehydration, Day 30_

The gamemakers set the perimeter of the arena on fire, which would force the tributes towards the cornucopia as the fire spread inwards. The three remaining tributes leaped and bound across the arena, running away from the fire. Eventually, they emerged in the clearing with nowhere else to run, the entire world on fire around them. Lana, the only remaining tribute other than the two allies, was slashed in the neck by Hix with a sword twelve minutes later.

 _Lana Gibbens, District 4 Female: 3rd, Killed by Hix, Day 31_

The final battle of the games was between Hix Courtney of District 5 and Cordin Frey of District 3. The two shook hands, officially ending the brotherly alliance. A long and brutal fight then began. First, Cordin shot an arrow, landing in Hix's leg but not fazing him much. Then, Hix hurled a throwing knife, nicking the side of Cordin's neck. The fight continued for seven long hours. With a nearly inexhaustible supply of weapons at the cornucopia, they never needed to stop fighting; they would simply race over to get more once they ran out. Finally, Cordin opened a huge gash in Hix' torso and he keeled over in pain, desperately attempting to contain his organs inside his body. Cordin stood by and watched as Hix' cannon fired, his blood spilling over the terrain like water.

 _Hix Courtney, District 5 Male: 2nd, Killed by Cordin, Day 31_

"Cordin Frey of District 3, you are the victor of the first annual Hunger Games!" Jaycen exclaimed as a hovercraft appeared to collect the first ever Hunger Games victor.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The nation absolutely loved Cordin. Throughout the districts, he earned the nickname 'the spider' because of his tendency to sneak up on other tributes and ambush them not unlike a spider pouncing on its next meal. He would mentor many tributes while he was alive, a few of which would go on to become victors themselves.

His victory tour went well, and he was celebrated across Panem before returning home to District 3.

Cordin moved into the victor's village of District 3. He would marry once at age twenty-four to a woman named Jesyka, whom he would stay married to until his death sixty years later.

Cordin would live to the age of eighty-four, succumbing to pneumonia around the time of the sixty-sixth annual Hunger Games.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Cordin moves into the Victor's Village of District 3, the very first victor to ever do so.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)


	3. The 2nd Hunger Games

**The 2nd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 **INTRODUCTION**

Jaycen Malix, the head gamemaker for the first Hunger Games, retired and was replaced by a thirty-seven year old man named Leto Spitz. The year before, the team of gamemakers was only four people small. This year, Leto appointed a team of fifteen gamemakers, fourteen of which accepted the job. The group of gamemakers assembled in a hotel in the south district of the Capitol and spent a few days planning an arena that they promised would be much more elaborate than that of the year before. Leto knew that, as the tradition progressed, each gamemaker would make an attempt to outdo their predecessor and create the grandest arena yet, something he was very enthusiastic about. The arena was an abandoned city, littered with ruined buildings strangled by mold and vines, rundown and destroyed by wind and time. The Capitol was very intrigued by the wide array of tributes, most notably the two volunteers. The District 7 female tribute had been abused most of her life, and volunteered for her first cousin knowing that her life had little worth left. But, throughout the diverse collection of tributes, it was Sapphire Waber who really stole the show. Inspired by Cordin's victory, Sapphire began training for the Hunger Games and shaped herself up to be what could be considered the first career. At the reaping, she lunged forward to volunteer and stormed proudly into the Capitol upon arrival. She instantly attracted the attention of the Capitolites via her remarkable training score and her confidence, something that no other tribute before her truly possessed. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Paris Benedict, 15, (4) 23-1 and Sapphire Waber, 18, (11) 2-1

District 2: Ashlar Sommer, 16, (6) 19-1 and Valda Graveline, 12, (2) 68-1

District 3: Ryam Brinton, 17 (6) 15-1 and Lanni Hyland, 13, (4) 21-1

District 4: Zale Romner, 18 (10) 5-1 and Sirema Korrik, 16, (3) 25-1

District 5: Sprites Collete, 17, (7) 14-1 and Bina Linz, 14, (2) 52-1

District 6: Aran Paynter, 18, (9) 8-1 and Demica Sternlieb, 17, (6) 19-1

District 7: Rowan Marvold, 17, (6) 18-1 and Ava Stacks, 12, (2) 96-1

District 8: Bobbin Wepsic, 16, (4) 20-1 and Twylia Artriver, 13, (3) 40-1

District 9: Omri Radeke, 18, (7) 18-1 and Zea Storo, 17, (5) 17-1

District 10: Angus Gomes, 18, (9) 5-1 and Fora Limes, 18, (10) 5-1

District 11: Briony Knuff, 14, (2) 43-1 and Pria Durian, 16, (5) 9-1

District 12: Collis Kramer, 13, (1) 74-1 and Hazelle Pakton, 17, (7) 14-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The bloodbath this year was much different than that of the year before; the tributes all knew what to expect after watching the first Hunger Games on television. If anything, that made it even more terrifying. When the tributes emerged into the abandoned city arena, they were all very surprised. Most of them rapidly whipped their heads around in panic, trying to take in as much of the arena as possible before the holographic numbers flashing above them reached zero. They all knew that, if they stepped off of their pedestal prematurely, their face would be the very first in the sky that night.

With about twenty seconds left on the counter, a bloated Twylia who had eaten a lot right before the games, vomited on her pedestal. Very fortunately for her, the bile landed on the pod. Had it gone over the edge, her mangled corpse would have been blown sky high.

When the gong rang signaling the start of the games, eleven of the tributes fled into the cityscape with only their bare hands to survive the difficult weeks to come. Of the others, they all raced towards the cornucopia to grab supplies in a daze of panic.

The very first death of the bloodbath occurred when Sapphire, wielding a knife, snuck up upon a distracted Sirema and threw her against the wall of the cornucopia. Sirema screamed in terror, but it was no use. Sapphire stabbed her in the forehead, and she fell to the ground in death twelve seconds later.

 _Sirema Korrik, District 4 Female: 24th, Killed by Sapphire, Bloodbath_

At that, Sapphire had already established herself as a threat. The majority of the remaining tributes who had not turned tail at the very beginning fled now, dropping whatever they were doing and trying to space themselves as far away from Sapphire as possible. Sapphire quickly collected a bow and arrow from the mouth of the horn and nocked an arrow, shooting it at Aran's back as he raced away into the rundown city. Her aim was perfect, and the arrow lodged itself between his shoulder blades as he slumped to the ground.

 _Aran Paynter, District 6 Male: 23rd, Killed by Sapphire, Bloodbath_

At that, all twenty-one of the remaining tributes had scrambled away and hid, leaving Sapphire alone at the cornucopia. She took her time organizing the supplies, knowing that no tribute in their right mind would attempt to steal them, less face her wrath.

Only two kills were made during the bloodbath, one of the least of any Hunger Games in history. The one downside was that, of course, since very few tributes actually had the opportunity to grab supplies from the cornucopia, everyone knew that there would be tons of natural cause deaths, leading to a rather boring games.

Sapphire emptied out an orange backpack she retrieved from the horn and filled it up with weapons: a knife, a bow and sheath of arrows, and a magazine of throwing knives as well as a sword. The backpack bumped between her shoulder blades as she set out on her first quest to find and kill another tribute.

The tributes were startled awake by the sound of a cannon the morning of Day 2. Sapphire had made one wide sweep through the arena and stumbled upon Zea, who was hiding in the top floor of an old building. Sapphire quietly snuck up on the girl and stabbed the back of her neck with her machete, killing her almost instantly.

 _Zea Storo, District 9 Female: 22nd, Killed by Sapphire, Day 2_

The rest of Day 2 was deathless, as was the morning of Day 3. Sapphire had retreated back to her fort at the cornucopia and set up a tent and fire there. However, at around 3 o'clock p.m. on Day 3, an unlucky Bobbin, who was already very dehydrated at the time, tumbled out of the top floor of a tall building, cracking his spine and arms the instant they made contact with the ground. He lay there for two hours before stabbing himself in the heart with a sharp rock to escape the pain of dehydration.

 _Bobbin Wepsic, District 8 Male: 21st, Suicide, Day 3_

Around nine o'clock p.m. that day, Ryam died of dehydration. However, the exact cause of his death is a bit fuzzy since he allegedly licked condensation off of the walls of the building he was hiding in.

 _Ryam Brinton, District 3 Male: 20th, Dehydration, Day 3_

At this point, Collis' body was so weak from dehydration that his only option remaining was to exit his hiding spot and find a water source to drink. He slowly creaked open the door of the old church he was hiding in, and snuck out. By a sheer stroke of horrible luck, Sapphire was less than ten yards away. She slung the backpack over her shoulder and unzipped it, removing her weapons and wielding them in hand. Collis ran up to the highest floor of the building in an attempt to escape the girl, but Sapphire found him shaking in a dark corner six minutes later. Sapphire nocked a bow in her arrow and shot him in the heart.

 _Collis Kramer, District 12 Male: 19th, Killed by Sapphire, Day 3_

At this point, the Capitol was in absolute enthrallment at the state of the arena. Sapphire had made four kills in the first three days of the games, and showed no signs of stopping any time soon. Sapphire prowled the arena throughout the entirety of Day 4, with no luck. What Sapphire didn't know was that three tributes were, at that very moment, having a meeting in the cellar of an old tavern in the north portion of the arena. They were Ashlar, Omri, and Hazelle, and they knew that they had no chance of winning if they let Sapphire continue her strategy and rat them all out. They stayed as silent as possible and conspired to sneak towards the cornucopia while the murderous girl was away and blow up all of her precious supplies.

They sent Ashlar to be a scout from the top of an old cathedral, and he would signal when Sapphire was away by waving his hands in the air in Omri and Hazelle's direction. Once Ashlar spotted Sapphire far away from the center of the arena, he signaled for Omri and Hazelle to rummage through the cornucopia to find some kind of explosive with which to destroy Sapphire's supplies.

Little did the three tributes know that clever Sapphire had set up a system of detectors around the horn that would trigger a small explosion if anyone who didn't know the proper route to the supplies tried to steal them. Hazelle and Omri's corpses were blown sky-high when they triggered the bombs by accident. Their attempt to destroy the supplies had failed.

 _Hazelle Pakton, District 12 Female: 18th, Killed by a Bomb, Day 4_

 _Omri Radeke, District 9 Male: 17th, Killed by a Bomb, Day 4_

Day 5 saw three deaths, two of dehydration and one from a tribute who had eaten very poisonous hemlock berries she believed were edible.

 _Paris Benedict, District 1 Male: 16th, Dehydration, Day 5_

 _Valda Graveline, District 2 Female: 15th, Dehydration, Day 5_

 _Fora Limes, District 10 Female: 14th, Poisonous Berries, Day 5_

One tribute died of dehydration on Day 6.

 _Sprites Collette, District 5 Male: 13th, Dehydration, Day 6_

The morning of Day 7, the tributes were jolted awake by the sound of a cannon. Briony, who was wandering through the arena trying to find a water source, collided with the force field. His body was electrocuted instantly and he felt no pain at all.

 _Briony Knuff, District 11 Male: 12th, Collided with the Force Field, Day 7_

The morning of Day 8, Rowan attempted to kill Sapphire by fashioning himself a bow out of stretchy cord he found in a rusty old house and made his own arrows by binding sharp rocks to the end of sturdy sticks. He watched as Sapphire prowled beneath the balcony he was crouching down on, and Rowan hastily stood up and shot Sapphire in the shoulder. Crying out in pain, her shoulder began spouting blood. Rowan shot another arrow, missing. Sapphire retaliated by reaching into her backpack and pulling out her own bow and arrow, shooting it through Rowan's eye and killing him.

 _Rowan Marvold, District 7 Male: 11th, Killed by Sapphire, Day 8_

After his death, Sapphire ran towards the cornucopia and retrieved a jar of disinfectant cream, applying it to the wound. It wasn't very serious, though, and she was up and running a few hours later.

One tribute died on Day 9. The creaking old stairs that a tribute was running on fell, and he tumbled to the ground, trapped under a huge pile of wood and metal. He struggled for hours but couldn't escape. He killed himself with a sharp rock, knowing that he would never escape and that it would be the most painless way to pass.

 _Zale Romner, District 4 Male: 10th, Suicide, Day 9_

Infuriated at the attempt to destroy her supplies, Sapphire spent the whole of Days 10 and 11 scouring the arena for another tribute to kill. She eventually found Demica cowering in the closet of an old bank. Sapphire made quick work of the girl by stabbing her in the stomach with her knife.

 _Demica Stenlieb, District 6 Female: 9th, Killed by Sapphire, Day 11_

On Day 12, three tributes died, all three of them from colliding with the force field. The gamemakers resolved to make the arenas much larger in later games to prevent so many deaths from the force field.

 _Twylia Artriver, District 8 Female: 8th, Collided with the Force Field, Day 12_

 _Ava Stacks, District 7 Female: 7th, Collided with the Force Field, Day 12_

 _Bina Linz, District 5 Female: 6th, Collided with the Force Field, Day 12_

The gamemakers wanted to wait for two more deaths before driving the final three tributes in for a bloody finale. Their wishes were granted when there were two deaths on Day 13, another dehydration death and another force field death.

 _Pria Durian, District 11 Female: 5th, Dehydration, Day 13_

 _Lanni Hyland, District 3 Female: 4th, Collided with the Force Field, Day 13_

The gamemakers thought back to how they drove the final three tributes together the year before by lighting the perimeter of the arena on fire and forcing the tributes inward as the flame spread. This year, they triggered a massive earthquake on the perimeter of the arena, sending buildings crashing to the ground and ripping apart the streets like tin foil. The tributes were forced inward as the earthquake spread, less they be annihilated by the force of the quake. A very unlucky Angus was sleeping in the cellar of a pub when the quake destroyed it. He was killed by a combination of debris impaling his body and the force of the building collapsing atop him.

 _Angus Gomes, District 10 Male: 3rd, Killed by the Gamemaker's Earthquake, Day 14_

Ashlar and Sapphire were the final two tributes, and they both hurled themselves towards the cornucopia as they ran away from the threat of the earthquake tearing apart their bodies. The two tributes had no option but to climb on top of the cornucopia. Sapphire had a huge gash running down her leg from the collision of a chunk of debris, and Ashlar's torso had been split down the middle by a similar cause.

Ashlar panicked as he frantically realized that he had no weapons with him, while Sapphire had a backpack full of weapons he had never even heard of or seen in his life. Eyes glittering with malice, Sapphire reached into her backpack and pulled out a knife, brandishing it in her right hand. She stalked towards Ashlar, forcing him either off of the horn onto the ground or into her knife. Ashlar backed away, but was running out of room very quickly. It was only a matter of time, and very little time at that, until Ashlar would have to make the most difficult and quite possibly last choice of his life.

What happened next is one of the most ground breaking events in the history of the Hunger Games to date. Sapphire cleared her throat and raised her knife, speaking eight words that would soon become the catchphrase of the Hunger Games for many, many years.

"May the odds be ever in your favor," Sapphire said mockingly as she brought down the knife and stabbed Ashlar's chest before kicking his frail body off of the horn.

 _Ashlar Sommer, District 2 Male: 2nd, Killed by Sapphire, Day 14_

"Sapphire Waber of District 1, you are the victor of the second annual Hunger Games!" Leto announced as a hovercraft appeared to retrieve the girl. She raised her hands in the air and whooped victoriously, proudly celebrating her victory.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The Capitol was absolutely enthralled by Sapphire. Little did they know that she was the very first of an entire 'species' of tributes who would enter the games to win money and fame known as careers. Sapphire became very famous for coining the phrase 'may the odds be ever in your favor', which is still the catchphrase of the games to this day.

Her victory tour was very quiet and somber, as the district citizens thought back to how mercilessly Sapphire slaughtered their children in the arena.

Sapphire moved into the victor's village of District 1. She would never marry or have kids, and would live a very quiet and reserved life to herself.

Sapphire would live to the ripe old age of ninety, losing a battle with liver cancer around the time of seventy-second annual Hunger Games.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Sapphire moves into the Victor's Village of District 1, the first of many victors from the luxury district to do so.

Cordin begins dating a woman named Jesyka, whom he will marry around the time of the sixth annual Hunger Games.

Leto Spitz is renowned and celebrated throughout the Capitol for his extremely creative arena and skill in making the games as interesting as possible. He would remain as head gamemaker until the fourth annual Hunger Games, when he would be forced to quit after contracting throat cancer.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)


	4. The 3rd Hunger Games

**The 3rd Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

By the time of the third annual Hunger Games, the gamemakers had learned a lot through trial and error pertaining the layout of the arena. Most importantly, they realized that they needed to limit the tributes access to the areas near the force field to prevent mass deaths the likes of which were seen in the second Hunger Games. They solved this problem by placing intense natural barriers in front of the force field so that it would be difficult for tributes to make contact with it. Also, they discovered that the tributes could not be sustained by a few small streams; huge bodies of water such as lakes and rushing rivers would have to be added to supply each tribute with the most important commodity of all. The arena was an island in the middle of a massive ocean. The cornucopia stood in a huge field of lush green grass, bursting with every type of colorful flower one could imagine. The field was about half a mile in diameter, and was surrounded by a lovely oak forest. Finally, an intense and stormy mountain range circled the arena, limiting the tributes access to the force field. A crystal clear lake sparkling in the light of the sun stood just to the left of the cornucopia, and a rushing river swiftly raced down a mountain's side and spilled into it. The starring event of the third Hunger Games, though, was not the elaborate arena, no. It was the tributes. Inspired by their very own Sapphire's victory the year prior, District 1 built a large academy to train their teenagers in case they were reaped. Districts 2 and 4 liked their idea and so caught on, all three districts now producing what would later be dubbed 'careers'. The academy did not encourage youths to volunteer; it trained them just in case they were picked at the reaping ceremony. It would not be until the sixth Hunger Games that a trained academy tribute volunteered into the games with the purpose to win money and fame. The Capitol was intrigued by the wide variety of tributes; the tough pair from District 1, the brother and sister from District 2, the mysterious and intriguing girl from District 4, and the orphan boy from District 11. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Tilver Bourland, 16, (8) 9-1 and Maia Coblenz, 18, (9) 7-1

District 2: Roland Demone, 13, (5) 16-1 and Lenna Demone, 17, (8) 8-1

District 3: Rakesh Coletti, 16, (4) 32-1 and Demina Steiner, 18, (8) 8-1

District 4: Ermin Cattano, 18, (7) 10-1 and Molly Toliday, 17, (9) 7-1

District 5: John Borek, 12, (2) 68-1 and Zippina Kyrou, 16, (3) 29-1

District 6: Cooper Proga, 14, (3) 39-1 and Kyva Violette, 13, (1) 60-1

District 7: Nairn Pridham, 18, (9) 8-1 and Jayna Klock, 16, (3) 34-1

District 8: Burton Kasmer, 16 (7) 11-1 and Paige Eizenstat, 16, (5) 27-1

District 9: Arley Forsythe, 13, (2) 50-1 and Kasha Reiling, 17, (6) 15-1

District 10: Orford Bullock, 12, (2) 51-1 and Melinda Neufeld, 15, (4) 20-1

District 11: Sirco Bartovics, 12, (1) 102-1 and Soya Demelo, 14, (3) 24-1

District 12: Pickan Mulroy, 12, (1) 100-1 and Brooke Collard, 17, (3) 29-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The tributes emerged into the arena just like they did in the two games prior. The tributes rapidly bolted their heads around in an attempt to take in as much of the arena as possible before the gong rang.

Once it did, six tributes raced away from the golden horn into the comforting darkness of the forest. Perhaps this number should have been higher because of the large natural bounty of the arena, but the supplies at the cornucopia were just so tempting that eighteen of the tributes stormed towards it.

The very first death of the third Hunger Games occurred when Lenna picked up an axe that lay sixteen yards from her pedestal. She looked around for a bit before setting her eyes on Arley, who was zigzagging to avoid attacks as he stormed towards the mouth of the horn. Lenna tossed the weapon through the air. Her aim was perfect, and the weapon lodged itself in Arley's chest.

 _Arley Forsythe, District 9 Male: 24th, Killed by Lenna, Bloodbath_

Not five seconds later, an exhilarated Tilver hastily grabbed two throwing knives out of the horn and chucked them through the air, one at Jayna and one at Soya. Soya dodged the blade, but Jayna was not so lucky. The blade plunged into Jayna's back, killing her instantly.

 _Jayna Klock, District 7 Female: 23rd, Killed by Tilver, Bloodbath_

Molly, now rummaging through supplies at the cornucopia and looking for her favorite weapon—a knife—finally found it. As soon as she did, she crept out of the horn and plunged it into the back of a petite girl standing nearby who everybody knew wouldn't survive long anyways.

 _Kyva Violette, District 6 Female: 22nd, Killed by Molly, Bloodbath_

Molly ripped the blade out of Kyva's corpse and spotted young Pickan racing away from the horn into the forest. Molly closed one eye and let the blade fly through the air. The blade sank into the back of Pickan's neck, and he fell to the ground in death.

 _Pickan Mulroy, District 12 Male: 21st, Killed by Molly, Bloodbath_

With an orange backpack slung over his back, Burton began high-tailing away from the bloodbath as fast as he could. On his way out, though, Lenna threw a knife into the back of his torso. Fortunately, the blade lodged itself into the backpack and not into his body. Burton safely made it into the forest unharmed.

At this, all of the tributes scurried away from the horn, some with nothing at all and some with the supplies they were able to retrieve from the cornucopia.

The day and evening of Day 1 passed void of conflict. That was, until Molly spotted Melinda hiding in the bough of a tree. Molly shinnied up the sturdy trunk and stabbed Melinda in the back. She fell off of the tree and onto the ground. Very luckily for her, she passed away instantly and barely felt any pain.

 _Melinda Neufeld, District 10 Female: 20th, Killed by Molly, Day 1_

The night of Day 1 passed deathless, as did the morning of Day 2. However, around noon on Day 2, Tilver spotted Paige snoozing away in a sleeping bag under a layer of leaves on the forest floor. Tilver leapt up and down on top of her stomach until she coughed up blood, and then left her there to die. Paige choked on her own blood five minutes later.

 _Paige Eizenstat, District 8 Female: 19th, Killed by Tilver, Day 2_

Around six o'clock p.m. on Day 2, Molly, Tilver, and Maia almost simultaneously crossed paths. They had all been trained at the combat academies back home, and so they shook hands as allies, creating what could be construed as the first career pack. The pack made one wide sweep through the arena on Day 3, finding and killing two tributes. First, they found John hiding in the trunk of a hollowed out tree. Maia stabbed him in the heart with a dagger. Then, they found Soya hiding in the top of a tree. Tilver produced a bow and arrow and attempted to shoot Soya. It took twelve attempts before his thirteenth arrow landed in Soya's neck, silencing her screams of terror and sending her tumbling to the ground.

 _John Borek, District 5 Male: 18th, Killed by Maia, Day 3_

 _Soya Demelo, District 11 Female: 17th, Killed by Tilver, Day 3_

There were two dehydration deaths on Day 4. Dehydration deaths were, of course, inevitable even though the gamemakers made every measure possible to prevent them. The first death was that of Cooper, whose body was too weak from dehydration and exhaustion to traverse the arena to the lake adjacent to the cornucopia. Ermin feared that the career pack would be hiding at the cornucopia ready to pounce upon any weary tribute that came along, similar to how Prince pounced upon Clary in the first Hunger Games.

 _Cooper Proga, District 6 Male: 16th, Dehydration, Day 4_

 _Ermin Cattano, District 4 Male: 15th, Dehydration, Day 4_

Day 5 saw two deaths. First, the career pack hunted down and killed Orford. Orford's life was swiftly ended when Molly shot an arrow through his eye. The second death was from dehydration.

 _Orford Bullock, District 10 Male: 14th, Killed by Molly, Day 5_

 _Roland Demone, District 2 Male: 13th, Dehydration, Day 5_

Days 6, 7, and 8 passed void of any death or conflict. The career pack got lucky on Day 9, successfully killing three tributes on that day. Firstly, they found Burton trying to start a fire on the forest floor. He was too stunned to even move before Molly stabbed him in the forehead with a machete.

 _Burton Kasmer, District 8 Male: 12th, Killed by Molly, Day 9_

Two hours later, the pack decided to split up and hunt for their next prey individually. Two deaths occurred within ten minutes of each other. Firstly, Maia let an arrow fly from her bow and impale the back of Zippina's head.

 _Zippina Kyrou, District 5 Female: 11th, Killed by Maia, Day 9_

Then, Molly stabbed Brooke in the back with her favorite knife that she had carried with her since Day 1.

 _Brooke Collard, District 12 Female: 10th, Killed by Molly, Day 9_

Day 10 saw the first death from the career pack. In an attempt to eliminate the biggest threat to his survival, Rakesh snuck to the cornucopia and retrieved a bow and arrow, shooting one arrow and Maia and one arrow and Molly. Maia died less than twenty seconds after the arrow impaled her heart.

 _Maia Coblenz, District 1 Female: 9th, Killed by Rakesh, Day 10_

Molly ripped the arrow out of her skin and saw a gaping wound on her left shoulder spouting blood. She already felt dizzy and the whole world looked foggy around her. She knew she would die soon from the wound.

At that very moment, the very first sponsor gift of the Hunger Games was given. Back in the Capitol, a woman who had bet on Molly's victory and wanted her to win sent her a bandage and jar of wound sealer as well as disinfectant cream. Eyes widening with disbelief, she applied the medicine to her skin. She had been snatched from the claws of death then and there!

She swore to thank the sponsor by making the rest of her kills as interesting as possible. She came up with a devious and clever plan. She emptied out the sponsor parachute and filled it up with poisonous berries from a nearby bush. She looked around the arena for a hungry tribute before finding Nairn, his body so weak from hunger that he could barely move. Molly climbed up a nearby tree and dropped the parachute filled by poison berries. It floated down and landed in the boy's lap. He cried out in relief, believing that he had been saved from death by a generous sponsor! Nairn shoved the berries into his mouth all at once. By the time he realized his mistake, it was too late.

 _Nairn Pridham, District 7 Male: 8th, Killed by Molly, Day 10_

Molly did the exact same thing to two other tributes on Days 10 and 11, both of which had almost the exact same result.

 _Sirco Bartovics, District 11 Male: 7th, Killed by Molly, Day 10_

 _Kasha Reiling, District 9 Female: 6th, Killed by Molly, Day 11_

On that note, the final five had been determined. The gamemakers now needed to come up with a clever method to force the tributes inward to the cornucopia for a bloody showdown. They decided to, since the arena was an island in the middle of a massive ocean, cause a tsunami on all sides of the arena that would consume and destroy everything in its path as it would force the tributes inward.

The gamemakers sent a huge asteroid hurling into the ocean. The tributes saw the huge object, red hot, hurling towards the ocean. The victor later reported in an interview that it was the loudest sound they had ever heard in their life, and that it sounded like a barreling train but fifty times louder.

The tributes attempting to get high ground to see what was going on. When they did, their hearts dropped into their stomachs. A huge wave more than one hundred yards tall was barreling towards the island! The tributes dropped everything they were doing and ran to the cornucopia, which was high ground and so would be the safest place to be. The tsunami was a wall of water that shattered mountains and knocked over trees like dominoes as it relentlessly barreled across the island. The force of the tsunami killed two tributes.

 _Demina Steiner, District 3 Female: 5th, Killed by the Tsunami, Day 12_

 _Lenna Demone, District 2 Female: 4th, Killed by the Tsunami, Day 12_

The final three tributes had no choice but to climb on top of the golden horn as it creaked from the force of the water violently rushing around it. They watched in shock as everything was washed away by the force of the current. Within thirty minutes, the tsunami had destroyed what used to be the island and left it under ten feet of churning water. And so, the final battle of the third Hunger Games began.

It was easy enough to kill Tilver. Rakesh simply pushed him off the horn and he was washed away by the current.

 _Tilver Bourland, District 1 Male: 3rd, Killed by Rakesh/The Tsunami, Day 12_

The final battle of the third Hunger Games was between Rakesh Coletti of District 3 and Molly Toliday of District 4. Rakesh produced a knife from his pocket, and Molly produced hers. All of their other weapons had been washed away in the tsunami. First, Rakesh lunged at Molly, attempting to stab her neck but instead missing by a few inches. Molly retaliated by stabbing Rakesh's shoulder. The knife clattered out of her hand and tumbled into the churning water below. Molly quickly knocked the blade out of Rakesh's hand, sending it tumbling into the cold vortex as well. The two now had only their bare hands to fight with.

They fought and fought as both attempted to force their opponent off of the cornucopia. Finally, two hours of blood and sweat later, Molly punched Rakesh below his chin, sending him spiraling back. Molly then kicked him in the chest, sending him tumbling backwards off of the horn, his feet over his head as he fell into the churning vortex below. The force of the rushing current tore his body apart and he died soon after.

 _Rakesh Coletti, District 3 Male: 2nd, Killed by Molly/The Tsunami, Day 12_

"Molly Toliday of District 4, you are the victor of the third annual Hunger Games!" Leto announced. Molly just raised her hands in the air victoriously and smiled for the hidden cameras she knew were all pointed at her.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

Molly was beloved by the Capitol, and was awarded with the title of the first ever academy trained career tribute to win the Hunger Games.

Her victory tour went well, although District 3 was a little sour about Molly stealing their second victor.

Molly moved into the victor's village of District 4. She would marry once in her lifetime, to a man named Tom with which she would have one son.

Molly would live to the age of ninety, dying of heart disease around the time of the seventy-first annual Hunger Games.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Molly moves into the Victor's Village of District 4, the first of many victors from the district of fishing to do so.

Leto Spitz is once again celebrated for his extremely creative arena idea. Unfortunately, he would only remain as head gamemaker for one more year.

Molly reports in an interview that "the sound of the tsunami was the loudest sound I have ever heard in my life. It was like the sound of a barreling train, but fifty times louder."

Cordin, Sapphire, and Molly, all three victors so far, gather on stage for a speech promoting the Hunger Games in the Capitol.

Sapphire Waber, the victor of the second Hunger Games, begins dating a man named Calix, whom she would break up with two years later.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)


	5. The 4th Hunger Games

**The 4th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

By the time of the fourth annual Hunger Games, the entertainment factor of the competition had been fully developed. After seeing the different ways the Capitolites reacted to the three very diverse victors so far, the gamemakers decided to make the Hunger Games less of a fight to the death and more of a reality television show. Even better, they decided to make it interactive by allowing Capitol citizens to submit legal bets on who they believed would win. Capitol citizens who wished to bet would receive a form in the mail on which they would guess who they thought the final eight would be and who would win. This momentous Hunger Games needed a momentous arena, and such the president called up Leto Spitz and requested that he design and build the arena. After several weeks of planning and working out the kinks of things, construction on the arena began. The arena was, in a sense, a model of the four seasons. The north half of the arena was an icily cold and barren landscape churning with bitingly frigid wind. The south portion of the arena was a swelteringly hot desert riddled with snakes and scorpions. To the west was a lovely fall forest, with gold and orange leaves fluttering from the trees and joining their brethren on the ground. To the west was a rolling green field, bursting with flowers that were every color of the rainbow. Sheep roamed the area. The gamemakers did not provide the tributes with a great water source, believing that the games would be more interesting when the tributes were forced to find creative methods of obtaining it. The array of tributes was much like last year; the six careers from 1, 2, and 4 were all trained prematurely and therefore earned the highest scores. The Capitol was also intrigued by the single volunteer; the boy from District 8 who sacrificed himself for a boy one year older than him who was allegedly his best friend since childhood. The six careers, inspired by the way the careers allied the year before in the middle of the games, shook hands as allies before the games even began. They made a deal to slaughter as many tributes as possible during the bloodbath and then meet up in the mouth of the shimmering horn of plenty once the feast of death was over. The Capitol was also intrigued by the District 7 girl, who received the highest training score and the highest odds. She had lots of experience with using an axe and a knife from working in the lumber industry for most of her life, and so was expected to make a handsome number of kills in the arena. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Joules Talbot, 16, (7) 7-1 and Jasmine Giaman, 17, (7) 6-1

District 2: Ryker Slane, 18, (9) 5-1 and Amelia Spangler, 16, (8) 6-1

District 3: Cyber Bodreck, 16, (4) 21-1 and Byte Revlin, 13, (2) 38-1

District 4: Aaran Walsh, 17, (7) 6-1 and Eillen Driks, 18, (6) 9-1

District 5: Alarix Sande, 15, (4) 27-1 and Irie Cogmen, 14, (4) 31-1

District 6: Thanh Mayers, 16, (3) 19-1 and Kaetlyn Wilkes, 12, (2) 40-1

District 7: Dewitt Veal, 14, (3) 27-1 and Ciera Wilcome, 18, (9) 5-1

District 8: Elton Emmons, 17, (2) 25-1 and Catrice Lacy, 16, (4) 25-1

District 9: Erna Mattingly, 15, (4) 34-1 and Fiona Duarte, 13, (1) 39-1

District 10: Coulette Robinson, 16, (7) 19-1 and Verla Durand, 17, (5) 20-1

District 11: Odell Jordon, 18, (6) 18-1 and Hanna Fortner, 12, (3) 32-1

District 12: Trey Naranjo, 14, (2) 29-1 and Krissy Justus, 17, (3) 34-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The instant the gong rang, the exhilarated careers scissored forward and began scooping up their favorite weapons. The first to reach the mouth of the horn was Ryker. Ryker leaned over and picked up a spectacular curved sickle that glistened in the light of the sun overhead and brandished it in his left hand.

Not far behind Ryker was Jasmine. Jasmine slung an orange backpack over her back and then picked up a bow and arrow that lay on an ornate glass table concealed in the darkness of the cornucopia. Nocking an arrow in her bow and closing one eye, she aimed her arrow at Trey's back. Trey was an easy target as he was running in a straight line away from the bloodbath into the fall sector of the arena. Jasmine released her arrow, and the projectile sank into Trey's back as the bloodbath began in earnest.

 _Trey Naranjo, District 12 Male: 24th, Killed by Jasmine, Bloodbath_

At this point, the duo of Ryker and Jasmine was joined by Joules, Amelia, and Aaran, who all sported their own menacing weapons and were prepared to do their part in landing the career alliance as many kills as possible. They all spread out and created as much space as possible, each one patrolling a different section of the clearing around the cornucopia. The next kill was carried out by Aaran. Aaran spotted a panicked Kaetlyn storming away from the bloodbath. Aaran darted up behind Kaetlyn and stabbed her square in the stomach with his machete. Repulsed by the sticky spray of blood squirting out of the girl's mouth, Aaran removed the blade from her corpse and began searching for his next kill.

 _Kaetlyn Wilkes, District 6 Female: 23rd, Killed by Aaran, Bloodbath_

Only a few tributes remained at the cornucopia, and, after realizing that their current strategy wasn't working, the careers all called each other over to the mouth of the cornucopia. They used their bodies to form a barrier at the mouth of the horn, trapping two tributes inside. The two trapped tributes knew that their lives would be over very soon. The first of the unlucky duo to be killed was Cyber, who was killed by Amelia when he was shot in the neck with an arrow.

 _Cyber Bodreck, District 3 Male: 22nd, Killed by Amelia, Bloodbath_

The second tribute, now sporting a horrified expression on her face, was slashed in the side by Joules with a sword.

 _Verla Durand, District 10 Female: 21st, Killed by Joules, Bloodbath_

An eerie silence now hung in the air as the careers searched around the cornucopia for any final tributes to round up. There were none. Confused as to why the bloodbath cannons had not fired yet, the careers began throwing aside crates and the like in the cornucopia in an attempt to find the tribute they knew was hiding somewhere. They found it twelve minutes later; Jasmine threw open a crate to find a completely helpless Erna quivering in terror inside of it. When Erna caught sight of the girl looming over him, he screamed in terror and attempted to escape, but it was no use. Jasmine shot Erna in the neck with her bow. Erna clutched at his neck as scarlet liquid spilled from the wound onto the ground. He collapsed, dead, a few minutes later.

 _Erna Mattingly, District 9 Male: 20th, Killed by Jasmine, Bloodbath_

Five kills had been made in the bloodbath, a number that the career alliance was very proud of. They set up a camp inside of the horn that they would return to each night after their daily killing spree.

The tributes watched gravely as the faces of the five tributes that had died the first day were projected into the sky on the night of Day 1. It was not until around noon on Day 2 that the next kill was made. You see, the morning of Day 2 each career took a backpack filled by commodities for the day and went out into the arena to search for their unlucky next kill. Aaran found Catrice lying in a ditch in the spring sector of the arena, covered with a bed of leaves and sticks to conceal her body. Aaran snuck up behind Catrice and leaned over her. She was too stunned to scream before Aaran stabbed her in the heart with his machete.

 _Catrice Lacy, District 8 Female: 19th, Killed by Aaran, Day 2_

The evening of Day 2, Irie was walking along in the spring section when she stepped over a ditch covered with a layer of leaves and fell in. It was a trap set by the gamemakers. Irie tried every strategy she could think of, to no use. She was trapped in the hole. A few hours later, Joules noticed the pit with the girl trapped inside. It was the easiest kill he made so far. Joules shot Irie in the shoulder with an arrow from his bow, killing her.

 _Irie Cogmen, District 5 Female: 18th, Killed by Joules, Day 2_

On Day 3, Joules took the risk of attempting to kill Ciera. Ciera had hoarded the audience's attention after receiving both the highest training score and the highest odds, and so Joules, in an attempt to eliminate the biggest threat to his survival, snuck up behind Ciera and attempted to stab her in the back, believing that she was weaponless. However, Ciera turned sharply on her heel and revealed that she was holding an axe. The girl rammed the weapon into Joules' chest, effectively killing the career.

 _Joules Talbot, District 1 Male: 17th, Killed by Ciera, Day 3_

Two dehydration deaths occurred on Day 4. Day 4 was very uneventful and nothing of note happened.

 _Dewitt Veal, District 7 Male: 16th, Dehydration, Day 4_

 _Hanna Fortner, District 11 Female: 15th, Dehydration, Day 4_

On Day 5, a second attempt to kill Ciera was made. Amelia, brandishing her curved sickle, snuck up behind Ciera. What happened next was very similar to what happened with Joules, but this time Amelia escaped unscathed. Day 5 was deathless.

On Day 6, two more dehydration deaths occurred. The gamemakers realized that they made a bad decision assuming that the tributes could get their water through other means than directly from a water source. They resolved to always include large bodies of water in future arenas.

 _Coulette Robinson, District 10 Male: 14th, Dehydration, Day 6_

 _Krissy Justus, District 12 Female: 13th, Dehydration, Day 6_

The morning of Day 7, a kill was made by the careers. Ryker, a curved blade in hand, snuck up behind a snoozing Fiona and slashed her in the torso.

 _Fiona Duarte, District 9 Female: 12th, Killed by Ryker, Day 7_

The evening of Day 7, an additional dehydration death occurred.

 _Alarix Sande, District 5 Male: 11th, Dehydration, Day 7_

The morning of Day 8, Elton was exhausted from dehydration. He knew that the only way he could be snatched from the claws of death would be by a sponsor. He believed that making a kill would be a good way to up his chances of getting sponsored. So, just after noon, Elton mashed up a handful of poisonous berries and mixed them into Thanh's food while he was away. Thanh died after eating the poisonous substance.

 _Thanh Mayers, District 6 Male: 10th, Killed by Elton, Day 8_

Unfortunately for him, Elton's pleas were not heard. He died of dehydration on the evening of Day 9.

 _Elton Emmons, District 8 Male: 9th, Dehydration, Day 9_

A dehydration death occurred on Day 10.

 _Odell Jordon, District 11 Male: 8th, Dehydration, Day 10_

On Day 11, the three day long streak of the careers making no kills was broken when Ryker stabbed Byte in the torso with his machete.

 _Byte Revlin, District 3 Female: 7th, Killed by Ryker, Day 11_

At the conclusion of Ryker's kill, the final six had been determined. Once again, Leto continued his tradition of coming up with a method to force the tributes inward to the cornucopia. So, he unleashed a poisonous fog on the outskirts of the arena. Any tribute trapped in the fog would be killed almost immediately as the poison caused their body to shut down completely. The fog crept up Eillen, but she was not at all alarmed because she believed that it was just standard morning fog. She was killed by the poison.

 _Eillen Driks, District 4 Female: 6th, Killed by The Fog, Day 12_

The five remaining tributes were now barreling through the forest towards the cornucopia, where they knew it would be safe because of the high ground. All five made it, and they had no choice but to climb on top of the silver horn and begin the bloody showdown.

The first kill of the finale was made by Jasmine, who unsheathed a knife from her pocket and snuck up behind Aaran, stabbing him in the back and killing him.

 _Aaran Walsh, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Jasmine, Day 12_

At this, all of the remaining tributes produced their signature weapons. Jasmine took out her knife and bow. Ryker produced his machete. Amelia pulled out her knife. Ciera wielded her axe. And so the final battle of the fourth annual Hunger Games began.

First, Ryker lunged at Ciera and attempted to stab her in the hip with his machete. But he failed, and Ciera retaliated by smashing him the head with her axe. He slumped to the ground and heaved in pain before slipping off of the cornucopia and dying very soon.

 _Ryker Slane, District 2 Male: 4th, Killed by Ciera, Day 12_

After delivering her blow, Ciera was now in a prone position and needed a few seconds to get situated before she could do anything more. The two others took advantage of this time when she was weak and defenseless. Amelia pounced over to where Ciera stood and stabbed her in the back with her knife. She howled in pain before falling backwards off of the horn, dead.

 _Ciera Wilcome, District 7 Female: 3rd, Killed by Amelia, Day 12_

The final battle of the fourth annual Hunger Games was between Jasmine Giaman of District 1 and Amelia Spangler of District 2. First, Jasmine lunged at Amelia. But, agile Amelia crouched down and dodged the attack. She retaliated by standing back up and attempting to stab Jasmine in the throat, merely striking the flesh and not actually impaling it.

Jasmine, brandishing her machete, crept up upon Amelia in an attempt to corner her and force her off of the horn onto the ground where she would die in the fog that swirled around the horn. However, Amelia lifted her bow and nocked an arrow in less than a fifth of a second, so quickly that Jasmine had no time to react. The arrow landed in her chest, and she collapsed to the ground, her wound spouting blood. Just for good measure, Amelia jumped up and down on top of Jasmine, causing her to cough up blood. She choked on her own blood two minutes later.

 _Jasmine Giaman, District 1 Female: 2nd, Killed by Amelia, Day 12_

"Amelia Spangler of District 2, you are the victor of the fourth annual Hunger Games!" Leto exclaimed into the arena. Amelia just dropped the weapons she was holding and smiled for the audience whose attention she knew was all focused on her.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The nation had mixed feelings about Amelia. She had not done anything spectacular in the arena like Sapphire or Cordin had, so she wasn't extremely exciting or notable. Much of the audience wanted Jasmine or Ciera to win and so they were disappointed in Amelia's victory. However, most everyone eventually accepted the fact that Amelia Spangler was their fourth victor.

Amelia moved into the victor's village of District 2. In her lifetime, she would see the victor's village in the district of masonry extended to include two dozen houses as more and more tributes followed in her footsteps and returned home victorious.

Her victory tour went fairly well, although District 1 was a bit cold at her for killing their beloved Jasmine.

Amelia would marry twice in her lifetime, once at age thirty-one and once at age forty. She would have only one child; she would become pregnant at age 32 and bear one daughter.

Amelia would live to the age of seventy-five, dying from a seizure around the time of sixty-first annual Hunger Games.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Amelia moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, the first of many victors from the district of masonry to do so.

Sapphire Waber, the victor of the second annual Hunger Games, breaks up with her first boyfriend, Calix. She would never marry or have any more significant relationships from then on.

Leto Spitz, the beloved head gamemaker, is forced to retire after contracting throat cancer.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)


	6. The 5th Hunger Games

**The 5th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

The Capitol was in a state of shock and disappointment when their beloved head gamemaker, Leto Spitz, was forced to resign from his job after contracting throat cancer. President Cornelius Wayne promised to hire a new gamemaker who would be just as exhilarating and suspenseful as Leto. After interviewing almost two-thousand people, President Wayne selected a thirty-eight year old woman named Mellanie Lathmore to take over the position. Mellanie appointed a team of twenty gamemakers, whom all worked together to plan out and build a spectacular new arena they promised would be just as grand as those before. The huge jungle arena had trees taller than skyscrapers that blocked out the sun and made it almost pitch black except in the occasional clearings. Mellanie made absolutely certain to include a myriad of water sources for the tributes; for instance, a rushing river coiled around and around through the arena, being readily available to any tribute no matter where they were. An extremely fast and roaring river encircled the circular arena. It would serve as not only a practically infinite water source for the twenty-four tributes, but also as a barrier to prevent all contact with the force field. The sky was stunningly beautiful; spotless white clouds dotted an azure blue sky. The cornucopia was in a rather large clearing in the middle of the arena, on top of a hill as it always was. Made of brilliant sapphire sparkling in the sun, it was stunningly beautiful. The mouth, which spilled over with medicine and food and water and everything else that would bring the tributes life in the arena, was illuminated by a spectacular diamond chandelier masquerading from the ceiling. As for the tributes, there was a ton of speculation in the Capitol pertaining who would win because the array of tributes was so diverse. The obvious choice was the District 1 male, who was tough and intimidating to all of the others. But, there was also the pair from District 3 who were so stealthy that they could run straight behind you in the middle of the woods that you wouldn't notice them at all. The District 9 female was also extremely talented, being able to weave baskets so tight that even water couldn't seep through and being able to identify if a plant or animal was poisonous in seconds. The brother and sister pair from District 12 allied before the games even began, quite unrealistically vowing that they would be the final two. There was, of course, the typical array of tough careers just like the few years before. Just like last year, there was only one volunteer. It was the boy from District 3 who had volunteered to help his family out of the severe economic crisis they were facing at the time. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Glint Farroot, 18, (10) 5-1 and Amaryll Wild, 16, (8) 7-1

District 2: Theo Myna, 16, (8) 7-1 and Micah Winter, 17, (9) 6-1

District 3: Cyber Kleptim, 13, (3) 29-1 and Binary Lopez, 18, (5) 10-1

District 4: Anchor Lockcreek, 18, (7) 7-1 and Elanor Lyme, 16, (7) 8-1

District 5: Aubrey Leinbok, 16, (4) 18-1 and Emma Junbeg, 14, (3) 29-1

District 6: Axyl Byron, 12, (2) 42-1 and Francessa Ritter, 17, (5) 14-1

District 7: Brady Mayron, 18, (8) 8-1 and Ebony Silverrock, 16, (7) 15-1

District 8: Flannel Burgundy, 15, (4) 28-1 and Vanessa Sorenson, 15, (4) 27-1

District 9: Graig Vaught, 12, (2) 42-1 and Lilia Stroud, 18, (9) 6-1

District 10: Trudie Wylie, 17, (4) 19-1 and Eartha Harding, 14, (1) 36-1

District 11: Hershel Smiley, 16, (6) 24-1 and Rosette Palumbo, 18, (6) 16-1

District 12: Dustin Sablone, 17, (2) 31-1 and Misty Sablone, 17, (3) 24-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The games began with what was arguably the most thrilling bloodbath so far at the time; a huge thirteen tributes would die in the first ten minutes. In an interview after the games, Sapphire Waber, the victor of the second Hunger Games, coined the phrase 'bloodbath' to describe the huge scramble at the beginning of the games.

When the gong sounded signaling the start of the fifth Hunger Games, the vast majority of the tributes stormed through the field towards the sparkling cornucopia, knowing that their chances of victory would improve greatly if they retrieved supplies at the very beginning. A number of tributes were able to successfully retrieve supplies and run away from the bloodbath alive. A vast number were not so lucky.

The careers all called each other over and had a small gathering at the mouth of the horn, assigning weapons to each of them and setting out tasks for themselves. The first death occurred when Amaryll, a girl with great skill in using a knife, ran up behind a distracted Ebony and shoved her to the ground. Ebony thrashed desperately and screamed until her voice went hoarse, but it was no use. Amaryll produced her knife and stabbed the girl in the shoulder not ten seconds before her eyes glazed back into her head.

 _Ebony Silverrock, District 7 Female: 24th, Killed by Amaryll, Bloodbath_

Less than two seconds after Ebony's death, the boy from District 2 named Theo hastily grabbed a bow and arrow and nocked a projectile into the bow, aiming it at Hershel's back as he darted away from the horn into the comforting darkness of the jungle. The arrow missed, flying a few feet too far to the right. Cursing under his breath, Theo nocked a second arrow. This time, his aim was perfect. Hershel slumped to the ground as the arrow sank into the back of his neck.

 _Hershel Smiley, District 11 Male: 23rd, Killed by Theo, Bloodbath_

Darting over to Hershel's corpse, Theo dumped out the contents of his bag and purged it of a magazine of throwing knives and a packet of dried pineapple as well as a canteen of water. Ripping three knives out of the magazine, he chucked them through the air in rapid succession. One knife missed and left the target unscathed. One knife nicked the shoulder of a girl who was riffling through a crate in the mouth of the cornucopia. The third and final throwing knife lodged itself between the shoulder blades of Eartha as she keened in pain, turning around to take inventory of the terrible injury. While she was distracted, Theo threw a fourth throwing knife, this one landed squarely in the back of Eartha's neck. Theo grinned in triumph as the girl fell forward lifelessly.

 _Eartha Harding, District 10 Female: 22nd, Killed by Theo, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, back in the heart of the sapphire horn, Elanor sat crouched behind a brown crate, wielding a machete and planning to ambush any weary tributes that came along. Her first victim wandered into the horn, completely unaware that Elanor was hiding less than five yards from her. Elanor quietly left her hiding place and plunged the blade into the victim's back, killing him instantly.

 _Aubrey Leinbak, District 5 Male: 21st, Killed by Elanor, Bloodbath_

As this was happening, a duel occurred about twenty yards from the horn between Axyl and Binary. Both held swords and both were fighting for their lives, blocking each other's blows with a seemingly infinite series of deafening clangs. At long, long last, Binary dropped dead when Axyl slashed her in the hip.

 _Binary Lopez, District 3 Female: 20th, Killed by Axyl, Bloodbath_

In the next two minutes, Elanor made two more ambush kills in the cornucopia. It was too easy. All she had to do was wait until a weak tribute wandered inside, and then she would emerge from her hiding place and stab them in the back with her machete.

 _Flannel Burgundy, District 8 Male: 19th, Killed by Elanor, Bloodbath_

 _Francessa Ritter, District 6 Female: 18th, Killed by Elanor, Bloodbath_

Emma, the short and petite District 5 girl, retrieved a bow and arrow from the horn of plenty and climbed up on top of the cornucopia. She nocked an arrow and aimed the weapon at Glint, the tough and intimidating boy who she wanted to kill in order to eliminate the biggest threat to her survival. Even though Emma's experience in using a bow and arrow was almost non-existent, the arrow miraculously sank into the back of Glint's head.

 _Glint Farroot, District 1 Male: 17th, Killed by Emma, Bloodbath_

Little did Emma know, however, that standing right behind her was Micah. Micah set an arrow in her bow and aimed it at Emma's back. Emma whipped her head around at the sound of Micah drawing the bowstring, and screamed in terror as she lunged at the career and knocked her backwards off of the horn. Standing right at the base of where Micah fell was Lilia. Lilia, knowing that Micah was a large threat and that it would be best for her to eliminate Micah, hastily grabbed a rock from the ground and tossed it at Micah's head, knocking her unconscious and causing blood to leak from her head. She would not die for several hours, though, long after the bloodbath had ended.

Anchor, the District 4 boy who was thirsty to prove himself since he had not made any kills yet, wielded a sword and attempted to sneak up upon and kill Dustin. However, less than twenty yards away was Misty, Dustin's sister. In a panicked attempt to save her brother's life, Misty picked up a brick that lay on a glass table in the horn and snuck up behind Anchor, smashing him in the back of the head and repeatedly denting his skull until he died. Misty had saved her brother's life, something that warmed the hearts of the Capitol audience.

 _Anchor Lockcreek, District 4 Male: 16th, Killed by Misty, Bloodbath_

Elanor, who was still going through with her plan of ambushing tributes in the cornucopia, made one last kill in the same exact manner before leaving her hiding space to pick off the last few tributes remaining around the horn.

 _Graig Vought, District 9 Male: 15th, Killed by Elanor, Bloodbath_

Amaryll, who had intrigued the audience after making the first kill, made her second kill when she chucked a throwing knife she retrieved from the cornucopia at the back of a boy who was in the process of slinging an orange backpack over his shoulder.

 _Trudie Wylie, District 10 Male: 14th, Killed by Amaryll, Bloodbath_

Amaryll then did the exact same thing again to another tribute. This time, however, it took her two attempts because her first knife missed.

 _Vanessa Sorenson, District 8 Female: 13th, Killed by Amaryll, Bloodbath_

The final bloodbath death occurred two hours later, when Micah died from the brick Emma had smashed into her head two hours prior.

 _Micah Winter, District 2 Female: 12th, Killed by Emma, Bloodbath_

The eleven remaining tributes who had survived the bloodbath spread out and carried out very different plans of action. As was custom, the three remaining careers (Amaryll, Theo, and Elanor) set up a camp in the cornucopia that they would return to each night. Cyber and Emma both decided to hide, Cyber camping out in a tree for the night and Emma creating a sort of den in a ditch between two piles of rocks. Axyl, Brady, and Rosette all slept on the jungle floor; they were easily hidden under the layer of leaves and vines on the floor of the tropical forest. Misty and Dustin, the two siblings from District 12, found a dugout ditch slash cave area in the side of a hill that they went inside and slept on the cold hard ground for the night.

On the night of Day 1, there was a single death. Lilia, who had retrieved nothing from the horn, thought she was stealthy enough to sneak into the cornucopia in the dead of night and retrieve much-needed supplies. The sound of Lilia rummaging through the supplies instantly woke the careers, who ran over to her location and cornered her in. Theo pulled out his machete from his pocket and stalked towards the girl, amputating her left leg and causing her to bleed out. The other tributes were startled awake by the sound of her cannon.

 _Lilia Stroud, District 9 Female: 11th, Killed by Theo, Day 1_

Day 2, 3, 4, and 5 all passed deathless. Perhaps it was just inevitable that kills would be rarer since the bloodbath claimed the lives of so many of them. However, on the evening of Day 6, Axyl and Brady crossed paths whilst walking through the arena. Brady mistakenly believed that Axyl was a career, and so pulled out his bow—he was skilled with a bow from training—and shot the boy in the heart. After walking over to Axyl's corpse, he realized he had mistaken the boy for a career and felt very bad about killing the innocent tribute.

 _Axyl Byron, District 6 Male: 10th, Killed by Brady, Day 6_

One dehydration death occurred on Day 7.

 _Emma Junbeg, District 5 Female: 9th, Deydration, Day 7_

On Day 8, the gamemakers set the perimeter of the arena on fire, thus forcing the tributes inward as they ran away from the inferno. However, the fire stopped after about ten minutes. The gamemakers had, in a way, shrunk the arena! The area that the fire had burned was too hot to go near, and so the tributes were more likely to encounter each other.

Encounter each other they did, and on Day 9 three tributes died. The first death occurred when the bloodthirsty career pack hunted down and killed Brady. Elanor shot Brady in the throat with her bow.

 _Brady Mayron, District 7 Male: 8th, Killed by Elanor, Day 9_

The second death of the day occurred less than an hour after the first. The careers stumbled upon Rosette, who was sleeping in a ditch. She died instantly when Theo stabbed her in the stomach and she barely felt any pain at all.

 _Rosette Palumbo, District 11 Female: 7th, Killed by Theo, Day 9_

The third and final death of the day was a dehydration death. Around noon, the gamemakers caused the temperature of the arena to skyrocket to 103 degrees Fahrenheit, causing Cyber to die of dehydration.

 _Cyber Kleptim, District 3 Male: 6th, Dehydration, Day 9_

Only five tributes remained: the three careers (Elanor, Theo, and Amaryll) and the two siblings from District 12. The careers had literally no clue as to the whereabouts of the siblings. In fact, the two had actually used an existing cave to create themselves a little home in the ground, covering the top with a layer of leaves to conceal the entrance. They had managed to stay out of sight of the careers for nine days, but the time for stealth was over. It was time for the final battle.

In order to alert the final five of the threat coming their way, the gamemakers sounded a siren through the arena as the inferno started again, forcing the tributes inward as they barreled through the arena as fast as they could. Mellanie decided to follow in her predecessor's footsteps and force all of the tributes on top of the cornucopia by lighting the tall grass around the horn on fire. Before climbing the horn of plenty, Misty and Dustin grabbed a few weapons from its mouth to use.

With all five tributes on top of the horn, the final battle began. If any one of the tributes were cornered here, the fire swirling around the sparkling horn would be the only thing to show them kinder than a knife or bow. First, Dustin lunged at Theo, knocking him backwards. He thrashed around desperately as he waved his hands around his body, but he fell backwards off of the horn into the churning ember below.

 _Theo Myna, District 2 Male: 5th, Killed by Dustin, Day 9_

Enraged at how Dustin had killed her ally, Elanor lunged at Dustin holding her blade and being ready to plunge it into his heart. However, Misty turned sharply on her heel and bludgeoned Elanor in the back of the head with a long and rusty metal bar she was carrying. She was temporarily blinded from the blow and fell off of the horn.

 _Elanor Lyme, District 4 Female: 4th, Killed by Misty, Day 9_

There were only three tributes left. Amaryll Wild of District 1, Dustin Sablone of District 12, and Misty Sablone of District 12 all wielded their weapons, ready to win. The three tributes stood agonizingly still in a triangle shape for almost two minutes, each one deciding if they should be the one to make the first move. However, Amaryll's plan was to wait for a long time and then lunge at one of the siblings when they were so stunned they were frozen in place. After three long minutes, Amaryll threw herself towards Dustin and plunged her machete into the boy's chest, killing him almost instantly.

 _Dustin Sablone, District 12 Male: 3rd, Killed by Amaryll, Day 9_

At the brutal murder of her brother, a look of such horror and rage crossed Misty's face.

"Oh, you evil, treacherous little!" Misty screamed at the top of her lungs. Misty seethed with fury as she raised her rusty metal bar into the air and smashed it into the side of Amaryll's head and dented her skull, killing her instantly. Misty screamed as loud as she could for as long as she could before kicking Amaryll's bloody corpse off of the horn and sending it descending into the ember below.

 _Amaryll Wild, District 1 Female: 2nd, Killed by Misty, Day 9_

"Misty Sablone of District 12, you are the victor of the fifth annual Hunger Games!" Mellanie boomed into the arena as a chorus of trumpets sounded in the distance.

Misty just broke into a deep sob, holding onto her brother's body and stroking his bloody face.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

District 12 accepted its first ever victor with open arms. The Capitol was deeply sympathetic about the loss of Misty's brother, and she stole the hearts of many people in the audience. It was an extremely rare spectacle for a District 12 tribute to win; it would be forty-five years until District 12's second victor. She lived alone in the victor's village for many, many years.

Misty kept alive a streak of female victors. The victors of the second, third, fourth, and now fifth Hunger Games were all female. The streak would continue for one more year. It would be broken when a male tribute won the seventh Hunger Games.

Misty moved into the victor's village of District 12, the first ever and one of the very few tributes to ever do so.

Her victory tour went extremely well as people mourned for the girl's loss. However, District 1 was enraged at Misty stealing their second victor.

Misty was so traumatized from her Hunger Games that she would become a complete and utter social hermit, never leaving her house on her own accord and fearing everybody that tried to talk or reason with her. She would never marry nor have kids.

Misty would live to the age of fifty-one, dying from a heart attack around the time of fortieth annual Hunger Games.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Misty moves into the Victor's Village of District 12, the first of very few victors throughout the history of the Hunger Games to do so.

Cordin Frey, the victor of the first annual Hunger Games, engages a woman named Jeskya whom he will marry one year later.

Sapphire Waber, the victor of the second annual Hunger Games, coins the term 'bloodbath' in an interview.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)


	7. The 6th Hunger Games

**The 6th Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

After Misty's bittersweet victory the year prior, the Capitol was going wild as the concept of each victor being different and unique had fully settled in. Bets were being made left and right as to who would win these games and join the growing family of victors. Head Gamemaker Mellanie Lathmore returned for her second year on the job, and met up with President Wayne. The two agreed to introduce three new ceremonies to the games. The first was the tribute parade, which would see each tribute dressed up in a costume representing their district's industry and being paraded through the Capitol on a chariot pulled by horses. The second new addition was training. Each tribute would be given three days to train and prepare for whatever dangers the arena might hold. The third and final new addition was the interviews. The night before the games, a host would meet with ever tribute and hold a three minute interview. Tickets sold out in the blink of an eye. Once twenty-four stylists were hired and a master of ceremonies was selected, the games were in business. The arena for the sixth Hunger Games was an archipelago of islands, dotting a crystal clear ocean. Beautiful pink and yellow fish swam through the water and each island had a dock for boats. Several of the islands had hidden caves. The cornucopia was in the very center of the arena as it always was, on an island about half a mile square. The most peculiar thing about the sixth Hunger Games was the tributes. Inspired by the victory of Sapphire, Molly, and Amelia, there were two volunteers into the career pack, something unheard of at the time! The District 1 female tribute and the District 2 male tribute both volunteered into the games with the hope of winning money and fame and honor to their district. By the time of the ninth or tenth Hunger Games, all six careers were usually volunteers. By no means was the excitement limited to the exclusive career pack, no. The boy from District 5, for example, had not one day in his seventeen year-long life had enough food to eat and so was determined to do anything to win. The District 6 girl was homeless and volunteered knowing she would not be missed. The two District 11 tributes were fifth cousins. As for the training scores, there were a surprisingly large number of nines and tens. Three tens were earned. They were the District 1 girl and the District 2 boy (the two career volunteers) and, surprisingly enough, the District 7 girl who was skilled with an axe and knife from working in District 7 all her life. There were only two twelve-year olds: the District 6 girl and the District 11 girl. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Celio Zimmerli, 16, (9) 6-1 and Gemma Paoletti, 18, (10) 4-1

District 2: Devon Marlink, 18, (10) 4-1 and Olivia Seager, 16, (8) 8-1

District 3: Techno Memolo, 15, (4) 19-1 and Dellya Latimer, 17, (6) 17-1

District 4: Lester Burridge, 18, (8) 7-1 and Clariana Tharamel, 14, (5) 18-1

District 5: Nico Lanzoretta, 17, (4) 23-1 and Electra Peralta, 18, (3) 15-1

District 6: Felix Quayle, 16, (4) 27-1 and Zavinia Naftali, 12, (2) 40-1

District 7: Salix Oetinger, 18, (5) 19-1 and Sycamora Waternaux, 17, (10) 7-1

District 8: Atlas Skouras, 13, (1) 43-1 and Alyna Xe, 18, (5) 12-1

District 9: Harvey Swindel, 17, (4) 15-1 and Laurel Calzaroni, 16, (3) 22-1

District 10: Terry Cyders, 18, (6) 18-1 and Chloe Theriault, 14, (2) 30-1

District 11: Tedison Stark, 17, (6) 19-1 and Liosa Meredith, 12, (3) 37-1

District 12: Colton Waxler, 18, (2) 22-1 and Meygen Lintz, 15, (2) 32-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

With all of the tributes on their pedestals gazing around and taking in the grandeur of the arena, the countdown began. Many of the tributes didn't know they were on an island and were confused by the fact that the cornucopia was filled with collapsible rafts. The bloodbath of these games would claim the lives of eleven tributes, not quite as large as the thirteen deaths of the previous year but still enough to capture the audience's attention.

At the sound of the gong, the majority of the tributes ran forth to loot the cornucopia of its precious supplies. The careers were, of course, the first tributes to reach the horn. The very first tribute to traverse the plain and reach the bounty of supplies was Gemma. She looked around for a bit before setting her eyes on a hatchet that lay on a table not very far away at all. She grabbed the weapon, turning sharply on her heel and hurling it through the air, aiming for a girl who had received reasonably high odds of winning. Her aim was perfect, and the hatchet sank into the girl's skull as she tumbled to the ground.

 _Alyna Xe, District 8 Female: 24th, Killed by Gemma, Bloodbath_

By the time that this happened, all of the other tributes who did not turn tail and flee had reached the cornucopia. The careers were now all armed and ready to do their part in scoring as many kills for the pack as possible. At this time, Devon, seeing a boy less than twelve yards from him that would be an almost laughably easy target, grabbed the nearest weapon, which happened to be a throwing knife, and chucked it through the air. The weapon lodged itself into the back of the boy's head and caused a spray of scarlet to explode from the wound as his eyes rolled back into his head.

 _Techno Memolo, District 3 Male: 23rd, Killed by Devon, Bloodbath_

Now that Olivia had reached the cornucopia, she bent down and picked up a crossbow that lay on the ground. Pulling an arrow from the sheath and nocking it in the weapon, she aimed at a boy about twenty meters away that would be a fairly easy target. The arrow missed. Cursing under her breath, the second arrow missed as well. However, her third arrow found its target when it lodged itself firmly between the shoulder blades of the boy.

 _Harvey Swindel, District 9 Male: 22nd, Killed by Olivia, Bloodbath_

Noticing that there was still a bounty of arrows remaining in her crossbow and that there was a girl less than thirty feet away from her, she placed an arrow in the weapon and pulled the trigger. The arrow flew through the air at an uninterpretable speed before sinking into the girl's neck.

 _Zavinia Naftali, District 6 Female: 21st, Killed by Olivia, Bloodbath_

Clariana, the District 4 girl who was skilled with a trident from working in the fishing industry for most of her life, spotted a boy very close to her and so blindly lunged at him. The boy took his final breath before tumbling to the ground. Perhaps Clariana should have examined her victim before pouncing upon it, for it was too late when she realized she had killed her very own district partner.

 _Lester Burridge, District 4 Male: 20th, Killed by Clariana, Bloodbath_

Celio, the District 1 boy who was thirsty to prove himself since he had made no kills so far, grabbed a rope from the field in front of the cornucopia, snuck up behind a girl in a vulnerable position, and yanked the rope around her neck, tying it in place and rendering her unable to breathe. As soon as Celio left her to die, Gemma strolled over to her thrashing body and smashed her in the heart with her hatchet.

 _Meygen Lintz, District 12 Female: 19th, Killed by Celio and Gemma, Bloodbath_

Perhaps allured by the fact that killing as much as possible would increase his chances of winning, Tedison picked up a sword off of the ground, brushed it off with his shirt, and snuck up behind a boy. The sword easily cleaved apart his tiny frame.

 _Atlas Skouras, District 8 Male: 18th, Killed by Tedison, Bloodbath_

Little did Tedison know that standing behind him was Olivia. Olivia nocked an arrow in her crossbow and pulled the trigger, allowing the arrow time to sink into the back of his chest. Tedison howled in pain before falling to the ground in death.

 _Tedison Stark, District 11 Male: 17th, Killed by Olivia, Bloodbath_

By the time eight kills had been made, Gemma thought back to how, the year prior, Elanor had hid in the cornucopia and ambushed any tributes that snuck in. Gemma did the same exact thing, hiding behind a red crate filled with packets of dried fruit and waited. It was too easy. Within five minutes she had made a whopping three kills. All she had to do was wait for a weary tribute to wander into the darkness of the horn, then quietly leave her hiding place and bludgeon them in the back with her hatchet.

 _Salix Oetinger, District 7 Male: 16th, Killed by Gemma, Bloodbath_

 _Chloe Theriault, District 10 Female: 15th, Killed by Gemma, Bloodbath_

 _Colton Waxler, District 12 Male: 14th, Killed by Gemma, Bloodbath_

At the conclusion of her third kill, Gemma wandered out of the horn with the intent of scouring the clearing for the last few stragglers to round up. There were none, and instead she found her fellow careers stupidly scrambling around trying to round up those last few. After about five minutes of searching, they gave up and instead began the laborious task of clearing away the bodies of the dead, including one of their very own. It would not be until many years later that a hovercraft would come to retrieve the corpses of fallen tributes.

The evening of Day 1, the careers were determined to make at least one or two more kills before calling it a day. They all had their own weapons; Gemma wielded her hatched and Celio had his rope. Devon had his throwing knives while Olivia had her crossbow. Clariana wielded her trident. It was a miraculously short period of time before Celio stumbled upon a girl sitting hunched behind a tree and rummaging through a backpack she had received from the cornucopia. She barely had time to scream before Celio tied his rope firmly around her neck and her face turned purple.

 _Laurel Calzaroni, District 9 Female: 13th, Killed by Celio, Day 1_

As the careers prowled tirelessly though the arena the night of Day 1, a very clever Liosa set out on a plan to kill one of them. She snuck into the cornucopia while the careers were all away and grabbed a knife. Liosa hid, crouched behind a crate in the mouth of the horn, and waited for what seemed like an eternity. The first of the careers to wander back in to restock on his water supplies was Devon. Liosa brandished her knife, snuck up soundlessly behind Devon, and stabbed him in the back. He howled in pain. Liosa, worrying that his howling would alert to his allies that he was in danger, ripped the blade out of Devon's back and fled across the plain, hopping into a boat and sailing off far away. Devon bled out twelve minutes later.

 _Devon Marlink, District 2 Male: 12th, Killed by Liosa, Day 1_

The night of Day 1 and the morning of Day 2 passed void of death. However, around noon on Day 2, two deaths occurred within twenty minutes of each other. The first was from an unskilled tribute that killed and ate a very poisonous crab.

 _Terry Cyders, District 10 Male: 11th, Poisonous Crab, Day 2_

The second death occurred at the hands of Clariana, who stumbled upon a sleeping tribute and stabbed her in the chest with her trident.

 _Sycamora Waternaux, District 7 Female: 10th, Killed by Clariana, Day 2_

Day 3 saw two dehydration deaths.

 _Dellya Latimer, District 3 Female: 9th, Dehydration, Day 3_

 _Felix Quayle, District 6 Male: 8th, Dehydration, Day 3_

On Day 4, a boy who had survived far longer than he should have by catching and eating snakes and spiders while hiding in a tree died of dehydration.

 _Nico Lanzoretta, District 5 Male: 7th, Dehydration, Day 4_

The gamemakers wanted to wait for two more kills before forcing the final tributes inward for a bloody showdown. The first of these deaths was on the morning of Day 5, when a tribute died of dehydration.

 _Electra Peralta, District 5 Female: 6th, Dehydration, Day 5_

The second of these deaths occurred around three o'clock in the afternoon on Day 6. Liosa, the only remaining tribute outside of the career alliance, wielded her knife and hid behind a tree when she saw Clariana walking by. Taking infinite care, she snuck out from behind the tree and stabbed Clariana in the back of the neck with her menacing weapon. At the sound of Clariana's cannon, most of the tributes suspected it was time for the final fight and so began retreating to the cornucopia.

 _Clariana Tharamel, District 4 Female: 5th, Killed by Liosa, Day 6_

All four of the remaining tributes were on the central island, the one with the cornucopia, and so it was easy for the gamemakers to force the tributes inward. They simply lit the grass of the plain on fire, forcing the tributes inward as the fire spread. Additionally, they caused the fire to excrete noxious purple smoke that would kill any tribute who breathed it. The smoke and fire was only a few feet high, of course, so the top of the cornucopia would be safe. Once all four tributes were on top of the horn of plenty, the final showdown began.

The first death of this final showdown occurred at the hands of Gemma. Wielding her hatchet, she prowled towards Celio and forced him closer and closer to the edge of the cornucopia. Celio looked rapidly back and forth between Gemma's hatchet and the noxious purple smoke and fire surrounding the cornucopia. Finally, Celio formed his lips into a solid line and jumped off of the horn into the swirling vortex below.

 _Celio Zimmerli, District 1 Male: 4th, Suicide, Day 6_

The three tributes remaining were Gemma, Olivia, and Liosa. Gemma and Olivia decided to team up together and kill Liosa. Gemma hurled her hatchet through the air, and the blade lodged itself into Liosa's heart as she opened her eyes and mouth wide before tumbling backwards off of the horn. A panicked Gemma received her hatched from the corpse to use in the final battle against Olivia.

 _Liosa Meredith, District 11 Female: 3rd, Killed by Gemma, Day 7_

The final battle of the sixth Hunger Games was between Gemma Paoletti of District 1 and Olivia Seager of District 2. They walked to opposite ends of the platform on top of the cornucopia, Olivia brandishing her crossbow and Gemma holding her hatchet.

First, Gemma lunged forward with the intent of smashing Olivia in the stomach. However, Olivia dodged the attack and moved out of the way at the last moment. Olivia then nocked an arrow in her crossbow and lifted it up to shoot. She placed her finger over the trigger. The exact moment that the arrow was sent flying through the air towards Gemma's heart, Gemma hurled her hatchet through the air before it lodged into Olivia's waist. The two both collapsed to the ground, laying there in silence and slowly dying from the horrible injuries they had given each other. For almost an hour they lay there. But, in the end, the impact of Gemma's axe into Olivia's waist was no match for the arrow Olivia had lodged in Gemma's heart. Gemma slowly closed her eyes as her cannon rang through the arena.

 _Gemma Paoletti, District 1 Female: 2nd, Killed by Olivia, Day 7_

"Olivia Seager of District 2, you are the victor of the sixth annual Hunger Games!" Mellanie exclaimed into the arena as the chorus of trumpets sounded.

Olivia did not respond; she just lay on the cold surface of the cornucopia as a team of medics were summoned into the arena to put back together the mess of a person that was their victor.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The Capitol adored Olivia; upon her victory District 2 became the very first district to obtain multiple victors. She was the second victor from the district of masonry.

Her victory tour went fairly well. However, District 11 gave her the cold shoulder, for it would be many years before a tribute from District 11 came as close to victory as Liosa had.

Olivia would be the last victor in a five year-long streak of female victors.

She moved into the victor's village of District 2, in the house adjacent to Amelia's.

Olivia would marry once in her lifetime, at age forty-two to a man one year younger than her.

Olivia would live to the spectacular age of one hundred, dying from heart disease around the time of the ninetieth annual Hunger Games.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Cordin Frey, the victor of the first Hunger Games, marries his only spouse, Jesyka. They will remain married until Cordin's death.

Olivia moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, the second victor to do so.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)


	8. The 7th Hunger Games

**The 7th Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

The Capitol was unwillingly forced to bid their Head Gamemaker Mellanie Lathmore adieu when she retired from her job in favor of becoming a stylist for the tribute parade. As her replacement, President Cornelius Wayne appointed a man about Mellanie's age, with a keen and clever build and curious eyes. His name was Magnus Zenobia, and the instant he walked into the gamemaker's lab he set to work planning out an intricate and exhilarating arena that he promised would be the most exciting yet. The president was then set to the difficult job of hiring twenty-four stylists for the tributes. Out of the thousands of auditions, President Wayne selected his two dozen favorite and set them to the work of decorating the tributes in costumes representing their district's industry. The arena for the seventh Hunger Games was a massive cave system. The ground of the arena was flat and rough, and it was peppered with huge holes that the tributes could crawl into and navigate the entire arena without ever seeing the light of day. The cornucopia stood in the very center, on a stone platform with stairs leading up to it on all sides. It was filled with the typical commodities, of course, but there was something in the cornucopia that had never been seen in the games before. Flashlights and batteries. Almost half of the cornucopia was dedicated to piles upon piles of flashlights and entire cases and barrels of batteries to give the tributes the aid of sight in the darkness of the underground caves. It was also filled with weapons of every type imaginable. As for the tributes that would be competing in this spectacular arena, the array of teenagers was not at all unlike that off last year. Of the six careers, three were volunteers. They were the both of the tributes from District 1 and the boy from District 4. The District 1 pair was actually very similar. In fact, one might mistake the two for a brother and sister pair. Both had the same tall stance, and both had the same sharp glow and form of their faces as well as long arms and wide, flat feet. The District 2 boy was very tough and intimidating, and his district partner was much less skilled in the physical aspects of battle as she was in the mental aspects of battle, such as outsmarting your opponent. The District 4 pair both had similar appearances, with jet-black hair sprouting out of their heads and caramel colored skin. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Jasper Stolberg, 16, (8) 8-1 and Vivian Ferrauto, 17, (8) 7-1

District 2: Boaz Rheem, 18, (9) 6-1 and Imperium Konheim, 17, (9) 8-1

District 3: Flux Stafford, 16, (6) 22-1 and Pyxell Holden, 14, (2) 38-1

District 4: Garbh Spinrad, 15, (8) 10-1 and Farah Adaur, 18, (9) 6-1

District 5: Plover Calvino, 18, (5) 17-1 and Amira Randel, 16, (3) 32-1

District 6: Brunel Ryavec, 13, (1) 56-1 and Severa Peishel, 18, (6) 19-1

District 7: Jack Huxley, 12, (2) 78-1 and Cedara Latoura, 17, (7) 15-1

District 8: Calicio Breyan, 14, (1) 35-1 and Lacea Arangio, 16, (2) 29-1

District 9: Nathan Miller, 18, (4) 25-1 and Aluma Wypij, 13, (5) 38-1

District 10: Sable Lohmilller, 16, (4) 28-1 and Belinda Glimp, 15, (1) 41-1

District 11: Reggy Clendenning, 18, (2) 20-1 and Rewolfa Kruegler, 18, (6) 15-1

District 12: Burnet Hopper, 14, (5) 30-1 and Veridie Lillith, 16, (5) 21-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The bloodbath of the seventh annual Hunger Games set a new record for the number of deaths in the first ten minutes; a whopping fourteen tributes would die in the initial fight! This was when the nation first saw what truly embodied the term 'bloodbath': tributes running rampant and avoiding those more powerful than them, hastily grabbing supplies in a fractured scene of total chaos. It truly was a bloodbath. And it made the Capitol audience go crazy with excitement.

When the tributes arose in the arena, some were confused. All they saw was a rocky plain stretching out as far as the eye could see. It took some tributes longer than others to spot the network of holes and tunnels in the ground and to realize that the true splendor of the arena was underground and not aboveground.

The gong rang once the countdown reached zero, and the tributes all stormed forwards towards the bounty of supplies. It was less than forty seconds before the first kill was made. Amira, who had reached the cornucopia and was shuffling through a crate of tools in a panic, was very distracted. Boaz took advantage of this moment of distraction by picking up a knife off of a table and sneaking up behind the girl. Amira heard the sound of Boaz's hand whistling through the air, and so grabbed a club from the crate and smashed Boaz in the skull, leaving a dent in his temple.

 _Boaz Reehm, District 2 Male: 24th, Killed by Amira, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, on the other side of the cornucopia an exhilarated and energized Vivian picked up a bow and arrow off of the cold ground and pulled the bowstring back, aiming at a boy that looked to be an easy target. Vivian released her grasp on the arrow and it flew through the air, sinking into the side of the boy's head.

 _Nathan Miller, District 9 Male: 23rd, Killed by Vivian, Bloodbath_

Nocking a second arrow in her bow, Vivian aimed this time for a girl who had just run into the mouth of the cornucopia. Vivian's aim was perfect, and the arrow lodged itself into her calf as she fell to the ground and clutched the wound. A spray of scarlet exploded from the site of the puncture and she screamed in pain, but it was no use. Her eyes rolled back into her head less than twelve minutes later.

 _Belinda Glimp, District 10 Female: 22nd, Killed by Vivian, Bloodbath_

A knife tucked into his pocket, Garbh treaded as silently as possible towards a boy who was standing in a prone position to the left of the cornucopia. Garbh pounced upon the boy and forced him down, pinning him down to the ground. Garbh reached for his knife only to realize that it was not there. Confused, he wrinkled his face and fumbled for the weapon.

What had actually happened was this: clever Flux had snuck up behind Garbh and pulled the knife out of his back pocket while he was trying to pin down his opponent. Flux lifted the blade up and killed Garbh and the boy Garbh had failed to kill in rapid succession.

 _Garbh Spinrad, District 4 Male: 21st, Killed by Flux, Bloodbath_

 _Reggy Clendenning, District 11 Male: 20th, Killed by Flux, Bloodbath_

Less than five seconds after Flux made his two debut kills, a duel came to a brutal end in another location near the mouth of the cornucopia. It was between Farah and Sable, and the clanging and banging of metal against metal had long filled the air when Farah stabbed Sable squarely in the stomach and she went completely limp.

 _Sable Lohmiller, District 10 Male: 19th, Killed by Farah, Bloodbath_

Next, Imperium wielded an axe she had retrieved earlier and prowled into the cornucopia. She found one tribute hiding inside who was hoping to wait the bloodbath out. Imperium's axe easily cleaved apart the girl's tiny frame.

 _Pyxell Holden, District 3 Female: 18th, Killed by Imperium, Bloodbath_

Then, the careers made their routine meet-up at the mouth of the horn. The four that remained all stood close together and discussed their strategies and goals, assigning weapons and tasks and such. Once their gathering was over, they all pranced off to carry out the tasks assigned to them.

The next kill was made by Jasper. Firmly clutching the machete he had retrieved from the cornucopia, he ran up to a girl who had slung a backpack over her shoulder and was now darting away from the horn. Jasper chased the girl for a very long time, but in the end the girl could not run from him. Jasper decapitated the girl in one clean swipe of his machete, something that both fascinated and terrified the Capitol audience.

 _Cedara Latoura, District 7 Female: 17th, Killed by Jasper, Bloodbath_

When Vivian spotted an easy target barreling away from the cornucopia, she hastily reached over her shoulder and grabbed an arrow from her quiver, setting it in her bow and releasing it in that order. The arrow whistled through the air and landed in the tribute's hip, sending her plummeting to the ground as she thrashed and attempted to remove the arrow from her body. She bled out soon after and passed away.

 _Veridie Lillith, District 11 Female: 16th, Killed by Vivian, Bloodbath_

Perhaps it was a mistake to include grenades in the cornucopia. When Imperium was rummaging through the piles of supplies, she stumbled upon a grenade, complete with instructions for activation. Imperium chuckled as she pulled out the pin, discarded it, and tossed it into an area densely populated by panicked tributes. The deafening boom left a ringing sound in the ears of the tributes. That is, those who survived the blast. Four tributes were killed by explosion the grenade.

 _Brunel Ryavec, District 6 Male: 15th, Killed by Imperium, Bloodbath_

 _Calicio Breyan, District 8 Male: 14th, Killed by Imperium, Bloodbath_

 _Aluma Wypij, District 9 Female: 13th, Killed by Imperium, Bloodbath_

 _Burnet Hopper, District 12 Male: 12th, Killed by Imperium, Bloodbath_

When the rest of the careers all ran into the cornucopia to grab grenades of their own and slaughter other tributes, the weaker tributes from the outlying districts all concluded that it was time to go; the careers would rat them all out with their grenades if they stuck around any longer. They all dropped whatever they were doing and fled away as fast as they could. The careers only got in one more kill before the cornucopia was empty of victims: Vivian just managed to shoot a tribute in the back with her bow.

 _Rewolfa Kruegler, District 11 Female: 11th, Killed by Vivian, Bloodbath_

An eerie silence was left around the cornucopia as the last few weaker tributes had scurried away into the underground network of caves.

The rest of Day 1, and of Day 2, were void of conflict. It was to be expected that the deaths would be more spaced out from now on because of the massive number of kills during the bloodbath, but it made the Capitol audience impatient anyways. When days 3 thru 5 passed void of any conflict at all, the gamemakers concluded that it was time to shake things up a little. It was time for some action.

In a synthetic lab in the Capitol, a group of scientists began working on a new project. At last, they discovered a way to create huge, spliced and monstrous animals that they named muttations. When the head gamemaker requested that a horde of star-nosed mole muttations be made, the scientists got to work, and they were completed soon.

The pack of bear-sized moles was sent after the career pack around the evening of Day 6. Screaming in terror as the creature's pink feeling organs chased after them through the darkness, the allies were forced to scatter and drop whatever weight they were carrying in favor of running faster. The creatures would only be satisfied when they made a kill. It was made about thirteen hours later, when Vivian was so incomprehensively exhausted from running for half a day straight that she had to stop to rest for a few minutes. The mutts took advantage of this and pounced upon the petrified girl, mauling apart her bloody corpse apart and smothering her screams.

 _Vivian Ferauto, District 1 Female: 10th, Killed by Star-Nosed Mole Muttations, Day 6_

A dehydration death occurred on Day 7. It would be the only death of dehydration in the games.

 _Severa Peishel, District 6 Female: 9th, Dehydration, Day 7_

On Day 8, the fractured career alliance stumbled upon Jack curling up into a ball and shivering in the horrible cold of the cave system. It was too dark for him to see what was going on before Farah stabbed him in the stomach with her sword.

 _Jack Huxley, District 7 Male: 8th, Killed by Farah, Day 8_

The gamemakers decided that it was time to drive the final tributes in for the finale after Jack's demise. So, they began filling up the cave system with water. It seeped into the cave through the walls and began piling up on the cold ground. It was very slow at first, and many tributes suspected it was just a typical flow of moisture. But, sixteen hours later when the water was up to the tributes ankles, the walls all burst and water began flooding in at an immense rate. Within a minute it was up to the tribute's waists. This was no natural buildup of condensation. The tributes scrambled in panic and desperately searched around for the nearest exits from the cave system that was now up to the tribute's chests in water. Of the seven remaining tributes, five made it out of the cave system into the desolate rocky plain alive. Two were not so lucky.

 _Plover Alvino, District 5 Male: 7th, Drowned in the Flood, Day 9_

 _Lacea Arangio, District 8 Female: 6th, Drowned in the Flood, Day 9_

The five tributes remaining were all sopping wet from the water of the cave. But, they knew the gamemakers had more surprises up their sleeves. All of the sudden, huge meteors started raining from the sky. Where they landed huge clouds of smoke filled the air that made them cough. They watched as a meteor struck the cornucopia and bounced off of it without leaving so much as a dent. The cornucopia was the only safe place. And all five of them had no choice but to seek shelter inside of it, where the final battle would begin.

Flux, seeing that he didn't stand a chance at beating all of the other remaining tributes, ran into the cornucopia when nobody was looking and hid inside of a chest neatly tucked away in the corner. He would thank himself later for choosing this strategy.

The five remaining tributes were the three careers—Jasper, Imperium, and Farah—as well as Amira and Flux. Flux was hiding in a chest, so the others assumed he had died and so dismissed him.

Amira's eyes widened in fear as the three bloodthirsty careers brandished their weapons and prowled towards her, forcing her towards the wall. She was running out of room very quickly, now. Twenty seconds later, her screams reverberated around the closed space when Jasper stabbed her through the heart with a dagger.

 _Amira Randel, District 5 Female: 5th, Killed by Jasper, Day 9_

The three careers believed that they were the only three tributes left, and so shook hands and ended the alliance. They each picked out their favorite weapons from the bounty of supplies, and the fight began. The first of the threesome to die was Imperium, who was stabbed in the waist with Jasper's dagger.

 _Imperium Konheim, District 2 Female: 4th, Killed by Jasper, Day 9_

Jasper and Farah circled each other for a great while, each waiting for the other to make the first move. After about five minutes of dreadful silence, Farah lunged at Jasper and attempted to stab him in the heart with her knife. However, Jasper moved out of the way at the last minute and swung his dagger over his head. He did not do any physical harm to Farah, only slice off all of her hair and send the locks fluttering to the ground. The fight continued for almost twenty minutes, and at long last Jasper bludgeoned Farah in the head with a metal club and dented her skull, killing her.

 _Farah Adaur, District 4 Female: 3rd, Killed by Jasper, Day 9_

At this, Jasper believed he was now the victor. He walked out of the horn and smiled, looking left and right and spreading his arms apart for the cameras. He was confused when the chorus of trumpets did not sound. Taking infinite care to be completely silent, Flux pushed up on the lid of the chest he was hiding in and opened it, crawling out and picking up a dagger as long as his arm off of a nearby table. He crept up behind Jasper, as silent as a mouse. When everything was right, Flux lifted the blade into the air and brought it down, sinking it into Jasper's back. He was too stupefied to do anything; he didn't move or scream or thrash. He just waved back and forth a few times before falling to the ground with a thump, dead.

 _Jasper Stolberg, District 1 Male: 2nd, Killed by Flux, Day 9_

"Flux Stafford of District 3, you are the victor of the seventh annual Hunger Games!" Magnus exclaimed into the arena as the trumpets played their familiar melody in the distance.

Flux did nothing spectacular to celebrate his victory; he just smiled for the invisible cameras he knew were all pointed at him.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The Capitol was enthralled by Flux's final kill of the games. He was the first tribute to ever kill their competitor in the final battle via ambush, and many tributes would follow in his footsteps and use the same technique to return home victorious from their games.

His victory tour went surprisingly well, although he did get the cold shoulder from District 1.

Flux broke a streak of female victors. The victors of the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth Hunger Games were all female. Flux is male and thus upon his victory the red-hot streak died.

Flux would marry twice in his lifetime, once at age thirty-six to a woman and once at age fifty to a man.

Flux would live to the relatively average age of seventy-seven, dying from sudden respiratory failure around the time of the sixty-eighth annual Hunger Games

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Flux moves into the Victor's Village of District 3, the second victor to do so.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)


	9. The 8th Hunger Games

**The 8th Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

The country was spun into a ten day-long period of national mourning when President Cornelius Wayne was assassinated by a District 9 man who was infuriated at his decision to enact the Hunger Games upon the citizens of Panem. Why it took him eight years to actually carry out the deed we may never know, but he was tried and hanged for his crime nonetheless. Many district citizens saw this as an opportunity for a rebellion, a spark that could be nurtured into a roaring flame. Riots sprung up around the country in uncontrollably large numbers. Thousands were killed. But, after almost six months, the attempted rebellion was defeated by the Capitol. The man who took Cornelius' place was a very curious and clever man, with keen and intelligent eyes. His name was Syrio Chandler, and he appointed a new Head Gamemaker: a forty year-old woman named Rhea Szasz. Rhea in turn appointed a team of about thirty gamemakers, and they all met up to create a new grand arena. The arena was a mountain range. Huge mountains stretched to the sky, their tops capped with snow. At the feet of the massive mountains was a lush green field bursting with lovely flowers of every color imaginable that covered the entire arena. An assortment of cool streams scissored through the arena that would provide the tributes with a sufficient source of water. The entire arena was surrounded by a roaring river so loud it left a thumping sound in the tribute's ears if they went near it. The sky was spotlessly blue. During the daytime the arena was a very comfortable temperature: a warm and constant stream of sunlight curtained the arena, interrupted by the very frequent, cool breezes. At night, the temperature of the arena was unimaginably cold; in some parts of the arena it was twenty degrees below zero at night. In order to avoid mass hypothermia deaths in the nighttime, the gamemakers filled the field in front of the cornucopia with heating packs, coats, water heaters, and hot water bottles. In previous years all of the supplies were inside of the cornucopia, but now it was the first year that the supplies were in the field. However, the items increased in value the further away they were from the tribute's pedestals. The District 1 male instantly captured the audience's attention as the strongest tribute; he was attractive, confident, and had the highest odds of winning. The District 1 female was very tall for her age, and equally valued the physical aspects of battle as the mental aspects of battle. The District 2 male received the highest training score, which is actually quite ironic because he did not seem as strong or confident as the District 1 male who had received a lower score. The District 2 female received the lowest score of all the careers, something that she was a bit ashamed of. However, she revealed in her interview with the master of ceremonies that she was determined to show the audience what she was made of in the arena. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Osmond Cyders, 18, (9) 6-1 and Brandi Coyne, 17, (8) 9-1

District 2: Cyrus Purcell, 18, (10) 5-1 and Vesta Weldon, 16, (7) 11-1

District 3: Diget Waldor, 16, (4) 30-1 and Omicron Kaufman, 18, (5) 25-1

District 4: Blue Giron, 15, (6) 16-1 and Kathline Ayera, 15, (7) 14-1

District 5: Randolph Phizesquirol, 17, (5) 19-1 and Darci Ganong, 18, (4) 16-1

District 6: Rodney Marchan, 16, (2) 31-1 and Calara McKlure, 13, (1) 51-1

District 7: Theodore Vasqa, 17, (6) 18-1 and Camille Stroud, 14, (2) 38-1

District 8: Chriss Stager, 12, (2) 68-1 and Leah Velichansky, 18, (3) 15-1

District 9: Quinn Bracker, 16, (6) 19-1 and Kiera Rifkin, 14, (2) 38-1

District 10: Aiden Tiejo, 12, (1) 283-1 and Trino Bileau, 18, (3) 21-1

District 11: Cane Ashley, 17, (5) 20-1 and Elppaenip Ram, 13, (3) 49-1

District 12: Koltin Lynx, 15, (2) 38-1 and Laurel Thurms, 18, (4) 30-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The tributes emerged into the mountainous landscape shocked and confused as to why the field in front of the cornucopia was filled with supplies. It soon sank in that it was on purpose and that the gamemakers wanted the tributes to have ready access to much-needed supplies.

The gong played its familiar note in the distance, and the tributes were off. Not a single tribute fled away from the horn. Perhaps they realized that whatever was provided must be important or the gamemakers wouldn't have placed it right in front of their pedestals. They could not be more right.

While most of the outer district tributes were distracted collecting backpacks and cases and the like, the careers were darting towards the very mouth of the horn to gather weapons that were essential for killing. When Blue reached the cornucopia, he received a curved blade about a foot long with a menacingly jagged edge. Silently prancing over to a girl who was leaning over to pick up a backpack, Blue lifted the blade into the air and then brought it down, sinking it into the girl's back before she had enough time to scream.

 _Trino Bileau, District 10 Female: 24th, Killed by Blue, Bloodbath_

Osmond, the tribute who had made an impression to the audience as the strongest tribute, though back to how they had snubbed Kathline from the career pack because of her weakness. Knowing that she would keep pestering them repeatedly, Osmond picked up a bow and arrow off of a nearby table and aimed for Kathline, who was in the cornucopia riffling through a blue crate of water bottles. Osmond nocked an arrow in his bow and released it. His aim was perfect, and the tip of the projectile sank into the poor girl's back as she fell forward and died.

 _Kathline Ayera, District 4 Female: 23rd, Killed by Osmond, Bloodbath_

Now at the cornucopia and grabbing up as many weapons as possible was Brandi. Brandi was in the process of shoving weapons into an empty backpack when he saw a tribute dart across the mouth of the cornucopia. The opportunity was too sweet to resist. Brandi picked up a set of shurikens off of a nearby table and darted out of the cornucopia, hurling them at the back of the tribute's neck as a spray of blood exploded from the puncture site.

 _Theodore Vasqa, District 7 Male: 22nd, Killed by Brandi, Bloodbath_

In the field in front of the cornucopia, a girl sat hurriedly riffling through a backpack and taking inventory of its contents. Vesta, wielding a spear, pounced up upon the girl and planted the weapon into her back as she howled in pain, desperately attempting to remove the weapon from her skin. She bled out and passed away soon after.

 _Laurel Thurms, District 12 Female: 21st, Killed by Vesta, Bloodbath_

In a very prone position in the mouth of the cornucopia sat a boy tearing open backpacks and looking for something. Cyrus, seeing an easy opportunity to make his first kill, snuck up upon the boy wielding a menacing, jagged edged dagger. However, the boy's keen sense of hearing heard Cyrus sneaking up upon him, so he grabbed a dagger of his own off of a nearby table and plunged it into Cyrus' chest in self-defense. Cyrus' bloody corpse collapsed on top of him before he had time to scramble away. However, after a few seconds he was free.

 _Cyrus Purcell, District 2 Male: 20th, Killed by Diget, Bloodbath_

After receiving all of the supplies he needed, Cane turned sharply on his heel and began storming away from the cornucopia into the mountainous landscape beyond. However, it was a mistake for him to run in a prone position: a completely straight line with his back to the cornucopia. Osmond saw Cane as an easy target and so shot an arrow, which sunk into the tender flesh between his shoulder blades as he fell forwards onto the rocky ground.

 _Cane Ashley, District 11 Male: 19th, Killed by Osmond, Bloodbath_

Leah, weaponless, crouched behind a crate in the cornucopia with hopes to wait out the bloodbath and come out once it was all over. Unlucky for her, however, Darci saw Leah walk into the cornucopia. Knowing that his odds of winning would increase the more killing he did, Darci picked up a long metal baton and smashed it across Leah's face, effectively shattering her skull and killing her.

 _Leah Velichansky, District 8 Female: 18th, Killed by Darci, Bloodbath_

It was when the career alliance all met together in one pack to hunt down their next unlucky victims when the next few kills were made. Blue's curved blade easily tore apart a boy's tiny frame.

 _Criss Stager, District 8 Male: 17th, Killed by Blue, Bloodbath_

Brandi's shurikens sent a girl soundlessly to the ground when they entered her chest.

 _Elppaenip Ram, District 11 Female: 16th, Killed by Brandi, Bloodbath_

Vesta then split off from the career pack for the time being in favor of going solo for a bit and ratting out the few remaining tributes. Vesta ran into the cornucopia and picked up a crossbow complete with a quiver of arrows and a stand. She ran into the horn and crouched down behind a black suitcase, planning to fire arrows at any weary tribute that either wandered into the cornucopia or walked in front of the entrance. Within the next few minutes she had made a satisfying two kills and left her hiding place, rejoining her allies.

 _Calara McKlure, District 6 Female: 15th, Killed by Vesta, Bloodbath_

 _Quinn Bracker, District 9 Male: 14th, Killed by Vesta, Bloodbath_

The careers were able to score one more kill during the bloodbath; Osmond's arrow found its target in the back of a girl who was scrambling away from the cornucopia in a panic.

 _Omicron Kaufman, District 3 Female: 13th, Killed by Osmond, Bloodbath_

The careers counted twelve dead bodies surrounding the cornucopia, equating to twelve deaths in the bloodbath. The vast majority of the tributes were well equipped with supplies that would help them to survive the frigid nights to come. Those that didn't were in for an unpleasant surprise.

The night of Day 1 was brutal. The wind was so strong that some of the tributes had to bury their feet in rocks to keep from being blown away. The snow shot through the air like bullets, stabbing into the tribute's eyes. The temperature was highest at about ten o'clock, at about ten degrees. At two in the morning, it was about five degrees below zero. The next morning, the tributes that did not have adequate protection from the bitter cold began to show symptoms of hypothermia. However, there were actually no deaths the rest of Day 1. The morning of Day 2 was very warm; a cozy seventy degrees. It warmed the tributes to the bone.

The second day saw two deaths. The first was from a weary tribute that tried to sneak a sleeping bag out of the cornucopia behind the career's backs, but was spotted and had his chest torn apart by Brandi's shurikens.

 _Randolph Phizesquiral, District 5 Male: 12th, Killed by Brandi, Day 2_

The second death occurred when a girl tumbled into a twenty yard-deep crevice and had no way to escape. The bottom of the crevice was filled with freezing water, and she screamed in pain until she died of hypothermia a few minutes before midnight.

 _Darci Ganong, District 5 Female: 11th, Hypothermia, Day 2_

Day 3 saw no deaths until the nighttime. The gamemakers realized that they needed to really crank things up a notch if they wanted the games to be interesting. However, they went a little too far. Five tributes died of hypothermia in the thirty degrees below zero temperatures that night, including one of the careers. The gamemakers resolved to never crank things up too far ever again. They had wasted five deaths that could have been entertaining on measly hypothermia.

 _Blue Giron, District 4 Male: 10th, Hypothermia, Day 3_

 _Aiden Tiejo, District 10 Male: 9th, Hypothermia, Day 3_

 _Camille Stroud, District 7 Female: 8th, Hypothermia, Day 3_

 _Koltin Lynx, District 12 Male: 7th, Hypothermia, Day 3_

 _Kiera Rifkin, District 9 Female: 6th, Hypothermia, Day 3_

Only five tributes remained, and the gamemakers decided that it was time to force the tributes inwards for the bloody showdown that would hopefully end in a victor being crowned. Using recently invented technology, the gamemakers caused the rushing river surrounding the arena to expand into a huge wall of water that would crash inwards and barrel through the arena, forcing the tributes on top of the cornucopia where they knew they would be safe. Only three tributes actually made it to safety, and that was only because they were close to the cornucopia and had a head start. Two tributes were killed by the freezing tsunami.

 _Vesta Weldon, District 2 Female: 5th, Killed by the Tsunami, Day 4_

 _Osmond Cyders, District 1 Male: 4th, Killed by the Tsunami, Day 4_

Three tributes stood atop the cornucopia, a swirling vortex of frigid water rushing under them and causing the horn to sway and creak. Brandi wielded his shurikens that he had used to make three kills. Diget held his dagger readily in hand. Rodney was weaponless and had made no kills as of yet.

Diget lunged forward and stabbed the helpless boy through the heart with his dagger, sending his body falling backwards off of the cornucopia and being washed away by the swirling water.

 _Rodney Marchan, District 6 Male: 3rd, Killed by Diget, Day 4_

The final battle of the eighth annual Hunger Games was between Brandi Coyne of District 1 and Diget Weldor of District 3. However, Diget was very distracted after killing Rodney and so was in a very prone position to be attacked. Diget whipped his head around just in time to see the shurikens enter his chest, one squarely impaling his heart. Blood sprouted from the puncture sites of the shurikens, but he was already dead and so it didn't matter in the slightest. The familiar melody of trumpets rang through the arena the instant the boy's cannon faded away fully.

 _Diget Weldor, District 3 Male: 2nd, Killed by Brandi, Day 4_

"Brandi Coyne of District 1, you are the victor of the eighth annual Hunger Games!" Rhea shouted enthusiastically into the arena as a hovercraft appeared to collect District 1's second victor.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

District 1's thirst for a new victor had been quenched the instant Brandi chucked the shurikens into Diget's chest. For the past few games the tribute to score second place had been from District 1, and each year District 1 had rang with fury when their victor was 'stolen' each year. Brandi was worshipped by her home district before settling into the victor's village.

Brandi's victory tour was very average, and nothing of note happened during it.

Brandi moved into the victor's village of District 1, in the house across the street from Sapphire's.

She would happily marry a man at age thirty-two, and the two would remain married until Brandi's death. She would never reproduce herself, but she would adopt twin sons at the age of fifty.

Brandi would live to the age of seventy-one, losing a battle with skin cancer around the time of the sixty-second annual Hunger Games.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Brandi moves into the Victor's Village of District 1, the second victor to do so.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)


	10. The 9th Hunger Games

**The 9th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Head Gamemaker Rhea Szasz returned for her second year on the job. However, the president warned her that if she made an arena as intense as last year's and caused nearly half of the tributes to die of natural causes again, he may be forced to fire her in favor of a new person to do the job. Rhea accepted the offer, and dropped her luggage into the gamemaker's lab to begin the work on her second arena as head gamemaker. The arena for the ninth annual Hunger Games was a mesa landscape, with flat-topped rocky hills stretching out as far as the eye could see. Bands of vibrant color such as red, yellow, and orange stretched across the landscape, piling on top of each other in a rather beautiful fashion. The arena was surrounded by a twenty foot-high wall of rock that existed solely to prevent contact with the force field. The temperature of the arena was very normal. During the daytime the temperature could range from sixty degrees to seventy degrees. At night it only dropped to about fifty. Rhea wanted to do everything possible to make sure that there would be the least natural deaths possible, and so she introduced a myriad of water sources; crystal clear lakes dotted the arena connected by a spider web of crystal-clear, rushing rivers. No tricks here, all of the water was safe to drink. The gamemakers also included a wide variety of edible plants and animals to hopefully eliminate hunger deaths. The temperature of the arena, as was mentioned before, was not extreme and so would prevent deaths of hypothermia or of heat stroke. The tributes for the ninth Hunger Games intrigued and fascinated the Capitol audience just by the diversity of every aspect of them. The variety of preferred weapons among the careers varied tremendously as well. For instance, the District 1 boy preferred blades. "They do the job quick and easy," he said during his interview when asked what weapons he prefers. Quite different from him, his district partner preferred using a whip to disarm and disorient her pray before going in for the kill with whatever deadly weapon she had on hand. The District 2 pair both was most skilled with shurikens, perhaps inspired by Brandi's victory the year prior. However, the District 2 girl was also of outstanding skill with a baton for similar reasons that the District 1 girl fancied the whip. The District 4 girl was most skilled with the harpoon and trident, and had hopes that the arena would be water or ocean-themed. The District 4 boy was not a part of the career alliance, as he had not trained at the academy and was not a volunteer. There were five volunteers: the District 1 pair, the District 2 pair, and the District 6 male. A plethora of 5s and 4s were scored in the games, and there was only one ten. Nines were not given at all, but there were two eights and four sevens. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Percy Ramsec, 17, (8) 9-1 and Sylca Meade, 16, (7) 13-1

District 2: Slate Roegman, 18, (10) 6-1 and Velma Lansbury, 16, (7) 14-1

District 3: Theta Hersul, 18, (3) 40-1 and Jocyline Opel, 18, (4) 33-1

District 4: Edmund Verdine, 16, (5) 18-1 and Ceann Murdock, 18, (8) 8-1

District 5: Isaac Crandall, 16, (7) 23-1 and Lymit Giannelic, 18, (5) 26-1

District 6: Narten Cartovic, 15, (2) 52-1 and Luna Semphora, 18, (5) 16-1

District 7: Hesmin Burtiss, 13, (2) 80-1 and Julya Monaley, 15, (2) 39-1

District 8: Maxx Lanpen, 18, (3) 28-1 and Bella Thulran, 17, (4) 20-1

District 9: Cleo Clon, 16, (5) 30-1 and Irma Rinspine, 12, (2) 103-1

District 10: Andy Quinn, 17, (7) 13-1 and Visea Decueras, 15, (4) 42-1

District 11: Ricky Norman, 17, (5) 29-1 and Winter Campbell, 18, (3) 46-1

District 12: Harlow Kerug, 18, (4) 31-1 and Ashlyn Bonine, 13, (3) 35-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The pedestals that the tributes stood upon waiting for the countdown to reach zero used to be in district order: District 1 male on the left and District 12 female on the right. However, from the ninth Hunger Games onward they were in a randomly generated order. Two careers were, by coincidence, right next to each other. The two District 7 tributes were directly adjacent as well.

Many of the tributes were shocked at the beauty of the mesa landscape that surrounded them, and many were turning around taking in its splendor until the very moment that the gong played its familiar note in the distance.

Only a few tributes ran away at the very beginning, and the rest barreled across the dry ground towards the horn, which was spilling over with everything that would bring them life in the difficult weeks to come. The first tribute to reach the supplies was Percy. He picked up a sword—his favorite weapon—off of a nearby cart and stormed towards a girl a few dozen yards away. The instant the sword plunged into her shoulder she fell to the ground. Percy retrieved his blade and left her to die.

 _Bella Thulran, District 8 Female: 24th, Killed by Percy, Bloodbath_

A few seconds later, Percy's district partner Sylca had caught up with him. Sylca saw the whip that she had requested from the gamemakers waiting for her on the ground at the base of her feet. Grinning, she picked up the whip and smacked it to the back of a boy that was zigzagging to avoid attacks as he stormed towards the cornucopia. The boy howled in pain as he fell to the ground in shock, and Percy finished the job by stabbing him in the stomach with his sword.

 _Narten Cartovic, District 6 Male: 23rd, Killed by Sylca/Percy, Bloodbath_

Slate, the tribute with the highest odds, now in the mouth of the cornucopia browsing through weapons and other materials, chose a magazine of throwing knives and exited the darkness of the horn, looking around for an easy target. He waited for a few seconds, and then he saw a girl storming across the entryway of the cornucopia running away from Sylca's whip. Slate chucked one of the knives through the air, and it sunk into the small of the girl's back as she fell forward, her corpse making a hollow thump as it smacked onto the ground.

 _Ashlyn Bonine, District 12 Female: 22nd, Killed by Slate, Bloodbath_

In the heart of the cornucopia, with her back turned to the entrance, stood panicked Irma who had received the lowest odds of winning. Seeing her as an easy target, Slate crept into the cornucopia, wielding a throwing knife in his right hand. Irma saw his shadow on the floor of the cornucopia, and so discreetly grabbed a knife about a yard from her and prepared to attack her pursuer. When Slate was about a yard from Irma, she whipped her body around and plunged the blade into his heart, sending his limp body spiraling backwards into a black crate.

 _Slate Roegman, District 2 Male: 21st, Killed by Irma, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Percy had made two more kills with his sword. The first was a boy whom he slashed in the chest, sending his vital organs such as his stomach and kidneys tumbling out of his body onto the ground. The second was to a girl that he stabbed through the heart. Her eyes rolled back into her head as her limp body tumbled to the ground with a thump.

 _Andy Quinn, District 10 Male: 20th, Killed by Percy, Bloodbath_

 _Jocyline Opel, District 3 Female: 19th, Killed by Percy, Bloodbath_

After a few minutes of searching, Velma had finally laid her hands upon a metal baton, her favorite weapon. Eager to test it, she ran up behind a boy in a prone position and smacked him across the back of the head, sending blood squirting out of his head as he fell to the ground. Velma had made her first kill, and she grinned with triumph.

 _Ricky Norman, District 11 Male: 18th, Killed by Velma, Bloodbath_

Although Ceann's wishes to have a water theme arena were not granted, she did get the other half of her speculations correct; a long metal trident awaited her at the cornucopia. She picked up the weapon and hurled it through the air, sending the three prongs sinking into the chest of another tribute.

 _Lymit Geanellic, District 5 Female: 17th, Killed by Ceann, Bloodbath_

The District 4 male, eager to prove himself that he was one-hundred percent worth a slot in the career pack, believed that making more kills would up his chances of the others seeing his potential. So, he grabbed a set of shurikens off of a nearby countertop and hurled them all through the air. Two of them landed in the bodies of tributes. One planted itself into a tribute's hip with little to no injury, but the other was a different story. This one sank into a girl's heart, sending her eyes rolling back into her head within seconds.

 _Winter Campbell, District 11 Female: 16th, Killed by Edmund, Bloodbath_

But, Edmund suffered a similar fate as Kathline the year before. Velma was just behind him and smacked him across the back of the head with her baton, eliminating the number one threat to the victor being a member of their alliance and to alleviate the guilt of rejecting a valid member from their group.

 _Edmund Verdine, District 4 Male: 15th, Killed by Velma, Bloodbath_

By this time, most of the tributes, excepting the careers, had scrambled away into the vast arena and left an eerie silence hanging around the cornucopia. There were no more easy opportunities for easy kills, or any more kills at all for that matter. All that was left was the fractured career pack throwing aside crates and searching around the cornucopia, hunting for prey that was not there. Once they all came to the unanimous agreement that the bloodbath was over, they counted up the corpses. They counted ten in total.

Nevertheless, the careers were determined to make at least one more kill before the end of Day 1. Of the four that remained among them, three ventured out into the landscape with their weapons while Sylca stayed at the cornucopia to keep watch and guard the supplies.

The all too familiar sound of a cannon fire echoed through the arena at about six o'clock that evening. Percy, the tribute who had racked up four kills and had earned the favor of many Capitolites, stalked through the arena hunting for his next prey. He found it; a weak and helpless girl shivering in the inside of a cave. Percy's sword tore apart her tiny frame, and the sound of her screams chilled the others to the bone.

 _Irma Rinspine, District 9 Female: 14th, Killed by Percy, Day 1_

Back at the cornucopia, Sylca realized that it was about time to call it a day and that they all needed lots of rest to be ready to kill the next day. Sylca flicked on one of the flashlights in the cornucopia and, with all of the force she could muster up, hurled it into the air. The other careers saw the flash, and they all began trekking back to the center of the arena.

Perhaps the careers were unwise to sleep in such a prone manner. They lay in sleeping backs inside of the cornucopia, with nothing guarding or protecting them from anything. When Isaac spotted that the careers were sleeping soundly in such a prone position, he pulled a brown bag out of his pocket containing extremely poisonous berries he had collected. Tip-toeing as silently as possible, Isaac crept towards the careers and dropped the berries into their mouths. First, he dropped one into Sylca's mouth. She was lying on her back with her mouth wide open, and the juice poured down her throat. Quickly, Isaac placed a second berry into the mouth of Ceann, whose throat was wide open and so the berry fell through into her stomach. The other careers were startled awake by the sound of the two girl's cannons ringing through the arena, and Isaac fled the scene taking the evidence with him.

 _Sylca Meade, District 1 Female: 13th, Killed by Isaac, Day 2_

 _Ceann Murdock, District 4 Female: 12th, Killed by Isaac, Day 2_

Velma and Percy, the last remaining members of the once-powerful career alliance, were startled to discover that the other half of their alliance lay completely dead. They both sprung out of their sleeping bags, grabbing their weapons and searching around for the killer they knew must be somewhere near. They could not find him. They gave up after about ten minutes and went back to sleep.

The sun rose on Day 2, and the first cannon of the day rang at about eleven o'clock in the morning. A boy was extremely thirsty and recalled learning that mashing up cacti is a great technique to get water. However, the cactus he chose was poisonous and the venom killed him before he could realize his deadly mistake.

 _Maxx Lanpen, District 8 Male: 11th, Killed by a Poisonous Cactus, Day 2_

The rest of the second day passed deathless, as did the entirety of Day 3 and Day 4. The Capitol was thirsty for more action, and so Rhea threw in some hyena muttations to chase the tributes and hopefully shake things up a little. They unleashed them after one girl who had survived much longer than she should have, and she was forced to race away from the bloodthirsty creatures as fast as she could, screaming all the way in terror. Her doom came when her foot was caught on a rock and she fell to the ground. The hyenas pounced upon her and mauled apart her body.

 _Viscues Descueras, District 10 Female: 10th, Killed by Hyena Muttations, Day 5_

On Day 6, there was a death from a tribute that was being chased by the careers and so climbed the stone wall surrounding the arena. He was electrocuted instantly and felt no pain at all.

 _Harlow Kerug, District 10 Male: 9th, Killed by the Force Field, Day 6_

Day 7 was deathless, and Day 8 saw two deaths, both from the same district. The first was from a tribute that died from a severely infected wound on his thigh.

 _Hesmin Burtiss, District 7 Male: 8th, Infection, Day 7_

The second was from a girl who tumbled off of a cliff and broke both of her legs, knowing she could not escape and killed herself with poisonous berries knowing it was the most painless way to pass.

 _Julya Monaley, District 7 Female: 7th, Suicide, Day 7_

On the morning of Day 8, the bloodcurdling screams of a boy rang through the arena when Percy's sword sunk into his chest and he died of blood loss.

 _Cleo Clon, District 9 Male: 6th, Killed by Percy, Day 8_

After waiting around in vain on Day 9 for just one more kill, the gamemakers decided on the morning of Day 10 that it was time to begin the final battle that would hopefully determine their victor.

At exactly eight o'clock in the morning on the tenth day in the arena, the gamemakers triggered a sandstorm that would start on the outside of the arena and force the tributes inward as it spread inward, the grains of sand cutting their skin and forcing them to shield their eyes as they barreled blindly towards the cornucopia that they knew would be safe. There they found the cornucopia now had a glass door, and inside they would be sheltered from the biting sandstorm. All five remaining tributes made it safely into the cornucopia, the last one slamming the glass door behind them.

Percy, Velma, Theta, Isaac, and Luna all stared at each other for a few minutes, not knowing for certain what to do. What Theta, Isaac, and Luna did not know, was that the reason for the careers stillness was not their indecisiveness but the fact that they planned to wait a few minutes and then lunge at the others when they were too shocked to even move.

Their strategy worked. After five long minutes, Percy threw himself through the air and stabbed his sword straight through Theta's heart, sending his body tumbling to the ground as he carefully removed the blade from the boy's corpse.

 _Theta Hersul, District 3 Male: 5th, Killed by Percy, Day 10_

Next, Velma lifted her baton into the air and lunged at Luna, smashing her in the head and sending her unconscious. However, it did not kill her. It took multiple bangs from the baton until Luna's cannon rang through the arena.

 _Luna Semphora, District 6 Female: 4th, Killed by Velma, Day 10_

Velma and Percy then teamed up on Isaac and chased him around and around the enclosed space. In that time, he retrieved a bow from the bounty of supplies, and nocked an arrow in a split second and fired it through the air. Although Isaac's skill with a bow and arrow was completely nonexistent, the arrow miraculously lodged itself into Percy's throat as he let out a short, sharp, loud gargle and then fell to the ground, clutching his throat. He choked to death soon after.

 _Percy Ramsec, District 1 Male: 3rd, Killed by Isaac, Day 10_

The final battle of the ninth Hunger Games was between Velma Lansbury and Isaac Crandall of District 5. Velma had her machete, while the weapon Isaac had was his pouch of poisonous berries. Isaac knew there was only one way that he could win. And he was prepared to do it.

Isaac stormed towards Velma in a split-second, knocking the baton out of her hand. A long and gruesome fist fight began between the two, but after the longest ten minutes of their lives Isaac had forced a completely defenseless Velma to the ground.

Isaac reached in for a handful of his poisonus berries and placed them right above Velma's mouth. Then he used his free hand to grasp her nose. Soon, Velma would have to open her mouth to breathe. When that happened, Isaac shoved the handful of berries into her mouth. She gargled a few times and thrashed in pain under the weight of Isaac's body, but her world was already starting to become foggy. Within three minutes, her eyes slowly closed. Her cannon boomed through the arena.

 _Velma Lansbury, District 2 Female: 2nd, Killed by Isaac, Day 10_

"Isaac Crandall of District 5, you are the victor of the ninth annual Hunger Games!" Rhea sang.

Isaac lifted his hands off of Velma's bruised corpse as the sandstorm ceased and he exited the cornucopia, climbing up into the hovercraft that would carry him to the fame that would soon envelop his life.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

At the conclusion of the ninth Hunger Games, half of the districts of Panem had at least one victor. It would not be until the fifty-eighth annual Hunger Games that ever single district had a victor, and it would not be until the sixty-ninth Hunger Games until every district had two victors.

The Capitol had a mostly positive viewpoint towards Isaac. He had brought a victor to the victor-less District 5, and most people thought his tactic of feeding his opponent poisonous berries was clever.

Isaac's victory tour went quite well. He was given extra support at his stop in District 5, but District 2 gave him the cold shoulder for stealing their third victor.

Isaac moved into the victor's village of District 5, the very first tribute to do so.

He would live to the age of eighty, electrocuted to death by one of his projects around the time of the seventy-third annual Hunger Games.

Isaac would marry three times in his lifetime, all three times to women. He would marry once at age thirty-six, once at age forty, and once at age fifty. Despite the failure of his first two marriages, his third marriage would continue until his death thirty years later. He would bear one daughter with his second spouse, and he would adopt one son.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Isaac moves into the Victor's Village of District 5, the very first victor to do so.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)


	11. The 10th Hunger Games

**The 10th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

The Capitol ran rampant with excitement as the end of the first decade crept around the corner. The Hunger Games had continued for an entire decade, and everyone was eager to see who would join their lineup of beloved victors. This very special Hunger Games required a very special arena, and so President Syrio Chandler carefully picked one head gamemaker among thousands of auditions. The person he chose to take the duty of leading the games was a fifty year-old man by the name of Elwood Myrick, who had worked as an architect and prosthetic makeup artist most of his life. He had auditioned for the role of head gamemaker during the eighth Hunger Games, but was rejected. He auditioned again for the ninth Hunger Games, and was again rejected. Third time's the charm, they say, and this was proven true when Elwood's dreams came true and he was selected to be the head gamemaker for the tenth annual Hunger Games. The nation had a hopeful outlook towards Elwood, and many were confident he would make the games the most memorable yet. The arena for the tenth annual Hunger Games was a sort of 'medley' of different landscapes. The cornucopia was in what appeared to be a savanna, with dry stalks as high as the tribute's knees. To their left was a salty ocean with waves pulsing in and out like clockwork. To their right was an oak forest. Behind them was an abandoned city, with ruins littering the landscape and rundown houses everywhere. In front of the tributes, behind the cornucopia, there was a rolling green plain. Administration also made sure to hire the most talented and extravagant stylists for the tribute parade, and fantastic new lighting and scents for the interviews. For the special occasion, training was made four days long instead of just three. To match the spectacular array of celebrations taking place in the Capitol was a spectacular array of tributes. The career alliance had five members, all of which preferred different weapons to do their killing. The District 2 boy preferred the sword, reasoning that it was quick to do the dirty work. The District 2 female much more preferred the whip, justifying that it would stun a tribute so much that they couldn't even move in time before she killed them with whatever weapon was handy. The District 4 boy preferred the harpoon, while his district partner was much more adept with the throwing knife. The District 1 male preferred to use the bow and arrow because of its long distance capabilities. Out of the three career districts, there was an outcast. It was the District 1 female. She was absolutely pathetic, disgracing the academy by scoring a two in training. All she did in the Capitol was cry. She didn't even pretend to be brave for the cameras. The other career turned their backs on her in five seconds and pretended she didn't exist. Nothing much stood out among the tributes from the outer districts except for the District 11 male, who was hugely muscular and scored a nine in training. He was even offered a slot in the career pack but declined in favor of going solo in the games. The training scores this year varied hugely. There were three tens, two nines, two eights, two sixes, two fives, two fours, five threes, two twos, and two ones. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Oren Earl, 17, (8) 9-1 and Velvet Farrow, 16, (2) 39-1

District 2: Sook Burgos, 18, (10) 6-1 and Alessandra Reiter, 17, (10) 8-1

District 3: Tesla Parson, 17, (5) 22-1 and Oretha Manuel, 18, (4) 30-1

District 4: Roma Seifert, 16, (9) 15-1 and Skye Busby, 17, (8) 13-1

District 5: Lupe Fiore, 18, (3) 28-1 and Julieann Fierro, 16, (4) 35-1

District 6: Hassan Kearney, 15, (3) 30-1 and Allena Tubbs, 18, (6) 18-1

District 7: Yuriko Delgadillo, 18, (10) 6-1 and Quyen Sally, 16, (6) 26-1

District 8: Bryon Hynes, 17, (3) 40-1 and Evangeline Byars, 14, (3) 52-1

District 9: Jackelyn Bartels, 13, (1) 79-1 and Lurline Westbrook, 18, (3) 31-1

District 10: Hanh Hinson, 16, (5) 20-1 and Tamatha Rocha, 12, (1) 148-1

District 11: Lino Dailey, 18, (9) 10-1 and Elsy Farlane, 14, (4) 50-1

District 12: Marcelene Grover, 18, (4) 37-1 and Lorriane Joy, 12, (2) 75-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

Many of the tributes were shocked at the unprecedented theme of the arena; never before had the arena been a medley of biomes. They observed how different sections of the arena had different themes, and they all made their choices on which biome to flee to when and if they survived the bloodbath.

The tenth Hunger Games marked the first time in history that a tribute died before the games even began. A boy who had eaten far too much in the Capitol vomited over the side of his pedestal, forgetting about the land mines surrounding them. The force of the bile hitting the ground triggered the bombs, and the poor boy's corpse was blown sky high.

 _Jackyelen Bartels, District 9 Male: 24th, Killed by the Land Mines, Pre-Bloodbath_

Despite this minor setback, the gong rang like it always did, and the vast majority of the tributes barreled across the terrain towards the cornucopia, the dry grass crumbling under their weight as they ran for their lives towards the bounty of supplies.

The first tribute to reach the cornucopia was Alessandra. She moved her eyes back and forth over the array of weapons before setting her eyes on a whip that lay waiting for her on a shelf in the side of the cornucopia. Grinning from ear to ear, she ran over to grab the weapon. Wielding it in her hand, she ran over to a nearby tribute who was a laughably easy target and smashed him in the back with the whip, causing blood to explode from his back as Alessandra ripped the jagged teeth out of his skin. She repeated this same process a few more times, lashing him in the back of the head and several more times in the back of the torso. He bled out and died a few minutes later after no shortage of bloodcurdling screams.

 _Hassan Kearny, District 6 Male: 23rd, Killed by Alessandra, Bloodbath_

Not far behind Alessandra was Sook, her district partner. Sook picked up a dagger from inside the cornucopia and raced towards a tribute that was very weak and so would be an easy kill to help him attract the Capitol's attention. Sook brought the dagger down and stabbed it into the girl's back, causing her to let out an earsplitting scream as she fell to the ground. Sook brought the knife up and down from the girl's chest six times, and her screams were silenced when one hit from Sook's dagger pierced her heart.

 _Tamatha Rocha, District 10 Female: 22nd, Killed by Sook, Bloodbath_

The next kill of the bloodbath, and the first kill of the games made by a non-career, was carried out when ten-scoring Yuriko picked up an axe that lay on the ground thirty yards from his pedestal and hurled it through the air before it lodged itself in the back of a girl's head, splitting her skull open and killing her instantly.

 _Julieann Fierro, District 5 Female: 21st, Killed by Yuriko, Bloodbath_

After several minutes of searching, Skye finally laid her hands upon a magazine of throwing knives. With her hands closing around her favorite weapon, Skye went to town and hurled them all through the air in rapid fire. Within the next twenty seconds, she had killed two tributes.

 _Evangeline Byars, District 8 Female: 20th, Killed by Skye, Bloodbath_

 _Tesla Parson, District 3 Male: 19th, Killed by Skye, Bloodbath_

Oren, the District 1 male who was thirsty to make a kill and prove his worth to the Capitol audience, grabbed a sword off of a nearby table. He slammed the sword into a girl's side, and the blade slashed through the tender flesh as blood exploded from the wound. She died almost instantly after her vital arteries were cut and blood flow to her brain was blocked.

 _Elsy Farlane, District 11 Female: 18th, Killed by Oren, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Alessandra had made one more kill with her whip, forcing a boy to the ground thrashing in pain at the agonizing bite of the leather strap's metal teeth.

 _Marcelene Grover, District 12 Male: 17th, Killed by Alessandra, Bloodbath_

An ambitious Skye made another kill with her throwing knives, hurling two of them in rapid fire into a girl's back as she was attempting to scramble away from the bloodbath.

 _Lorraine Joy, District 12 Female: 16th, Killed by Skye, Bloodbath_

And then came the first death of the career alliance. Lurline, the District 9 female who saw the strength of the careers and knew that she didn't have a chance of winning if they all survived the bloodbath, picked up a scythe off of the ground and rammed it into the back of Oren's neck. He tried to call out for his allies, but his voice box had filled with blood so it was useless. He thrashed around violently in the most disturbing way until Lurline stabbed Oren in the heart, ending his life.

 _Oren Earl, District 1 Male: 15th, Killed by Lurline, Bloodbath_

Confidence boosted after killing Oren, Lurline went after another career. She chose as her second target Roma. So, she pounced upon Roma and stabbed him in the throat with the menacing edge of her scythe. Roma's lungs filled with blood and he could not breathe. He died of asphyxia two minutes later.

 _Roma Siefert, District 4 Male: 14th, Killed by Lurline, Bloodbath_

However, Alessandra saw Lurline kill two of her allies. Enraged, Alessandra darted over to where she stood and smacked her in the back with her whip as hard as she could, sending her reeling to the ground. Then, she jumped up and down on her chest until she coughed up blood and choked to death on the warm red fluid.

 _Lurline Westbrook, District 9 Female: 13th, Killed by Alessandra, Bloodbath_

At that, all of the tributes except the careers had scrambled away into the vast arena, leaving a creepy silence around the cornucopia. Sook, Alexandra, and Skye were all that remained of the fractured career alliance. Nevertheless, they set up a small camp in the cornucopia, leaving Skye to keep guard over the supplies when Sook and Alexandra ventured out. They chose Skye to be the guard because they believed she had the keenest senses of the threesome.

However, Skye's senses must not have been as keen as the others believed. Velvet, the District 1 girl who was snubbed from the career pack because of her 'weakness' quietly snuck towards the cornucopia, tiptoeing as to not make any noise. She picked up a knife and snuck up behind Skye. Velvet slit Skye's throat in one clean swipe, sending her corpse tumbling to the ground with a thump. Velvet rounded up everything she could carry with her from the cornucopia and booked it away from the cornucopia before the others could catch her.

 _Skye Busby, District 4 Female: 12th, Killed by Velvet, Day 1_

The other careers rushed back to the cornucopia at the sound of her cannon and were distraught to find Skye's corpse on the ground in a pool of blood. They searched tirelessly for almost three hours but could not find the killer. They decided to call it a day and go to bed. However, they were not stupid enough to fall into the same trap that Sylca and Ceann fell into the year before. They each would work one hour long shifts guarding and keeping watch over the cornucopia, after which time they would awake the other and sleep while they took over the job. In this way, they went through the whole night without being attacked.

On the morning of Day 2, the gamemakers decided to spice things up a little. They introduced a huge swarm of vicious birds into the arena with only one goal; to kill. They tore apart the trees and scissored through the air as they raced after the terrified tributes. The hunt went on for almost two hours, the huge swarm splitting off into different sections to chase different tributes. After the longest one hour and fifty minutes of the tributes lives, they caught up to one boy who had naturally slowed down significantly due to exhaustion. They tore apart his body until he was no more than a splatter on the ground, after which they retreated into the sky.

 _Hanh Hinson, District 10 Male: 11th, Killed by Bird Muttations, Day 2_

It was around noon on Day 2 when the next kill occurred. It was from a boy who was desperately thirsty and so gulped down water from a pond. However, it was more mud than water and was infested with worms. Not just any worms, mind you, but specially engineered worms that literally ate him from the inside. After almost an hour of being literally torn apart by the foul worms, he killed himself with a handful of poisonous berries to escape the pain.

 _Lupe Fiore, District 5 Male: 10th, Suicide, Day 2_

The rest of Day 2 was deathless, as was the entirety of Day 3. The two remaining careers took turns wandering away from the cornucopia with an eye to make a kill or two, promising to come back and give the other a turn to venture out within two hours.

They finally struck lucky when, during Alessandra's turn prowling through the arena, she spotted a girl crouching down in a ditch behind a natural wall of rocks. It was too easy. Alessandra wielded her whip and slammed it down upon the girl. A long and bloody beating began, resulting in the girl's death a painful twelve minutes later.

 _Oretha Manuel, District 3 Female: 9th, Killed by Alessandra, Day 2_

Confident that she had made good use of her time, Alessandra began trekking back to the cornucopia to give her district partner a turn. However, Velvet was waiting for her. Velvet ran out from behind a huge rock just as Alessandra was walking by, and hurled her hatchet through the air. Her aim was perfect, and the weapon lodged itself into her skull as she slumped to the ground.

 _Alessandra Reiter, District 2 Female: 8th, Killed by Velvet, Day 2_

By now, it had sunk in to the entire audience that Velvet was not at all the weak and cowardly scrap of a girl she made herself out to be. Velvet was really an extremely talented killer, potentially the most lethal in the entire games. She was just pretending to be weak so that the others would leave her alone because they didn't see her as a threat.

It took Sook a long time to realize that he was the only remaining career, and when he did he made the very surprising decision to stay at the cornucopia and wait it out until everyone else was dead.

On the morning of Day 3, a tribute fell victim to dehydration.

 _Quyen Salley, District 7 Female: 7th, Dehydration, Day 3_

Day 4 saw two deaths. The first was a dehydration death that occurred around nine in the morning.

 _Allena Tubbs, District 6 Female: 6th, Dehydration, Day 4_

The second was from a tribute that ate a highly poisonous fruit he believed was edible.

 _Lino Dailey, District 11 Male: 5th, Poisonous Fruit, Day 4_

With only four tributes left, the gamemakers concluded that it was time to force the tributes inward for the bloody finale. And so, the hurricane began. It started as a huge swirling mass of dark clouds on the outer ring of the arena that brought on an incredibly strong wind. Then came the rain. It came down in sheets, puncturing the tributes unshielded skin like bullets. It slowly spread inwards, forcing the tributes towards the cornucopia that was the eye of the storm and so would be void of violent weather.

Then the flooding began. A huge wall of water about five feet high pulsed in from the circumference of the arena, felling trees like dominoes as it barreled inwards. Of the four tributes remaining, only three of them made it safely to the cornucopia. One was trapped in an abandoned house when the wave completely washed it away, and he was killed by the force of the debris hitting his body.

 _Bryon Hynes, District 8 Male: 4th, Killed by the Hurricane, Day 5_

Atop the cornucopia, Velvet, Sook, and Yuriko stood. Velvet wielded her axe, Sook held his knife, and Yuriko held his hatchet.

Sook, still believing that Velvet was a weak coward, paid no attention to her and instead focused on killing Yuriko, whom he believed was a bigger threat. Sook stabbed his knife into Yuriko's heart, sending him tumbling backward off of the horn.

 _Yuriko Delgadillo, District 7 Male: 3rd, Killed by Sook, Day 5_

Sook still had not realized that Velvet's weakness was all a hoax to make the others ignore her. Believing that he could simply tear her apart like a rag doll, Sook took his time strolling towards Velvet.

"Poor old Velvet. Can't even hold that axe properly, can you? Do you want your mommy? Do you want your bubba?" Sook teased her, sucking his thumb mockingly.

It was time for Velvet to reveal her true colors.

She threw herself at Sook, holding her axe high above her head. Sook was too stunned to even move when Velvet pinned him to the ground, roaring and bludgeoning his chest over and over and over, sinking the axe into his chest and then ripping it out, sinking her axe into his chest and ripping it out, and again and again. Then, she leapt up and down on Sook's stomach until he coughed up blood.

Velvet's strategy had worked.

 _Sook Burgos, District 2 Male: 2nd, Killed by Velvet, Day 5_

"Velvet Farrow of District 1, you are the victor of the tenth annual Hunger Games!" Elwood roared into the arena as the trumpets played their melody in the distance.

Velvet threw her hands into the air, whooping proudly to celebrate her victory.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The nation was intrigued by Velvet, and many would learn to love their tenth victor. Her tactic of pretending to be weak so that she would not be viewed as a threat would be used many, many times in the future by other tributes to win their games.

Velvet's victory tour went fairly well in eleven of the districts. However, District 2 expressed their disgust at stealing their victor by literally throwing rotten fruit at her and screaming insults.

Velvet moved into the victor's village of District 1, in the house across the street from Brandi's. Upon her victory, District 1 became the first district to have three victors.

She would live to the age of forty-seven, dying a very premature death from epilepsy around the time of the forty-first annual Hunger Games. In that time, she would marry once and have four children.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Velvet moves into the victor's village of District 1, the third victor to do so.

An official poll is conducted in which Capitol citizens are asked to choose their favorite victor of the ten victors so far. Sapphire Waber of the second scores first with thirty percent of votes. Velvet Farrow of the tenth scores second with eighteen percent of votes. Misty Sablone of the fifth scores third with eleven percent of votes. Cordin Frey of the first scores fourth with eight percent of votes. Isaac Crandall of the ninth scores fifth with seven point five percent of votes. Flux Stafford of the seventh scores sixth with seven percent of votes. Brandi Coyne of the eighth scores seventh with six point five percent of votes. Olivia Seager of the sixth scores eighth with six percent of votes. Amelia Spangler of the fourth scores ninth with four percent of votes. Molly Toliday of the third scores tenth with two percent of votes.

All ten victors so far meet in the Capitol for a gathering promoting the Hunger Games, each one giving a thirty minute-long speech.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)


	12. The 11th Hunger Games

**The 11th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

The first Hunger Games decade had come and gone. Many district citizens hoped that it would be the end and that the games were just a bad dream. But, they all knew deep down that the Capitol was not that forgiving for the district citizen's crimes. It was declared that the Hunger Games would continue. Following this announcement was the shocking impeachment of President Syrio Chandler, who had been proven to have bought votes during the election and to have stolen millions from Capitol citizens for his own personal spending needs. He was tried for treason and found guilty, sentenced to ten years in jail and stripped of his title as president of Panem. His successor was a rather tall and confident man named Grazyna Koehler, who was just as cruel and unforgiving as him. President Koehler's first act as President was to make the Hunger Games a mandatory viewing, of which failing to watch on television would be punishable by death. The district citizens didn't even try to rebel; they saw how their attempted rebellion was brutally crushed three years prior and knew that history would repeat itself if they tried again. The Capitol had them right where they wanted them: weak, powerless, and knowing that the Capitol could brutally crush them in three seconds if they tried. Grazyna fired Head Gamemaker Rhea Szasz and appointed his friend Sigden Roman to take the position, ignoring the thousands of auditions and abusing his power. The arena that Sigden designed for the eleventh Hunger Games was sweet and simple; it was an ocean dotted with islands everywhere. The islands were rather sandy, with flowers covering them and shady trees enveloping their shores in darkness. Each island had a stop for boats that the tributes could climb into and paddle off to whichever other island they wanted to. The largest island was in the very center of the arena, and it housed the cornucopia. It was about half of a square mile in size, and was simply a plain of luscious green grass. However, the cornucopia lacked something. It lacked something utterly vital. There was no food at all in the cornucopia. Not a single crumb of bread. Sigden believed that the games would be more interesting when the tributes would have to be creative in order to find food. He also liked a few long and painful deaths thrown into the mix just to remind the district citizens of just how powerless they really were. The District 1 tributes were typical careers; strong, confident, and certain of themselves. The male scored a ten and was immensely proud of it, whilst the female scored a nine and was proud of herself nevertheless. The District 2 male scored an eight. His training score, low odds of winning, and general weakness made the careers hesitant to accept him into their alliance, but they let him a slot anyways just to make their pack look bigger. They let the District 2 female in in a heartbeat, since she scored a ten in training and received the highest odds of winning. However, it didn't even count. The girl had used her sexy attitude and looks to seduce the gamemakers into giving her a ten instead of a nine. The District 3 tributes were actually fairly average; rather medium stature with the reddish-brown hair that was running rampant in the technology district at the time. The boy scored a four, while the girl scored a five. They were both allegedly happy with their scores. The two District 4 tributes were arguably the weakest of the career tributes; the boy received a nine and was only seventeen years old. The girl scored the pathetic score of six and wasn't very notable at all. In fact, she was rather forgettable. But, the others accepted them into their alliance for the same reason as the boy from 'two: just to make their alliance look bigger, which in turn would make it look stronger. Both the boy and girl from District 5 attracted the audience's attention with their witty nature and sense of humor as well as their improvisation skills. A Capitol newscaster reporting for the games even joked that they could be delivering the news that the world was about to end and they would somehow find a way to make it the funniest thing on Earth. The District 6 tributes were brushed off for the most part, both receiving twos as their training scores. They both were muscular from working manufacturing cars and so they were most skilled with the 'brute force' weapons like batons and crowbars. The District 7 tributes were, as usual, most skilled with the axe and hatchet because of all the experience they'd had with them from their lives in the lumber district. As for the District 8 tributes, it was later revealed that the reaping was rigged against them since they were the children of prominent rebels from the rebellion eleven years prior. Why the Capitol only bothered to do this for District 8, we may never know. Nothing much was notable about the tributes from districts nine thru twelve, and the Capitol mostly shrugged them off and assumed they had no chance of being the sole survivor. As for the training scores, there was a moderate amount of variation among them. Two tens, two nines, one eight, four sixes, six fives, two fours, three threes, three twos, and one one were scored. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Clio Racugno, 17, (10) 8-1 and Roxie Stancil, 17, (9) 9-1

District 2: Venice Linder, 16, (8) 13-1 and Xenia Cone, 18, (10) 6-1

District 3: Lumen Kiselev, 17, (4) 35-1 and Vizio Montoya, 18, (5) 33-1

District 4: Shayne Dorman, 17, (9) 9-1 and Mags Flanagan, 16, (6) 17-1

District 5: Mecha Sibonga, 15, (3) 32-1 and Nicola Harmel, 18, (5) 24-1

District 6: Werner Gallagher, 16, (2) 39-1 and Chara Westmoreland, 13, (2) 70-1

District 7: Caspum Withers, 17, (6) 16-1 and Alcove Zinberg, 17, (4) 31-1

District 8: Lucio Molina, 18, (3) 37-1 and Kelsi Guest, 12, (1) 124-1

District 9: Adell Staufer, 18, (5) 34-1 and Sybil Scarborough, 18, (6) 32-1

District 10: Suk Chisolm, 14, (3) 77-1 and Rufina Centeno, 16, (6) 25-1

District 11: Robbie Stamper, 18, (5) 33-1 and Izola Bustamante, 15, (2) 70-1

District 12: Waltraud Neely, 16, (5) 28-1 and Shantell Sumner, 16, (5) 28-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The tributes inhaled deeply through their noses to take in the fresh sea air, soothed by the sound of gentle waves lapping against the shore of the peaceful island on which the magnificent silver cornucopia sat. The cries of seagulls filled the air. The tributes were shaken back into reality when the countdown began, flashing numbers counting down. They dared not step off of their pedestals before the countdown reached zero, less their face be the first in the sky that night.

The gong played its familiar note in the distance, and the tributes were off, barreling over the grassy landscape towards the shimmering cornucopia. The first to reach the cornucopia and grab a weapon was Xenia. Picking up a pair of twin curved swords off of the ground, she slashed open the chest of a boy who was running in her direction, his organs exposed and tumbling out of his body as he fell to the ground in death.

 _Mecha Sibonga, District 5 Male: 24th, Killed by Xenia, Bloodbath_

By this point, Xenia had been joined by her allies, who all had their own weapons and were prepared to get their hands dirty. The next kill occurred when Clio's knife entered the back of a helpless girl who was zigzagging to avoid attacks as she stormed towards the mouth of the horn. Her death was quick after the blade pierced her heart.

 _Kelsi Guest, District 8 Female: 23rd, Killed by Clio, Bloodbath_

It took some tributes longer than others to realize that the cornucopia had no food of any kind. In vain, they tore open backpacks and threw open crates and scrambled through the endless bounty of supplies. They did not find even a single crumb. Most of the tributes usually went to the cornucopia for food, water, and other necessities, not weapons. So, many of them were in trouble as they had no idea what to do. The careers took advantage of this moment of confusion and panic by going in for as many kills as possible. The arrow from Shayne's harpoon sent a girl to the ground with a thump when it entered her spine.

 _Izola Bustamante, District 11 Female: 22nd, Killed by Shayne, Bloodbath_

Less than three seconds after Izola's death, Roxie's throwing knives entered the chest of a panicked and confused boy and killed him almost instantly.

 _Suk Chisolm, District 10 Male: 21st, Killed by Roxie, Bloodbath_

Xenia, the tribute with the highest odds of winning, went in for her second kill by slashing one of her swords into the tender flesh in the side of a tribute's hip. It took a few more blows to actually kill the girl, but it was easy enough for her.

 _Vizio Montoya, District 3 Female: 20th, Killed by Xenia, Bloodbath_

Venice picked up a bow and arrow off of the ground, and the string made a shallow sound as he pulled it back and closed one eye. He released the arrow, and it sank into the back of a boy who everyone knew wouldn't survive for very long anyways.

 _Lucio Molina, District 8 Male: 19th, Killed by Venice, Bloodbath_

The force of Shayne's harpoon killed two more tributes. The first occurred when the tip of the projectile entered a tribute's hip, sending blood exploding from the wound as she fell to the ground with a thump. The second kill happened when the projectile entered a girl's neck, causing blood to pool up in her lungs and killing her from asphyxia.

 _Chara Westmoreland, District 6 Female: 18th, Killed by Shayne, Bloodbath_

 _Shantell Sumner, District 12 Female: 17th, Killed by Shayne, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Roxie had made one more kill with her throwing knives, the tip of one sinking into the back of a boy's neck causing the blood flow to his brain to cease.

 _Caspum Withers, District 7 Male: 16th, Killed by Roxie, Bloodbath_

Rufina, the District 10 girl who nobody expected to make any kills at all, picked up a blowgun from the cornucopia and crouched down behind a crate, planning to sneak out and ambush any weary tribute that entered. She only made one kill in this fashion. A girl wandered into the cornucopia that she hit in the back of the head with the projectile of her blowgun, sending her unconscious. She never woke up because of the dent in her skull and brain.

 _Sybil Scarborough, District 9 Female: 15th, Killed by Rufina, Bloodbath_

However, clever Clio spotted Rufina in the cornucopia, in a position where she would have nowhere to run if the entrance to the cornucopia was blocked. Clio pounced upon Rufina, stabbing her through the eye with his knife and killing her.

 _Rufina Centeno, District 10 Female: 14th, Killed by Clio, Bloodbath_

At this, the cornucopia was almost completely empty. In fact, only the group of six careers remained around the cornucopia. They then went through their routine check of the cornucopia for any tributes hiding somewhere. Rather surprisingly, when Xenia threw open a crate she found a helpless boy shivering inside. His screams were cut short when Xenia's sword sliced his torso open and he bled to death.

 _Waltraud Neely, District 12 Male: 13th, Killed by Xenia, Bloodbath_

The bloodbath was officially over, and twelve cannons rang through the arena equating to the ten lives that were claimed in the bloodbath.

The sun set on Day 1. The six careers had set up a cozy little camp inside of the cornucopia to sleep in. The other tributes had taken many different approaches to staying hidden during the night. The District 5 female, District 6 male, and District 11 male, for example, all went off in boats and slept out in the open sea where no tribute could easily get to them. A number of other tributes hung out in trees for the night. One rather unintelligent boy dug himself a little hole in the sand of the beach that he crawled into. He then buried himself with sand, concealing himself from the outside world. He formed an air space around his mouth with his hands so that he wouldn't choke on the sand. However, around two in the morning on Day 2, he moved his hands away from his mouth in his sleep and sand flooded in. He instantly woke up, but the lack of oxygen to his brain made him confused as to what was going on. He suffocated on the sand five minutes later, and his cannon startled the other tributes awake.

 _Lumen Kisalev, District 3 Male: 12th, Suffocation, Day 2_

The evening of Day 2, the gamemakers sent a pack of poisonous viper snakes chasing after a tribute. He barreled across the arena away from them for hours, and eventually tried to climb a tree to escape them. However, the snakes climbed up after him and then there was nowhere for him to run. He closed his eyes as the snakes consumed him, biting into his limbs and they sucked him down to the ground.

 _Werner Gallagher, District 6 Male: 11th, Venomous Viper Muttations, Day 2_

Day 3 passed, deathless. Day 4 saw two dehydration deaths.

 _Robbie Stamper, District 11 Male: 10th, Dehydration, Day 4_

 _Alcove Zinberg, District 11 Female: 9th, Dehydration, Day 4_

It was the night of Day 5 when a certain Mags Flanagan woke up in the middle of the night, the other careers asnooze around her. You see, Mags realized that she was the weakest of the careers. In turn, she realized that as the number of remaining tributes dwindled, the others would eliminate her in order to make the games more interesting and to get to the real fun. So, in a wise choice that really was best for her survival, she scampered away from the cornucopia, abandoning her allies and sailing away towards a distant island. There she relied on her resourcefulness. She lived off of nuts from the trees and fishing from the ocean. The other careers assumed she was dead when they woke up the next morning and found her missing.

The night of Day 6, the careers prowled through the arena and hunted down a boy who was hiding behind a wall of rocks in an island towards the edge of the arena. He died soon after Roxie's throwing knives entered his neck.

 _Adell Staufer, District 9 Male: 8th, Killed by Roxie, Day 6_

Little did the careers know that Nicola, the clever District 5 girl, had fashioned herself a bow and arrow from some animal guts and wood from one of the trees on the island she was on. She hid in a tree and watched as the careers sailed by in a boat. Nicola nocked an arrow in her bow and released it. It landed in the side of Venice's neck, killing him after a spray of blood exploded from the site of the impact. Then, before the others could find her location, Nicola nocked a second arrow in her bow and released it. This one missed completely and landed in the ocean with a splash.

 _Venice Linder, District 2 Male: 7th, Killed by Nicola, Day 7_

The instant that Roxie spotted Nicola's location, crouched in a tree, she chucked one of her throwing knives in the air. Despite Nicola's split-second attempt to dodge the blade, it landed in her face as the fell from the tree onto the sand below, bleeding to death about an hour later.

 _Nicola Harmel, District 5 Female: 6th, Killed by Roxie, Day 7_

The gamemakers knew that it was time to drive the final tributes inward for the finale. And so the tsunami began. It started as a slight wave far beyond the outermost islands, and then grew in size into a full blown tsunami, hundreds of yards tall as it barreled through the arena, toppling trees like dominoes and submerging the arena. The sea had also drained completely, meaning that the tributes were forced to run across the now exposed sea floor towards the cornucopia. Of the five remaining tributes, only four made it safely to the top of the horn of plenty, the icy vortex of water crashing in beneath them.

 _Shayne Dorman, District 4 Male: 5th, The Tsunami, Day 8_

Atop the creaking cornucopia stood the four remaining tributes, the four lucky ones who had survived long enough into the games to take part in the final battle that would determine the victor. Clio, Roxie, Xenia, and Mags all stood atop the cornucopia. Clio held his knife. Roxie brandished her set of throwing knives. Xenia held her set of twin curved blades. Mags held a blowgun she had hurriedly retrieved the cornucopia before climbing on top of it.

And so the final battle of the eleventh Hunger Games began. First, Clio lunged at Roxie, knocking her backwards into the swirling vortex below. Why Clio's first choice for a kill was his very own district partner is still a mystery to this day, but the most common theory is that he believed Roxie's weapons were the weakest or that she was the least skilled.

 _Roxie Stancil, District 1 Female: 4th, Killed by Clio, Day 8_

In a move that surprised and shocked Mags, Xenia ripped the blowgun out of Mags' hands and stole it, aiming it towards Clio's head. She released the trigger. However, Xenia did not know how to properly use a blowgun and so the force of the ejection threw her body weight backwards into the vortex of freezing water below, taking the blowgun with her. The projectile lodged itself into Clio's head, but did not kill him immediately.

 _Xenia Cone, District 2 Female: 3rd, Accidental Suicide, Day 8_

The final battle of the eleventh Hunger Games was between Clio Racugno of District 1 and Mags Flanagan of District 4. Mags was completely void of injury, while Clio lay on the floor, thrashing in pain as the force of the blowgun projectile in his skull was slowly killing him. Mags could see that Clio was in extreme pain.

In a surprising move that would be remembered for generations to come, Mags ripped out a loose board from the roof of the cornucopia, walking over to an agonized Clio who was in more pain than Mags could imagine. Both Clio and the audience all around the country had figured out what was going to happen next.

Mags had to put Clio out of his suffering. She knew she did. She lifted the board high above her head as Clio let out a muffled, but certain, 'please'.

"I'm so sorry, Clio," Mags said.

She brought down the board with all of the strength she could muster up.

Mags did not see the actual moment of the killing. She was too horrified to watch and had closed her eyes.

 _Clio Racugno, District 1 Male: 2nd, Killed by Mags, Day 8_

"Mags Flanagan of District 4, you are the victor of the eleventh annual Hunger Games!" Sigden roared into the arena as the trumpets played their familiar melody in the distance.

Mags just smiled a bittersweet smile, throwing the board that had ended Clio's life into the freezing vortex and climbing into the hovercraft that would carry her to the fame that would soon envelop her life.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The Capitol adored Mags, and her move of kindly and swiftly ending her opponent's life in the finale would not be forgotten for generations to come. The Capitol, and indeed, the whole nation, couldn't help but love Mags' kind and gentle personality.

Mags' victory tour went extremely well, and even District 1 couldn't get mad, given how kindly she had ended their beloved Clio's life.

Mags moved into the Victor's Village of District 4, in the house right next to Molly's.

Mags would live to the utterly miraculous age of one-hundred and twenty two, preserved by advanced Capitol medication that would keep her alive until the time of the one-hundred and seventeenth annual Hunger Games. Just before her death, she held the record for the eighth oldest person in Panem. At age seventy-three she would suffer a stroke that would render her completely mute, and she would start to show symptoms of epilepsy at age ninety. She would even be clinically dead from a seizure for two minutes at age one-hundred and eighteen, but would be jumpstarted by advanced Capitol machines that kept her alive for four years after that. In her lifetime, she would never marry and never reproduce but would adopt twelve children, each of which she would nurture into healthy, gracious and faithful adults.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Mags moves into the Victor's Village of District 4, the second victor to do so.

Molly Toliday, the victor of the third Hunger Games, engages her boyfriend Tom. They will get married two years later.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: Here is wonderful Mags, quite possibly my favorite victor of all. She's just so sweet and kind that I had to give her a happy ending in this story. Anyways, I hope I was able to do her justice. How do you think I did on this chapter? If you would like to, please review this chapter. What are your thoughts on Mags, and of how I portrayed her? I would love to hear them! Stay tuned for more updates. Only two more chapters until we see our next canon victor, Woof!**


	13. The 12th Hunger Games

**The 12th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Things were not going well in Panem by the time the twelfth annual Hunger Games rolled around. The cruel and tyrannical President Grazyna Koehler, who had been inaugurated just over a year prior, was stripped of his title as president of Panem when he was discovered to have engaged in the robbery of twelve homes in which a total of almost one-hundred thousand dollars-worth of items were stolen, as well as having attempted the murder of a political opponent. As a result, he was tried for treason and sentenced to lifetime in jail without chance of parole. Hurriedly, an election was thrown together and the people of the Capitol elected a thirty-nine year old woman by the name of Lizeth Dyson to lead their country in Grazyna's place. Lizeth promised to create jobs for unemployed Capitol citizens and to increase minimum wage throughout the districts. She even promised to set up a panel of highly intelligent and qualified individuals from all areas of the Capitol to vote on new rules to affect the nation. Perhaps allured by the possibility of Panem being a representative democracy, Lizeth won the popular vote for president of the nation. She did not cancel the Hunger Games, no. She knew that the political and social backlash would be so strong that she would be forced to step down from her podium as President. President Dyson decided to fire the previous Head Gamemaker, Sigden Roman, in favor of allowing Capitolites to vote upon who they wanted the next head gamemaker to be. Theresia Cloud, a woman in her fifth decade, was chosen by the Capitol to be the next person that would lead the games. She threw together a team of the most clever and innovative individuals from the Capitol to work on a splendid new arena for the games. The arena for the twelfth annual Hunger Games was a castle. The first floor, in which the cornucopia was nestled in the corner of a huge space lit by candlelight, was huge, sprawling across an area of almost two square miles. It was filled with ballrooms and game rooms and a magnificent library. The dungeon was accessible from every room on the first story, and many tributes would use it for quick transportation from any area of the arena to any other. The second thru ninth floors were not unlike the first, and the tenth floor was a magnificent penthouse, with stained glass windows and a magnificent view of the rest of the arena. Surrounding the castle was a bubbling pool of molten lava, which would keep the tributes inside of the castle. The career pack of the games decided to take a different approach than was customary; they split into two groups of three. The first group consisted of the District 1 male, the District 2 female, and the District 4 male. The District 1 boy was your typical all-in-it-for-the-fame career, while his counterpart from District 4 was much more laid back and took a more casual approach to the games, hoping to wait around at the cornucopia and fend off attackers. The District 2 girl much preferred offense, hoping to comb through the arena and track down any weary tributes that happened to be near her. She, along with the District 1 boy, preferred the knife as their weapon-of choice. The District 4 boy was much more skilled with use of the bow and arrow, justifying that it was easy to use and was very long range. The other half of the career pack consisted of the District 1 girl, the District 2 boy, and the District 4 girl. The female from District 1 preferred the brute force weapons like the club and mace because of her muscular build and her strength. The District 1 girl also came from a fabulously rich family and was given the name 'Sparkle' but hated it and went by the nickname 'Spark' instead. The girl from District 4 was the stereotypical tribute from the fishing district: most skilled with the trident and harpoon. The District 2 boy, however, really stole the show. Scoring a ten—the highest score of the games—in training and wowing the audience with his strength, determination, and cleverness, he received the most praise from the audience. He was most skilled with the knife and baton. There was, for the first time in, well, ever, an alliance outside of the career districts. The District 11 pair and the District 10 boy all allied up before the games began, believing they would go well together with their combined skills and talents. Their diverse skill sets made this a legit possibility. For instance, all three were skilled at wilderness survival, while the boy from 11 was skilled with the scythe and his district partner was impeccable with the knife. The District 10 boy also was a great fire starter, being able to start a fire in less than ten minutes with literally anything on hand. The trio intrigued the audience, and much of their attention was on them. As for the training scores, they were surprisingly low this year. One ten, two eights, three sevens, two sixes, six fives, three fours, four threes, and three twos were scored. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Geri Burris, 18, (8) 13-1 and Sparkle Lynx, 17, (7) 16-1

District 2: Slate Ogston, 18, (10) 4-1 and Melita Lyle, 16, (7) 18-1

District 3: Huxley Finn, 17, (4) 42-1 and Pexey Zageiski, 18, (5) 39-1

District 4: Grahm Horvath, 16, (7) 19-1 and Marena Lescohier, 17, (8) 14-1

District 5: Zayden Cotter, 18, (4) 41-1 and Raelyn Tesla, 15, (2) 75-1

District 6: Maxx Sit, 16, (3) 50-1 and Rena Boraw, 18, (4) 37-1

District 7: Efrain Lafferty, 14, (3) 80-1 and Samantha Vaught, 17, (5) 30-1

District 8: Natisha Falk, 18, (5) 34-1 and Carolyn Allman, 12, (2) 92-1

District 9: Ward Foret, 16, (5) 31-1 and Alia Regan, 18, (3) 25-1

District 10: Osvaldo Mackie, 18, (6) 19-1 and Shenita Pitts, 17, (5) 20-1

District 11: September Swisher, 18, (6) 19-1 and Lisabeth Neill, 18, (5) 24-1

District 12: Zane Irby, 13, (2) 79-1 and Racheal Egan, 15, (3) 62-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The tributes arose into the great hall of the castle that was the arena, and were at first confused as to how dark and cold it was. Many of the tributes thought they were in a dungeon. A few thought they were in a rocky landscape at night because of how they couldn't see the ceiling. The only thing that was clear for all to see was the cornucopia, which was lit by a series of magnificent crystal chandeliers masquerading from the rocky ceiling.

The flashing numbers above the bounty of supplies reached zero, and the tributes all leapt off of their pedestals and bounded over the cold and rocky landscape, the sound of their heavy footsteps echoing through the huge space like gunfire. The first to reach the cornucopia were Sparkle and Slate, who had teamed up in a semi-group and decided to stay together during the bloodbath and hunt down kills together, believing that they would be more effective as a group than they would be individually.

As soon as the duo saw a boy attempting to worm by them, they picked up the first weapons they laid their eyes on and went in for the kill like a pack of raptors. Slate picked up a spear off of the ground and hurled it twenty yards before it sank into the boy's back and sent him to the ground with a hollow thump. Sparkle finished the job by smacking him in the back of the head with a long, heavy metal club.

 _Efrain Lafferty, District 7 Male: 24th, Killed by Slate and Sparkle, Bloodbath_

Marena had now reached the cornucopia and was scanning her eyes over the supplies in search of a weapon she was skilled with. She saw movement in the corner of her eye and whipped her head around, catching a brief glimpse of a girl running past her. Marena was on her like a hound, picking up a belt of throwing knives off of a table and hurling one of them into the girl's back.

 _Rena Boraw, District 6 Female: 23rd: Killed by Marena, Bloodbath_

The trio of September, Lisabeth, and Osvaldo whom had teamed up and formed an alliance before the games began, were all more or less sticking together as they rummaged through the supplies with hopes of finding something of use in the difficult days to come. When September saw a girl fall to the ground to take inventory of a backpack's contents, he realized that she was directly under one of the magnificent chandeliers. September picked up a crossbow that lie on the ground near him and shot it at the chain holding the chandelier to the ceiling. In a spectacular display of reflected light leaping and dancing across the room, the huge thing landed on top of the poor girl, the fires from the candles scorching her flesh and the jewels impaling her skin.

 _Racheal Egan, District 12 Female: 22nd, Killed by September, Bloodbath_

The instant Geri laid his hands upon his favorite weapon, he was eager to test it. Wielding the sword in his hands, he ran over to a boy in a relatively prone position and slashed him in the side of the torso, sending a spray of blood out of the wood into Geri's face. Repulsed by the sticky spray, he stepped away and left the boy to die.

 _Zayden Cotter, District 5 Male: 21st, Killed by Geri, Bloodbath_

Eager to prove their worth and make their second kill, the duo of Slate and Sparkle pounced upon a helpless girl who had received the lowest odds of winning out of all of the tributes. The force of Sparkle's club smashing into the back of her head was enough to knock her unconscious and send two of her teeth flying out of her mouth, and it only took a few more blows to the head before the poor girl passed away.

 _Carolyn Allman, District 8 Female: 20th, Killed by Sparkle, Bloodbath_

Realizing its potential to make a number of extremely entertaining kills, Melita picked up an electric Taser off of the ground and smashed into the side of a boy that was near her. Melita pulled the trigger. Instantly, the boy's hair stood up on end as his body produced a humming sound, a huge wave of electricity pulsing back and forth through his body. It was enough to stop his heart and kill him within seconds.

 _Huxley Finn, District 3 Female: 19th, Killed by Melita, Bloodbath_

However, Melita's jubilation was short lived. Unbeknownst to her, Osvaldo stood about ten yards behind her, wielding a blowgun filled with darts. Pulling the trigger, Osvaldo sent one of the darts sinking into Melita's back with immense force, sending her to the ground thrashing and screaming in pain. Osvaldo fired a second dart, and Melita's life was ended when it impaled her heart.

 _Melita Lyle, District 2 Female: 18th, Killed by Osvaldo, Bloodbath_

Ward, believing that killing as much as possible would be a good strategy to increase his odds of winning, picked up a long, serrated dagger and prowled towards Maxx, whose back was turned and so he was unaware of Ward's presence. However, when Ward was just behind Maxx and ready to kill him, Maxx saw his shadow and, panicked, turned around and punched him in the face with his fist, sending him reeling to the ground. Maxx then walked away, and Grahm stumbled upon his body, finishing the job Maxx had started a few minutes prior and shooting him in the heart with his harpoon.

 _Ward Foret, District 9 Male: 17th, Killed by Maxx and Grahm, Bloodbath_

Now came the time when most of the outlying district tributes had scrambled away with whatever they had on them and the all-too-familiar eerie silence filled the space around the cornucopia. Only one more kill was made, and it occurred when the duo of Slate and Sparkle stumbled upon a boy crouching down behind a crate in the cornucopia hoping to wait out the bloodbath. One blow in the neck from Slate's knife was enough to kill him.

 _Natisha Falk, District 8 Male: 16th, Killed by Slate, Bloodbath_

Nine deaths had occurred in the bloodbath, not nearly as large as the twelve or thirteen in the past few games but still enough to enthrall the Capitol audience. The careers remaining at the cornucopia all met under the light of one of the only chandelier's still intact, dealing out portions of the arena to survey and assigning different weapons and such. For then, however, half of them began organizing the supplies while the other half was tasked with the unpleasant job of rounding up the nine corpses and piling them in the corner of the room, enjoying the fact while they could that they didn't smell.

The five remaining careers all settled down in the dimly lit cornucopia for the night, setting up an array of sleeping bags to sleep in. They all decided to take one hour shifts keeping watch over the supplies and making sure none of the other tributes got any ideas.

The trio of Osvaldo, September, and Lisabeth all settled down on floor five of the castle, lying down to sleep in the armory behind a pile of scrap metal that would shield them from sight. They chose this area because it was on the middle floor and so would be quick and easy to reach from any other part of the arena.

Zane, Alia, Samantha, Shenita, Maxx, Raelynn, and Pexey all took different approaches to the night. Zane hid inside of a long, black crate, while Alia and Samantha headed to the cellar because of its utter and complete darkness. Shenita kept to the first floor, believing that the heat from the bubbling lava around the castle would be enough to keep her warm for the night. Maxx, Raelynn, and Pexey all settled for the very top floor, believing that they would be the hardest to get to. Each one of the trio were unaware of the presence of the other two or that they were hiding together.

The morning of Day 2, the careers got up early and rounded up the supplies they needed to go about their daily killing spree. The team of Sparkle, Slate, and Marena all agreed to scavenge the top five floors of the castle, believing that the most tributes would go there in search of its security and distance from the careers. Geri and Grahm, on the other hand, searched the bottom five floors and the basement of the castle.

Day 2 came and gone, deathless. The careers were very frustrated as to how their efforts to hunt down the remaining tributes were fruitless, but they persevered. Finally, at around two o'clock in the afternoon on Day 3, they struck lucky. The duo of Geri and Grahm were prowling through the first floor of the castle when they heard the sound of a shuffling body. Wielding their weapons, they darted over behind a black box and saw a girl crouched down behind it, completely still. She screamed when she saw the two boys. She tried to get up onto her feet and run away, but it was no use. A few slashes from Geri's sword into the side of her torso was enough to send her vital organs tumbling out of her body as she died a horribly painful death.

 _Shenita Pitts, District 10 Female: 15th, Killed by Geri, Day 3_

A second kill was made on Day 3 when the trio of Sparkle, Slate, and Marena stumbled upon a boy scrunched up into a ball on the top floor of the castle. Marena stabbed him in the neck with one of her knives, causing him to scream in agony as blood spouted from the wound. Then, as if in unison, Slate brought down his knife his neck and Sparkle smashed him in the head with her club. The boy was knocked unconscious almost immediately after Sparkle's blow to his head, and he felt no pain at all after that.

 _Zane Irby, District 12 Male: 14th, Killed by Marena, Slate, and Sparkle, Day 3_

Day 4 passed completely void of conflict among the eleven remaining tributes. However, tensions were high in the Capitol when Geri and Grahm walked directly by the trio of September, Lisabeth and Osvaldo without seeing or hearing them. A moment of disappointment occurred in the Capitol, and their high expectations were ruined. For some, the games were starting to get boring, which is something the games must never be. They swore they would shake things up a little on Day 5…

…And shake things up they did. They took a few rats from the dungeon and swelled them up to be twice the size of people. The gamemakers sent the rat muttations after the tributes, with only one goal: to kill. The tributes screamed in terror and ran away faster than they ever had in their life. One of the rats even tried to sabotage the cornucopia, forcing the careers to scatter in every which way, dropping everything they were carrying on them in favor of running faster. About two hours after the monsters were unleashed into the arena, one of them pounced upon a terrified girl and mauled her body apart, putting on a bloody show for those in the Capitol. The mutts were content, at least for now. They returned to the dungeon that they came from and shrunk back to normal size.

 _Alia Regan, District 9 Female: 13th, Killed by Rat Muttations, Day 5_

Day 6 came, and the trio of Osvaldo, September, and Lisabeth had a huge problem to worry about. Their bodies were so weak from dehydration that they could barely move, and licking condensation off of the stone walls wasn't a good water source (not for lack of trying). If they could not get water soon, they would die.

The three weary tributes all ran to the cornucopia, taking infinite care to make sure they did not attract the attention of the careers. They picked up a few canteens of water and began chugging them down, a heavenly feeling of relief engulfing their bodies. However, the careers were not stupid enough to leave the cornucopia empty without a guard. At the sight of the three tributes, Slate, whose turn it was to be the guard, had hidden behind a crate in the cornucopia. He hurled three of his throwing knives through the air. One of them sank into Lisabeth's chest and wormed its way into her heart. The second missed completely, and the third one landed squarely in Osvaldo's shoulder, sending him to the ground with a thump. At the death of his allies, September ran for his life. However, Slate was hot on his trail. He chased the boy around and around the castle until he needed to stop for a few seconds, overwhelmed with exhaustion. When that happened, Slate pounced upon the boy, decapitating him with his knife. Slate had eliminated the alliance and had a great story to tell at the meetup that night.

 _Lisabeth Neill, District 11 Female: 12th, Killed by Slate, Day 6_

 _Osvaldo Mackie, District 10 Male: 11th, Killed by Slate, Day 6_

 _September Swisher, District 11 Male: 10th, Killed by Slate, Day 6_

Day 7 passed, completely deathless. On Day 8, however, a tribute was bitten by a rat. Not any rat, mind you, but a genetically modified rat that injected a flow of poison into his bloodstream. Leaping into the air at the pain of the rat biting into his ankle, he swatted it away and squashed it to death. But, he had bigger problems. A deep purple stream was spreading up his leg, and he would die a painful death once it reached his heart. A few hours later, the site of the wound had begun rotting, the skin crumbling away and revealing his inner tissue. His entire leg was green with the poison. There was no way he could survive. He leapt out of the castle onto one of the lower floors, breaking all of his limbs and sending him unconscious, putting him out of his misery.

 _Maxx Sitt, District 6 Male: 9th, Suicide, Day 8_

Days nine thru eleven passed deathless, and the Capitol was beginning to grow bored of the games. Many had flicked off their televisions. The gamemakers wanted to wait for just a few more deaths before driving the final tributes inward for the bloody finale. Two dehydration deaths occurred within a few minutes of each other on Day 12.

 _Raelyn Tesla, District 5 Female: 8th, Dehydration, Day 12_

 _Pexey Zageiski, District 3 Female: 7th, Dehydration, Day 12_

The morning of Day 13, the careers found a girl huddling into a ball, hiding in the top floor of the castle. She had nowhere to run since the careers were blocking the entrance, and so she resorted to jumping out of the window onto the turret of one of the lower floors. However, she completely missed and plunged into the fiery pool of lava surrounding the arena, killing her instantly.

 _Samantha Vaught, District 7 Female: 6th, Lava, Day 13_

Only five tributes remained. They were the five careers: Geri, Sparkle, Slate, Grahm, and Marena. The gamemakers unleashed the rat muttations again, and their job was to drive the careers towards the cornucopia. Only three of the tributes actually made it on top of the cornucopia with their weapons. Two tributes were killed by the huge rats trying to get there.

 _Marena Lescohier, District 4 Female: 5th, Killed by Rat Muttations, Day 14_

 _Geri Burris, District 1 Male: 4th, Killed by Rat Muttations, Day 14_

And so, the final battle of the twelfth annual Hunger Games began. Atop the cornucopia stood Sparkle, Slate, and Grahm. Sparkle held her club, ready to whack any tribute to death with it. Slate wielded his knife, and Grahm held his harpoon.

Grahm made the next move, hurling his harpoon at Sparkle. Sparkle was caught off-guard and the harpoon sank into her chest, causing blood to pool up in her lungs so she couldn't breathe. She suffocated to death three minutes after.

 _Sparkle Lynx, District 1 Female: 3rd, Killed by Grahm, Day 14_

The final battle of the twelfth Hunger Games was between Slate Ogston of District 2 and Grahm Horvath of District 4. A long and brutal fight then began. First, Slate dove towards Grahm and attempted to stab him the shoulder, but Grahm dodged the blow. Then, Grahm retaliated by hurling his harpoon through the air, landing in Slate's shoulder but not fazing him much.

Thirty long and painful minutes later, Slate had Grahm just where he wanted him. Slate walked towards Grahm, forcing him to walk backward, toward the edge of the cornucopia. He was running out of room very quickly. Then, a distracted Grahm tripped on Sparkle's corpse and despite his desperate attempt to catch hold of the edge of the horn he fell into the crown of huge rats below. They tore apart his body until he was just a splatter on the cold stone ground.

 _Grahm Horvath, District 4 Male: 2nd, Killed by Slate and Rat Muttations, Day 14_

"Slate Ogston of District 2, you are the victor of the twelfth annual Hunger Games!" Theresia roared into the arena as a hovercraft appeared to collect the boy.

Slate dropped his weapons and threw his hands into the air, whooping proudly to celebrate his victory.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

Slate was well-liked by most of Panem, and the Capitol loved his confident and certain personality. He would mentor many, many tributes in his lifetime, several of which would go on to become victors themselves.

Slate's victory tour was rather average, with District 4 giving him the cold shoulder for 'stealing' their victor.

He moved into the Victor's Village of District 2, in the house to the right of Olivia's.

Slate would attain to the age of seventy-five, dying from an asthma attack around the time of the sixty-ninth annual Hunger Games. In his lifetime, he would marry twice, once at age twenty-nine and once at age thirty-six. He would never reproduce himself but would adopt a son with his second wife.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Slate moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, the third victor to do so. Upon his victory, District 1 and District 2 are tied for total number of victors. A tight race then begins between the two powerhouse districts to gain the most victors.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Slate, the third victor from the district of Masonry. Now there's going to be a tight race between the three career districts on which can get the most victors! If you would like to, please review this chapter. What are your thoughts on Slate, and on how well I did writing this chapter? I would love to hear them! Next chapter we get our next canon victor, Woof!**


	14. The 13th Hunger Games

**The 13th Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

President Lizeth Dyson was well-liked by much of the nation she lead at the time the thirteenth annual Hunger Games rolled around. She had done many of the things she promised to do if she won. For instance, she had increased the minimum wage in the Capitol by fifty cents and allowed various sectors of the Capitol to vote on a group of representatives, whom would represent them in elections on new rules to affect them in the future. It was the most that Panem would resemble a democracy for many, many years. And Lizeth was praised for her ability to see beyond her personal needs and do what truly was best for the country. She was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most liked president in the history of the nation. The nation couldn't help but adore her sense of humor as well as her slew of positive character traits that previous presidents lacked. She had even promised to resign after ten years and give someone else a turn to lead the nation. She allowed the previous Head Gamemaker, Theresia Cloud, to remain in her position and lead the games once more. Theresia met up with her trusted team of gamemakers whom had made the games a hit the year prior and sketched out an arena for the games to play out inside of. On odd-numbered days, such as Day 1, Day 3, Day 5, Day 7, and so on, the arena would teem with life, a cool and agreeable temperature. It would be a marvelous forest, filled with plants and animals so beautiful the tributes couldn't help but admire them. Swift rivers filled with crystal clear water would scissor across the landscape, and the birds would sing their melodies across the azure blue sky dotted with clouds. However, on even numbered days, such as Day 2, Day 4, Day 6, Day 8, and so on, the arena would be the polar opposite. It would be a desolate landscape, with the yellow grass so crumbly it cracked under the tribute's feet. The sky would be thick and polluted with hazy gray smoke, and the skeletal trees would be completely dead, like the hands of skeletons reaching up out of the ground. The roar of thunder and the flash of lightning would fill the arena. The temperature would skyrocket to one-hundred degrees, and the crystal clear rivers would turn to greenish-brown sludge that was completely poisonous. But, at midnight, the arena would switch directly back to the prosperous, healthy forest that it had been the day before, leaving no trace of the forsaken wasteland it had been the moment prior. It was a crowning moment in Panem's technological advancement, and was achieved using newly-invented nanotechnology that would break down the landscape into individual atoms and then rearrange them into the new arena. The career pack the year of the thirteenth Hunger Games was exceptionally strong, and consisted of all six tributes from Districts 1, 2, and 4. The District 1 male was your typical all-in-it-for-the-fame career, and the ten he scored in training spoke for itself; he was proficient if not impeccable with most any weapon you handed to him. The District 1 female much more focused on a few select weapons; mainly the knife, bow, and club. But, her impressive score of 9 really went to show how well her strategy worked. The District 2 male, more skilled with the 'brute force' weapons that tapped into physical strength—such as the club, mace, and baton—attracted the attention of many sponsors via his looks and his skill in weaponry. The District 2 female was noticeably the weakest member of the career pack, but the others let her into the alliance always to make their alliance look bigger, which in turn would make it look more powerful. The District 4 male was, as is common for District 4 tributes, most skilled with the harpoon and trident, scoring an impressive 9 in training via a combination of his cleverness and his talent with his two signature weapons. His district partner scored an impressive ten via showing the gamemakers her skills with the throwing knives as well as the axe. The highest training score outside of the career districts was earned by the District 7 boy, who used his edgy demeanor and skills with an axe and hatchet to score an impressive ten, something never before achieved outside of the career districts. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers. It was the boy from District 11 who volunteered to save his disabled twelve-year-old brother. The training scores were remarkably high, with four tens being scored, more than any of the twelve games prior. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Platinum Farver, 18, (10) 9-1 and Jewel Amaral, 17, (9) 13-1

District 2: Monroe Thomson, 17, (10) 10-1 and Laurette Jaramillo, 18, (8) 12-1

District 3: Sparyk Petaev, 16, (4) 27-1 and Vanna Chirban, 17, (5) 24-1

District 4: Sawyer Furey, 18, (9) 11-1 and Hilda Cowen, 18, (10) 9-1

District 5: Koltyne Morrison, 15, (3) 43-1 and Vida Demeke, 18, (6) 23-1

District 6: Enid Gagnon, 16, (5) 29-1 and Renata Qualls, 18, (4) 28-1

District 7: Carlos Nettles, 17, (10) 10-1 and Merideth Becnel, 14, (6) 19-1

District 8: Woof Dozier, 15, (4) 42-1 and Deloise Thorton, 18, (5) 29-1

District 9: Barrie Matson, 17, (4) 29-1 and Odelia True, 12, (2) 97-1

District 10: Hedwig Hedges, 13, (3) 74-1 and Minerva Halsey, 14, (3) 59-1

District 11: Glennis Garvey, 18, (7) 18-1 and Valerie Jaeger, 17, (4) 36-1

District 12: Wilber Varela, 16, (4) 38-1 and Elsa Giardano, 16, (5) 33-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The thirteenth annual Hunger Games began with an exhilarating and eventful start; the bloodbath of the games would claim the lives of fourteen tributes, two of which were careers. It was one of the most kills in a bloodbath ever, and made the Capitol course with excitement.

The gong played its familiar note through the distance as the tributes raced towards the cornucopia, throwing open crates and tearing open backpacks in an attempt to gather up as many supplies as they could. The field in front of the cornucopia was mainly filled with survival materials such as food and water, and more obscure but still useful things like rope. The inside of the cornucopia, on the other hand, was where the real fun was; it was filled with every type of weapon one could imagine, and the careers stormed towards the bounty of dangerous weapons, pulling out their favorites and going in for the kill.

The first death occurred when Monroe spotted a boy trying to worm his way past him towards a backpack that was right behind him. Monroe whipped his head around and planted his sickle into the boy's right side, sending a spray of blood exploding from the wound as he fell to the ground with a hollow thump. The force of the slash had cut open or destroyed most of his essential organs, and he died soon after.

 _Enid Gangon, District 6 Male: 24th, Killed by Monroe, Bloodbath_

But, Monroe would not be content with just one kill. Wielding his bloodstained sickle in his right hand, he raced towards a girl who was in a prone position, down on her knees and taking inventory of the contents of an orange backpack. The girl had no idea that Monroe was right behind her, and he brought down the sickle, letting it sink into the girl's back. Her screams filled the arena for about a minute before she died from blood loss.

 _Deloise Thorton, District 8 Female: 23rd, Killed by Monroe, Bloodbath_

On the other side of the cornucopia, one of Monroe's allies, Jewel, had received a bow and arrow from the cornucopia and closed one eye as she pulled back the bowstring and aimed it at the back of a boy who was running away into the forest carrying a small suitcase with him. The arrow found its home in the boy's back, and his death was quick when the sharp tip of the arrow pierced his heart.

 _Sparyk Pataev, District 3 Male: 22nd, Killed by Jewel, Bloodbath_

Laurette was thirsty to prove herself to the audience and to the other members of her alliance, and so when she saw another girl's shadow dancing at her feet she grabbed a spiked mace off of a nearby table and smacked it into the girl's head, sending her unconscious almost instantly. It only took a few more blows from the mace before the helpless girl passed away.

 _Elsa Giardano, District 12 Female: 21st, Killed by Laurette, Bloodbath_

Platinum's supposed impeccable skill with throwing knives was displayed to the audience when he picked up a heavy belt off of the ground filled with the things and wrapped it around his waist, securing the velcro and pulling it to be snug around his body. Taking one out of the belt and scanning the field for a target, he set his eyes on a girl who was an almost laughably easy target. He brought the knife back to his nose and thrust the blade forward, letting it fly thirty yards through the air before sinking into the girl's back.

 _Minerva Halsey, District 10 Female: 20th, Killed by Platinum, Bloodbath_

It was then and there that the career alliance lost its first member. After Platinum had successfully killed Minerva, he looked around at his allies to see if any of them saw the moment occur. None had, but that was the least of his concerns. About five yards behind him was Carlos, the District 7 boy who had intrigued the audience by scoring a ten in training. He lifted his metal axe into the air and brought it down upon Platinum's head, splitting it in half and killing him instantly when the sharp edge pierced his brain.

 _Platinum Farver, District 1 Male: 19th, Killed by Carlos, Bloodbath_

Two more kills were made in succession when Hilda picked up a harpoon off of the ground. She hurled it through the air and it sank perfectly into a girl's neck, causing her to choke to death.

 _Merideth Becnel, District 7 Female: 18th, Killed by Hilda, Bloodbath_

Hilda pulled back the harpoon via the long rope it was attached to and hurled it through the air once more. It nicked a boy's shoulder but did no harm to him whatsoever. Cursing under her breath, Hilda pulled back the harpoon and tried again. This time, it missed completely, flying past one tribute with a breadth of about a yard. Coursing with frustration, she tried a third time. It failed again. However, on her fourth attempt, she managed to pry open a hole in the back of one boy's neck. Confidence restored, Hilda pulled back the harpoon and went in for another blow, this time at the back of his neck. But, before she could do so, Monroe came along and slashed him across the chest with his sickle, killing him.

 _Hedwig Hedges, District 10 Male: 17th, Killed by Hilda and Monroe, Bloodbath_

Then came what is perhaps among the strangest and most unusual events in the history of the Hunger Games. Monroe slashed the back of a boy's neck open with his curved sickle, sending him to the ground but not doing too much damage. Then, Hilda saw how vulnerable he was and hurled her harpoon into his chest, causing blood to spout from his torso. Not far behind Hilda was Laurette, whose spiked mace sent the boy unconscious. Finally, Jewel finished the job with her bow, firing an arrow into the poor boy's heart. Four tributes had worked together to kill the helpless boy, something that intrigued the audience. However, in the official Capitol list that organized the tributes by number of kills, Jewel was deemed responsible for his death because she delivered the blow that ended his life.

 _Barrie Matson, District 9 Male: 16th, Killed by Monroe, Hilda, Laurette, and Jewel, Bloodbath_

Exhilarated after making her kill a few seconds earlier, Jewel fired an arrow through the air, landing in the side of a tribute's hip and killing him after a few minutes.

 _Glennis Garvey, District 11 Male: 15th, Killed by Jewel, Bloodbath_

Carlos spotted movement out of the corner of his eye and whipped his head around, setting his eyes on a girl who had cleverly attempted to get by him by staying low to the ground. However, observant Carlos spotted her and rammed his axe into her back, splitting it open and causing her painful death soon after.

 _Odelia True, District 9 Female: 14th, Killed by Carlos, Bloodbath_

Next, the career alliance lost its next member. Sawyer, the only member of the alliance that had failed to make a single kill as of then, tripped in a hole as he was running and fell to the ground. His ankle bone stuck out an awkward angle. It was broken. Renata, an outer district tribute, took advantage of his moment of shock and distraction by smashing him in the head with a heavy rock about twelve times. Had that been the end of the story, he may have survived. But it was not. Vida, the District 5 girl who had grabbed an electric taser from the cornucopia, flicked the switch and placed it on the back of Sawyer's neck, sending an explosion of electricity racing through his body and killing him.

 _Sawyer Furey, District 4 Male: 13th, Killed by Renata and Vida, Bloodbath_

Woof must have wanted that taser really badly. Seeing his strategy later in the games, we now know the reason he took it, but at the time the others must have been confused as to what a boy from District 8 would ever need an electric taser for. Woof snuck up behind Vida, taking infinite care to not make a sound, and ripped the weapon out of her hand. Just for good measure, he placed it on the back of her neck, killing her, and raced away from the cornucopia into the forest.

 _Vida Demeke, District 5 Female: 12th, Killed by Woof, Bloodbath_

The final kill of the bloodbath occurred thirty-six minutes and eight seconds after the gong first rang, making the bloodbath of the thirteenth games officially the longest bloodbath yet. It occurred when Laurette stumbled upon a tribute crouched up into a ball behind a box in the corncucopia, hoping to wait it out and come out once the bloodbath was all over. But, her plan was foiled when Laurette's spiked mace smashed into her neck, causing her to choke to death about four minutes later.

 _Vanna Chirban, District 3 Female: 11th, Killed by Laurette, Bloodbath_

Fourteen cannons rang through the arena, equating to fourteen deaths in the bloodbath, one of the most on record. The careers got to the job of gathering the corpses and piling them up behind the cornucopia, a messy business given the fact that many of them were covered with sticky blood. But it was accomplished in about an hour.

The careers had set up a little camp in the cornucopia as was custom, an array of sleeping bags on the ground. The night of Day 1, they did what was common for the careers to do. They always had one member awake to be the watch, and after one hour they would rouse the person whose turn it was to go next and it would be their turn. This strategy worked well because there were no attempts at stealing their supplies that night.

Koltyne spend the entire rest of Day 1 alternating between walking and jogging as far away from the cornucopia as possible. When the sun was about to dip below the horizon, he settled down in a small ditch by the edge of one of the arena's swift rivers, and exhaustion got the best of him. He fell asleep.

Renata, on the other hand, had a different strategy than Koltyne. Renata climbed up to the very top of a sturdy tree with a thick layer of leaves that would shield her from the view of any tribute who walked below her.

Valerie and Wilber both hid in caves, of which there were plenty in the arena. They both had flashlights, after all, and they had managed to snatch up jackets from the cornucopia and so were rather cozy through the night.

And then there was Woof. He picked a tree isolated in the middle of a small clearing in the forest and produced the taser he had stolen from Vida in the bloodbath a few hours before. He turned the machine off and banged it with a rock until it broke upon. Woof pulled out the long, copper wire coiled and looped around inside the taser and used an awl fashioned from a stone to pull out the switch. He wrapped the wire from the electric gun around and around his tree of choice, in loops and circles on the ground. Then, he crept inside the tree—it was hollow—and held the switch in hand, eager to test out his new creation.

Carlos, who had made multiple kills and was a favorite in much of the Capitol, decided to settle down in a cove near the edge of the arena. He backed up into a cave filled with about a foot of water, thinking no tribute would think to look inside for him. He fell asleep and slept soundly. That was—until midnight. As mentioned previously, every day the arena would alternate between a prosperous forest and a desolate wasteland.

At midnight on Day 1, the arena morphed and transformed into the cloudy, stinky, desolate wasteland that was the polar opposite of what it had been just moments before. Carlos was lying down in about half a foot of the water. Or, at least, he was a moment ago. Upon the arena's transformation the crystal clear water turned to poisonous brown sludge that ate away at Carlos' body like spray paint on Styrofoam. He woke up with a jolt at the sharp pain and screamed as he body was fully subjugated by the toxin, being dissolved by the poison. Ten seconds later, no trace of Carlos' existence remained.

 _Carlos Nettles, District 7 Male: 10th, Poisonous Acid, Day 2_

The tributes woke up in fits of shock on the morning of Day 2. The once wonderful forest was now a desolate wasteland, and the luscious green trees were now so bare they looked like the hands of skeletons reaching out from the ground. And a cloud as black as the night was creeping in from the east side of the arena. A storm was coming.

Around noon on Day 2, the vicious storm began. It lasted six long hours, and arms of lightning jumped from the sky, letting out deafening booms as the rain fell down in sheets, slicing into the tribute's skin like needles. Those who did not have adequate shelter were in for a nasty surprise, and a few defenseless tributes could do nothing but squeeze their bodies into tiny balls and hope for the best.

But, the storm passed, and around seven o'clock in the evening on Day 2 the storm clouds cleared and revealed the all too familiar, hazy orange sky before. At midnight on Day 2, the arena morphed back into the prosperous forest it had been but a day before, leaving no trace of the abomination it had been a moment prior.

Day 3 was when Woof struck lucky. He peeked out of the tree he was hiding in via a small hole dug by a parasite. When he saw a girl walking near him, he grasped hold of the switch. Once the girl was standing on top of his wire, he would flick the switch and kill her. It was too easy. She stepped right on the copper wire, and Woof flicked the switch. A faint hum sounded in Woof's ears as the girl's hair stood up on end, her body jerking around and contorting into seemingly impossible poses as the powerful electric current coursed through her body. About twenty seconds later, her cannon rang through the arena and Woof flicked the switch back off. Woof retrieved her body and buried it, knowing that his future victims would be suspicious if they saw a corpse and would move the other way.

 _Valerie Jaeger, District 11 Female: 9th, Killed by Woof, Day 3_

Day 4 passed, deathless. On Day 5, however, the careers struck lucky. They had split up to comb through different sectors of the arena, and while Laurette was prowling through her assigned portion of the arena she heard the faint sound of a whimper, instantly muffled by a clapping sound. Laurette lunged towards the source of the sound and saw a helpless Wilber hiding behind a tree. His death was quick when Laurette's knife entered his heart.

 _Wilber Varela, District 12 Male: 8th, Killed by Laurette, Day 5_

Days 6 thru 9 passed void of any conflict at all among the seven remaining tributes. However, just after noon on Day 10, Renata spotted Jewel walking by her. Renata knew that eliminating Jewel would be a huge step towards her returning victorious to District 6, and so she pulled out the knife she had retrieved from the cornucopia. Taking infinite care to be completely silent, she snuck up behind Jewel. If she made the slightest sound, her life would be over in two seconds. She raised the knife into the air and brought in down, planting it into Jewel's back. She howled in pain, and Renata darted away in fear that Jewel would call for her allies. Jewel died from loss of blood roughly fourteen minutes later.

 _Jewel Amaral, District 1 Female: 7th, Killed by Renata, Day 10_

Renata ran and ran and ran until she could run no more. Very unfortunately for her, that happened when she was just a few dozen yards from Woof's clever electrical trap. She then resorted to walking, and when she stepped on Woof's wire Woof flicked the switch. Her life was ended twelve seconds later when her heart stopped from the force of the current.

 _Renata Qualls, District 6 Female: 6th, Killed by Woof, Day 10_

On Day 11, the careers resolved to hunting down their next kill together. Monroe, Laurette, and Hilda all ventured away from the cornucopia, wielding their weapons. They made wide sweeps up and down the arena, zigzagging in strange patterns in an attempt to find and rat out the remaining outlier tributes. To their displeasure, they found nobody. Then, they reached the sector of the arena housing Woof's trap. Woof let out a cry, feigning extreme pain. He then began screaming, in an attempt to attract the attention of the three careers. When they were all in position, Woof flicked the switch. When Woof flicked the lever back off a few minutes later, the three bodies fell to the ground with three loud thumps. Woof had eliminated the career alliance.

 _Hilda Cowen, District 4 Female: 5th, Killed by Woof, Day 11_

 _Laurette Jaramillo, District 2 Female: 4th, Killed by Woof, Day 11_

 _Monroe Thomson, District 2 Male: 3rd, Killed by Woof, Day 11_

There were only two tributes left. After eleven long days in the arena, only two tributes remained. They were Woof Dozier of District 8 and Koltyne Morrison of District 5. The gamemakers needed their bloody finale, and they couldn't run the risk of one of them dying before the final battle. So, Head Gamemaker Theresia Cloud sent a message into the arena for Woof and Koltyne to hear.

"Congratulations to the final two tributes of the thirteenth annual Hunger Games!" she proclaimed. "In precisely two hours, a fire will be lit on the outside of the arena that will spread so quickly you will have no chance of escape unless you are at the center of the arena, where you will be safe. Remember, you have two hours. It would be very wise to begin your trek to the cornucopia now, so that when the fire starts you will be safe from it. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor."

The boys knew that this was no joke. It was for real. They packed up everything they had with them and began the long trek back to the cornucopia, alternating between running and walking as they moved towards the center. Woof carried with him his wire/lever as well as the knife he had retrieved from the bloodbath. Koltyne destroyed the stick shelter he had lived in since Day 1 just for the fun of it before running back to the cornucopia with the axe he had received during the bloodbath.

True to Theresia's word, as soon as the two boys entered the small clearing that housed the cornucopia, the perimeter of the arena was set ablaze. The fire spread inward at a speed of almost twenty miles per hour, and within ten minutes the entire forest began was being consumed by a raging inferno.

The two boys stood atop the cornucopia, wielding their weapons.

First, Woof lunged at Koltyne in an attempt to stab him in the stomach, but Koltyne dodged at the last second and spun his body in a full circle, coming back around and attempting to slash Woof's shoulder with his axe. Woof retaliated by hurling his knife through the air.

The knife nicked Koltyne's shoulder.

His only weapon flew off of the cornucopia into the fiery ember surrounding it.

Eyes widening in fear, Woof thrust out his hands that were now his only way to shield himself from the ruthless edge of Koltyne's axe.

Suddenly, Woof remembered something. Something important.

His hands reached for his pocket.

When Koltyne was about five yards from Woof and ready to strike, Woof pulled the wire out of his pocket and wrapped it around and around Koltyne's neck. The instant he flicked the switch a low-pitched hum filled his ears. Koltyne let out a short shriek that was cut short when his body began thrashing around, thrusting about and contorting into strange positions. It was only a matter of time before Koltyne died from electrocution, and Woof flicked off the switch the moment that the boom of Koltyne's cannon had fully faded away.

 _Koltyne Morrison, District 5 Male: 2nd, Killed by Woof, Day 11_

"Woof Dozier of District 8, you are the victor of the thirteenth annual Hunger Games!" Theresia exclaimed into the arena.

Woof took the wire that he had used to make a whopping six kills throughout the games and tossed it into the roaring inferno before climbing up into the hovercraft, smiling for the audience whose attention he knew was all focused on him.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

A great portion of those in the Capitol adored by Woof, and his strategy of electrocuting his opponents to death intrigued many people in the audience. Woof later disclosed in an interview that his father's career as a sewing machine repairman led him to teach Woof all about electricity, which is why he was so knowledgeable about it in the arena.

Woof's victory tour was rather decent, for those in the outer districts couldn't really get that mad at him given how swift and painless all of his kills were.

He moved into the previously completely vacant Victor's Village of District 8, the very first victor to do so.

Woof would attain to the age of ninety-three, dying from cardiovascular disease around the time of the ninety-first annual Hunger Games. In his lifetime, he would marry once, to a woman with whom he would father three children.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Woof moves into the Victor's Village of District 8, the very first victor to ever do so.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Woof, our next canon victor. What are your thoughts on how I portrayed him? If you would like, please comment on this chapter. Expect number fourteen very soon!**


	15. The 14th Hunger Games

**The 14th Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Head Gamemaker Theresia Cloud returned for her third year on the job, promising the nation that the next arena would be even more spectacular than those before it. She met up with her trusted team of loyal gamemakers and sketched out an arena for the fourteenth annual Hunger Games to play out in. Theresia's next arena was a post-apocalyptic abandoned city, perhaps greatly inspired by the arena of the second annual Hunger Games. Tall buildings, long abandoned, cast long shadows over the ground, and nature had begun claiming the land back, vines crawling up the buildings and the streets covered with fungus and grass. However, the one thing that differentiated this arena from that of the second were the zombies. Every night at midnight, a swarm of bloodthirsty zombies would be unleashed into the arena to stalk down the tributes and subjugate them completely. The zombies would remain out for as long as it took for them to make at least one kill, after which time they would be satisfied and would be recalled by the gamemakers. It was a crowning moment in Panem's technology, as never before had scientists been able to create bipedal muttations. Theresia was eager to see how the audience would react. Meanwhile, President Lizeth Dyson became engaged to her boyfriend Jed Rider, and they began making plans for their wedding, scheduled for the third day in the month of October the year of the sixteenth annual Hunger Games. Parties ran rampant throughout the Capitol, and the excitement was turned up even further when the time for the Hunger Games arrived and twenty-four youths were sent to the Capitol as tributes in the fourteenth annual Hunger Games. The career pack was six strong, consisting of all six tributes from Districts 1, 2, and 4. The career with the highest odds of winning was the District 2 girl, who scored a ten in training and nine to one odds via showing the gamemakers her skills with the knife, bow, and club, as well as her impeccable showmanship. As for her district partner, the District 2 male was the only other tribute to have scored a ten, not with his cleverness or his wits but because of his extreme raw strength, whacking and bludgeoning and maiming his way to being one of the two tributes in the games to score a ten. The District 1 male was the son of two wealthy merchant parents that did not allow him to begin training for the Hunger Games until age fifteen, meaning he had less experience in battle training and so scored a nine instead of a ten. The District 1 female suffered from epilepsy, occasionally having seizures that would cause her to black out for anywhere between two seconds to two minutes at a time. As such, the gamemakers demoted her to a meager eight in training. The two tributes produced by District 4 were quite the opposite of each other; the male was very adept with the harpoon, trident, and blowgun, and so impressed the audience enough to capture their attention. The real outlier among the careers, however, was the District 4 girl. She wasn't even a career and had never attended the combat academy in her life, volunteering not for the fame and glory of victory but instead to escape her abusive family. Despite her cataclysmic score of six, the careers accepted her into their alliance because of her wilderness survival skills, which they knew could help them to survive the games. The District 7 tributes each showed skills with the axe and hatchet, and their sevens in training really went to show how well they did. They earned the highest scores outside of the career pack. In total, two tens, two nines, two eights, two sevens, one six, four fives, four fours, two threes, four twos, and one one were scored. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Calix Burlew, 18, (9) 10-1 and Lacie Marglin, 17, (8) 14-1

District 2: Blaze Skalnik, 16, (10) 9-1 and Elanora Cantiol, 17, (10) 9-1

District 3: Mardell Gatlin, 17, (5) 25-1 and Cordia Spaulding, 17, (4) 33-1

District 4: Nestor Gulley, 18, (9) 11-1 and Claudine Crum, 15, (6) 19-1

District 5: Michel Eastman, 14, (3) 51-1 and Ellamae Harlan, 16, (5) 37-1

District 6: Aran Lyle, 14, (2) 80-1 and Roxy Kaminski, 17, (3) 32-1

District 7: Jack Brambilla, 17, (7) 19-1 and Corrina Lapointe, 18, (7) 21-1

District 8: Chriss Tagiuri, 18, (4) 35-1 and Camellia Roby, 16, (4) 45-1

District 9: Teddy Fryer, 12, (2) 104-1 and Mickie Hahns, 17, (5) 29-1

District 10: Boyce Marlowe, 16, (5) 24-1 and Ellena Lark, 14, (2) 63-1

District 11: Myriam Rigby, 18, (5) 28-1 and Rosanna Agnew, 17, (4) 34-1

District 12: Blaise Galvin, 16, (2) 80-1 and Leanora Withers, 15, (1) 93-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The tributes rose up into the post-apocalyptic abandoned city, and the countdown began, flashing numbers counting down to zero. The audience could practically see the thoughts racing through the tribute's heads. Did they run to the supplies? Did they dare? Many looked backward at the comforting darkness of the abandoned buildings. Tons of places to hide. Then, they looked back at the supplies. Food. Water. Medicine. Things that could mean the difference between their life and death.

The gong rang through the arena, prompting the tributes to leap off of their pedestals and dart in the direction of their choosing. A few tributes ran away into the city with only their bare hands, but the vast majority chose to loot the bounty of supplies at the cornucopia.

Nestor was the first to reach the supplies, and he picked up a trident off of a metal table in the cornucopia with a bloodcurdling scrape. Looking around for his unlucky first kill, he set his eyes on a girl who was running near him, attempting to shield her face with her hands as she ran towards the cornucopia. Nestor hurled his trident through the air, and it sank into the girl's chest as the bloodbath began in earnest.

 _Ellamae Harlan, District 5 Female: 24th, Killed by Nestor, Bloodbath_

Not far behind Nestor was his ally, muscular and powerful Blaze. Blaze bended over and picked up a long, metal baton that lay in a cluster of mushrooms at his feet. Blaze lifted the baton into the air and smashed it down onto the head of a boy who was attempting to worm his way past him. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell to the ground, and it only took a few more blows to the head before the boy passed away.

 _Teddy Fryer, District 9 Male: 23rd, Killed by Blaze, Bloodbath_

The two kills made so far had been made with weapons. Elanora decided to go with a new strategy that would hopefully make her stand out in the eyes of the observant Capitol sponsors. And so, she ran over to a girl that looked to be an easy target and pinned her to the ground with her body. Then, in one swift motion, Elanora twisted the girl's neck sharply to the left with a sickening snap. The blood flow to her brain was cut off the instant her neck had been snapped, and thus Elanora had made her first kill of the games.

 _Corrina Lapointe, District 7 Female: 22nd, Killed by Elanora, Bloodbath_

Lacie, the epileptic District 1 girl, picked up an axe off of a wooden shelf in the cornucopia and turned sharply on her heel, hurling it towards a tribute that she deemed an easy target. Lacie's aim was perfect, and the serrated edge of the axe sank into the tribute's chest, killing him.

 _Blaise Galvin, District 12 Male: 21st, Killed by Lacie, Bloodbath_

It was then that the first collaborate kill of the fourteenth Hunger Games was made. Lacie, exhilarated from killing Blaise a few moments prior, retrieved the axe from the boy's chest and wiped off the blood in the grass. With hopes of making another kill, Lacie hurled the axe towards the back of a girl roughly thirty yards from her. Once again, her impeccable aim sent her the ground, writhing in pain. Blaze finished her off by smashing her in the head with his baton.

 _Ellena Lark, District 10 Female: 20th, Killed by Lacie and Blaze, Bloodbath_

Inside the cornucopia rummaging through the supplies was Michel, who had his back turned to the entrance of the cornucopia. He saw the shadow of one of the careers holding a knife on the floor next to him, and he whipped his head around in terror to see Calix holding a knife high above his head and stalking towards Michel, forcing him backwards less he face the wrath of Calix's blade. He let out a whimper when his back bumped into the back wall. He had nowhere to run now. In a moment of acceptance of his death, Michel picked up a crossbow from a countertop near him and plunged an arrow into his heart, knowing it would be the most painless way to go.

 _Michel Eastman, District 5 Male: 19th, Suicide, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, in the field in front of the cornucopia Blaze prowled towards a distracted girl who was taking inventory of the contents of a black case. Blaze brought down his baton and smashed it into the back of the girl's head, and she died upon the fifth blow in the head from Blaze's baton.

 _Rosanna Agnew, District 11 Female: 18th, Killed by Blaze, Bloodbath_

The careers suffered their first loss when Jack, wielding a hatchet, crossed paths with Nestor, the District 4 boy. Jack swung his hatchet through the air and planted it into Nestor's chest, causing blood to spray from the wound as he howled in pain. Jack ran away from the cornucopia the moment that Nestor began calling for his allies, fleeing the scene and taking the evidence with him.

 _Nestor Gulley, District 4 Male: 17th, Killed by Jack, Bloodbath_

The final death of the bloodbath occurred roughly half an hour after the last remaining outer district tributes had fled the cornucopia with whatever supplies they had managed to gather. Confused as to why the bloodbath cannons had not yet sounded, the careers all began scouring the cornucopia for the last tribute they knew must be hiding somewhere. After a while, Lacy found the helpless boy shivering behind a metal crate, and he died soon after her axe impaled his chest.

 _Boyce Marlow, District 10 Male: 16th, Killed by Lacy, Bloodbath_

At that, nine cannons rang through the arena. The careers began the long and laborious process of gathering the nine corpses and piling them up in a far-away corner of the clearing. That night, the careers set up their camp in the cornucopia, complete with sleeping bags and lanterns.

Then, at midnight on Day 1, the first wave of zombies arrived. They came from the old cemetery in the city's abandoned church. At first, there were only a few and none of the tributes noticed them. But, within an hour there were hundreds of them, swarming the arena and searching for the tributes with the goal to kill.

A large portion of the zombies were sent after the career pack, and the tribute who was assigned as their scout at the time roused the others at the sight of the monsters chasing after them. They all stormed away from the zombie horde as fast as they could, not bothering to leave anything tidy behind them as they barreled over the terrain.

Meanwhile, another portion of zombies were sent after six tributes that were in a different portion of the arena. All of them woke up with a start, and most of them had a significant head start and so were reasonably safe. Chriss, however, was a different story. He was crouched down in the corner of an abandoned bank, and when the zombies broke into the building he had nowhere to run. They mauled apart his body until he was but a splatter on the stone ground.

 _Chriss Tagiuri, District 8 Male: 15th, Zombies, Day 2_

The zombies all receded after making their required kill. They were satisfied, at least for now.

The sun rose on Day 2, and no more deaths occurred that day. The scattered and traumatized careers all returned to the cornucopia, resolving to not go to sleep until the zombies had made their kill. All of the other assorted outer district tributes made their own plans to survive the future zombie hordes.

Midnight on Day 2 arrived, and the horde of zombies was released into the arena once more. This time, the tributes were prepared for them, having stocked up on the weapons scattered around the arena. This time the gamemakers ignored the careers and sent all of the zombies after the outer district tributes.

A very unlucky Cordia was trapped in a building when the zombies broke into it, and had nowhere to run. But, she was not about to just accept her death and be mauled apart by the zombies. So, she pulled a box of matches from her pocket and lit the building on fire, shattering one of the windows and escaping. She fended off the stray zombies that followed her, and eventually they gave up and started following the other tributes.

The zombies made their next kill in Myriam, whom they corralled into a courtyard of the city's abandoned school. They killed Myriam and subjugated his body until there was not a trace of him left.

 _Myriam Rigby, District 11 Male: 14th, Zombies, Day 3_

On Day 4, the careers all split up and began combing through the arena in search of their next kill. The other tributes had hidden well from them and it was not until about six o'clock in the evening that Blaze stumbled upon a girl crumpled up into a ball under one of the seats in the church, and smashed her to death with his baton. Now, only half of the tributes remained.

 _Leanora Withers, District 12 Female: 13th, Killed by Blaze, Day 4_

As if the careers had hit the jackpot, their second kill of the day was made mere minutes after their first. Elanora, while prowling through the portion of the arena assigned to her by the others, heard a short squeal and began walking towards the source of the noise. She found a girl scrunched up inside of a wardrobe in one of the houses, and Elanora's strength did not fail her; she successfully snapped the girl's neck in one swift motion.

 _Mickie Hahns, District 9 Female: 12th, Killed by Elanora, Day 4_

The night of Day 4, the zombies made their kill when they forced Mardell backwards, when he tripped on a wooden crate and tumbled into the cellar of an old building. There in the compact basement of the abandoned shop, he could do nothing but squeeze his eyes shut and pray that his death would be swift.

 _Mardell Gatlin, District 3 Male: 11th, Zombies, Day 4_

Around noon on Day 5, a cannon rang through the arena, signaling a girl's death from dehydration.

 _Roxy Kaminski, District 6 Female: 10th, Dehydration, Day 5_

The night of Day 5, the massive horde of zombies—their numbers grew bigger each new night—were all sent after the careers who were snoozing away atop the cornucopia, believing that the zombies could not reach them and that they were safe. They could not be more wrong, as, driven by the scent of their blood, the zombies all climbed the sides of the cornucopia, trapping the panicked careers atop it. Of the five careers, two perished then and there. The three that survived darted away as fast as they could without looking back, attempting to place as much space between them and the beasts that had killed their allies.

 _Lacie Marglin, District 1 Female: 9th, Zombies, Day 5_

 _Claudine Crum, District 4 Female: 8th, Zombies, Day 5_

Days 6, 7, and 8 passed completely deathless. The gamemakers, realizing that it was only six days in and their final eight had already been determined, decided to make the zombies completely powerless and incapable of killing. After all, if they kept killing of a few tributes every night the games would be cut terribly short. They were unleashed every night, and they amused the audience but were harmless to the tributes.

The sun rose on Day 9, shortly followed by the booming of a cannon. The careers had ventured out before the sun had even risen in an attempt to catch a tribute or two sleeping, which would make them a much easier target. That morning, Calix crossed paths with a defenseless boy that had no weapons on him, and he died quickly after Calix's spear pierced his heart and poked out of his back.

 _Aran Lyle, District 6 Male: 7th, Killed by Calix, Day 9_

Days 10 thru 12 passed void of conflict among the tributes, and the careers were rather frustrated at their failure to make any kills in that time. Then, on Day 13, Blaze crossed paths with Cordia, who wielded a sword and, much to Blaze's surprise, was very skilled it its use. A long and bloody duel then began, but, in the end, Blaze's skill in the combat academy since his childhood was no match for Cordia's newly established skill, and Cordia died when Blaze's knife sank into her forehead.

 _Cordia Spaulding, District 3 Female: 6th, Killed by Blaze, Day 13_

The final five had been determined, and the gamemakers decided to wait for just another day or so before driving the tributes inwards for the bloody showdown that would crown their victor. And so, just before noon on Day 14, a colossal twister began on the outside of the arena. It began as a slight dip in one of the gray clouds in the dreary sky, and slowly sank down, faster and faster by the second. After a few minutes, it touched the ground, and, with a bloodcurdling screech, began crawling over the terrain, tearing apart buildings and throwing aside trees like rag dolls. The tributes could outrun it. At least, many of them hoped that they could. They all dropped whatever they had except for their weapons—they would be of use to them in the final battle—when the huge tornado split into three smaller ones and began driving the tributes to the cornucopia individually. Fortunately for them, all five of the remaining tributes made it to the top of the cornucopia unscathed apart from small debris. The gamemakers, of course, needing something to keep the tributes from jumping off of the horn and so they turned the ground around the cornucopia into bubbling black acid that would kill whatever—or whomever—it touched within seconds.

Atop the cornucopia stood the five remaining tributes, each wielding their weapons. Calix held his sword, ready to strike. Blaze held his baton high above his head. Elanora brandished her bloodstained knife. Jack brandished his axe, and Camellia held a rope firmly in her grasp—it was the only thing she had managed to salvage from the cornucopia before climbing atop it. And such, the final battle of the fourteenth Hunger Games began.

The first to make a move was Elanora, who held her knife in front of her and plunged her body through the air towards Jack. But, Jack dodged the attempted blow at the last second and, when Elanora needed a moment to get situated in her fit of dizziness, he brought down his axe upon Elanora's back. However, Elanora sideswiped out of the way, avoiding his attempted blow. In the two tribute's frenzy of trying to kill each other, they weren't paying very much attention to the others, and so it was easy for Calix to bring down his sword and leave it to sink into Jack's back like a knife through butter.

 _Jack Brambilla, District 7 Male: 5th, Killed by Calix, Day 14_

Camellia had nothing but a rope to use to kill the other tributes. It all seemed hopeless, but she wasn't about to give up without a fight. She ran forward and wrapped it around Calix's neck, binding it around and around his neck in tight circles and finally knotting it tight around his neck, choking him. Camellia grabbed his body and attempted to walk him over to the edge of the horn and then knock him off into the acid below. However, the two were stuck together and so all it took was a hard push of Blaze's hand to send both of them plummeting into the acid that dissolved their bodies within seconds.

 _Calix Burlew, District 1 Male: 4th, Killed by Blaze, Day 14_

 _Camellia Roby, District 8 Female: 3rd, Killed by Blaze, Day 14_

The final battle of the fourteenth Hunger Games was between Blaze Skalnik and Elanora Cantiol of District 2. District 2 was enthralled at the fact that the final two tributes were from District 2 and that they would be guaranteed to earn their fourth victor, and the whole nation sat on the edge of their seats in anticipation as to which of the two tributes would emerge victorious.

Elanora held her knife in hand, firmly grasping it and setting her mind towards killing Blaze. Blaze held his baton high above his head. It would surely knock Elanora out the instant it smashed into her head.

The first to challenge the other was Elanora, whose knife made a quiet whistle through the air as she ran forward with it towards her final opponent. But, Blaze stepped out of the way and ran around her in a circle before bringing his baton high into the air and smashing it down into Elanora's shoulder. Elanora winced in pain as she let out a short scream. She was in excruciating pain but was uninjured. It was all Elanora could do to get as far away from him as possible while she waited for the pain in her shoulder to die down a bit. She managed to dodge all of Blaze's hits and blows as well as make one or two of her own with her other hand, and more than once she barely dodged being knocked into the pool of acid below like a rag doll.

An hour passed, and the two tributes began to grow exhausted, though they dared not show any sign of it, less the amount of pride they would bring their district be diminished. Finally, Blaze managed to corral Elanora towards the edge of the cornucopia, and as Blaze walked forward Elanora was forced to walk backward towards the edge of the horn. She was running out of room very quickly. Now, Elanora stood right on the edge of the cornucopia, and Blaze was just a few feet in front of her. In a moment of Elanora's clarity that she had zero chance of survival, she closed her eyes and leapt off of the cornucopia into the boiling acid below. The hot liquid consumed her completely, and once the loud slurping died down an eerie silence was left hanging in the arena. Blaze was the only remaining tribute.

 _Elanora Cantiol, District 2 Female: 2nd, Suicide, Day 14_

"Blaze Skalnik of District 2, you are the victor of the fourteenth annual Hunger Games!" Theresia roared into the arena as a hovercraft materialized from the sky, swooping down to collect Blaze.

Blaze held his weapon proudly in the air, pumping his fists and letting out cries of victory as he stepped into the hovercraft.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The Capitol adored Blaze, and many were happy to see one more proud victor added to the nation's rapidly growing lineup. Some people that were not happy were those in Districts 1 and 4. Upon Blaze's victory, District 2 claimed the title of the district to harbor the most victors, with Blaze being their fourth.

Blaze's victory tour was rather average except for his stop in District 1 where he was neglected and ignored for most of his stay.

He moved into the Victor's Village of District 2, the fourth victor to do so.

Blaze would live to the relatively average age of seventy-five, dying from Human Immunodeficiency Virus around the time of the seventy-third annual Hunger Games. In his lifetime, he would marry once to a woman with whom he would father twins, one girl and one boy, whom he would name Madison and Mason.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Blaze moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, the fourth victor to do so.

Molly Toliday, the victor of the third Hunger Games, marries her first and only spouse, a man named Tom Lyle. Molly legally changes her last name to Lyle, making her the first ever victor to change their name.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Blaze, our next victor! Now District 2 has the most victors and Districts 1 and 4 are going to be whipping up a storm in an attempt to dethrone 2! Anyways, how do you think I did writing this chapter? If you would like to, please review this chapter. It really shows that you care and helps me to improve—it's really all I want to write new and original stuff for you guys and to grow as a writer. Thanks for reading!**


	16. The 15th Hunger Games

**The 15th Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

President Lizeth Dyson returned for her fourth year as president of the nation. However, someone who did not return for another year was Head Gamemaker Theresia Cloud. Theresia had been caught between home and work and her husband's enrollment in the peacekeeping force and her children's sickness that she was just too stressed to keep doing her job. As such, she resigned, and the audience gave her thunderous applause until the moment she stepped around the corner after having signed away her job. President Dyson was then tasked with the rather long and laborious process of selecting a new head gamemaker. After sifting through many thousands of auditions and spending hours of careful deliberation, Lizeth selected a fifty-two year-old man by the name of Lorenzo Chastain to take the important position. After packing his bags and moving into the gamemaker's office, he and his team of loyal appointed gamemakers met together and began sketching out his first arena. This one was very important for Lorenzo, for a Head Gamemaker's first arena was their first impression on the nation. As such, Lorenzo made absolutely certain that this was the most marvelous and spectacular arena yet. The arena took place in a massive hanging garden, with ten floors that all bloomed with flowers and plants and trees blossoming with every kind of fruit one could imagine. It was as if it was a building that was only half owned by man, while the other half was owned by nature. Crystal clear lakes scattered the arena, and the cornucopia—it was on the ground level floor—was made of solid platinum and was filled with weapons and tools and food and water and medicine and rope and everything else that could mean the difference between the tribute's lives and deaths in the difficult weeks to come. Everything in the arena was stunningly beautiful. Even the rabbits that ran around the arena eating flowers were harmless and were just installed for the cute factor. The field in front of the cornucopia was very colorful to go along with the colorful theme of the arena; the backpacks were every color of the rainbow and even the weapons had rainbow-colored hilts. The arena did have a nasty side, though; at random points during the games the seemingly harmless animals that roamed the arena would turn vicious and would attempt to slaughter the tributes. The rabbits, deer, songbirds, squirrels, and even the ants could and would randomly switch between being harmless animals and being feral monsters. The career alliance the year of the fifteenth Hunger Games was exceptionally strong; it consisted of eight members, the most of any games before! They were all six tributes from Districts 1, 2, and 4, as well as the District 5 girl and the District 7 girl. Each career had something to contribute to the alliance. The District 1 boy was perhaps just as skilled in weaponry and battle as he was in wilderness survival, allegedly being able to fashion a snare in less than a minute. He was also adept in identifying edible plants, while his preferred weapon was the spear. His district partner, the District 1 girl, was much more viscous than he, much preferring weapons like the sword and axe to do her killing fast and easy. District 2 produced an even more stellar showing, with each tribute scoring a ten in training and impressing the others with their impeccable skill in virtually any weapon imaginable. The boy was most skilled with the axe, while the girl much preferred blades. The District 4 girl scored the only ten outside of District 2, impressing the gamemakers with her impeccable wilderness survival skills as well as her skills with the harpoon and blowgun. The District 4 boy scored the lowest score of the alliance, with a meager eight in training. The District 5 girl, one of the two outliers welcomed into the career pack, was incredibly skilled with the sword, knife, crossbow, and axe, as well as almost every nature survival skill imaginable. Her father was a retired peacekeeper and so taught her everything he knew from his work in Panem's security force. The final member of the alliance was the District 7 girl, who almost seemed to be one with her axe, swinging and smashing it with impeccable skill and coordination. The training scores were average, as three tens, three nines, and two eights were scored. The rest of the tributes scored between seven and two in their private sessions. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Ardor Keogh, 16, (9) 11-1 and Daria Fleck, 17, (9) 10-1

District 2: Mason Coccia, 18, (10) 8-1 and Aryel Pinelis, 17, (10) 9-1

District 3: Vizio Harwell, 18, (5) 26-1 and Techa Cable, 16, (4) 36-1

District 4: Syren Pattullo, 16, (8) 12-1 and Eillen Kendrixy, 18, (10) 8-1

District 5: Niccx Mecha, 15, (3) 49-1 and Dina Wilmarth, 17, (9) 11-1

District 6: Daren Emanuel, 18, (4) 35-1 and Marisol Hyatt, 15, (2) 69-1

District 7: Bryce Ginnis, 16, (7) 19-1 and Linda Detocqieville, 18, (8) 16-1

District 8: Florian Sykes, 17, (3) 39-1 and Tecida Iansiti, 14, (3) 58-1

District 9: Garner Blanchette, 15, (2) 60-1 and Leena Coley, 16, (6) 21-1

District 10: Nichol Diamond, 18, (6) 19-1 and Minerva Santana, 17, (3) 50-1

District 11: Yon Messenger, 17, (4) 37-1 and Becki Blanton, 13, (2) 88-1

District 12: Carter Blanton, 18, (6) 22-1 and Arlyn Calkins, 16, (3) 49-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The tributes squinted their eyes as they rose up into the magnificent garden arena, the blinding sunlight making it difficult for them to take in their surroundings. Every pedestal was surrounded by a cluster of flowers: zinnias, lilies, and paisleys among them. It was so beautiful that many were taking in its splendor until the very moment that the countdown reached zero. Then, they leapt off of their pedestals and raced in the direction of their choosing.

The first to reach the cornucopia was Aryel, who picked up the scimitar she had requested from the gamemakers off of one of the metal countertops inside of the cornucopia. A few seconds passed before she caught a glimpse of a boy running past her, and Aryel was on him like a hound, slicing him to ribbons with her blade.

 _Daren Emanuel, District 6 Male: 24th, Killed by Aryel, Bloodbath_

Not far behind Aryel were all of her allies, the other members of the powerful career alliance. Once Mason reached the cornucopia he picked out a hatchet from a cluster of pink flowers and thrust it into the torso of the nearest tribute. By the time she fell to the ground with a sickening thump, she was dead.

 _Becki Blanton, District 11 Female: 23rd, Killed by Mason, Bloodbath_

Dina, eager to prove herself to her fellow careers, closed a tight fist around a spear that lay waiting for her thirty yards from her pedestal. Dina shoved the spear into the back of the nearest girl's neck, and it scissored through her head before sticking out of her mouth, killing her almost instantly. Then, Dina pulled the bloodstained weapon out of her victim's body and wiped it off in the grass, proud after making her first kill.

 _Techa Cable, District 3 Female: 22nd, Killed by Dina, Bloodbath_

Daria, invigorated at the myriad of opportunities to rack up kills, picked up a high-voltage electric taser that lay not far from her pedestal. She stormed over to a boy with his back turned to her, and Daria flicked the switch as she placed the taser on the back of his neck, causing the powerful electric current to course through his body. When Daria flicked the switch back off, the boy fell to the ground with a loud thump, dead.

 _Nichol Diamond, District 10 Male: 21st, Killed by Daria, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Aryel had spent just shy of half a minute stalking a girl around the cornucopia and waiting for the perfect opportunity to kill her. It was too easy, and when the unsuspecting girl turned her back to her Aryel lunged forward and planted her scimitar into her back.

 _Leena Colley, District 9 Female: 20th, Killed by Aryel, Bloodbath_

It was not long after Linda closed her anxious fingers around an axe that she went in for the kill, pouncing upon a boy about twelve yards from her. Linda pinned him to the ground and bludgeoned him in the skull with her axe, splitting his head open like a knife through butter.

 _Florian Sykes, District 8 Male: 19th, Killed by Linda, Bloodbath_

The final kill of the bloodbath occurred when Mason hurled his axe through the air with all the strength he could muster up, sending it flipping end over end before the serrated edge buried itself in one tribute's back, sending her slumping to the ground like a stone. She died after a few seconds of twitching, and Mason retrieved his axe from the girl's corpse and wiped it off on a backpack.

 _Arlyn Calkins, District 12 Female: 18th, Killed by Mason, Bloodbath_

Seven cannons rang through the arena, each one representing one of the tributes that lost their lives in the bloodbath. Lorenzo was quite pleased with this; it was not nearly as large as the usual thirteen or fourteen but was still a pretty good number. If anything, it would just make for an even longer and more exhilarating games…

The eight careers all settled down in the cornucopia with their sleeping bags, and with eight members it was quite a tight fit, but it did the job. They each agreed to take one hour-long shifts guarding the others and the supplies, after which time they would rouse the person whose job it was to go next. In this way, they avoided being robbed the entire night.

The outlying district tributes all took different approaches to surviving the night. One tribute hid under a layer of moss and grass. Several tributes hid inside of trees. One tribute even dug a hole in the ground and then piled the dirt back on top of him, concealing him underground for the night.

The tributes were jerked awake by the sound of a cannon around two in the morning on Day 2. One girl, unable to sleep, had been tirelessly walking around the arena when she stepped into a cluster of murderous vines set up by the gamemakers. They clutched her ankle with immense pressure, and despite her struggling she could not escape. The vines slowly consumed and subjugated her, tearing open her body and constricting her. An hour later there was no trace of her existence left.

 _Marisol Hyatt, District 6 Female: 17th, Constricting Vines, Day 2_

Those who had managed to fall back asleep after the incident woke to the sounds of bluebirds singing their melodies through the arena. For most of the tributes, this meant another day of walking round the arena and collecting food for the day. For most of the tributes, that is. The careers got to the long and tedious job of combing through the arena for their unlucky next victims. The eight careers split up into four groups of two. The groups were as follows: Ardor and Aryel, Mason and Daria, Syren and Dina, and Eillen and Linda. They all went their separate ways.

It was six in the evening that day when the duo of Eillen and Linda were treading through a patch of tall grass and heard a rustle about twenty yards away. They assumed it was just an animal, but quietly treaded over just to make sure. What they found was a boy curled up into a ball in a ditch. Eillen and Linda both worked together to kill the boy, and in the blink of an eye Eillen's harpoon was lodged in his forehead and Linda's axe sprouted from his chest. The sound of his cannon prompted them to remove their weapons from the body and move on.

 _Yon Messenger, District 11 Male: 16th, Killed by Eillen and Linda, Day 2_

Days 3 and 4 passed deathless, void of all conflict among the tributes. The gamemakers spiced things up a little and, realizing that the games would be over in a snap if they let the career alliance remain at such a high size, sent a group of six white-tailed bunnies after the duo of Ardor and Aryel. At first they seemed harmless. Aryel even joked about how cute they looked with their ears bent over and their pouty-looking expressions. But not for long. The rabbits lunged at the two, calling on their brethren and causing a huge swarm of mutts to latch onto the two tributes, their long fangs injecting venom into the tribute's tender flesh. They fed on the two career's corpses for a bit before they were recalled by the gamemakers and retreated back into their den, once again harmless bunnies.

 _Ardor Keogh, District 1 Male: 15th, Rabbit Muttations, Day 5_

 _Aryel Pinelis, District 2 Female: 14th, Rabbit Muttations, Day 5_

On Day 6, a tribute whose water supply had long run out lay under a layer of leaves on the forest floor, his body so weak from lack of water and nutrients that he could barely move. At this time, Minerva stumbled upon him. Minerva saw the helpless boy laying on the ground, hoping, ne, begging for death. Minerva pulled the knife out of her backpack that she had retrieved from the cornucopia and plunged it into the boy's heart, an act of kindness that warmed the hearts of those in the audience.

 _Garner Blanchette, District 9 Male: 13th, Killed by Minerva, Day 6_

Day 7 came and gone without a single death, but on Day 8 the careers—they were now hunting down their kills as one full pack of six—investigated the source of a short squealing sound and found a boy sitting in the bough of a tree, with nowhere to run as the bloodthirsty allies climbed up the tree and Daria shocked him to death with her high-voltage taser.

 _Niccx Mecca, District 5 Male: 12th, Killed by Daria, Day 8_

Days 9 thru 12 were the most boring yet in the arena. At least in the previous days without any kills there had been plenty of close calls (some outer district tribute managing to hide as the careers prowled past him without looking back) but Days 9, 10, 11, and 12 were the epitome of boring. Finally, the gamemakers decided they had had enough and so changed some of the small husky pups that roamed the arena into huge, feral wolves twice the size of people. The wolves raced across the arena and pounced upon one tribute, mauling him apart and feasting on his flesh and blood.

 _Carter Blanton, District 12 Male: 11th, Wolf Muttations, Day 13_

Two deaths occurred on Day 14. One was from dehydration.

 _Minerva Santana, District 10 Female: 10th, Dehydration, Day 14_

The other was made when Dina shoved her spear through one boy's body, sending it poking out of the other side of his torso.

 _Bryce Ginnis, District 7 Male: 9th, Killed by Dina, Day 14_

On Day 15, Tecida came up with a plan. She unzipped the backpack she had received from the cornucopia and pulled out her knife. The careers had switched back to the strategy of hunting their kills solo, and when Mason walked under the tree she was hiding in, Tecia leapt down onto the ground, surprising Mason. Tecida plunged the knife into Mason's chest, killing him when the serrated edge of the blade pierced his heart.

 _Mason Coccia, District 2 Male: 8th, Killed by Tecida, Day 15_

However, Tecida's excitement at killing Mason was short-lived, as she died from dehydration on Day 17.

 _Tecida Iansiti, District 8 Female: 7th, Dehydration, Day 17_

Linda woke up around two in the morning on Day 18, her fellow careers asnooze around her. She knew she was the weakest of the careers remaining. She knew she was. And, she knew that as the number of tributes dwindled down she would be the first on the chopping block as the other careers would bump her off in favor of letting only the strongest survive to the final battle. And so, she picked up her backpack with her weapons and supplies and darted away from her allies, never to return.

On Day 19, Linda hid behind a tree and waited for a tribute to wander along, whom she planned to pounce upon and kill with her axe. It didn't take long before Eillen wandered by, and when Linda leapt out of the shadows onto Eillen she was so surprised she didn't have any time to react. Linda slammed her axe down into Eillen's chest, and she didn't even need to go in for a second blow before her cannon rang through the arena.

 _Eillen Kendrixy, District 4 Female: 6th, Killed by Linda, Day 19_

The night of Day 20, while Syren was away gathering food for the other careers, Daria and Dina, the two remaining careers, huddled together in the cornucopia and developed a plan. They would wake up at precisely three in the morning the next day, at which time they would kill Syren with whatever method was most convenient. After all, Syren had made a grand total of zero kills throughout the games thus far and really was a burden on the two girls.

When Syren arrived at the cornucopia that night, the others seemed excessively kind to him. Not taking the clue, Syren shrugged it off as caused by their gratitude for gathering food for them. All of the pieces fell into place as he fell asleep that night in a few minutes.

True to their plan, the two careers woke up at three in the morning on Day 21. Daria closed her dexterous fingers around the taser she had carried with her since Day 1, and she placed the cold metal on Syren's neck as she flicked the switch on. The current hummed through Syren's body, but just for good measure Dina speared him through the heart. They disposed of his corpse by burying it just outside of the cornucopia. Now, Daria and Dina were the only remaining careers.

 _Syren Pattullo, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Daria and Dina, Day 21_

The next morning, the gamemakers all agreed that it was that time again. It was the time that came every year during the Hunger Games, without fail. It was time for the final battle.

The snakes crawled out of the ground almost as if spontaneously appearing from the Earth. They started out as harmless garder snakes that none of the tributes paid attention to. But, within thirty minutes there were about twenty of them circling each tribute. Suspecting a trick of the gamemakers, many of the tributes began packing up their supplies in case they needed to make a run for it if a greater threat arrived. The snakes coming out of the ground grew larger and larger, and within an hour there was a huge black vortex of the scaly reptiles circling each tribute. Then, some gamemaker flicked a switch and instructed the snakes to kill.

The tributes stormed across the terrain as fast as they could towards the cornucopia, where they knew they would be safe. Each tribute had a pack of at least a hundred bloodthirsty vipers hot on their tail, snapping their jaws as they raced after the panicked boys and girls, their eyes glittering with malice. Once all of the tributes had reached the top of the cornucopia, the bloody showdown that would crown their victor began. Atop the shimmering cornucopia stood the four remaining tributes. Daria and Dina stood close together, Dina wielding an axe and a spear and Daria holding a knife and club. Linda brandished her axe, and Vizio held a baton he had managed to grab before climbing on top of the cornucopia.

Almost in unison, the three remaining tributes lunged at terrified Vizio. After all, he was the outlier who had made zero kills thus far and was the easiest of kills; Dina's axe cut through his chest like a knife through butter and buried itself deep into his chest and stopping the flow of blood from his heart and killing him almost instantaneously.

 _Vizio Harwell, District 3 Male: 4th, Killed by Dina, Day 22_

The careers had never taken kindly to being betrayed, and so Dina and Daria teamed up to slaughter the girl that had backstabbed them roughly a week prior. Dina and Daria both stalked towards Linda, and the girl backed away towards the edge of the cornucopia, the sound of snapping jaws sounding under her feet. But she was really just putting on a show. When she was standing on her tiptoes on the very edge of the cornucopia, she dove forward towards Daria, pinning her to the ground and bludgeoning her in the chest with her axe. Linda brought down her axe into Daria's chest and then ripped it out, and repeated this a good number of times before kicking the career's body off of the cornucopia, where the bloodthirsty snakes feasted on her bloody corpse.

 _Daria Fleck, District 1 Female: 3rd, Killed by Linda, Day 22_

The final battle of the fifteenth Hunger Games was between Dina Wilmarth of District 5 and Linda Detocqieville of District 7. Both tributes held the same weapon; the axe. And such, the final battle of the games began. The two girls dove towards each other, and the bloodcurdling scream of metal against metal filled the air as the serrated edges of the tribute's axes clashed into the air. Metal scraped against metal and sparks flew, malice glittering in the eyes of the two tributes who were vying for the crown. It was almost an hour later when Dina corralled Linda into the perfect position and slammed her axe into the side of Linda's neck, decapitating her in one clean slice and sending her head tumbling to the floor. Linda's corpse flipped backwards and fell off of the cornucopia, and her cannon could barely be heard over the sound of the bloodthirsty snakes subjugating the girl's dead body.

 _Linda Detocqieville, District 7 Female: 2nd, Killed by Dina, Day 22_

"Dina Wilmarth of District 5, you are the victor of the fifteenth annual Hunger Games!" Lorenzo announced as the trumpets played their melody in the distance, congratulating their victor.

Dina dropped her weapon and smiled proudly for the cameras, savoring her first moments as Panem's newest victor.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The nation had a mostly positive outlook towards Dina, and many would learn to love their confident and passionate newest victor. Dina had brought District 5 its second victor, adding the electricity district to the list of districts with more than one victor. Districts 6, 7, 9, 10, and 11 still lacked victors.

Her victory tour was rather average, not being shunned per se but not being celebrated either. Of course, District 7 was disgusted given how cruelly Dina had killed their Linda in the final battle, especially given the fact that they had their hopes up at earning their first victor.

She moved into the Victor's Village of District 5, the second victor to do so.

Dina would live to the age of seventy-two, drowning in the bathtub of her Victor's Village home around the time of the seventieth annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would never marry. She would never reproduce or adopt either, and would live a rather quiet and reserved life to herself.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Dina moves into the Victor's Village of District 5, the second victor to do so.

Molly Toliday, the victor of the third Hunger Games, becomes pregnant with her first son, whom she and her husband decide to name Carter Lyle.

Amelia Spangler, the victor of the fourth Hunger Games, marries her first spouse, a man named Walton Kendall. However, Amelia retains her last name and does not change it to match that of her husband.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Dina, and the story of her time during the fifteenth Hunger Games. I hope you've enjoyed! If you would like to, please review this chapter. What do you think of Dina, the second victor from District 5? Next chapter we get another canon victor, the female morphling!**


	17. The 16th Hunger Games

**The 16th Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Head Gamemaker Lorenzo Chastain returned for his second year on the job, praised by the nation for his success in making the last year's games one of the most memorable yet. Lorenzo met up with his trusted team of loyal gamemakers and sketched out his second arena, making sure that it would live up to the hype and be just as grand as the one before it. The arena for the sixteenth Hunger Games was very simple –looking at first, so much so that President Dyson scowled when she saw it, underwhelmed. The arena was a rather plain autumn forest, with leaves littering the ground and a cool breeze consistently rustling through the trees, the sound of all the leaves waving in the wind morphing together into a melodic hum. The cornucopia was nestled in a small clearing in the center of the arena, and it was made of solid iron. It was filled with food, water, weapons, medicine, and almost everything else one could imagine. However, there was a twist that was not immediately obvious to the casual observer. When the sun set the night of Day 1, it would remain down. Apart from the few hours of daylight in the first day in the arena, the arena would be eternally shrouded in darkness so complete that the tributes might as well have been wearing blindfolds. The field in front of the cornucopia was littered with flashlights, which would be absolutely essential for the tributes to be able to find their way around in the arena. Additionally, it was filled with night-vision glasses that would allow the tributes to see clearly through the darkness. The career alliance the year of the sixteenth Hunger Games was substantially smaller than that of the year prior; it consisted of only six members, the tributes from Districts 1, 2, and 4. The District 1 boy was noticeably the toughest tribute in the games, and his training score of ten really went to show how well of a show he put on for the gamemakers in his session. He was most skilled with the knife, like many careers, because of its versatility. The District 1 girl wasn't a very good fighter but was an amazing trickster and temptress. Her intelligence and dangerous cleverness earned her a ten, one of the two tributes in the games—the other being her partner—to earn a double-digit score. District 2 certainly put on a less stellar showing, with their boy earning an eight and their girl earning a seven. The boy attempted to show the gamemakers a combination of humor, intelligence, and weaponry skill, but it kind of backfired and filled his session with lots of awkward silences. The girl received the lowest score of the careers, and her seven even forced the others to reconsider allowing her a slot in their alliance. In the end, though, they decided to let her in. As for District 4, which was usually the weakest of the three career districts, it actually performed very well. The boy earned a nine, the highest score in the games other than the two from District 1, via his skill with the trident. The girl scored an eight, and she attracted the liking of the audience via her humor and wits on the stage. Outside of the careers, the District 7 tributes both scored eight with their skills in use of the axe. One seven and two sixes were also scored outside of the alliance, giving these games a disproportionally large number of high scores outside of the three career districts. There were two prime oddities about the tributes this year. One was that, all the way in District 10, both tributes were twelve years old. This marked the first time in the history of the games that the two tributes from a district were both twelve. The second oddity was the brother-sister pair from District 6. The boy was significantly stronger than his sister; for he scored a four while his district partner slash sister scored a two. There was, weirdly, a disproportionately large number of twos scored in training, with five tributes earning a two as their score. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Platinum Zulera, 18, (10) 7-1 and Scarlett Diamond, 17, (10) 8-1

District 2: Styx Domitia, 17, (8) 11-1 and Quartz Ballytynn, 16, (7) 12-1

District 3: Xerxes Nova, 16, (3) 39-1 and Juno Hadrien, 17, (4) 33-1

District 4: Tyler Salton, 16, (9) 10-1 and Lucille Gowne, 16, (8) 11-1

District 5: Nicolas Merns, 15, (5) 24-1 and Alba Rusher, 18, (4) 20-1

District 6: Bentley Toland, 17, (4) 30-1 and Beatrice Toland, 17, (2) 50-1

District 7: Cedar Lansworth, 16, (8) 16-1 and Amber Sequoia, 17, (8) 15-1

District 8: Chantay Bui, 18, (6) 22-1 and Klara Kaplan, 14, (4) 33-1

District 9: Cori Whyte, 17, (5) 20-1 and Isidra Blodgett, 13, (2) 74-1

District 10: Blair Abreau, 12, (2) 89-1 and Zina Marr, 12, (2) 91-1

District 11: Spud Aldrik, 18, (7) 18-1 and Bristel Pepper, 15, (3) 39-1

District 12: Miles Kilos, 13, (2) 69-1 and Anabella Hemmatibrivanlou, 18, (6) 20-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

A loud hum rang through the tribute's ears as their pods ascended into the autumn forest arena, and was soon drowned out by the eerily melodic hum of the autumn wind whistling through the trees. Many of the tributes were confused as to why the field in front of the cornucopia was littered with flashlights. If anything, however, that just made the bloodbath more exhilarating. After all, if the cornucopia was bursting at the seams with one certain item, that item must be transcendentally important to their survival in the harsh days and weeks to come.

When the gong rang, the vast majority of the tributes surged forward towards the bulky horn of plenty, scooping up supplies. The first of the careers to reach the mouth and the bounty of weapons was Lucille, who picked up a blowgun off of a table and aimed it at the nearest girl. She pulled the trigger, causing three of the darts to whistle through the air and bury themselves into the girl's chest, tearing apart the tissue in her heart and lungs. By the time she fell to the ground with a hollow thump, she was dead.

 _Juno Hadrien, District 3 Female: 24th, Killed by Lucille, Bloodbath_

The instant that Platinum closed his eager fingers around a dagger with a menacingly serrated edge, he went to town, pouncing upon a boy near him and plunging the dagger into his chest. Repulsed by the sticky spray of blood exploding from the wound, Platinum walked away and left the boy to die. However, a few seconds after Platinum's departure, Lucille stumbled upon the boy's half-dead body and dug three of her darts into his chest, finishing him off.

 _Blair Abreau, District 10 Male: 23rd, Killed by Platinum and Lucille, Bloodbath_

Cedar spotted his favorite weapon—an axe—waiting for him on the ground about fifty yards away from his pedestal. He leaned over and picked up the weapon. He looked around for a bit in search of an easy target, and once he spotted a girl trying to worm her way past him Cedar thrust his axe toward her waist, amputating her leg and leaving her to die from loss of blood.

 _Anabella Hemmatibrivanlou, District 12 Female: 22nd, Killed by Cedar, Bloodbath_

Scarlett grinned when she spotted the whip she had requested from the gamemakers lying, waiting for her, in a cluster of lilies a few dozen yards from her pedestal. She picked up the whip and brought it down upon the nearest boy with a sickening crash, the curved metal teeth digging into his back. Scarlett ripped the weapon out and lashed it down again, this time tearing it horizontally through his skin a bit before pulling it back out. The sickening sound of screaming amidst the sound of the crackling whip ended abruptly when the boy died a few minutes later.

 _Nicolas Merns, District 5 Male: 21st, Killed by Scarlett, Bloodbath_

At that time, a girl who was attempting to worm her way past the wrath of Scarlett's whip tripped on a rock and fell to the ground. But, before she had time to stand back up, Scarlett brought down the leather strap and began her beating. The girl's eyes glazed back into her head less than two minutes later, signaling her death.

 _Klara Kaplan, District 8 Female: 20th, Killed by Scarlett, Bloodbath_

It was then and there that the career alliance suffered their first loss. You see, Chantay had watched Scarlett make two kills with her whip and saw how impeccably skilled she was. Chantay then decided that it would be most advantageous to his survival if he eliminated Scarlett. As such, Chantay picked up a belt of throwing knives off of the ground and hurled one into Scarlett's back, sending her to the ground. Chantay could then approach the thrashing form of Scarlett and dig one of his knives into her chest. The blade wormed its way into her heart, but by that time all of her vital arteries had been snipped and she was dead.

 _Scarlett Diamond, District 1 Female: 19th, Killed by Chantay, Bloodbath_

Platinum, Scarlett's district partner, had seen Chantay kill her and was not going to just let it slide. As such, Platinum pounced upon Chantay and plunged his dagger into his chest, causing blood to pool up in his lungs and killing him from asphyxia soon after.

 _Chantay Bui, District 8 Male: 18th, Killed by Platinum, Bloodbath_

Tyler, eager to prove himself to his fellow careers, thrust his trident into a girl's back, killing her a few minutes later. Proud after making his first kill, he raised his weapon into the air and whooped victoriously for a few moments.

 _Bristel Pepper, District 11 Female: 17th, Killed by Tyler, Bloodbath_

The instant that Styx laid his eyes upon a long, metal spear, leaning against the cornucopia and glittering in the sunlight, he retrieved it. The instant he turned around he spotted a boy with a scimitar trying to kill him with hopes of eliminating competition early. But, Styx skewered the spear through the boy's torso, sending it poking out of his back and stunning him so much he couldn't move or scream at all.

 _Miles Kilos, District 12 Male: 16th, Killed by Styx, Bloodbath_

Then came the time that came every year. It was the time when the vast majority of the tributes had ran away into the comforting darkness of the forest and left the cornucopia bear except for the five careers and a few other tributes. The careers managed to make one more kill while they were at it; Tyler hurled his trident into one girl's back, and his aim was perfect. The prongs of the weapon sunk into her flesh and killed her in a few minutes, when the bloodbath officially ended.

 _Zina Marr, District 10 Female: 15th, Killed by Tyler, Bloodbath_

Ten cannons rang through the arena. Ten deaths in the bloodbath. Ten faces that would be projected into the sky that night. An oddity that many statisticians noticed was that only Districts 10 and 12 had lost both of their tributes in the bloodbath. All of the other districts had at least one tribute remaining. There were usually many more districts whose hopes of producing a victor were quelled during the bloodbath.

That night, the five remaining careers settled down in the cornucopia with their sleeping bags and lanterns, each one taking turns as a watch, working one hour-long shifts protecting the supplies and their fellow allies. They cycled through the shifts in this order: Platinum, Quartz, Styx, Lucille, Tyler, and then back to Platinum to repeat the cycle again. In this way, they managed to get through the whole night without being robbed by the others. Xerces, the lone survivor from District 3 after his partner was killed in the bloodbath, lay on the forest floor under a thick layer of mud, moss, and leaves that would shield him from the vision of the other tributes. He also chose to hide in a deep and secluded area of the forest filled with thick trees, where no tribute following defined paths would be likely to follow. Alba, the only survivor from her district—District 5—climbed up and settled in with her sleeping bag in the bough of a strong oak tree with much of its leaves remaining. Cedar and Amber both had a truce, and they spent that night in plain view of each other with promises that they would not lay a finger on each other until the next morning. They both hid inside of trees. Cori and Isidra both had a similar agreement, hiding scrunched together in a small cove next to a river and promising they would not hurt each other. Then, there was Spud, who scrunched up into a ball inside of a makeshift stick shelter he had built, guarding the entrance by wielding his knife, ready to pounce upon any tribute who tried to enter. And, most notably, there were Bentley and Beatrice, the two siblings from District 6 that hollowed out a small cave in the riverside and hid inside, sliding a large rock over the entrance to shield them from sight. Each tribute went to sleep that night with no idea of the unpleasant surprise that awaited them the next morning.

Many of the tributes woke up to their natural circadian rhythms the next morning and were surprised as to the fact that it was still completely dark. Most of them just went back to bed, thinking that they had woken up early. But, when it was almost noon on Day 2 and the sun had not risen, the tributes began to grow suspicious. It was warmer than it had been a few hours before, a sure sign that it was 'daytime'. But, the moon was still suspended in the sky and the sun had not risen. It was then that they realized this was the nighttime arena. It would eternally remain dark. Many of them cursed, blaming themselves for taking the daylight of the day before for granted. Most of the tributes had flashlights and night-vision glasses and so could see well through the darkness. Those that didn't curled up into tiny balls and hid in complete silence, not really knowing what to expect from the difficult days to come. They could not find water or food, and some career's blade might be the only thing that would show them kinder than hunger.

The Capitol was perhaps more surprised than they should have been that Days 2 and 3 passed completely void of conflict among the tributes. After all, the tributes really did need some time to get situated in their new surroundings. Every day, the careers would split up and venture out, scouring every nook and cranny of the autumn forest in search of tributes. Right after he made the connection that the sun would not rise at all and that it would be enternaly night, the tributes took varied approaches. The two Toland siblings hid in their cave, spending a moment or two here and there to peek out from their little riverside cove and see if the gem of the sun that was up the day before was up now. It was not. Xerces began the long trek towards the arena's main river, perhaps reasoning that it would be easy to acquire clean water to drink if the river was close by. Alba stayed in her spot, clutching her precious supplies and hoping to wait it out until everyone else was dead. Cori, Isidra, and Spud all carried out similar lines of thinking, all trekking towards the river, where they would have a virtually endless supply of water on demand whenever they needed it. The two District 7 tributes stood crouched down in their hollowed out trees, waiting for weak prey to come along that they could cut to ribbons with their axes.

The vast majority of the tributes were by the river, and the careers all deduced that this would be the case because of the advantages camping out by a body of clean and fresh water would hold. As such, the 'morning' of Day 4—they knew when it was 'day' and 'night' based on when the faces of the dead were projected into the sky—all five of the careers jogged over to the river and got to work. They all worked together to create a dam that would block the flow of the river's water and divert it left and right, where it would tumble down and be absorbed into the earth. This brought many of the tributes out of their hiding spots near the river, for they were confused as to why the melodic rushing of the river had stopped.

The careers were in business.

The first tribute they spotted was Spud, who had wandered out of his hiding cove to investigate why the river had stopped flowing. The instant the bloodthirsty careers spotted the glow of his flashlight they pounced towards him, and Platinum pinned him to the ground, slicing at least thirty small cuts into his skin, attempting to warm up the show but now hurt the boy too much. Then he was Lucille's, and she picked one of the darts from her blowgun and made a series of incisions in screaming Spud's flesh, again not hurting him too much. Then, it was Styx's turn to do the honors. He pulled out the baton he had retrieved from the cornucopia during the bloodbath and beat Spud in the chest until he coughed up blood, ending the poor boy's life.

 _Spud Aldrik, District 11 Male: 14th, Killed by Platinum, Lucille, and Styx, Day 4_

The careers searched and searched but could not find any other tributes to kill, as they had all ran back into hiding after secretly witnessing Spud's beating. Thus, they wandered back to the cornucopia.

Then, at about nine o'clock that night, as the careers were taking their time strolling along back to their supplies, the gamemakers shook things up a little. A huge flock of crows consisting of at least a hundred members swooped down towards the careers, all landing on the ground a few dozen yards to left of the careers. But, the careers just brushed them aside and went on their way, dismissing them as a normal flock of crows. But, they were not normal. Upon some gamemaker's command, they all bowled towards the unsuspecting tributes and began tearing them apart, biting into their skin and ripping apart their flesh. The tributes fled screaming, smacking the birds away and running as fast as they could away from the ruthless beasts. The only tribute who managed to escape unscathed was Quartz, as the instant she heard the bird's cries she darted away as fast as possible towards the cornucopia. Escaping with her was Lucille, who had tons of wounds and looked like she had just swum in blood but managed to get back to the cornucopia along with Quartz. Those two were safe.

However, back at the site of the attack, Platinum, Styx, and Tyler could not escape, for the gamemakers had send a group of the crows to hold each tribute's ankles down to the ground. The three boy's screams filled the arena for two long hours as the birds completely subjugated their once powerful forms. The mutts had killed them.

 _Styx Domitia, District 2 Male: 13th, Crow Muttations, Day 4_

 _Platinum Zulera, District 1 Male: 12th, Crow Muttations, Day 4_

 _Tyler Salton, District 4 Male: 11th, Crow Muttations, Day 4_

Back at the cornucopia, Quartz tended to a half-dead Lucille's wounds, applying healing alcohol to her wounds. But, she was dying nonetheless. Without advanced Capitol medicine, she would be dead. And so, testing her luck, Quartz wandered out of the cornucopia, started dead straight at the nearest camera, and said confidently:

"Lucille needs medicine. Now."

In the Captiol, hundreds of exhilarated sponsors all pulled out their wallets and began giving their money to Blaze, who was Lucille's mentor. And, after he had saved up enough money, he sent Lucille a parachute filled with medicine. It was a long and meticulous process, but by four in the morning the next day Quartz and managed to return Lucille to her original form. But there was no way she could venture out into the arena in her condition, and there was no way Quartz was going to leave her alone at the cornucopia. As such, for the next two days the two girls remained at the cornucopia together.

Days 5, 6, and 7 passed in complete peace, with no conflict or killing among the ten remaining tributes. However, on Day 8, a dehydration death occurred.

 _Alba Rusher, District 5 Female: 10th, Dehydration, Day 8_

On Day 10, Amber ventured out in search of food because her supply from the cornucopia and from scattered sponsor presents had ran out. However, while wandering through a thicket she tripped on a root and was sent tumbling forward, falling down a deep shaft set by the gamemakers and rolling into a chasm. Then, she fell into a muddy pond where she lay, covered in bruises and barely able to move. The muddy water was very poisonous, and it infected her wounds, making them turn sallow and gangrenous. The morning of Day 11, her cannon boomed through the arena, signaling her death.

 _Amber Sequoia, District 7 Female: 9th, Infection, Day 11_

On Day 12, when Lucille was feeling up to going killing again, her and Quartz decided to go for a more passive routine of hiding by the riverbank and pouncing upon any unsuspecting tribute who needed water from the river. They began to grow impatient by noon, but kept waiting. Then, at around four that evening, Xerces leaned over and dipped his bowl into the river, filling it with the crystal clear water. Then, in unison, Lucille and Quartz pounced upon him and shoved him underwater. Despite his thrashing, he could not escape, and his struggling just made his body use up oxygen faster. He died from suffocation under the water two minutes later.

 _Xerces Nova, District 3 Male: 8th, Killed by Quartz and Lucille, Day 12_

Day 13 saw one dehydration death.

 _Isidra Blodgett, District 9 Female: 7th, Dehydration, Day 13_

On Day 14, perhaps realizing that he was the weakest remaining tribute and that he had virtually no chance of survival remaining, Cori killed himself by consuming a handful of poisonous berries.

 _Cori Whyte, District 9 Male: 6th, Suicide, Day 14_

Day 15 came, and the duo of Bentley and Beatrice were wandering through the arena in an attempt to find food and made a plan. They laid out two baskets at their camp. They used mud to mark one with the word 'food' and the other 'poison'. They would find things for them to eat and put them in the food basket, and find poisonous things to put in the poison basket. Why did they do this? Well, they thought that they could kill other tributes by sneaking something poisonous into their food and so stockpiled on nightlock and hemlock and wolfsbane galore.

Then, around eleven o'clock at night on Day 15, the careers made another kill, Lucille shooting a dart from her blowgun into Cedar's heart after she found him hiding inside of a hollowed out tree.

 _Cedar Lansworth, District 7 Male: 5th, Killed by Lucille, Day 15_

The only four remaining tributes were the two careers: Quartz and Lucille, as well as the two siblings from District 6: Bentley and Beatrice. The morning of Day 16, a coincidence occurred when all four of the remaining tributes were out and about. Beatrice and Bentley were out with hopes on finding food, and Quartz and Lucille were our with hopes of hunting the two siblings down.

Then, all of a sudden, the lights flicked on and it was day for the first time in fifteen days. After living in complete darkness for over two weeks the tributes squinted their eyes as the light scissored their vision. This wasn't just some little, insignificant thing. Something bigger was about to occur.

That was when the rain started. It started as a slight sprinkle that didn't faze the tributes at all. But, something about it felt wrong somehow. They became nauseous. Quartz even vomited. It took some longer than others to realize the wrench that the gamemakers had thrown into the works.

"It's poison!" Beatrice yelled to her brother as the slight sprinkle turned into a downpour, eating through the tributes skin as they darted towards the cornucopia, shielding their faces from the acidic rain that was biting into their skin and eating away at it. The trees could not protect them. There was only one safe place left. The cornucopia.

The tributes began barreling across the terrain, attempting to reach the cornucopia in the distance before the acidic and poisonous rain killed them. Of the four tributes, three of them made in inside of the cornucopia. Lucille, Bentley, and Beatrice all reached shelter safely. Quartz, on the other hand, tripped while running and fell down, the rain completely dissolving her body and eating away at her flesh. Within thirty seconds, no trace of her existence remained.

 _Quartz Ballytynn, District 2 Female: 4th, Acid Rain, Day 16_

Inside of the cornucopia stood Lucille, Bentley, and Beatrice, the only three tributes remaining in the arena. Bentley held the dagger he had received from a sponsor firmly in hand, standing right next to his sister. Beatrice wielded a spear she had scooped up from the field before running into the cornucopia. Lucille held her dart gun, the arrows of which she had dipped in the poisonous rain to make them kill extra fast.

The two siblings, of course, teamed up to take down Lucille. Standing close together, they went with the immediately obvious strategy of attempting to corrall Lucille into a corner, where she would have nowhere to run. But, Lucille was not stupid enough to fall for that trap and so ran around the other two, standing in front of the entrance of the cornucopia. Lucille took aim with her dart gun, aiming and Bentley. However, Bentley dove out of the way right before she fired and escaped unscathed, the dart instead digging into the interior wall of the cornucopia. Cursing, Lucille took aim again, this time making Beatrice her target. But, when she was about to fire the dart, Bentley ran up to her and used the metal bar he had to knock the gun out of her hand, sending it spiraling through the air. It landed just outside of the cornucopia, in a puddle of water that instantly began eating away at the metal. Lucille was defenseless. All it took was a stab in the neck from Beatrice's dagger to kill her, leaving Beatrice and Bentley the only remaining tributes.

 _Lucille Gowne, District 4 Female: 3rd, Killed by Beatrice, Day 16_

The two remaining tributes were Bentley Toland and Beatrice Toland of District 6. The siblings glanced uncomfortably at each other, not quite sure what to do. They had never planned what to do if they ended up at the final two, and as such they were suspended in awkward tension as they stood staring into each other's eyes. Then, after five long minutes, Bentley reached into his fanny pack and pulled out the basket of poisonous things the two had gathered a few days prior. It would be the most painless way to die. He separated them into two piles on the ground.

"I think we'd better draw straws or something. I think that would be…" Beatrice said, but was cut short. Bentley had already shoved a handful of the poison medley into his mouth, having sacrificed himself to let Beatrice be victor.

 _Bentley Toland, District 6 Male: 2nd, Suicide Day 16_

"Beatrice Toland of District 6, you are the victor of the sixteenth annual Hunger Games!" Lorenzo exclaimed as a hovercraft appeared to collect District 6's first victor.

Face completely void of expression, Beatrice lay down on the cold surface of the cornucopia and scrunched up into a ball, shedding a tear as she stared at the corpse of her brother who had given his life so that she could live.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The nation had mostly positive thoughts about Beatrice, and her brother's sacrifice at the end of the games really warmed the hearts of many people in the audience. As for District 6, they were overjoyed to receive their very first victor.

Her victory tour went quite well, except for her stop in District 4 where she was ignored and degraded for the entirety of her stay.

She moved into the previously vacant Victor's Village of District 6, the first victor to do so.

After the traumatic experience of seeing her brother die in the arena, Beatrice turned to morphling to dissuade her demons and numb the pain of the time she served in the arena. She would be a complete social hermit, never leaving her home on her own accord. Additionally, she was terrified of rain and would hide in the closet of her mansion whenever it rained, still screaming for Bentley to run. However, two years later a boy from District 6 named Markus would win, who had also lost a sibling to the games and had also taken up the vice of morphling after his games. Markus was the only person that truly understood Beatrice, and so the instant the two met they became the best of friends, even getting married later in their lives. Beatrice would live to the age of eighty-two, falling into a coma and dying around the time of the eighty-first annual Hunger Games.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Beatrice moves into the Victor's Village of District 6, the very first victor to do so.

Molly Toliday has her first and only child with her husband Tom Lyle, a healthy boy that they name Carter Lyle.

Amelia Spangler becomes pregnant with her first and only child, a girl that she and her husband Walton Kendall decide to name Dhalia Kendall.

President Lizeth Dyson marries her boyfriend, a man named Jed Rider.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)

* * *

 **A/N: So, in case you haven't made the connection yet, Beatrice is the female morphling from Catching Fire. I know that in the movie they depict her as being in her thirties, but in the book Katniss describes her as being in her late sixties. Therefore, as a book lover and firm believer that this story should be written going by the book, I feel confident placing her victory at number sixteen. Anyways, how well do you think I did? If you would take a quick moment to leave a review it would be appreciated greatly! Happy Halloween everyone!**


	18. The 17th Hunger Games

**The 17th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Head Gamemaker Lorenzo Chastain returned for his third year on the job, praised by the nation for the success of the games the year prior (which, of course, were played out under his watch). The arena for the seventeenth Hunger Games was a rolling meadow filled with apple and orange trees, resembling an orchard that one might travel to in order to gather fruit to eat. Grass as tall as the tribute's knees covered every square inch of the place, and deer roamed the landscape munching on the flowers that dotted the floor of the meadow, every color of the rainbow and more. Long, swift rivers scissored across the area. The abundance of clean water coupled with the fact that the tributes were always less than twenty yards from a fruit tree would certainly cut down the number of natural deaths. The entire arena was a bowl shape, with the cornucopia at the bottom and walls that very gradually angled upwards to create a full bowl. The force field, of course, surrounded the arena on all sides to prevent the tributes from escaping the arena. The Capitol was absolutely blown away by the array of tributes, and they were all so ridiculously overpowered that Capitolites were making bets like crazy, analyzing whom would emerge victorious from the strong crop of fighters. Firstly, there were the careers. The District 2 boy was noticeably the strongest member of the alliance and demonstrated impeccable skill with many weapons, particularly knives, swords, and axes. His district partner received the same training score as him, as both of them walked home with a ten in training. She earned her ten by displaying her talents with the crossbow and baton, as well as her survival skills. The District 1 male was the only other career to earn a ten, and his outstanding skill with the 'brute force' weapons—such as batons, pickaxes, and hammers—earned him the admiration of many people in the audience, including lots of sponsors. The District 1 female was noticeably weaker than her district partner, mostly focusing on her one signature weapon, the bow and arrow, and not focusing much on anything else. If anything, however, this paid off for her because she scored a nine in training. District 4, as was quite standard, put on a much less stellar showing than the other two career districts. Their boy earned an eight via his talents with the trident, and the girl earned a six (the lowest of the career pack) by demonstrating her throwing knife use. Outside of the careers, there were two alliances! One was formed between the District 9 male, District 9 female, and District 10 male. Earning an eight, a nine, and a ten respectively, they wowed the audience with their skills in the throwing knife, scythe, and hoe. Upon the District 10 male's earning of a ten, he became the first ever non-career district to earn a double digit score since before careers existed. The other alliance was formed between the two District 7 tributes, who were impeccably skilled with the axe and hatchet from laboring away in the lumber district their entire seventeen year-long lives. They both earned tens, a fact that flabbergasted the sponsors. The crop of tributes was extremely overpowered. This, of course, was to be expected from the fact that the reaping was completely random. Sometimes the crop of tributes was very weak and so the games were long and boring. Sometimes, the crop of tributes was very powerful and so the games were thrilling and exhilarating. Perhaps this was taken to the ultimate extreme by the fact that six tens, two nines, and three eights were scored. Despite the very overpowered array of tributes, there were strangely no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Shimmer Galaxia, 16, (10) 14-1 and Floria Dawson, 17, (9) 14-1

District 2: Nero Esslemont, 18, (10) 10-1 and Amelia Bankston, 18, (10) 11-1

District 3: Brian Gadge, 16, (3) 38-1 and Brea Serfling, 17, (3) 35-1

District 4: Marlin Casacchia, 17, (8) 16-1 and Sedna Randolph, 15, (6) 22-1

District 5: Astro Gilmore, 16, (5) 30-1 and Hellen Spark, 18, (7) 17-1

District 6: Thalesyn Esposito, 18, (3) 24-1 and Visten Plewis, 14, (2) 59-1

District 7: Larix Yeliosen, 17, (10) 12-1 and Forenya Davis, 17, (10) 13-1

District 8: Weaver Margon, 13, (2) 71-1 and Lacey Twill, 15, (3) 50-1

District 9: Barric Nox, 16, (8) 18-1 and Elanore Edmond, 17, (9) 15-1

District 10: Ty Brice, 18, (10) 12-1 and Creselda Loy, 17, (8) 16-1

District 11: Ramonita Humphries, 14, (5) 42-1 and Kirby Delmonmoingeon, 15, (5) 40-1

District 12: Mercedez Rowley, 16, (2) 51-1 and Janey Piper, 13, (1) 101-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The sweet smell of crisp apples and morning dew was fresh in the air when the tributes rose up into the arena. The tributes inhaled deeply, savoring the delectable scent that wafted through the summer air that made their mouths water feverishly. Around each pedestal was a cluster of flowers, every color of the rainbow and more. The arena was breathtakingly beautiful, and many of the tributes stood taking in its splendor until the moment the gong rang signaling the start of the games.

The bloodbath of these games would be, simply put, an all-out massacre. Thirteen lives would be claimed in the bloodbath, and the tributes blood spilled across the terrain like water. When the gong played its familiar note in the distance, the tributes leapt off of their pedestals and zoomed across the plain, bowling towards the cornucopia. Only a few tributes ran away at first, perhaps realizing that their chances of death in the bloodbath were higher given the fact that there were three powerful alliances instead of the typical one. Of the others, they surged forward and began scooping up the supplies they needed.

The first tributes to reach the cornucopia were the duo of Larix and Forenya, and there was little question as to what weapon they were searching for. The instant they closed their eager fingers around two menacingly sharp axes, they were in business. Forenya searched the clearing for a bit, and when she spotted one boy running past her she hurled her axe thirty yards, letting it sink into the boy's hip as he fell to the ground amidst an explosion of scarlet blood. Larix finished the job when he approached the writhing boy and bludgeoned him in the chest, finished him off as the bloodbath began in earnest.

 _Weaver Margon, District 8 Male: 24th, Killed by Forenya and Larix, Bloodbath_

The careers were not far behind the two District 7 tributes. The first of the bunch to actually pick up a weapon was Shimmer, who wrapped her dexterous fingers around a pickaxe that lay on the ground fifty yards from her pedestal. Shimmer picked up the pickaxe and, running over towards a girl that looked to be an easy target, slammed the tool into her head, denting her temple and shattering her skull. She died before she even had time to scream.

 _Hellen Spark, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Shimmer, Bloodbath_

Once Nero reached the cornucopia and spotted a whimsically curved sword leaning against its interior wall, he ran to retrieve it. When he turned around, he spotted a girl with a blade of her own attempting to kill him, hoping to eliminate competition early. However, Nero slashed her across the chest, sending her to the ground with a hollow thump as her eyes glazed back into her head.

 _Janey Piper, District 12 Female: 22nd, Killed by Nero, Bloodbath_

Barric, Elanore, and Ty were eager to make their first kill in order to prove to the audience that they were capable of living up to the hype they had instilled in the Capitol by all earning eights and above. As such, when Elanore caught a glimpse of a boy running past her she whipped her head and speared him through the torso with her spear. Elanore called for her allies, seeking help in killing the boy. Barric finished the job Elanore had started when he smashed the boy in the chest with his scythe, slicing open his essential organs and sending them spilling out of his body.

 _Thaselyn Esposito, District 6 Male: 21st, Killed by Elanore and Barric, Bloodbath_

The careers, seeing the powerful alliance of Barric, Ty, and Elanore as a threat to their survival, all came to the conclusion that they needed to eliminate them. As such, all six careers met up and waited until their prey were all in the perfect position. Then, after a long moment of tension, the careers lunged at the tributes. Floria and Marlin, the two tributes who had been assigned to kill Barric, pounced upon him and pinned him to the ground. Floria aimed for Barric's chest with her bow, ready to shoot. However, before she could release her arrow Marlin speared his trident through Barric's heart, killing him quickly.

 _Barric Nox, District 9 Male: 20th, Killed by Marlin, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, the other careers had managed to kill Elanore. Amelia had pinned Elanore to the ground, and despite her thrashing she could not escape. Amelia raised her baton high into the air and brought it down upon Elanore's forehead, denting her skull with a loud crack and severely damaging her brain.

 _Elanore Edmond, District 9 Female: 19th, Killed by Amelia, Bloodbath_

Then, the only member of the alliance remaining was Ty. Ty was the only one of the group that had managed to escape the wrath of the careers, and he stowed away in a crate inside of the cornucopia, waiting for some prey of his own to wander in. When Sedna began rummaging through supplies in the cornucopia, Ty was in business, stabbing her in the back with his knife.

 _Sedna Randolph, District 4 Female: 18th, Killed by Ty, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile in the field in front of the cornucopia, Shimmer was busy fending off Forenya and Larix with her pickaxe. In fact, Shimmer was so distracted that he didn't even notice Lacey sneaking up behind him. Once Lacey had a distance of less than a yard from Shimmer, she wrapped her rope in several tight loops around his neck and tied the ends into a tight knot, rendering Shimmer unable to breathe. He died from suffocation one minute and forty-one seconds later, marking Lacey's first kill.

 _Shimmer Galaxia, District 1 Male: 17th, Killed by Lacey, Bloodbath_

Then, Amelia made another kill with her baton, bringing it down upon the nearest boy's head and cracking his skull.

 _Brian Gadge, District 3 Male: 16th, Killed by Amelia, Bloodbath_

Whilst rummaging through supplies in the cornucopia, Floria threw open a crate and found a helpless girl shivering and shaking inside of it, hoping to wait out the bloodbath and come out once it was all over. However, she had no such luck and her life was ended when Floria brought down her axe, splitting her head open and literally slicing her brain in half.

 _Visten Plewis, District 6 Female: 15th, Killed by Floria, Bloodbath_

It was then and there that the careers suffered their next loss. You see, the duo of Forenya and Larix had blocked off the entrance of the cornucopia and were walking inward, trapping Floria inside. By the time Floria noticed the two, she was less than twenty yards from the solid metal back of the horn, with no way to escape. However, she was not about to go down without a fight and so she hurled her axe through the air. Miraculously, the axe found its home in Forenya's chest, digging into her ribcage and tearing apart her lungs.

 _Forenya Davis, District 7 Female: 14th, Killed by Floria, Bloodbath_

However, now that Floria no longer had her axe with her, she was an easy kill. Larix swing his axe towards her neck, decapitating Floria in one clean slice and sending her head tumbling to the ground with a thump.

 _Floria Dawson, District 1 Female: 13th, Killed by Larix, Bloodbath_

Then came the time that came every year, when all of the tributes had scrambled away into the arena and left an eerie silence hanging over the cornucopia. The careers managed to make one more kill while they were at it, Amelia smashing one boy in the chest, shattering his ribcage.

 _Ramonita Humphries, District 11 Male: 12th, Killed by Amelia, Bloodbath_

Thirteen cannons rang through the arena, symbolizing the thirteen lives that were claimed during the bloodbath. Nero, Amelia, and Marlin, the only remaining careers, then got to the busy and laborious task of rounding up the thirteen corpses and piling them in a far-away corner of the clearing, savoring the fact while they could that they didn't stink. Then, they set up a little camp for them to return to each night, with a sleeping bag and a lantern allotted for each career. Right outside of the clearing, Larix hid in the bough of a strong apple tree, scrunching up to hide himself from the view of the others as much as possible, while also conserving body heat. He clutched his axe so hard his knuckled were white, slightly traumatized after seeing his district partner be slaughtered by Floria a few minutes prior. That night, he secured himself to the branch with a rope as to keep him from tumbling out of the tree. Brea, the only remaining District 3 tribute, settled down for the night in a sort of cove next to the arena's longest river, reasoning that it would always be easy to get water if she lived right next to the river. Lacey followed a similar line of thinking, burying herself under a layer of dirt and leaves on the bank of the river, hoping to wait out the night without being spotted by any of the others. Astro and Creselda both went with the immediately obvious strategy of hiding out in trees, each one moving to the far-out edges of the arena and hiding in trees that had lots of their leaves and could hide them from sight. Mercedez went with the rather ridiculous strategy of digging a hole in the ground, climbing inside, and piling dirt back on top of him, placing a cloth over his nose and mouth so that the dirt wouldn't flood into them. That was an extremely stupid idea, and at around midnight that night the cloth slid out of place, making way for the dirt to flood into his mouth and choke him. He clawed at his throat and attempted to climb out of his hole but was so weak from lack of oxygen he could not do so. He died of suffocation inside of the grave he had unknowingly dug for himself.

 _Mercedez Rowley, District 1 Male: 11th, Suffocation, Day 1_

The careers all woke up bright and early in the morning of Day 2, picking up their weapons and divvying up the arena amongst them. Nero went off to the north portion of the arena with his knife, firmly grasping it in his hand. Amelia went off to comb through the southeast sector of the arena, holding her baton and searching for any stray tributes to call her next prey. Marlin scoured the southeastern section of the arena, eager to put his trident to use once more.

The first kill of Day 2 was made at roughly seven o'clock in the morning, just shy of an hour after the careers had ventured out to do their killing. While Marlin was treading softly through his assigned portion of the arena, he heard a shuffling of grass and twigs to his right. Whipping his head towards the source of the sound, he began prowling towards it. When Marlin threw aside a bush he found Lacey hiding behind it. Lacey screamed as she leapt up into the air and began racing away from Marlin as fast as her legs could carry her. But, with Marlin at her six, Lacey simply could not outrun the career. Marlin hurled his trident through the air, glistening in the round gem of the sun as it sank into her back, killing the girl.

 _Lacey Twill, District 8 Female: 10th, Killed by Marlin, Day 2_

Marlin ripped the girl's backpack off of her back and investigated its contents. A package of dried pineapple, a jug of water, a knife, a mini-boiler, a rolled up pillow, a jar of iodine, and a sheet of paper she had received from a sponsor to check off the names of the dead tributes.

"Not too shabby," Marlin murmured to himself as he looted the contents and began his trek back to the center of the arena to drop the supplies off at the cornucopia.

Around eleven o'clock in the morning that very same day, the careers made their second kill. While combing through her sector of the arena she heard a short squeal to her left, cut short by a clapping sound. Amelia ran around a large rock to find Kirby hiding behind it, and her beating began. Amelia brought down her baton upon her skull, cracking it and rendering her almost entirely dead. It took a hit to her shoulder and ribcage, however, to actually trigger her cannon and kill her. She was carrying nothing with her and as such Amelia abandoned her corpse and moved on.

 _Kirby Delmonmoingeon, District 11 Female: 9th, Killed by Amelia, Day 2_

The third death of the day occurred at around eleven at night that night. Larix, wielding his axe, slightly insane and driven out of his mind after seeing his district partner be killed, had prowled the arena for the entire day with a lust for the career's blood. As such, that night, when all of the careers were asleep, he bowled into the clearing that housed the bulky cornucopia and ran towards it. The first and only kill he was able to make was that of Nero. Larix bludgeoned his axe into Nero's chest, killing him instantly after the serrated edge pierced his heart.

 _Nero Esslemont, District 2 Male: 8th, Killed by Larix, Day 2_

Larix then ran out of the cornucopia, grinning madly and cackling strange words that nobody could quite understand. There was no doubt what had happened to him. He had gone completely insane. He danced around, hurling his axe into the air with a menacingly creepy smile plastered on his face. No way could the gamemakers let this madman be their victor. As such, the gamemakers blew him up, sending him sky-high as the ground exploded beneath him.

 _Larix Yeliosen, District 7 Male: 7th, Bomb, Day 2_

On Day 3, which turned out to be the penultimate day in the arena, the two remaining careers hunted as a pack, hoping that their kills would be quicker and easier if there were two of them instead of just one. Their suspicions were proven correct when Amelia and Marlin stumbled upon Creselda hiding inside of a hollowed out tree, with a knife as her only weapon against the two careers. Her hopes of survival were diminished when Marlin planted his trident into her chest. Amelia finished her off by smashing her in the shoulder with her baton, cracking the bone in the shoulder.

 _Creselda Loy, District 10 Female: 6th, Killed by Marlin and Amelia, Day 3_

That night, while Astro was wandering tirelessly through the arena, he tripped on a rock and tumbled downwards into a ditch that was filled with very muddy water. The water was filled with specially engineered bacteria that seeped into the cuts all over his body, causing his body to very slowly but surely shut down. He screamed all night long as the poison completely consumed him, and the next morning once he was practically begging for death the infection killed him.

 _Astro Gilmore, District 5 Male: 5th, Infection, Day 4_

With only four tributes remaining, the gamemakers concluded that it was time to drive all of the tributes inward towards the cornucopia for a bloody finale. As such, the gamemakers triggered a sandstorm on the outskirts of the arena that would slowly grow larger and larger as it spread inwards, cutting into the tribute's skin like shards of glass. The moment the tributes heard the eerie howl of the sand collecting itself into one huge wall of death, they began surging forward towards the cornucopia, where they knew they would be safe. Three tributes made it to the cornucopia alive. Brea, however, was not so lucky. While less than half a mile from the cornucopia, she tripped on a loose root and fell to the ground, the force of the sandstorm washing over her and slicing into her skin, tearing apart her back. Once the sand began building up on top of her, she was so weak from all of her cuts that she could not escape. She suffocated on the sand a few minutes later.

 _Brea Serfling, District 3 Female: 4th, Suffocation, Day 4_

Atop the cornucopia, with the sandstorm swirling around them in a whirling vortex, stood the three remaining tributes. Amelia held her baton high above her head, ready to strike. Marlin wielded his trident. And, Ty, the one member of the non-career alliance that had managed to escape the wrath of the careers in the bloodbath, brandished his menacingly sharp knife, ready to strike.

As one could imagine, the careers did not take kindly to being outsmarted. As such, Amelia and Marlin teamed up to take down Ty. Marlin thrust his trident forward towards Ty's chest. But, Ty ran out of the way at the last moment, swiping his sword down towards Amelia's shoulder. However, Amelia ran out of the trajectory of the blade, instead bringing down his baton upon Ty's shoulder. That was the blow that ended up disarming him, sending his knife flipping end over end before landing in the vortex of sand and being washed away. Now defenseless, all it took to kill Ty was a stab in the heart from Marlin's trident, killing him and leaving only two tributes remaining.

 _Ty Brice, District 10 Male: 3rd, Killed by Amelia and Marlin, Day 4_

The final battle of the seventeenth Hunger Games was between Amelia Bankston of District 2 and Marlin Cassachia of District 4. The two shook hands, officially ending their alliance and beginning the final battle of the games.

The first to make a move was Marlin, who lunged forward in an attempt to sink the prongs of his trident into Amelia's chest. But, of course, Amelia was clever enough to see his plan and so sideswiped out of the way and twisted her body sideways as she slammed her baton into Marlin's back, cracking his ribcage and sending him to the ground, writhing in pain.

Amelia stood looking down upon a writhing Marlin, and Marlin was the only thing standing in the way of Amelia and the victor's crown. In one final motion that would mark her as victor, she brought down her baton upon Marlin's head, denting his temple and tearing his skull apart with a sickening crack. She had ended his life, and by the time his cannon had fully faded away the trumpets played their melody in the distance, congratulating their newest victor.

 _Marlin Cassachia, District 4 Male: 2nd, Killed by Amelia, Day 4_

"Amelia Bankston of District 2, you are the victor of the seventeenth annual Hunger Games!" Lorenzo roared enthusiastically as a hovercraft appeared to collect the girl.

Amelia raised her weapons into the air, grinning madly and roaring victoriously, celebrating her first moments as a victor.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

Amelia was welcomed into District 2's growing lineup of victors with open arms. Upon her victory, District 2 became the first district to accumulate five victors, and as such she was worshipped by her home district before settling into her Victor's Village home. It piqued the interest of many Hunger Games enthusiasts that she was actually the second Amelia to win the hunger games, the first being Amelia Spangler of the fourth Hunger Games. They became the first ever pair of victors to share a name, a rather rare occurrence that would only happen a few more times in the first Hunger Games century.

Her victory tour was quite average, except for her stop in District 4 where she was given the cold shoulder and mostly ignored for the duration of her stay.

She moved into the Victor's Village of District 2, the fifth victor to do so.

Amelia would live to the age of eighty-seven, dying from Measles around the time of eighty-sixth annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would have several significant relationships, and at age forty she would settle down with a man and have a long and committed relationship with him, just sans marriage. She would never reproduce herself but would adopt a son at the age of forty-one.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Amelia Bankston moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, the fifth victor to do so.

Amelia Spangler bears her first and only child, a healthy baby girl that her and her husband Walton name Dhalia Kendall.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: I'm sorry if this chapter isn't nearly as polished as some of my others; I've been facing writer's block lately and have been finding it difficult to keep new and original ideas flowing. That's why these games were a little bland. But, I'm certainly very glad I could get this one out for you guys. Thank you so much for all of the wonderful reviews you guys have been leaving. Whether positive or negative, they really help me grow as a writer. If you would like to, please leave a review on this chapter. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time!**


	19. The 18th Hunger Games

**The 18th Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Head Gamemaker Lorenzo Chastain returned for his fourth year on the job, promising the nation that his next arena would be his most spectacular yet. As such, he met up with his team of loyal gamemakers and spent weeks sketching out possible arenas. But, none of the designs were really clicking with him. As such, he asked for special permission to view President Dyson's prized collection of books, hoping to find inspiration in them. She had old books. She had new books. She had books so old you could barely read the words. One such book was a book called "Jurassic Park". It was about a time when humans develop technology to revive dinosaurs, and a zoo is built where visitors can come and see the dinosaurs in their entire splendor. Lorenzo had to practically pry the nearly four hundred year-old book from Lizeth's hands in order to read it. But, the instant he read the first line, he fell in love with the concept. The next day, he stormed into the gamemaker's office and proclaimed enthusiastically what he wanted the arena of the eighteenth Hunger Games to be. The arena was on an island in the middle of a freezing ocean. The north tip of the island was very mountainous and cold, and in the center there was a rolling meadow dotted with every type of flower and grass imaginable. To the east was a long and sandy dune, and to the west was a long mountain chain, creating a rain shadow effect and causing the soil beneath it to be dry and hard and very much infertile. And, to the south was a massive mountain so tall the top was cut off by the misty white clouds. It was a stunning majesty of a thing, with its steep icy slopes and peaks every which way. But, the arena would not be complete without the dinosaurs. The arena had everything from Pterodactyls which soared through the air to Tyrannosaurus Rex that prowled the landscape to the tiny Velociraptors that munched on the flowers in the meadow. As they were very much harmless creatures, the gamemakers expected them to make very few if not zero kills but under their command. Lorenzo stated in an interview that it was his favorite arena of his creation so far, and the majesty of the breathtaking place really spoke for the true heart of the gamemaker and his craft. The career pack was six strong, as it usually was. The District 1 boy was your typical all-in-it-for-the-fame career, and perhaps his confidence and sureness of himself, along with his talents with the knife, contributed to his earning of a ten. His district partner was certainly less boastful and confident than him, as she was a mysterious trickster and temptress who impressed the gamemakers via her mysteriously spontaneous attitude and dangerous intelligence. The District 2 male was, in a sense, an all-out psychotic murderer. Most skilled with the dagger, knife, and axe, he appeared to actually enjoy killing. His district partner was quite the opposite, and she did not at all enjoy killing. She earned an eight, the lowest score of the careers. This was something she was obviously very disappointed with, but did a rather good job corking it down and making the audience laugh it off. District 4, which usually produced the least stellar showing of the trio, actually did extremely well. Their boy earned a ten with his sharp intelligence and wits as well as his skills with the harpoon and trident. He was probably the second most dangerous tribute after the District 2 boy. Their girl earned a nine, the only tribute in the games to do so. Not so much her skills with weaponry, but more her stealth and intelligence, contributed to that score. There was also, strangely, a brother-sister pair from District 6. The two siblings had been reaped side by side and had actually made an alliance, one of two alliances in the games (the other being the careers). The male certainly was more successful than the female, for he scored a four whilst his sister scored a meager two. Training scores were rather average. Within the careers, four tens and one nine, as well as one eight, were scored. Outside of the careers, two eights and one seven were scored, scored by the District 7 tributes and the District 10 male respectively. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There were two volunteers outside of the careers. There was the District 10 female, who volunteered into the games to save her disabled younger sister, and the District 5 male, who volunteered to save his best friend. In total, there were eight volunteers, one of the highest ever. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Raptor Endress, 16, (10) 9-1 and Jade Nocella, 17, (10) 9-1

District 2: Cnaeus Vindex, 17, (10) 8-1 and Lylen Wacquant, 16, (8) 12-1

District 3: Tylin Glover, 18, (4) 23-1 and Jilyen Imamoglu, 15, (3) 38-1

District 4: Trinidad Rhoades, 18, (10) 8-1 and Susan Corgain, 18, (9) 9-1

District 5: Zayden Lubin, 17, (5) 19-1 and Emmanuela Carder, 16, (3) 38-1

District 6: Markus Gardd, 16, (4) 21-1 and Carlynn Gardd, 14, (2) 52-1

District 7: Max Toriff, 17, (8) 13-1 and Leigha Li, 18, (8) 12-1

District 8: Marlen Rankin, 18, (4) 31-1 and Nyla Manson, 18, (3) 33-1

District 9: Ameden Worth, 16, (6) 20-1 and Olinda Keane, 15, (5) 24-1

District 10: Mason Cotter, 18, (7) 15-1 and Vanesa Scully, 17, (6) 17-1

District 11: Colby Peredes, 16, (5) 28-1 and Janette Southerland, 15, (4) 25-1

District 12: Hunter York, 13, (2) 69-1 and Cat Callaghan, 14, (2) 48-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

A cool morning mist hung in the air when the tributes rose up into the arena atop their pedestals. They were, so to say, completely stunned at the huge dinosaurs that were wandering the landscape, and even though they weren't even acknowledging the tribute's presence, they still made them nervous. They whipped their heads around and took in the entire grandeur of the arena: the huge and looming mountain to the south, the mountain chain to the west, the sandbank to the east, and the rolling meadow that they stood on at that very moment, the shimmering cornucopia throwing off reflections of light as it sparkled in the round gem of the sun overhead.

When the gong rang, a number of tributes ran away into the arena with nothing but their bare hands to survive the difficult weeks to come. They were Tylin from 3, Nyla from 8, Colby from 11, and Hunter from 12. They all leapt off of their pedestals the moment the gong sounded and raced away from the mayhem that was ensuing back at the horn of plenty.

At the cornucopia, when the countdown reached zero and the sound of the gong rang though the arena, the tributes burst forward and began darting forth to scoop up whatever useful supplies they could find. Susan, a fast runner, sprinted at the very head of the onrush, her feet thumping over the earth as her chestnut brown hair snapped and whistled in the wind behind her. She leaned over and picked up an entire belt of throwing knives that lay on the ground fifty yards from her pedestal. She fastened the velcro around her waist and pulled one of the knives out of the belt, looking around for a target. When Susan spotted a boy running past her, she was on him like a hound. Susan hurled the knife through the air before it cut into the boy's back, sending him slumping like a stone amidst an explosion of scarlet. Susan ran over to rip the weapon out of his body as the bloodbath officially began.

 _Mason Cotter, District 10 Male: 24th, Killed by Susan, Bloodbath_

Raptor, another fast runner, was not far behind Susan. Raptor raced all the way towards the mouth of the cornucopia and began rummaging through the assortment of weapons. A grin crossed his face when he spotted a menacingly serrated dagger waiting for him in a cluster of pink blossoms not far from where he stood. He picked up the knife and planted it into the back of the nearest girl. The knife sliced into her back like a knife into butter, and the moment the sharp tip of the blade punctured his heart, she was dead.

 _Emmanuela Carder, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Raptor, Bloodbath_

Cnaeus' strong legs that he had trained his entire life did not fail him, and when he caught a glimpse of a throwing axe laying on a table in the cornucopia he sprinted towards it with all of his might. He closed his fingers around the weapon and grasped it so tightly that his knuckles turned a hollow and starch shade of ghostly white. Cnaeus spotted easy prey in a girl that was kneeling on the ground and taking inventory of the contents of an orange backpack. Cnaeus hurled his axe thirty yards towards the girl's head. His aim was perfect, and the throwing axe sank into her head and lodged itself into her skull, sending her corpse rolling to the ground with a hollow thump.

 _Jilyen Imamoglu, District 3 Female: 22nd, Killed by Cnaeus, Bloodbath_

It was then that Trinidad spotted a three-pronged golden trident leaning against the side of the cornucopia, glistening in the light of the overhead sun. He ran over to retrieve it, taking a quick moment to wipe off the condensation that had developed from who-knows-how-long of sitting in the very damp, misty air. Then, he lunged forward and planted the trident into the chest of the nearest boy, sending thick blood spraying in all directions. By the time his head hit the ground, he was dead. Trinidad ripped the weapon out of his corpse, reveling in his first kill.

 _Marlen Rankin, District 8 Male: 21st, Killed by Trinidad, Bloodbath_

Jade had not even retrieved a weapon yet and so killing would not be easy, but when she saw one of the weakest tributes in the games running past her the opportunity was just too sweet to resist. She pounced upon her, pinning her to the ground as her mind raced, trying to come up with an idea as to what to do with this girl. She could snap her neck, but that would be a difficult and long process. She could beat her in the chest, but that would require lifting up her hands and so her prey would be free to escape. In Jade's moment of panic as to what to do, she was so distracted that she didn't even notice Leigha sneaking up behind her. Leigha brought down her axe upon distracted Jade's back, and by the time Jade noticed the sticky situation she was in she had no time to react. The axe sank into Jade's back, killing her almost instantly. Jade's prey was able to scurry away safely, at which time she dropped everything she had been doing and ran away towards the looming mountain in the distance.

 _Jade Nocella, District 1 Female: 20th, Killed by Leigha, Bloodbath_

From the moment she reached the supplies Lylen had been searching for a bow and arrow, her best weapon. However, much to her dismay, she could not find one anywhere. When she finally did find one, laying on a countertop in the cornucopia, she sighed with relief as she ran over to retrieve it. She slung the sheath over her back and pulled one arrow out, nocking it in her bow as her spider senses took over. She aimed the arrow at a nearby boy that looked to be an easy enough target. When Lylen let go of the bowstring, the arrow whistled through the air at an arbitrarily fast speed before lodging itself into the boy's neck, causing a loud gurgle to rise up into his throat as blood began pooling up into his lungs. All that the poor boy could do was roll around on the ground and wait for asphyxia to do its thing, killing him a few minutes later.

 _Zayden Lubin, District 5 Male: 19th, Killed by Lylen, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, at the mouth of the cornucopia, Raptor spotted a boy inside of the cornucopia, rummaging through the supplies and throwing open crates. Raptor ran up to the cornucopia, blocking off the entrance and walking inward, forcing the boy backwards towards the solid back of the cornucopia. When there was less than fifteen yard's distance between Raptor and his prey, he surged forth and planted his knife into the boy's stomach, killing him after a brief moment of screaming on his part.

 _Max Toriff, District 7 Male: 18th, Killed by Raptor, Bloodbath_

It was then that the careers suffered their next loss. After Raptor had killed Max, he bent over and began tearing open the backpack he had been carrying before his death. Seeing how distracted Raptor was, Cat picked up an axe that lay in the grass at her feet and ran up to where Raptor sat, bringing it down upon him and literally splitting his head in half. Cat ripped the weapon out of Raptor's head, all sorts of emotions coursing towards her after making her first kill. She picked up the weapon and darted out of the cornucopia, away into the vast arena and away from the wrath of the four remaining bloodthirsty careers.

 _Raptor Endress, District 1 Male: 17th, Killed by Cat, Bloodbath_

The penultimate death of the bloodbath occurred when, as one girl was attempting to run away from the cornucopia, tripped on a small hole in the ground and fell to the floor, pain bolting through her body from her sprained ankle, her foot now sticking out at an awkward angle. She was so horrified, laying there on the ground and literally unable to get up. All she could do was wait there for some career to come kill her. And, come to kill her they did. When Trinidad spotted her, laying there defenseless, practically begging for death, he thrust the prongs of his trident into her back.

 _Olinda Keane, District 9 Female: 16th, Killed by Trinidad, Bloodbath_

The tenth and final death of the bloodbath occurred almost thirty-two minutes after the gong first rang. When Susan caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye, she hurriedly pulled a knife from her belt and hurled it towards the motion. Her aim was perfect, and Susan turned around to see a girl thrashing on the ground with Susan's knife in her head. Seeing how she was almost completely dead, Cnaeus ran over and bludgeoned her a few times in the chest with his axe, finishing him off and triggering the ten cannons to ring through the arena, signaling the end of the bloodbath.

 _Janette Southerland, District 11 Female: 15th, Killed by Susan and Cnaeus, Bloodbath_

The careers spent the next few hours with the laborious task of rounding up the ten corpses scattered around the clearing and piling them up in a far-away corner where the careers wouldn't be able to smell them. The four careers set up a little camp in the cornucopia, with four sleeping bags and four lanterns, one of each for each tribute. They didn't venture out at all for the rest of Day 1, instead choosing to stay back at the cornucopia and sort through the supplies. They separated them into three categories: weapons, commodities (like water and food), and tools. By the time they had finished with their work, the sun had already dipped below the horizon, and after assigning a watch they all fell into their sleeping bags and tumbled into sleep almost instantaneously.

The other tributes took varied approaches to the night. For example, Tylin, one of those that had chosen to run away from the cornucopia at the very beginning, set up a little den of sorts under a pile of sticks, with a small entrance that was not immediately obvious to the casual observer. Under a huge pile of broken sticks, he dug a little 'bowl' shape into the ground and stayed inside all night, packing dirt back to cover the entrance after he was inside. He managed to stay hidden from the sight of the others in this way. Leigha took a different approach, camping out for the night on top of the arena's looming mountain. Perhaps she reasoned that having the high ground would mean she could spot any danger early and still have time to run away. She made a shelter out of rocks and crouched down inside. It was a tight fit, but it held her. Nyla went for the more creative method of hiding inside of one of the caves in the rocky coast of the island, reasoning that the careers would not be expecting anyone to inhabit the forsaken place and so she would be skipped over.

Ameden, Colby, and Cat all went with the obvious strategy of hiding inside of coves next to the arena's main river. Colby's camp was closest to the source of the river, a large lake in the mountain range to the north. Ameden was between the other two, and Cat was near the mouth of the river, where the water was brackish and so no careers would come looking. Vanesa and Hunter both hid in the rocky and mountainous sector of the arena, Vanesa hiding beneath a sturdy rock shelf and Hunter building an 'igloo' of sorts out of the wet and hard packing snow on the mountain.

Then, there were the siblings from District 6. Markus and Carlynn both hid in a previously dug den that was perhaps once inhabited by a beaver or groundhog. It was right by the river, and the two could crawl down into the open space underground. A square-ish shape around five feet on each side, it could hold the two siblings well. When they were inside, they were able to pull out dirt from the walls and shove it into their entrance hole, blocking them from the view of the other tributes and rendering them safe for the night.

The night of Day 1 passed in complete peace, with no interaction between the tributes whatsoever. Some tributes were able to fall asleep right away, like the careers. Some tributes took much longer. Take Leigha, for example, who tossed and turned for almost five hours before falling asleep.

The tributes were jolted awake by the sound of a cannon around seven in the morning on Day 2. There had been an accident in the mountainous region of the arena. Vanesa, who had been sleeping under a sturdy rock shelf, was snoozing away soundly when a medium-sized Gallimimus stepped on top of the rock that Vanesa was under. The weight of the Gallimimus caused the shelf to collapse, and by the time Vanesa figured out what was happening she had no time to escape. The large and flat rock collapsed on top of her flat body, pressing her to death under the weight of almost four-hundred tons of stone.

 _Vanesa Scully, District 10 Female: 14th, Crushed to Death, Day 2_

After being awoken by Vanesa's cannon the morning of the second day in the arena, the careers packed up their supplies and began devising their plan for the day. Lylen walked out of the cornucopia and asked some sponsor for a sheet of paper and pencil, which she received almost immediately. She then, her father being a book collector and her having read "Jurassic Park" before, drew out a map of the island on the piece of paper. She then drew a vertical line cutting it in half left and right, then drew a horizontal line cutting it in half up and down. She had divided the island into four equal segments.

"I'll take this upper-left hand segment," Lylen said, pointing at the portion of the map she was talking about. "Cnaeus, you take the upper-right hand part. Trinidad, you take the bottom left," she continued, pointing to each segment and then to each of her allies in turn. "And, Susan, you take the bottom-right section."

"Seems fair enough," said Susan, adjusting her backpack on her back.

"Great. Let's go," said Cnaeus, grinning with excitement.

The careers did not manage to make any kills until one in the afternoon on Day 2. Multiple times had the careers heard some shuffling of bushes and lunged towards the sound to find some tiny Eromimus or other harmless dinosaur going about its business, disappointed flushing through them. However, around one in the afternoon that day, Susan found her next prey. Whilst wandering through the section assigned to her, which happened to contain the arena's main sandbar, she heard a rustling of sand to her left followed by a short yelp. Whipping her head around and slowly stalking towards the source of the sound, Susan found Cat crumpled up into a ball inside of a cove aside the sandbar. There was nowhere for Cat to run. It was all she could do to sit there and pray her death would be fast as Susan hurled one of her throwing knives into her forehead. Now, only half of the tributes remained.

 _Cat Callaghan, District 12 Female: 13th, Killed by Susan, Day 2_

That was the only kill that was made on Day 2. This, of course, was to be expected because of how large the arena was and because of how new the careers were to all of the little quirks and such of the arena. The night of Day 2, the careers went to sleep early with hopes of getting lots of sleep for their next busy day in the arena.

The sun rose over the long sandbar on the morning of Day 3. Seeing how fruitless their efforts of the previous day had been, the careers decided to complete stop searching the meadow, reasoning that it was too open for anyone to feel safe and so no other tributes would be there. This line of thinking was beneficial to them, as they made two kills on Day 3.

The first of the day's two deaths came at roughly two in the evening that day. Whilst wandering through his assigned segment of the arena, Trinidad stumbled upon Nyla hiding behind a rock on the coast of the arena. Nyla put up a fight. Having crafted herself a knife with a sturdy stone for the handle and a piece of hard shale that she had chipped into a blade shape as the blade part of the knife, she was not about to go down without a fight. A little 'duel' of sorts began between the two, with Trinidad and Nyla dancing around each other in a circular pattern, Trinidad lunging forward with his trident and Nyla attempting to puncture Trinidad's skin or to ward him off with her knife. After a long ten minutes, Trinidad had Nyla forced back against a solid rock face, trapping her in front of him. Then, in one act of faith that seemed too miraculous to be true, Nyla hurled her throwing through the air. Miraculously, the blade sank into Trinidad's heart. Trinidad dropped his trident and began thrashing around on the ground, slowly dying from the grievous wound he had received. Then, to finish the job, Nyla picked up Trinidad's trident and speared him in the torso with it, ending his life. Through a bit of cunning and lots of luck, Nyla had just taken out one of the most powerful careers.

 _Trinidad Rhoades, District 4 Male: 12th, Killed by Nyla, Day 3_

The second and final death of Day 3 occurred at about eleven o'clock at night, when the careers were out hoping to catch some sleeping tribute, which would make them a laughably easy target. The trio of Cnaeus, Lylen, and Susan all combed through the arena as one big pack, thinking it would make their kills easier. Perhaps they were right, for late that night they stumbled upon Ameden hiding in his cove. The first of the careers to make a move was Cnaeus, who hurled his knife into Ameden's chest. Then, Susan finished him off by throwing one of her knives straight into Ameden's heart, killing him almost instantly.

 _Ameden Worth, District 9 Male: 11th, Killed by Cnaeus and Susan, Day 3_

Days 4 thru 5 passed, deathless. In this time, Leigha had moved down the mountainside towards the rocky coast of the island after all of her water kept freezing when she was on the mountain. Scattered sponsor presents had wielded the duo of Markus and Carlynn a water purification device and a fire-starting kit. Not too shabby.

The sun rose upon Day 6, and at this point Leigha was going completely insane from hunger. Not from dehydration, no; there was a practically infinite abundance of water from the fast and strong river. Lack of food had eaten away at her brain and begun to deteriorate her entire existence, subjugating everything she was as she lay on the ground, so weak she could barely move. There was only one option left for her. It was one that Leigha hoped she would never have to do, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Leigha darted over to a small cave where she had seen some tiny little baby dinosaurs earlier that day. It was easy to kill them, really. She just grabbed them and slit their throats with her axe. Once she had rounded up a few baby dinosaurs, she began a fire near the river and fried the babies over it. She bit into them, and her entire body nearly collapsed with relief. It was so delicious, especially since she had gone almost a week without food, that she gobbled down all of the rest in less than ten minutes, not bothering to be tidy.

But, it was only a matter of time before the mother dinosaur returned. And, it was common knowledge that most creatures on this earth do not take kindly to having their children be eaten. As such, when the mother Tyrannosaurus Rex returned, she ran up to where Leigha stood stuffing her face with the tender meat and threw her aside like a rag doll, roaring so loud that Leigha's eardrums almost burst. Over the course of the next few minutes, the dinosaur mauled apart Leigha's body until she was just a splatter on the stony ground. She had gotten food, all right. But it had cost her life.

 _Leigha Li, District 7 Female: 10th, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Day 6_

Days 7 and 8 passed, deathless. The audience had begun to grow rather bored of the games, and many had long flicked off their televisions. The games were, so to speak, boring, which is something they must never be. As such, the gamemakers whipped up a new twist on Day 9.

Nobody ever thought that the huge, majestic mountain overlooking the arena could be anything more than just a little thing to spice up the arena a bit. They could not be more wrong. The gamemakers had a devious plan in store, they would see.

When all of the careers were on the side of the mountain hunting for their next prey, they heard a faint rumble. They all just dismissed it as their imaginations and moved on. But, when it grew louder, and when the ground began to shake beneath their feet, they knew something was up.

Two hours later, the mountain blew its top, spewing molten lava everywhere that rushed down the sides of the volcano. The careers dropped everything they were holding in favor of running faster down the slope of the mountain. The lava was hot on their tails, and if they stopped running for just a second it would gain on them and they would be no better off than the baby dinosaurs Leah had fried a few days before.

"We need to split up!" Cnaeus yelled to his allies. They all nodded in terrified agreement, spreading out on face of the mountain as they raced downward, their hearts beating out of their chests as they ripped through the cold air. Susan's hair snapped in the wind behind her as she raced down the mountainside. Cnaeus's footprints were heavy in the snow, almost immediately incinerated by the lava after he left them. And, Lylen, poor her, was the slowest runner of the trio. She could simply not outrun the raging flow of magma that was racing toward her, and before she was even halfway down the mountainside it swirled around her ankles and sent her tumbling over into the scorching stuff. It killed her immediately. However, it took a few minutes for her body to be completely incinerated by the lava. Susan and Cnaeus shared a terrified look. Their trio was down to two.

 _Lylen Wacquant, District 2 Female: 9th, Volcanic Eruption, Day 9_

The other careers all got down the mountainside safely, the hot lava beginning to harden behind them into stone.

Meanwhile, the other tributes had been very disturbed by the eruption of the volcano. Most notable were Markus and Carlynn, who were out scavenging for food when they saw the eruption and began storming away from it as fast as possible. They had reached the opposite coastline of the island, breathing heavily. They were safe from the eruption, but based on the sound of one cannon some other tribute had not been so lucky. The siblings destroyed their den and moved it further away from where it had been, a greater distance from the volcano.

The darkness began gaining on Cnaeus and Susan before they could get back to the cornucopia. Soon it would grow cold, and they would simply not have enough time to reach their cornucopia home. As such, they found a little cove in the side of a hill and crawled inside, packing dirt over the entrance to shield them from view. They slept in extreme discomfort that night, practically laying on top of each other and scrunched up in a tight ball. If some tribute or predator tore open the entrance and found the two inside, they would have no way to escape. But, they brushed this off as an impossibility. After all, no tribute in their right mind would even think about messing with the careers! Right?

Unfortunately for them, that was just what happened. The brother-sister pair of Markus and Carlynn were wandering tirelessly through the arena with their night-vision glasses. At around eleven o'clock that night, Carlynn heard a snore. She stood completely still and listened again. Still another snore. It was coming from inside of the nearby hill.

"Markus!" Carlynn called for her brother in a whisper-scream.

"Coming!" Markus replied as he ran over to where Carlynn was.

"There's somebody inside of that hill. See that area in the side of the hill with no grass on it?" said Carlynn, pointing at the location she was referring to. "Listen closely and you can hear snoring!"

Markus listened. "By golly, you're right!" he exclaimed.

"Now, I think the big question is: what do we do? Do we leave them there and gloss over them? Do we go in for the kill? We're down to the final eight, and racking up a few kills would be immensely beneficial to our survival," said Carlynn.

"I say we go in for the kill. But we have to be really careful," answered Markus after weighing the options carefully.

That's just what they did. They quickly asked for a knife, which some sponsor gave them right away given how cheap of a gift it was. Now Markus and Carlynn both had a knife. Taking infinite care to be as silent as possible, the two siblings treaded over to the hillside and carved an opening. They looked inside, and had to clap their hands over their mouths to keep from screaming. They saw both remaining careers inside. Cnaeus and Susan were snoozing away inside the den. Laughably easy targets.

"It's now or never," Markus said.

The two lunged into the den, startling the two careers awake almost instantly. Susan and Cnaeus fumbled for their weapons, but were just too surprised to do anything as Markus pinned Cnaeus to the floor and Carlynn pinned Susan to the ground. The first to make their kill was Markus, who plunged his knife deep into Cnaeus' flesh, killing him the moment it pierced his heart.

 _Cnaeus Vindex, District 2 Male: 8th, Killed by Markus, Day 9_

Carlynn was quick to make her kill after that, bringing down her knife and cutting it into Susan's forehead. The career alliance had been eliminated completely. Now, not a single career remained alive in the arena.

 _Susan Corgain, District 4 Female: 7th, Killed by Carlynn, Day 9_

Day 10 passed, technically deathless. However, around three in the evening that day Tylin scavenged out to gather food and, unbeknownst to the fact that they were poisonous, gathered and ate a bunch of poisonous berries. The poison began causing his blood to clot up and make his heart beat irregularly. All he could do was lay on the ground and muffle his own screams as much as he could, willing the poison to work its way out of his body. Then, around eight in the morning on Day 11, the poison reached his heart and he died.

 _Tylin Glover, District 3 Male: 6th, Poisonous Berries, Day 11_

The rest of Day 11 passed without any deaths. The duo of Carlynn and Markus had gone back to the cornucopia after killing the careers and begun throwing aside supplies, healing the various wounds all over their bodies and stuffing their faces with the nearly endless supplies of food sealed away in the cornucopia. Where the careers had once reigned had now been taken over by the two District 6 tributes.

On Day 12, Colby had gone completely insane from dehydration. He had spent his entire time since Day 1 crouched up in a rocky pit near the jagged coastline of the island. He had gotten all of his water from the cornucopia, and it had long run out. He had gone so crazy from lack of water that he couldn't even find the freshwater river to drink from. He died in the rocky hole he had spent twelve entire days inside of.

 _Colby Peredes, District 11 Male: 5th, Dehydration, Day 12_

The gamemakers had reached their cherished final four. They all agreed that it was time to drive the tributes inward for the cornucopia for the bloody finale that would crown their victor. This was a dinosaur-themed arena, and it was going to have a dinosaur-themed finale.

The meteor shower began on the morning of Day 13. The little rocks were barely larger than grains of said, and the tributes paid no attention to them. However, by noon, the rocks had grown to almost half a centimeter in diameter as they dropped from the sky periodically.

Then, around four in the evening on Day 13, the huge meteor came. The sound of the huge rock hurdling through the sky was so loud that the tributes clapped their hands over their ears to block out the sound. The meteor slammed into the ocean, causing the earth to rumble and causing debris to fly every which way. Unlucky Hunter was less than a kilometer from the source of the meteor's impact, and he barely had time to react before a huge piece of rock flung out by the asteroid smashed into him, sinking into the ground and burying Hunter underneath it. He was killed instantaneously, leaving only three tributes remaining.

 _Hunter York, District 12 Male: 4th, Meteor Debris, Day 13_

The final three tributes were the two siblings from District 6 and Nyla from District 8 who had managed to survive much longer than she should have by eating spiders and snakes that wandered into her hiding place.

Then, the gamemakers sent the asteroids hurtling toward the tributes, forcing them together at the cornucopia. Once all three of the tributes bowled into the clearing, stumbling away from the meteors the gamemakers were hurling towards them, the entire arena burning away in a roaring inferno, the final battle began.

The gamemakers lit the grass in the clearing on fire, forcing the tributes inward towards the cornucopia as it spread, where they were forced to climb atop it, the whole world on fire around them.

Nyla had a bow and arrow she had retrieved from a sponsor a few days prior. Markus and Carlynn both had their knives, the likes of which had killed Susan and Cnaeus a week before.

Nyla took aim with her bow, aiming it towards Markus' head. But, he dove out of the way and ran around Nyla, attempting to stab her in the back of the head with his knife. She batted him to the side, however, sending him stumbling backwards. Nyla watched this happening, and while she was distracted Carlynn attempted to sneak up behind her and stab her in the back. However, Nyla heard Carlynn sneaking up behind her and so whipped her body around, giving Markus the perfect opportunity to plunge his knife into Nyla's back, killing her as the blade tore through the essential organs in her body.

 _Nyla Manson, District 8 Female: 3rd, Killed by Markus, Day 13_

The only two tributes remaining were Markus Gardd and Carlynn Gardd of District 6. The two gave each other a high five. In this moment of triumph, Carlynn was distracted and tripped on Nyla's corpse. Carlynn screamed in panic as she tumbled backward off of the cornucopia. Markus screamed as he ran over to his sister's aid and grabbed her wrist. Markus was on top of the cornucopia, holding Carlynn above the raging inferno beneath them by her wrist, Carlynn's feet dangling above the fire. The two screamed in panic, trying to throw together a plan to get Carlynn back on top of the cornucopia.

Seconds bled into minutes as the two tributes stayed there, not sure what to do. Then, Markus screamed to Carlynn that he was going to pull her up. Carlynn nodded as Markus began to stand up. However, the effort had made Markus' hand sweaty, and the instant before Carlynn had enough room to grab onto the edge, his hand slipped from hers.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Markus screamed in horror, sobbing as he watched his sister's body descend into the raging fire beneath.

 _Carlynn Gardd, District 6 Female: 2nd, Fire, Day 13_

"Markus Gardd of District 6, you are the victor of the eighteenth annual Hunger Games!" Lorenzo exclaimed as a hovercraft appeared from the sky to collect their newest victor.

"No. No! NOOOOOOOOOO!" Markus screamed at the top of his lungs as the hovercraft reached down to grab him and carry him away from the arena. He struggled and thrashed with all of his might.

"LET ME OUT!" Markus demanded, screaming so loud his voice went hoarse. "STOP!" he screamed until he couldn't scream any more. But, it was no use. He gave up and buried his face in his hands, letting out a deep sob as the hovercraft carried him away to the fame that would soon envelop the rest of his life.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

Markus' loss tugged at the heartstrings of many people in the audience, and this fact earned him a ticket to being one of the most beloved victors of the first Hunger Games century. District 6 was overjoyed to receive their second victor, and he was happily accepted by the nation into their growing lineup of victors.

Markus' victory tour went fairly well, except for his stops in 4 and 2 where he was degraded and ignored for the entirety of his stay. Those two districts had not taken kindly to having their beloved Cnaeus and Susan be taken down in such a disgraceful manner by Markus and his sister, and the two districts began whipping up a storm in an attempt to ensure that the next year's victor would be from one of them.

He moved into the Victor's Village of District 6, the second victor to do so.

After the traumatizing event of watching his sister die in the arena, Markus turned to the drug of morphling to dissuade his demons and numb the bitter pain of the time he had served in the arena. After his games, he developed an unimaginably powerful fear of fire, screaming and fleeing at the sight of so much as a match being lit. He contemplated suicide multiple times in the next year. That was, however, until he met Beatrice Toland, the victor of the sixteenth Hunger Games. The two were virtually perfect carbon copies of each other: both were from District 6, both had entered the Hunger Games, and both had lost a sibling in the final showdown of their games. The instant the two met, they became the best of friends. Two months later, they requested that they live in the same house together in the Victor's Village. And, later in their lives, they would even get married. Markus would live to the age of eighty-three, the chandelier of his Victor's Village home collapsing on top of him around the time of the eighty-first annual Hunger Games.

A point of interest that many people noticed was that Markus was the first ever victor to be born after the enactment of the Hunger Games. Every victor before him had known a time when the Hunger Games did not exist, but this was not true for Markus and every single victor after him.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Markus moves into the Victor's Village of District 6, the second victor to do so.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)

* * *

 **A/N: There we go! This is the longest chapter of this story to date, at exactly 7,189 words long! Holy cow! This is also probably my favorite chapter of this story so far, and I think the amount of time I spent toiling over making sure this chapter was perfect really paid off. What do you think of Markus? What do you think about the loss of his sister in the arena? And what do you think about his love affair with Beatrice? If you would like to, please review this chapter. I would love to hear your thoughts!**


	20. The 19th Hunger Games

**The 19th Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

After a thrilling and exhilarating games the year prior, Head Gamemaker Lorenzo Chastain returned for another year on the job. Perhaps inspired by the fact that his first child had just been born, Lorenzo based the arena for the nineteenth Hunger Games off of a classic children's game. The arena took the game "The Floor is Lava" to a whole new level. A seemingly endless pool of bubbling lava stretched out as far as the eye could see. Levitating above the lava was a whole network of islands. Some were grassy and dotted with trees. Some were sandy. Some were freezing and covered with crunchy snow. Some were decorated with fountains that would provide the tributes with a stable source of water. Some were as small as thirty square feet, while some others were hundreds of square meters. They were all connected with a system of rope bridges, which were made of very strong polymer ropes that would be extremely difficult—but not impossible—for the tributes to break. The huge floating archipelago was centered on the arena's main island. This island was almost half a square kilometer, and it housed the cornucopia. The cornucopia was made of ivory and towered high above the tributes, bursting at the seams with all of the supplies that the tributes would need to survive in the games. The flora and fauna of the arena were bountiful. On the grassy islands there were deer and rabbits, while on the sandy islands there were crabs. Some of the lakes had fish inside of them. Although some islands had more plentiful wildlife than others, all housed life in some form or another. With the utter lack of any sort of barrier on the edges of the islands, a tribute could easily roll off of the edge. Many of the tributes would get around this by digging small ditches near the perimeter of their islands that they would fall into and stop rolling if they got too close to the edge. The career pack of the nineteenth Hunger Games was six strong, as it most often was. The District 2 male was, quite noticeably, the dominant member of the alliance. With ten to one odds of winning and a handsome ten as his training score, he was rather tall and bulky. It was not only his strength that contributed to the audience's liking of him, but also his dangerous intelligence and mysterious personality. His district partner, the District 2 female, was the only other tribute to score a ten. She earned her ten with her brute strength, most skilled with the baton, axe, and the other weapons that tap into physical strength. District 1 produced a slightly less stellar showing. Their female was tall and strong and rather masculine, using a bow and arrow to shoot her way to a nine in training, and to a slot in the career pack. The District 1 male was most skilled with the sword, perhaps inspired by the character in Greek mythology after which he was named. District 4's tributes both earned nines, both with the trident and harpoon. Outside of the careers, there was a plethora of fives and sixes scored. Four sixes and four fives were earned in the outer districts. A pattern that had begun to emerge in recent years was that the tributes from District 7, District 9, District 10, and District 11 usually earned relatively high scores, while Districts 3, 6, and 8 usually scored the lowest. The highest score outside of the careers was earned by the District 7 girl, who used her axe to slam and strike and dive and bludgeon her way to a nine. Her district partner earned an eight, slightly less stellar but still noticeable enough to get the attention of the sponsors. Apart from the careers, there was a single volunteer. It was the orphan boy with Tourette's syndrome from District 9, who had been bullied and abused for all of his life and volunteered in the place of a complete stranger knowing that his life had little worth left. In general, two tens, five nines, one eight, one seven, four sixes, four fives, three fours, three threes, and one two were scored. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Perseus Ramsey, 16, (9) 12-1 and Esmeralda Smedley, 17, (9) 11-1

District 2: Odius Ruttler, 17, (10) 10-1 and Alyssum Murray, 18, (10) 10-1

District 3: Upsilon Kelling, 18, (5) 19-1 and Kizzie Gann, 15, (3) 34-1

District 4: Dylan Maier, 17, (9) 12-1 and Celinda Williford, 17, (9) 13-1

District 5: Rusher Warwick, 14, (3) 36-1 and Adelia Waugh, 18, (5) 18-1

District 6: Sirius Polluxton, 18, (4) 20-1 and Cassiopeia Triton, 12, (2) 61-1

District 7: Damion Fernandes, 16, (8) 13-1 and Ginny Guillen, 17, (9) 11-1

District 8: Logan Aaron, 18, (3) 29-1 and Charity Gruber, 16, (4) 28-1

District 9: Corry Abbott, 17, (6) 16-1 and Katina Hastings, 17, (6) 17-1

District 10: December Shale, 18, (5) 16-1 and Selina Mcneil, 15, (5) 20-1

District 11: Elzone Kolben, 17, (7) 14-1 and Klara Ayers, 16, (6) 17-1

District 12: Collin Flannery, 18, (6) 16-1 and Xiomara Brennan, 17, (4) 30-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The sky was a deep, bloodshot red when the tributes rose into the arena atop their pedestals. The grass covering the island that housed the cornucopia was dry and brown, crumbly and void of all moisture. The cornucopia stood towering over everything else, the dominant feature of the landscape. The clearing in front of it was filled with the weapons, while the cornucopia itself was what housed the tools and survival materials. Since the main reason tributes headed for the bloodbath was to get supplies, this would make for an extra thrilling start to the games.

The gong rang, and all of the tributes burst forward, surging towards the cornucopia. At least, almost all of them. There was a single straggler; Corry from District 9 chose to run away from the mayhem at the very beginning with only his bare hands to survive the difficult weeks to come.

Back at the cornucopia, the dead grass crunched under the tribute's feet as they ran across it towards the shimmering ivory cornucopia. Sprinting at the head of the onrush was Perseus; as despite lacking in some other areas he was a very fast runner. He picked up a sword that lay waiting for him in a cluster of dead flowers twenty yards from his pedestal. Perseus spotted his target: a very strong and capable boy with a high training score. Perseus slashed his sword into the boy's side, sending him slumping like a stone as his vital organs and arteries were damaged severely from the grievous wound Perseus had dealt him. To finish the job, Perseus lifted his sword into the air and brought it down upon his prey, spearing his heart.

 _Elzone Kolben, District 11 Male: 24th, Killed by Perseus, Bloodbath_

Odius, another fast sprinter, grinned when he spotted a sledgehammer on the ground thirty yards from his pedestal. Odius picked up the weapon and searched for his prey, eventually deciding to go in for the kill upon the nearest girl. He lifted the sledgehammer into the air and brought it down upon her head, denting her brain after completely shattering her skull. She went unconscious the instant the weapon made contact with her head, but it took her twelve second after that to actually die.

 _Adelia Waugh, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Odius, Bloodbath_

Esmeralda was quick on her feet when she saw a pair of twin curved swords lying on a countertop right in front of the cornucopia. She ran over to pick them up, holding one in each hand and pouncing upon the nearest girl. Esmeralda's two swords easily cleaved apart her tiny frame, and she was cut to ribbons within a few seconds.

 _Kizzie Gann, District 3 Female: 22nd, Killed by Esmeralda, Bloodbath_

Dylan surged with thrill when he caught a glimpse of a three-pronged trident leaning against the side of the cornucopia. He ran over to pick it up, closing his fist around the weapon so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Dylan turned sharply on his heel and planted the trident into a nearby tribute, sending him slumping like a stone amidst an explosion of scarlet. Dylan ripped the weapon out of his body and walked away, reassuring himself that he would die within a few minutes and that it would be a waste of time to keep striking him. Dylan left the boy clinging onto his life by a tiny thread, but his hopes of survival were decimated when Esmeralda stumbled upon him and slashed one of her swords across his chest, finishing the job that Dylan had started. The boy was just moments away from death from blood loss and barely felt it.

 _Sirius Polluxton, District 6 Male: 21st, Killed by Dylan and Esmeralda, Bloodbath_

Celinda had gone with the strategy of waiting outside of the cornucopia so that she would be within range of the entire clearing and could get anywhere she needed to quickly and easily. When she spotted a girl trying to worm her way past her, Celinda was on her like a hound. However, that was her downfall. Celinda was so distracted from trying to close in on her prey that she didn't even notice Ginny sneaking up behind her and bringing down her axe upon her back. If Celinda had been more observant and less distracted by the notion of making her first kill, perhaps she could have survived.

 _Celinda Williford, District 4 Female: 20th, Killed by Ginny, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Odius had made his next kill, slamming his sledgehammer into the chest of a nearby girl. The force of the sledgehammer instantaneously shattered the girl's ribcage, damaging her lungs and rendering her unable to breathe as Odius struck her in the head, putting the icing on Odius' cake and finishing the job off.

 _Katina Hastings, District 9 Female: 19th, Killed by Odius, Bloodbath_

Within ten seconds of killing Katina, Odius made another kill. When Odius caught a glimpse of a short and petite boy darting past him, he was on him like a hound. Odius hurled his sledgehammer through the air, letting it fly twelve yards before smashing into the back of the boy' head. The force of the impact knocked out two of his teeth and knocked him unconscious, killing him after a few minutes.

 _Upsilon Kelling, District 3 Male: 18th, Killed by Odius, Bloodbath_

The sweeping edge of Perseus' sword did not fail him when he slammed it into the side of a boy with a relatively high training score. The blade sliced about half a foot into the boy's side, exposing his organs and sending them tumbling out of his body onto the ground. His efforts to staunch the flow of blood from the wound were futile, and he bled out less than ten seconds later.

 _Damion Fernandes, District 7 Male: 17th, Killed by Perseus, Bloodbath_

Then, the careers suffered their next loss. While running, Alyssum tripped on a rock sticking out of the ground and face-planted into the crumbling grass. She was thrown off-guard and needed some time to get situated and to stand back up. December, an outer district tribute, took advantage of Alyssum's moment of vulnerability and smashed Alyssum in the head with his fist from behind. Over the course of the next few minutes, December beat the career to death.

 _Alyssum Murray, District 2 Female: 16th, Killed by December, Bloodbath_

Ginny's axe found a home in the torso of Xiomara; Ginny lifted the axe into the air and planted it into the District 12 girl's chest before she had time to scream. The axe instantly knocked out two of her essential body parts; her lungs and heart. Xiomara's death was quick after that, and Ginny wiped off her bloodstained axe in the grass.

 _Xiomara Brennan, District 12 Female: 15th, Killed by Ginny, Bloodbath_

The next to make a move was Dylan. The split-second that he spotted a flash of movement from the corner of his eye, Dylan whipped his head around and spotted a girl running past him, keeping low to the ground to keep from being spotted. But, the girl's trickery could not fool clever Dylan, and he planted his trident squarely into her back. She moaned and gurgled for a bit before collapsing to the ground, dead.

 _Cassiopeia Triton, District 6 Female: 14th, Killed by Dylan, Bloodbath_

December picked up a sword that lay in the crumbling grass inside of the cornucopia. Even though he was an outer district tribute and did not by any means enjoy killing, he knew that the more he killed the more his chances of survival would increase. December aimed for his target, a reasonably capable boy with a good training score. December's sword cut into his back as he slumped like a stone with a loud thump, dead.

 _Collin Flannery, District 12 Male: 13th, Killed by December, Bloodbath_

December was about to aim for his second kill when Odius barreled out of nowhere and threw himself on top of him. All one-hundred and thirty-five pounds of career were hurled against December, pinning him to the ground. December thrashed and screamed and tried with all of his might to escape, but his strength simply could not compare to that of the trained career. December had nowhere to run as Odius lifted his sledgehammer into the air and brought it down upon his head, cracking December's skull and severely denting his brain. He was sent unconscious instantly, and was killed a few seconds later.

 _December Shale, District 10 Male: 12th, Killed by Odius, Bloodbath_

At that, all of the outer district tributes had scampered away and left only the four careers at the cornucopia amidst a field of thirteen corpses, a hollow and rather eerie silence having swallowed the world. Thirteen bloodbath deaths was certainly higher than average, and it made the Capitol surge with thrill. However, the gamemakers knew that they would have to carefully monitor what happened in the arena in order to avoid the games ending too quickly. They did not want a spectacle like the seventeenth games, in which the victor was crowned after only four days and the excitement of the games was cut short.

Back at the cornucopia, the careers got to the long and painful work of rounding up the thirteen corpses and piling them up into the corner of the island. At first, Esmeralda suggested that they should just throw the corpses over the edge into the endless lava ocean below. However, the others cautioned her against that. After all, in recent years the gamemakers had liked to take the bodies of deceased tributes and do experiments on them, like testing the effects of new medicines on the body. That would be impossible if all of the corpses were dissolving at the bottom of a pool of hot lava. Once all of the dead bodies were lined up in a far-away corner of the central island, the careers got to work setting up a camp for the night. Each tribute was allotted a lamp and sleeping bag, as well as an extra blanket in case there were some cold nights ahead. That night, they all took one hour-long shifts guarding the others, after which time they would rouse the person whose turn it was next. In this way, they managed to go through the entire night without being robbed.

The other tributes took varied approaches to the night. Rusher, the only remaining District 5 tribute, decided to be constantly moving around that night in order to avoid being trapped on an island with nowhere to escape. He would switch to a different island every half-hour. Charity and Klara both decided to stay in one place, and they both went to the far-off corners of the arena and hid in the thickest trees they could find, hoping that the layers of leaves would shield them from the watchful eyes of the others. Ginny went with the strategy of hiding right next to the cornucopia, hoping to get up bright and early and bowl into the clearing to take out the careers. Ginny did, by no means, enjoy killing. But, it didn't faze her as much as one would expect. Perhaps she reasoned that the games were an 'every man for himself' competition, and that killing as much as possible was the right way to play. Anyways, she hid in a safe spot inside of a hollow tree and remained safe for the entire night.

Logan went with the rather unique strategy of digging a hole in the ground and piling dirt on top of him to conceal himself from the sight of the others. But, he was not stupid enough to fall into the same trap that some others before him had. He left his face completely exposed so that he could breathe, and he packed dirt around him to keep him from moving around in the night and choking to death on the dry earth.

Corry intrigued many of those in the Capitol audience. He was the only tribute who had ran away from the bloodbath with only his bare hands, and he had put those bare hands to good use. He had gone to one of the far-off islands of the arena, one with a huge tree that cascaded into the sky. Corry climbed it and used a bit of rope he had managed to make out of plant fiber to bind the weak and flimsy branches of the tree into a little cocoon for him to slide inside of after making sure it could support his weight. Even though it wasn't exactly a five-star hotel, Corry actually looked relatively cozy in the little den he had made for the night.

All of the other tributes seemed to have made concrete plans as to how they would survive the long night ahead. The one exception to this rule was Selina, who just couldn't seem to decide what to do. At first, she hid inside of a tree. But, after thirty minutes she got out and hid in its bough. After an hour she left and moved to a different island, then to another ten minutes later and yet another one hour later. She was very indecisive about where to stay, so much so that she was kicking up quite a racket.

Around nine o'clock that night, the careers back at the cornucopia heard the sound of Selina rustling around. The first to hear the sound was Perseus, who was out gathering dry grass to use to set up a fire back the cornucopia. When he heard the rustle of Selina moving around in the tree above him, he craned his neck and looked up at the girl, seeing her. Dropping everything he was holding, Perseus pranced across the picturesque landscape to notify his allies at the cornucopia.

"Guys, guys, guys!" He yelled as he bowled towards the cornucopia, where the others were crowded around a crate and sorting through it.

"What, what, what?" Esmeralda replied sarcastically.

"I found some girl in a tree on that island right there," said Perseus, pointing at the island he was referring to. "I don't think she saw me, but she looks defenseless. She'll be easy prey."

"Sounds like a load of bologna," criticized Dylan. "Who would be stupid enough to camp out right next to the careers?"

"I'm telling you, I know what I saw!" Perseus insisted.

When the others refused to go after her, Perseus picked up his sword and began the trek back to Selina.

 _'I'll get her myself'_ scowled Perseus just as he stepped onto the island where the girl was camping in the tree. Perseus treaded silently toward its back and climbed it. He was less than a yard from the girl, and Selina didn't even have time to scream before Perseus speared his sword through her heart, sending her eyes glazing back into her head as she tumbled out of the tree onto the ground.

 _Selina Mcneil, District 10 Female: 11th, Killed by Perseus, Day 1_

The boiling scarlet sun set below the horizon that night, and the careers all went to sleep early with hopes of getting extra shut-eye, which they would need for the busy day tomorrow.

The careers woke up bright and early the morning of Day 2 to a temperature of almost one-hundred degrees. The gamemakers reasoned that those who did not have water would now have to travel to the islands with water on them, less they face dehydration. This would force the tributes together and hopefully result in some deaths.

However, the careers seemed to be a greater threat to the others than dehydration ever would be. The careers made two kills that day! Their first kill was made by Esmeralda, who stumbled upon a snoring Klara snoozing away on the rough grass floor of one the islands. Klara was surrounded by tools, and so Esmeralda concluded that Klara must have been doing something and been so tired that she just dropped from tiredness. Esmeralda lifted one of her curved swords into the air and slashed it across Klara's chest, ensuring that she would never wake up.

 _Klara Ayers, District 11 Female: 10th, Killed by Esmeralda, Day 2_

The second kill of the day was much, much later. Around eight o'clock that night, Logan decided to bathe in one of the arena's ponds in order to purge himself of the filth that covered every square inch of his body. Logan dipped his head under the cool liquid, running his fingers through his hair and scrubbing the mud off of his entire body. He was rather distracted and so didn't even notice Odius sneak onto the island that he was on. When Logan spotted Odius right above him, he screamed and tried to run. However, the water slowed down his movements so much that he couldn't escape, instead facing the wrath of Odius' sledgehammer as it smashed into his head, shattering his skull as he passed away.

 _Logan Aaron, District 8 Male: 9th, Killed by Odius, Day 2_

Now, the final eight had been determined: Perseus and Esmeralda from 1, Odius from 2, Dylan from 4, Rusher from 5, Ginny from 7, Charity from 8, and Corry from 9. Back in the Capitol, bets were being made like crazy as to who of the octet would emerge victorious.

Days 3 thru 5 passed deathless. After seeing the power and might of the career pack, Ginny had second thoughts about going in for the kill on them. This entire three day-long period passed in complete peace, with no interaction between the eight tributes whatsoever.

Then, finally, on Day 6, the gamemakers decided to throw a wrench into the works and twist things up a little. They unleased a horde of powerful muttations into the arena. The strange creatures looked like a cross between a hound, a fox, and a demon. They were large, about the size of an adult human. They had hunched backs and long arms, tipped with six inch-long ivory claws. They stood on two legs and had skeletal structures similar to that of a dog. Their skin was covered with tough iron scales, lava red and glowing in the light of the sun overhead. And, their mouths opened to reveal strong fangs almost a foot long.

The gamemakers unleashed them into the arena, sending them to pick off Charity, the weakest tribute in the arena. The mutts chased Charity all around the arena, and she dropped everything she was carrying in favor of running faster. She had no way to kill the creatures; all she could do was run and run and run. Her muscles burned like fire and every ounce of her willpower begged her to take a break. But she couldn't. She screamed from the pain as she raced away from the foul creatures for almost five hours. Finally, she had to stop to rest. She stopped for less than one second. But, even in that tiny window of time, the mutts caught up to her. The creatures pounced upon Charity, mauling apart her body and subjugating her flesh, sucking out her blood and throwing her aside like an empty juice box. The gamemakers recalled the mutts. They were content, at least for now.

 _Charity Gruber, District 8 Female: 8th, Lava Hound Muttations, Day 6_

Day 7 passed, deathless. However, on Day 8, Corry was minding his own business when he spotted a glimpse of another tribute about one-hundred yards from where he was. Corry instantly jumped behind the nearest tree, shaking in fear. He knew at once that it must be a career, given how many weapons it was carrying. It was a rather tall tribute. Corry took a short peak around the corner, and saw that It was male. He ran through the list of the male careers in his head, and realized that it must be Dylan, given how closely the tribute resembled him.

Thoughts raced through Corry's head. Did he hide? Did he run? Did he go in for the kill? Eventually, he decided to go in for the kill. After all, there were only seven tributes left and killing would do wonders for his chances of survival. Kill this boy, and his odds of winning would go from fifteen percent to sixteen percent. Not much on paper, but good progress. After the next death, his odds would be twenty percent. Then, twenty-five percent. The opportunity was too sweet to resist.

Corry peeked around the corner, wielding the knife he had retrieved from a sponsor a few days prior. In one leap of faith that would either make or break his chances of survival, Corry hurled the knife through the air. At the sound of the blade, Dylan whipped his head around just as the blade entered his chest. It dug its way into his heart, and Dylan tumbled to the ground in death as his eyes glazed back into his head. Corry Abbot had just killed a career.

 _Dylan Maier, District 4 Male: 7th, Killed by Corry, Day 8_

On Day 9, the first and only natural death of the games occurred. At exactly three o'clock in the evening that day, Rusher fell prey from dehydration when his water supply ran out.

 _Rusher Warwick, District 5 Male: 6th, Dehydration, Day 9_

Days 10 and 11 passed without any deaths. Perseus, Esmeralda, and Odius were beginning to grow impatient with the fact that their efforts at ratting out the final few tributes had been fruitless.

Then came the moment that everyone knew would happen. It had been like a ticking time bomb for a few days, and that time bomb had finally reached zero.

The gamemakers released the Lava Hound muttations into the arena once more, this time sending them after the fractured career pack. They made one kill, one of the muttations pinning Esmeralda against the wall of the cornucopia and then pouncing upon her. The other two fled to the distant corners of the arena.

 _Esmeralda Smedley, District 1 Female: 5th, Lava Hound Muttations, Day 12_

On Day 13, the careers suffered their next loss. While prowling through his assigned portion of the arena, Perseus walked right under the tree that Ginny was hiding in. Ginny leapt out of the tree, planting her axe into Perseus' head and causing his head to be split in half. After his cannon faded away fully, Ginny pillaged the career of a packet of dried fruit and an entire backpack filled with weapons.

 _Perseus Ramsey, District 1 Male: 4th, Killed by Ginny, Day 13_

Only three tributes remained in the arena: Odius from 2, Ginny from 7, and Corry from 9. The gamemakers concluded that it was time to drive the final three tributes inward for a bloody finale. As such, the gamemakers sent the Lava Hound muttations loose into the arena, instructing them to chase after the tributes and force them inwards towards the cornucopia. The gamemakers sent one mutt after Odius, one after Ginny, and one after Corry. The three screamed as they raced away from the mutts, bounding through the arena and barreling towards the cornucopia. All three tributes made it atop the cornucopia unscathed, surrounded on all sides by the muttations with a powerful thirst for their blood.

Odius held the sledgehammer that he had carried with him everywhere since Day 1. Ginny wielded her axe, ready to strike, and Corry held his knife. As such, the final fight of the nineteenth Hunger Games began.

It was a competition between Odius' strength, Ginny's cleverness, and Corry's speed. Odius lunged at Corry, but he quickly darted out of the way and tried to run around Odius in an attempt to stab him in the back with his knife. Odius ran around Corry, and then Corry ran around Odius, and then the pattern repeated for a bit. In all of this, it was easy for Ginny to lift her axe above her head and bring it down upon Corry, the serrated edge of the axe planting itself into his back and cutting into many of his essential organs. Corry let out a scream, cut short when he waved back and forth for a bit before falling to the metal floor with a thump. The number of tributes had been reduced to two.

 _Corry Abbot, District 9 Male: 3rd, Killed by Ginny, Day 13_

The final battle of the nineteenth Hunger Games was between Odius Ruttler of District 2 and Ginny Guillen of District 7. They were two of the most beloved tributes that year. Odius was one of the finest products of District 2's Combat Academy, and his age as well as his strength and confidence made him a great contender for the victor's crown. Ginny had worked in the lumber industry all of her life, and was the child of a lumberjack mother and a wealthy merchant father. She was the true underdog. The Capitol was torn between the two, and only time would tell (and very little time, at that) who would walk home victorious.

A long and brutal fight then began, and the clanging and banging of metal against metal had long filled the air when Odius had forced Ginny into the perfect position. At that moment, two things happened at the very same time. Odius hurled his sledgehammer through the air at the exact same moment that Ginny tossed her throwing axe towards Odius. Odius' sledgehammer smacked into Ginny's skull and knocked her unconscious immediately, and at that very same moment Ginny's axe sank into Odius' waist. The two tributes slumped like stones, their bodies smacking against the ground as they both fell unconscious instantaneously. The hovercraft appeared, ready to summon their team of medics the instant one of the tributes died. The two lay there for almost half of an hour, slowly dying from the grievous wounds they had given each other. At first it seemed like a close call. However, in the end, Odius' wound was nothing compared to that of Ginny. The District 7 girl slowly closed her eyes as her cannon boomed through the arena, closely followed by a symphony of trumpets to congratulate their newest victor.

 _Ginny Guillen, District 7 Female: 2nd, Killed by Odius, Day 13_

"Odius Ruttler of District 2, you are the victor of the nineteenth Hunger Games!" Lorenzo proclaimed as a team of highly trained medics poured out of the hovercraft to put back together the mess of a person that was the nation's newest victor.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The nation had a mostly positive outlook towards Odius, and many were happy to see another confident career victor to tack on to the end of their beloved lineup. Odius was worshipped by his home district before settling into the Victor's Village.

Odius' victory tour was fairly average. Nothing of note happened, except for his stop in District 7 in which he received the cold shoulder for most of his stay.

He settled into the Victor's Village of District 2, the sixth victor to do so.

Odius would live to the age of eighty-nine, dying from respiratory failure in the living room of his Victor's Village home around the time of the ninety-first annual Hunger Games. In his lifetime, he would have two marriages. He would have three children with his first wife, and one child with his second wife. Despite the failure of his first marriage, he would remain married to his second spouse until his death a great many years later.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Odius moves into the Victor's Village of District 6, the sixth victor to do so.

Blaze Skalnik marries his first and only spouse, a woman named Alexya Quinn.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Odius, our next victor. District 2 is now in the lead, with a whopping six victors! I hope you've enjoyed this chapter, and if you'd like to it would mean a lot if you would take a quick moment to leave a review. Next chapter we see another canon victor, Seeder!**


	21. The 20th Hunger Games

**The 20th Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Head Gamemaker Lorenzo Chastain was unable to return for another year on the job; his wife was eight months pregnant and so Lorenzo was on paternity leave. He stated that he would most likely be able to return the next year, and that he just needed a short break to help with the baby that would be delivered any second now. Although many were disappointed in Lorenzo's absence, the vast majority had a hopeful outlook towards whoever their new Head Gamemaker may be. After riffling through thousands of auditions, President Lizeth Dyson appointed a fifty year-old woman by the name of Lillium Bigelow to replace Lorenzo during his absence. Lillium was a rather tall woman for her age, with a clever build and dangerously curious eyes that one could never really seem to turn his back on. Upon making the job, Lillium packed all of her bags from her elaborate home in the east sector of the Capitol and hitched a bus to the gamemakers office, where she dropped off her luggage and strolled into the room filled with her team of loyal gamemakers, waiting at attention. Lillium sat down at the head of the table and began throwing around ideas for her first arena. Lillium knew that this would probably be her only year as Head Gamemaker, so she had better make this arena count if she wanted to make a lasting impression on the nation. The arena for the twentieth Hunger Games seemed very plain at first. It was a field of wheat, golden stalks as high as the tribute's heads covering the entire landscape. Every single square inch of the place was covered with wheat. There were only four sources of water in the arena. They were from the cornucopia, from sponsor presents, from the rainwater, and from the sprinklers which turned on at noon every day. There was one very still stream that flowed east to west across the arena, but it was a sickly shade of green and brown and it was laced with pesticides and poisons and who-knows-what-else. But, there was a deeper layer. Lillium realized that the tributes would be sent so completely insane from wandering through the endless wheat field in which everywhere looked exactly the same that they would be enticed to kill each other. Also, another twist was that it would be very difficult—if not impossible—for any of the tributes to set up a permanent shelter; they would likely never be able to get back to it. Some of the tributes with longer legs were able to jump high into the air and see over the tops of the corn. But, they would naturally fall back the ground in mere moments and so it was not long enough for the tributes to gain any sort of useful information. The career alliance of the games was six strong, as it normally was. The District 1 male was the only tribute in the games to score a ten, and he was just as confident and arrogant as all of the others who had gone down the path before him. He earned the highest score of the games, and displayed exemplary skill with several different weapons, particularly swords and axes. The District 1 female was certainly less boastful than him. She scored a nine and saw the games as less of an opportunity to spend time in spotlight and more of a time to bring pride to her district and to her family. Her weapon-of-choice was the sword. The District 2 male was a very strong and muscular boy who had grown up in a family of stone quarries and so had compiled tons of muscle mass over years and years of intense labor. The District 2 female received the second highest odds of winning, with eight to one. She was only beaten by the District 1 boy who received seven to one odds. The 2 girl was a great fighter through and through; she was confident, clever, and would have received a ten if not for the fact that she tripped during her private session and fell to the ground, her knife impaling her shoulder and sending her to the emergency room. The wound was healed, but she was forced to enter the games with a huge gash on her shoulder. The others nicknamed her 'scar' because of this, a name that angered her very much. District 4 produced the least extravagant showing of the trio, as it usually did. Their male was a rather medium-sized boy for his age with long, black hair tumbling down his back in wavy strokes. Their female was the weakest of the careers, only scoring a seven by using a blowgun to shoot a target. They scored eights and sevens respectively. Outside of the career pack, there were several powerful tributes. Most notably were the District 7 tributes. Their male scored a nine, and was the cross between two lumberjack parents. Their female scored an eight, having worked most of her life feeding wood into large wood chipper. District 9's tributes scored a seven and a six. The District 10 boy scored an eight. The District 12 boy scored a seven, displaying his talents in throwing a pickaxe towards a cloth dummy. The District 11 girl also scored a seven, showing the gamemakers her skills with the throwing axe. In total, one ten, four nines, three eights, four sevens, three sixes, two fives, three fours, three threes, and one two were scored. There were two volunteers outside of the careers. The first was the District 6 girl who volunteered into the games and sacrificed herself for her twin sister. The second was the District 11 boy whose parents died when he was two. He had lived in an orphanage since then with no friends and a very abusive guardian. In a moment of clarity, he volunteered into the games for a complete stranger, reasoning that whether he died or went on to become Victor he would be better off. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Salazar Grenon, 17, (10) 7-1 and Severa Valliant, 16, (9) 10-1

District 2: Augustine Brockett, 17, (9) 9-1 and Cordelia Trungbpa, 18, (9) 8-1

District 3: Falcon Ravera, 18, (5) 21-1 and Bertrand Whittaker, 16, (4) 26-1

District 4: Orkney Brecht, 18, (8) 11-1 and Kerrera Hottle, 15, (7) 15-1

District 5: Lynx Esparza, 17, (6) 16-1 and Pixel Baglivo, 16, (4) 25-1

District 6: Carter Chamagne, 15, (3) 40-1 and Taylor Prelich, 14, (3) 43-1

District 7: Hatchet Defranco, 17, (9) 10-1 and Fukaya Doering, 17, (8) 11-1

District 8: Vertie Hahn, 18, (3) 26-1 and Eleonore Camacho, 13, (2) 60-1

District 9: Lenny Huggins, 16, (7) 15-1 and Brigette Fenner, 17, (6) 17-1

District 10: Gale Minter, 17, (8) 14-1 and Kylie Gandy, 15, (5) 18-1

District 11: Ricky Shuppert, 13, (4) 35-1 and Seeder Kaiser, 16, (7) 16-1

District 12: Phillis Cornish, 16, (7) 14-1 and Lacey Emerald, 16, (6) 16-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The golden stalks of wheat brushed against the tribute's legs as they rose up into the arena upon their pedestals. They all gazed up at the cornucopia, glimmering magnificently in front of them and throwing off beams of light it had reflected from the round, gem of the sun overhead. The tributes glanced nervously at each other as the flashing numbers above them counted down towards zero. When the gong rang, every single tribute ran towards the bloodbath. Not a single tribute ran away with just their bare hands. Perhaps they reasoned that the arena was so bare that they would have zero chance of survival without supplies from the get-go. As was typical, most of the outer district tributes began collecting survival supplies and tools while the careers closed their hard-trained hands around whatever weapons they could find.

The sound of thumping filled the air as the tributes raced across the bare terrain towards the cornucopia. Surging forward at the head of the onrush was Salazar, the District 1 male who had received the highest score and highest odds. His powerful legs that he had trained his entire life did not fail him, and he was the first to reach the bounty of supplies at the cornucopia. He leaned over and picked up an axe that lay on the ground fifty yards from his pedestal. He clutched the axe so tightly that his knuckles turned ghostly white as he scanned across the clearing, looking for his prey. Salazar spotted a rather weak girl running past him. Salazar was just about to hurl his axe through the air towards her skull before Seeder barreled out of nowhere and tackled him. Seeder was clever to go with the strategy of eliminating the number one threat early on. Seeder lifted her knife into the air and brought it down, plunging it into Salazar's chest. Salazar moaned and gurgled for a few moments before going silent, dead. Through a bit of her own cleverness, Seeder had just eliminated the most powerful tribute in the games.

 _Salazar Grenon, District 1 Male: 24th, Killed by Seeder, Bloodbath_

Augustine, another fast runner, was quick to grab whatever weapon he could find. The first weapon he laid his eyes on was a scythe that lay in a cluster of tall grass inside of the yawning cornucopia. Augustine raised the scythe high above his head and brought it down upon the nearest girl. The sharp tip of the blade cut into her chest, sending her slumping like a stone as her heart began to shut down from the grievous wound she had received. By the time she hit the ground with a sickening thump, she was dead.

 _Lacey Emerald, District 12 Female: 23rd, Killed by Augustine, Bloodbath_

Being from District 7, Fukaya scoured the cornucopia for an axe. It was the only weapon she could really use. When she spotted one on the ground right next to Salazar's corpse, she ran over to retrieve it. Fukaya scanned over the clearing for a bit before setting her eyes on her target: a very capable boy with a high training score. Fukaya hurled the axe through the air. It sank into his chest and shattered his ribcage, impaling his lungs and causing his death.

 _Gale Minter, District 10 Male: 22nd, Killed by Fukaya, Bloodbath_

As one could imagine, Severa had not taken kindly to her district partner being so shamelessly slaughtered by a girl from District 11 of all places. Severa tried to hunt down and kill Seeder as revenge, but could not find her (she had already ran away from the cornucopia and into the vast arena). Severa figured that killing Seeder's district partner would be next-best. When she spotted Ricky crouched down in the cornucopia riffling through a crate containing rope and canteens, Severa was on her like a hound. Severa pounced upon Ricky. However, Ricky dodged Severa's blow and raced out of the cornucopia. Severa chased Ricky around the clearing for quite some time before giving up.

Cordelia's impeccable aim did not fail her when she picked up a bow and quiver of arrows, pulling back the bowstring and aiming at a nearby boy that was a moderate threat. Cordelia released the arrow. It raced through the air before sinking into the boy's shoulder, sending a spray of sticky blood exploding from his wound as he fell to the ground. Cordelia reveled in her first kill.

 _Lynx Esparza, District 5 Male: 21st, Killed by Cordelia, Bloodbath_

Being from District 4, Kerrera picked up a trident that she saw leaning against the interior wall of the cornucopia. Kerrera held it in the air, ready to hurl it towards her target (whoever it may be). When Kerrera caught a glimpse of a girl running across the opening of the cornucopia, she was on her like a hound. Kerrera pinned her to the ground and plunged her trident into her chest, severely damaging many of her internal organs. However, her heart and lungs remained unscathed and so she had not died. Kerrera realized that if she tried to do anything more to speed up the dying process her prey would be able to escape. As such, she called over for one of her allies. Augustine rushed to her aid and smashed the girl in the torso a few times with his scythe, finishing off the job.

 _Kylie Gandy, District 10 Female: 20th, Killed by Kerrera and Augustine, Bloodbath_

Next, the career alliance suffered their next loss. Orkney had kneeled down on the ground and was taking inventory of the contents of an orange backpack. At that moment, Orkney was so distracted that he didn't notice Fukaya sneaking up behind him. Fukaya lifted her axe into the air and brought it down upon Orkney's head, cracking his skull and grievously damaging his brain.

 _Orkney Brecht, District 4 Male: 19th, Killed by Fukaya, Bloodbath_

Cordelia formulated a plan when she spotted two tributes inside of the cornucopia rummaging through supplies. Cordelia darted towards the mouth of the cornucopia, trapping the two tributes inside and ensuring that they could not escape. Cordelia walked inward towards them, trapping them inside. They shook with terror as Cordelia killed the two of them in rapid succession, shooting them both in the torso a few times and letting time do the rest as she waited for them to bleed out and die.

 _Vertie Hahn, District 8 Male: 18th, Killed by Cordelia, Bloodbath_

 _Bertrand Whittaker, District 3 Female: 17th, Killed by Cordelia, Bloodbath_

The next death of the bloodbath occurred when Hatchet fell prey to Severa's sword, the blade slashing into his side and sending his essential organs tumbling out of his body. Repulsed by the sticky spray of blood coming from Hatchet, Severa backed away and waited for him to die. He passed away about thirty seconds later.

 _Hatchet Defranco, District 7 Male: 16th, Killed by Severa, Bloodbath_

Mere seconds after Severa had killed Hatchet, she made her next kill. When Severa caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of her eye, she whipped her head towards it to see a girl less than ten yards from her. She was a laughably easy target, and she died soon after Severa's sword found a home in the small of her back.

 _Brigette Ferner, District 9 Female: 15th, Killed by Severa, Bloodbath_

That careers managed to make one more kill while they were at it; Kerrera hurled her trident through the air with all of her might before it sank deep into one girl's chest and speared her heart, killing her in mere seconds.

 _Pixel Baglivo, District 5 Female: 14th, Killed by Kerrera, Bloodbath_

At that, the bloodbath was over. Eleven cannons boomed through the arena, equating to the twelve lives that were lost during the bloodbath. In the scramble to grab supplies, District 5 and 10's hopes of producing a victor were quelled when both of their tribute died. Districts 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, and 12 all had one tribute alive. And, Districts 2, 6, and 11 had both of their tributes still alive.

That evening, after the careers had finished the long and laborious task of piling up the eleven corpses and moving them into a pile in a far-off corner of the clearing, they began to set up a small camp in the cornucopia. The fractured career pack had only four members. Four sleeping bags lay in a neat row on the floor of the cornucopia. Beside each one was a canteen filled with water, some food, and a flashlight. Each tribute had their signature weapon right next to them while they slumbered just in case they got an uninvited visitor that night. For Severa, this was her sword. Augustine had his scythe, Cordelia her bow and arrows, and Kerrera her trident. They rotated one-hour shifts that night guarding the supplies and the others.

The rest of that day was a frenzy of the tributes swelling across the arena and going to the remote corners of the arena for the night. The only tribute that headed north was Fukaya, whose backpack bumped familiarly between her shoulder blades as she made the long trek towards the north wall of the arena. Every few minutes she picked up a pebble off of the ground and hurled it as far as she could. This would let her know where the forcefield was so that she didn't run into it. That night, Fukaya curled up in a little ditch and tried her best to sleep. She would need it for the long and difficult days ahead of her.

Travelling east after the bloodbath was Phillis, Eleanore, Carter, and Taylor. They were all spread out, and they all carried out similar strategies to Fukaya in that they tossed things in front of them in order to avoid being shocked to death by the force field. Eleanore was the first to find the forcefield; she tossed one of the pebbles in front of her, only to see it flying back at her. It knocked her in the forehead. She rubbed her forehead to disperse the pain and then set up a little camp using the sleeping bag she had received from the cornucopia. Carter did the same thing, but a few hundred yards north of Eleanore. Phillis went with this strategy of laying on the ground and pulling the wheat down, holding it in place with the rope he had salvaged from the bloodbath and shielding him from the view of the others. Taylor decided to wait out the night by getting the high ground, going to the top of the highest hill in the arena.

Falcon and Lenny both went west when the bloodbath was over. Falcon actually went in a diagonal, northwest direction, and Lenny went due west. That night, Falcon crouched down in a ditch and wielded his knife, ready to strike. Lenny went with a similar strategy as Phillis, tying some of the wheat around him in a cocoon, hiding him from the sight of the others and rendering him safe from the watchful eyes of the bloodthirsty careers.

The night of Day 1 passed in complete peace, with no interaction whatsoever between the eleven remaining tributes. The tributes woke up to a beautiful azure blue sky the morning of Day 2, the bright gem of the sun shining down upon the golden stalks of corn and causing them to glisten beautifully. The careers awoke bright and early that morning, gathering up their supplies and venturing out to scavenge the arena for their next prey. It was a long time before the careers made their next kill. Augustine was treading through a portion of the large arena, using his hands to clear a path in front of him. At that moment, his keen sense of hearing picked up a tiny sound. There was a rustling to his right. He walked over to investigate. The movement was too constant and loud to be an animal. Severa burst around the corner to find Falcon curled up into a ball inside, trying not to shake. He didn't even have time to scream before Severa slashed him in the neck with her sword, decapitating him in one clean slice and sending his head tumbling to the ground.

 _Falcon Ravera, District 3 Male: 13th, Killed by Severa, Day 2_

The rest of Day 2 passed, deathless. However, there was an awful lot of movement among the outer district tributes. They seemed apprehensive about staying in one spot for the whole games and so shifted around frequently. Then, on the morning of Day 3, the two tributes from District 11 crossed paths. Ricky and Seeder were wandering through the arena when they both spotted each other. Each one unsure if the other was a career, they both hid. Seeder peeked around the corner, only to realize that it was her district partner. She practically cried with relief. Seeder and Ricky had developed a good friendship before the games.

Seeder stood up and walked over to where Ricky sat, crouched down and hidden inside of the long, golden stalks of wheat. Ricky slowly stood up, and awkward tension hung in the air as the tributes looked at each other, not sure what to do.

"We're both good at surviving in the wild. We're from District 11. We kind of have to be good at that stuff," said Seeder, breaking the pensive silence. "We have really contrasting skill sets. I think we could get further as a duo than we could alone."

"So, allies, then?" inquired Ricky.

"Sure," Seeder answered.

The two shook hands, officially creating an alliance. The moment after they had done this they got to work building a permanent shelter. At first, they tried to dig underground. But, they found that after a few feet down the dirt was so watery that anything they dug instantly filled up with liquid. They had to scratch that plan. They used a sickle that Ricky had retrieved from a sponsor the day before to cut out a clearing. Then, they took the stalks of wheat on the perimeter of the clearing and pulled them inwards. They all converged into a point, and Seeder took out a rubber band she had salvaged from the cornucopia and tied the golden stalks together, securing the first layer of the shelter. They repeated this a few times, adding layers to the walls of their house. They needed an entrance, and so they cut out a medium-sized flap in the side of the shelter. When they were finished, it was not bad at all.

The morning of Day 4, the careers made their next kill. Cordelia was wandering through the arena, wielding her bow with an arrow nocked into it. She tripped on a rock and fell to the ground, taking a few seconds to recover from the pain. At the ground level, she looked forward and saw a face glaring back at her. She leapt up and lunged towards the face. Cordelia found a boy laying down on the ground, and she died soon after Cordelia's arrow buried itself into the side of his head.

 _Phillis Cornish, District 12 Male: 12th, Killed by Cordelia, Day 4_

Days 5 and 6 passed, deathless. All of the tributes that did not have a very stable supply of water had now gone completely insane from dehydration. The number of tributes in this sticky situation was so great that the gamemakers decided to do something about it. It started as a blanket of dark clouds covering the sky. Then, rain began pouring from the dark sky. The tributes laughed with relief as they rushed to fill whatever container they were carrying with the stuff. They gulped the cool liquid down, having been snatched from the jaws of death right then and there. None of them would die from dehydration.

On Day 7, Seeder was digging a ditch in the ground as a precaution. It would be an instant source of protection from the watchful eyes of any bloodthirsty careers in the arena. Once the ditch was about three feet deep, Seeder began to notice something peculiar. Crawling up from the bottom of the hole were huge grubs as wide as her finger and several inches long. This was very normal, as grubs often hang around under farms to feed on the dead wheat. But, the grubs seemed to have a thirst for Seeder's blood. The instant that Seeder placed her hand in the hole, all of the grubs lunged towards it and began hooking onto her flesh. She ripped her hand out of the hole and picked all of them off. A plan began formulating in Seeder's mind.

"Ricky!" Seeder yelled for her ally as loud as she dared.

Ricky ran over to Seeder's side very soon after that.

"In that hole, there are tons of grubs. They're really deadly. I think that they're muttations or something," said Seeder, pointing at the hole.

And then Seeder told Ricky all about her plan.

"But can't they just pick them off of their skin?" Ricky inquired after listening to Seeder's plan.

"Yes," Seeder answered smugly. "But they can't do that while they're asleep."

That night, Seeder and Ricky silently prowled into the clearing that housed the cornucopia. Severa, who had been on watch, had fallen asleep and was snoozing away soundlessly on the floor of the cornucopia. Their plan was working perfectly. Taking infinite care to not make a sound, Ricky popped open the container with all of the grubs in it and began pouring them into the career's sleeping bags. They divided the grubs evenly between all four of them. Once all of the grubs were out of the container, Ricky and Seeder raced away from the cornucopia and took the evidence with them.

Within minutes, the grubs began digging into the career's skin and subjugating their flesh. They woke up in shock as the excruciating pain of the insects digging into their bodies blinded out everything they saw, felt, and heard. The four screamed in agony as they convulsed on the ground, slowly dying. Three of the careers were killed right then and there. The only career that managed to survive was Severa, who Seeder and Ricky had put slightly less worms than for the others. She was able to brush them off of her body and survive. The other three were not so lucky, and all died within three hours.

 _Cordelia Trungbpa, District 2 Female: 11th, Killed by Ricky and Seeder, Day 7_

 _Kerrera Hottle, District 4 Female: 10th, Killed by Ricky and Seeder, Day 7_

 _Augustine Brocket, District 2 Male: 9th, Killed by Ricky and Seeder, Day 7_

On that note, the final eight had been determined: Severa from 1, Carter and Taylor from 6, Fukaya from 7, Eleonore from 8, Lenny from 9, and Ricky and Seeder from 11.

The morning of Day 8 was when the moment that the gamemakers had been anticipating finally arrived. It was the moment when one of the tributes had gone completely insane from wandering through the endless field of corn. It was the evening of Day 8 when Fukaya's sanity was completely broken. She began darting around the arena as fast as her legs could carry her, wielding her axe. Her eyes glittered with malice as she prowled the arena, begging to be released. Now, she only had one goal. She was going to kill. That passion burned through everything she saw as she became a dangerous predator. Fukaya made two kills that day with her axe.

 _Taylor Prelich, District 6 Female: 8th, Killed by Fukaya, Day 8_

 _Carter Chamagne, District 6 Male: 7th, Killed by Fukaya, Day 8_

The gamemakers had thought that Fukaya's thirst for blood would be sated after she had made a few kills in the arena. But, they could not be more wrong. Fukaya seemed perpetually insane, cackling strange phrases as her body began to slowly break down. No way could the gamemakers let this madman be their victor. Around noon on Day 9, the gamemakers blew her up with a land mine, eliminating his chances of becoming the victor.

 _Fukaya Doering, District 7 Female: 6th, Land Mine, Day 9_

Day 10 passed, deathless. Day 11 saw one dehydration death.

 _Lenny Huggins, District 9 Male: 5th, Dehydration, Day 11_

On Day 12, the gamemakers concluded that it was time to drive the tributes inward for a bloody finale that would crown their victor.

The wheat the covered every square inch of the arena was very flammable, and so it was easy for the gamemakers to set the perimeter of the arena ablaze. The roaring fire spread so rapidly that the tributes had to run as fast as they could in order to keep from being consumed by the raging inferno. The instant the wheat was touched by the fire, it turned black and crumbled, the dryness serving as perfect fuel for the fire. The fire spread inward, forcing the four remaining tributes inward towards the cornucopia. All four of the tributes bowled into the clearing, terror consuming their every expression as the brush on the ground began burning, forcing the tributes inward towards the cornucopia. Atop the cornucopia, all that the tributes could see in every direction was a field of red and orange and blue all dancing together in a dangerously beautiful show of just how dangerous beauty could be.

Atop the cornucopia stood the four remaining tributes that had outlasted all of the others. Severa wielded her sword, eyes glittering with malice. Ricky held a sickle he had received from a sponsor about halfway through the games. Seeder brandished a menacingly sharp knife with a dangerously pointed edge. The obvious outlier was Eleonore, who held nothing but a two foot-long rope as she quivered with terror.

Seeder, Ricky, and Severa all lunged towards Eleonore in unison. The only one to actually touch her, however, was Severa. Severa planted her sword into Eleonore's chest, ripping it out a few seconds later and sending her tumbling backwards into the red-hot inferno below.

 _Eleonore Comacho, District 8 Female: 4th, Killed by Severa, Day 12_

The final battle of the twentieth Hunger Games was between Severa and the District 11 duo of Seeder and Ricky. Severa had trained for this moment her entire life. Her almost eight years of honing her skills with the sword could not fail her now. Severa lunged forward, aiming at Ricky. However, Ricky ran out of the way and circled around Severa, attempting to distract her so that Seeder could go in for the kill.

A long ten minutes later, Severa had Ricky cornered. Severa kicked Ricky to the ground, knocking his weapon out of his hand and sending it tumbling off of the cornucopia. Severa lifted her sword into the air, ready to bring it down upon Ricky's torso. But, the moment before Severa was able to bring the blade down, Seeder lunged towards Severa's back and planted her knife into her back. Severa screamed as she let go of Ricky, gurgling and moaning as she slowly died. Her stomach had been impaled, and its contents were spilling out onto the surface of the cornucopia. Her cannon rang through the arena as her eyes glazed back into her head.

 _Severa Valliant, District 1 Female: 3rd, Killed by Seeder, Day 12_

The only two remaining tributes were Ricky Shuppert and Seeder Kaiser, both from District 11. Ricky needed a moment to get situated, and he sat on the ground for a few seconds before standing back up onto his feet. Seeder needed a few moments to recover from having just killed Severa, and there were a few seconds of both the tributes recovering from their traumas.

"Go on," Ricky said, startling Seeder as he broke the pensive silence.

"What?" Seeder inquired, confused.

"I said go on. You deserve to be victor," Ricky said, apparently explaining himself.

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Seeder exclaimed.

"What would it mean for me to be victor?" said Ricky. "I'm an orphan, for Pete's sake. Nobody loves me. Nobody cares about me. I can't go on to live like that. No amount of fame and fortune can alleviate the fact that I'm living a mere shell of the life I could be living. If these two weeks in the arena have taught me anything, it's that this world has no place for a boy like me. You've done a great job in these games, Seeder. You've fought hard. You deserve it."

Seeder was taken aback by Ricky's words, but she was not about to wait for him to change his mind. Seeder clutched her knife in her right hand, her knuckles white. She was sweating bullets, and she could feel her heart beating in her throat. Before killing Ricky, Seeder had one last thing to say to him.

"I'll make it quick," she said before plunging the blade into his heart.

 _Ricky Shuppert, District 11 Male: 2nd, Killed by Seeder, Day 12_

"Seeder Kaiser of District 11, you are the victor of the twentieth annual Hunger Games!" Lillium sang as the fire ceased and a hovercraft appeared to collect District 11's first victor.

Seeder just stood there and closed her eyes. She let the cool morning wind blow against her face, the face that had seen too much.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The Capitol was enthralled by Seeder, and many would learn to love their kind and benevolent newest victor. Seeder would go on to donate ninety-one percent of her victory payouts towards the poor of District 11, for she had been among them before she had become a victor. District 11 was very happy to finally receive their first victor, and she was welcomed into the nation's growing lineup of victors with open arms.

Her victory tour was nothing out of the ordinary, except for her stop in District 1 where she was showered with ill will.

Seeder moved into the previously vacant Victor's Village of District 11.

Seeder would live to the age of ninety-nine, dying from a previously undiscovered strain of Smallpox around the time of the one-hundred and third annual Hunger Games. She would marry her high-school sweetheart two years after her victory, remaining married to him until her death eighty-one years later. In her lifetime, she would never reproduce for herself but would start work as a surrogate a few years after her victory. In her lifetime, she would deliver thirteen babies for thirteen different women with fertility issues. Seeder was an outlier among victors; she would not resort to alcohol or any other sort of chemical escape over the years. She would keep her mind off of the time she served in the arena by gardening, turning her entire backyard in the Victor's Village into a magnificent place filled with flowers and fruits and every type of tree imaginable. Several visitors would describe it as looking like an enchanted forest straight out a dream. It was Seeder's most prized creation, and she was said to spend as much as eighteen hours a day inside of it.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Seeder moves into the Victor's Village of District 11, the very first victor to do so.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)

* * *

 **A/N: Enter Seeder, our next canon victor and the first ever victor from District 11! I had some real fun writing this chapter. In fact, I wrote it all in one sitting and didn't stand up until I had pounded out the very last word of this almost 6,000 word-long chapter. What do you think of the way that I portrayed Seeder? If you would like to, please review this chapter. Expect number twenty-one fairly soon, and thank you all so much for reading!**


	22. The 21st Hunger Games

**The 21st Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

After taking a short break to aid his wife and newborn daughter, Lorenzo Chastain returned for another year as Head Gamemaker. However, Lorenzo was not doing well. He was getting old, and was not nearly as healthy as he once was. He had pneumonia. He could not live forever, and he had no intention of trying. it would only be a few more years before he would be forced to retire and give somebody else a turn to lead the Hunger Games. Lorenzo promised that the arena for the twenty-first Hunger Games would be the most extravagant yet. In order to build up the hype even more, Lorenzo released a teaser trailer for the games. In the twenty-one second-long clip, the camera panned across a slab of wood embossed with the seals of the twelve districts of Panem. Then, the camera turned sideways to reveal the sight of a whimsically tall mushroom surrounded by a grove of trees that stretched to the sky. The ground was covered with sunflowers, and the little light that was able to filter through the leaves of the tall trees was bright and golden. Upon the release of the teaser, the media flooded with 'leaked information' concerning the arena, the mutts, and the dangers in store. None of this information was actually true, and very few people actually fell for the fake news. The arena of the twenty-first Hunger Games was an enchanted forest that looked to be straight out of a fairy tale. The cornucopia stood in a clearing in the center of the arena. Made of stone, vines climbed up the sides of the cornucopia and moss had taken root in its cracks and crevasses. The pedestals that the tributes were to rise into the arena atop of were made of stone also. Surrounding the clearing was a huge grove of trees that stretched hundreds of meters into the sky, their leaves a mash of magenta, lime green, and whimsical periwinkle. The ground was covered with flowers every color of the rainbow. Some of the trees in the arena were dozens of meters in diameter, and one could open a door that was carved into the side to get inside and access the small little homes inside of them. Tall mushrooms cascaded into the sky, the sun blocked out completely underneath them. It would rain often. Swift rivers cut through the landscape, the melodic hum of their rushing water almost hypnotic to the tribute's ears. The career alliance of the games consisted of six members, as it usually did. The District 1 male was, rather strangely, the only eighteen year-old old career. He was tall and muscular, and he was just as confident and arrogant as all those who had come before him. The Capitol audience loved his sureness-of-self as well as his confidence, and all of that combined with his impeccable talents with the sword and baton scored him a ten in training. His district partner, the District 1 female, was just as dangerously clever and confident as he was. She liked to play with her food before she ate it, and she promised the Capitol that she would make the games a roller-coaster of thrill. She preferred the whip as her weapon because of how drawn-out it made its victim's deaths. The District 2 male was rather similar to the District 1 male, and he was one of the finest products of District 2's combat academy. He stood out to the audience due to the long gash running across his face and down to his chest. He got it when he accidentally stabbed himself while training for the games when he was thirteen, and it still had not healed. He actually quite liked it, and thought that it represented his strength and determination. The District 2 female was the niece of Olivia Seager, the victor of the sixth Hunger Games. If she won, she would become the first victor to be directly related to a previous victor. She was very skilled with the knife, axe and bow. But, that was not all that she had up her sleeves. She was a dangerously mysterious girl, her build and her eyes keen and clever. The District 4 female was recognized throughout the Capitol as an amazing comedian. A news reporter even joked that she could be delivering the news that the world was about to end and somehow make it funny. She could make any situation funny, and she never stopped smiling. But, she made it very clear that she had a dangerous side to her as well. She wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty, and her impeccable talent with the trident and throwing knives earned her a ten. The District 4 male earned an eight, making him the only career not to score a ten. He was fifteen, and so this was understandable. His aim was absolutely perfect, and he could hit a target with amazing accuracy with almost any weapon. Outside of the careers was a plethora of sevens. Three sevens were earned. They were scored by Barney from 10, Janelle from 11, and Dudley from 12. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. Two outliers were the District 7 tributes, who both scored eights with their axe wielding skills. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: Tandra Hyland, the girl from District 8 who volunteered for her disabled younger sister. In total, five tens, four eights, three sevens, two sixes, one five, three fours, four threes, and two twos were scored. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Cutter Denault, 18, (10) 9-1 and Jade Vincent, 17, (10) 10-1

District 2: Jason Ripley, 16, (10) 10-1 and Freya Digard, 16, (10) 9-1

District 3: Pallas Trenholm, 15, (3) 31-1 and Vesta Bracelente, 17, (5) 24-1

District 4: Crowlan Ruben, 15, (8) 15-1 and Inchtalla Couhlin, 17, (10) 9-1

District 5: Jaxom Hinkle, 16, (4) 26-1 and Zanna Riggs, 16, (3) 33-1

District 6: Orion Hilyard, 17, (3) 25-1 and Matilda Rioux, 14, (4) 30-1

District 7: Cypress Beade, 16, (8) 14-1 and Juniper Del, 16, (8) 14-1

District 8: Jamey Cote, 15, (2) 79-1 and Tandra Hyland, 16, (3) 60-1

District 9: Arla Carver, 12, (2) 125-1 and Marcelina Cloud, 17, (6) 17-1

District 10: Barney Fischer, 16, (7) 15-1 and Cyndy Wenger, 18, (8) 13-1

District 11: Rory Balderas, 13, (4) 66-1 and Janelle Woodworth, 18, (7) 15-1

District 12: Dudley Hopper, 17, (7) 16-1 and Bianca Burkett, 16, (6) 18-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The tribute's hearts all skipped a beat when they rose up into the arena, drawing in a collective breath. The arena was the most breathtaking place imaginable. The beauty of the enchanted forest left many of the tributes standing on their pedestals and taking in its splendor, grandeur, and sheer beauty until the moment the gong rang, signaling the start of the twenty-first Hunger Games.

Tributes burst forward and backward. The number of tributes that ran away in the very beginning was much larger than in other years. This was likely because the arena was so bountiful that the tributes reasoned that it would be easy to survive without any supplies from the cornucopia. The tributes that raced away into the forest the moment the gong rang were Pallas from 3, Matilda from 6, Barney from 10, and Cyndy from 10.

Back at the cornucopia, Freya lead the charge, her golden blonde hair rippling in the wind behind her as it glistened in the brilliant light of the golden sun overhead. Freya leaned over and picked up a bow that lay waiting for her in the lime-green grass thirty yards from her pedestal. Freya hastily threw the quiver of arrows over her shoulder and nocked one arrow into her bow, pulling back the bowstring and scanning the clearing for easy prey. Freya spotted a capable girl with a decent training score running past her, and she was on her like a hound. Exhaling, Freya launched an arrow through the air. The arrow made a straight path through the misty morning air before lodging itself into the girl's shoulder, sending her slumping like a stone onto the damp, dew-covered grass. Freya ran over to her side to rip the arrow out of her body as the bloodbath began in earnest.

 _Marcelina Cloud, District 9 Female: 24th, Killed by Freya, Bloodbath_

Inchtalla, another fast sprinter, grinned with thrill when she spotted a four-pronged trident lying in a cluster of azure blue flowers at her feet. Inchtalla leaned over to pick up the trident, her dexterous fingers closing around the cold bronze as her feet formed into a solid stance on the ground. She glanced around for a bit before planting the trident into the nearest boy. He fell to the ground, the trident sticking out of his chest at a strange angle as he moaned and gurgled for a few seconds. Once she was sure he was dead, Inchtalla pulled the weapon out of his chest and wiped off the bloody trident in the grass.

 _Dudley Hopper, District 12 Male: 23rd, Killed by Inchtalla, Bloodbath_

True to the fact that he had been training his leg muscles his entire life, Cutter raced towards a knife that he had spotted on a table in the cornucopia. He almost tripped multiple times, but always regained himself. Cutter picked up the knife off of the table, suppressing a smile as he glanced at the jagged-toothed edge of the blade. Cutter hurled the knife through the air, giving it time to sink into the chest of a nearby boy. He was killed almost instantly after the knife wormed its way into his heart, and Cutter reveled in his first kill as he whooped triumphantly.

 _Jaxom Hinkle, District 5 Male: 22nd, Killed by Cutter, Bloodbath_

It was only a matter of time before Freya made her next kill, and when she spotted a girl attempting to worm her way past her, she was onto her. Freya pulled back her bowstring and launched an arrow through the air, letting it race thirty yards before sinking into the back of her head and sending her face-planting into the ground. By the time Freya ran over to the girl's throbbing body to retrieve the arrow, she had already died.

 _Janelle Woodworth, District 11 Female: 21st, Killed by Freya, Bloodbath_

Crowlan raced across the clearing, the wind roaring in his ears as he ran as fast as possible towards a throwing axe that lay on the ground about a hundred yards from where he stood. Crowlan picked up the axe and curiously ran his finger across the serrated edge of the weapon that was soon to make his first kill. Crowlan tossed the axe through the air, causing it to sink into the chest of a nearby boy. The boy slumped like a stone amidst an explosion of scarlet, gurgling as his body began to shut down from the fatal would that Crowlan had dealt him. Despite the boy's attempts to remove the axe from his chest, he bled out and died within a minute.

 _Jamey Cote, District 8 Male: 20th, Killed by Crowlan, Bloodbath_

It was then that the careers suffered their first loss. Cypress, the District 7 boy with a remarkable training score, picked up an axe that lay in the grass a few yards from where he stood. He clutched the weapon so hard that his knuckles turned white as he sneaked over the nearest career, Jade from District 1. Cypress lifted the axe into the air and brought it down upon Jade's head, splitting it in half and killing her almost instantaneously. Cypress chickened out after this moment and darted away from the cornucopia that moment that he was sure that Jade was dead.

 _Jade Vincent, District 1 Female: 19th, Killed by Cypress, Bloodbath_

Inside of the cornucopia, Juniper and Bianca grappled over the only axe that had not yet been taken by another tribute. Bianca ripped it out of Juniper's hands after a long fist fight between the two. Bianca knew that she had to do some intentional killing to return home faster, and so Bianca used the axe to decapitate Juniper in one clean slice. Bianca recoiled in disgust as Juniper's head tumbled to the floor, and Bianca's stomach was purged of its contents when she vomited herself silly all over the ground in the cornucopia.

 _Juniper Del, District 7 Female: 18th, Killed by Bianca, Bloodbath_

Cutter was quick to make his next kill. When he spotted a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye, he whipped his head around and spotted a terrified boy right behind him, his eyes and mouth wide open as he shook with terror. Cutter stabbed the boy in the stomach before he had time to scream of run away, and the knife lodged itself between two of his ribs as he died quickly from the grievous wound he had received.

 _Orion Hilyard, District 6 Male: 17th, Killed by Cutter, Bloodbath_

The Capitol hoped to see at least one more career death in the bloodbath; the games got a little boring with six careers still alive after the bloodbath. Whenever that happened, the gamemakers usually had to throw in something or other to kill off a few of them. The Capitol's wishes were granted when Tandra, the only volunteer outside of the careers, picked up a baton that lay on the ground. Taking infinite care to not make a sound, Tandra pranced up towards Crowlan, who was facing the opposite direction. Tandra smashed her baton into Crowlan's head, causing his skull to implode and his brain to receive a serious dent. Crowlan passed out immediately. Tandra, assuming that Crowlan was dead, darted away from him and away into the forest. However, Crowlan was not quite dead yet. Crowlan's own ally, Freya, stumbled upon his half-dead body and realized that he was beyond saving. In an act of mercy that cut Crowlan's suffering short, Freya shot him in the heart with her bow and euthanized him.

 _Crowlan Ruben, District 4 Male: 16th, Killed by Tandra and Freya, Bloodbath_

Only one more kill was made in the bloodbath that day. Once all of the tributes had scurried away from the cornucopia, the careers were confused as to why the cannons had not yet rang. They hurriedly began throwing aside crates and boxes and cases in the cornucopia in an attempt to find the stray tribute that they knew must be hiding somewhere. Jason was the one that ended up finding him; Jason threw open a crate and found a helpless girl inside, quivering with terror. She was a laughably easy kill, and Jason's sword found a home in her torso. The girl was mere moments away from death of blood loss from a wound she had received from another career a few minutes prior, and she barely felt it.

 _Vesta Bracelente, District 3 Female: 15th, Killed by Jason, Bloodbath_

Lorenzo was happy with ten bloodbath deaths. It was not nearly as large as the twelve or thirteen deaths that usually occurred, but ten was still a good number. And, some of the more entertaining deaths, like those of Juniper and Crowlan, made up for the fact that the raw number was smaller. At the conclusion of the bloodbath, the fourteen remaining tributes swelled across the arena and spread out, travelling away from the cornucopia where the careers sat sorting the endless bounty of supplies and piling up the corpses in a far-away corner of the clearing.

Those that stayed in the clearing were certainly testing their luck, as they would be in direct sight of the watchful careers. However, the upside to this is that the careers would never explicitly search the meadow for prey, and so they would hopefully be spared. Only two tributes took this route: Zanna from 5 and Tandra from 8. Zanna spent a few minutes jogging away from the cornucopia before settling down in a ditch on the outskirts on the clearing. Zanna unzipped the only backpack she had received from the cornucopia. Inside, she found a bundle of rope, a knife, a thermos (empty), and a small plastic baggie of dried fruit. Zanna grinned. She zipped the backpack back up and held it close to her body. Tandra, on the other hand, was much more rowdy than Zanna. Tandra did not settle for a naturally occurring ditch, instead digging one of her own with a shovel that she had salvaged from the cornucopia. Many of the Capitolites cringed at this move of stupidity. It was a questionable strategy to even stay in the clearing in the first place, and Tandra was kind of being disgraceful to her district by being so stupid. Perhaps it was not her fault. Perhaps she was just so pumped with adrenaline that she couldn't think straight. But, somehow, she managed to make a rather cozy looking shelter underground by sundown without attracting the attention of the careers. Tandra settled down that night with her own hands as her pillow, with no blanket. The night was surprisingly warm, and she slept soundly through it until the morning of the next day.

It was a much more popular strategy for the tributes to venture out into the enchanted forest to hide for the night. The north portion of the arena was where the very thick grove was. Its trees were so tall that they seemed to scrape against the azure blue sky, and the canopy of leaves was so thick that it practically blocked out the sun. Many tributes headed on this route, perhaps reasoning that the darkness of the place would make it easier to hide from the bloodthirsty careers. Pallas from 3, Arla from 9, Cyndy from 10, and Rory from 11 all traveled there. Cyndy certainly led the charge, as she was a very fast runner. She spent the entirety of Day 1 alternating between walking and jogging as far away from the cornucopia as possible. Very slowly and gradually, the ground began to curve upward. It became harder and harder to keep running as the slope increased at an increasing rate. The arena was a sort of bowl shape. Cyndy settled down amongst a field of bushes that night, tucking her feet under her body and throwing a blanket she had received from the cornucopia over her body. It was very comfortable, and the natural sounds of the arena put her to sleep in mere minutes. Pallas went for a similar strategy, but since he was a much slower runner it took him substantially longer to settle in for the night. Pallas decided to settle down near one of the lakes toward the edge of the arena. That lake was the source of the arena's longest river, and Pallas reasoned it would be good to always be within range of a good water source. Rory was, strangely, the only tribute to realize that the trees had rooms inside of them. Rory was running his hand across one of the wide trees in the arena when he felt something shift under his hand. Shocked, he pushed further and further, revealing that the tree was hollow and that he could hide inside for as long as he wanted. The door opened outward, and so it would be impossible for him to block it with something large. But, Rory was content to light one of his lanterns and lay there on the dry wooden ground, assured that he was safe from the watchful gazes of the careers. Arla went with the rather unseen strategy of wandering around for the whole night, not really staying in one place. He was a hunter-gatherer of sorts, drinking water when he was thirsty and picking berries when he was hungry but never settling down. By one in the morning on Day 2, Arla nestled himself between two trees in a lower-leveled area of the arena. It was rather comfortable in his little den, and he was glad to have someplace to call home for the first time in a while. Arla was a very nature-loving boy, and he entertained himself throughout the night by identifying the animals that wandered by him and even playing with some of them.

Travelling south was a much less popular approach to the night. Only one tribute went with this strategy: Matilda from 6. Matilda's shoulder was severely damaged from a blow that one of the careers had dealt her at the cornucopia, and despite scattered sponsor presents the pain could never be entirely numbed. Matilda ended up settling down in a cove right next to a river, consumed by the comforting darkness of the small out-cove. When she was having trouble sleeping, she threw one of the sleeping pills into her mouth and fell asleep almost instantly.

Cypress and Barney went west, their backpacks bumping familiarly between their shoulder blades as they traversed the vast arena. Cypress had gone to the cornucopia, and the endeavor had wielded him two items: an axe and an empty water canteen. Cypress ventured across the arena for a bit before laying down on the forest floor, covering himself with a layer of moss and leaves like a blanket. He crawled under the natural waste, and went to sleep. Barney had not travelled to the cornucopia like Cypress had. As such, Barney spent the entire rest of Day 1 collecting food for the rest of the games. Barney fashioned himself a basket out of bark and grass and began collecting berries from throughout the arena. He only picked familiar berries, such as blackberries, strawberries, and elderberries. By the end of the day, he had a basket overflowing with the things. Comforted in the knowledge that he would have enough food to eat for the rest of his time in the arena, he fell asleep almost instantly.

Barney woke up with a start around five in the morning on Day 2. At first, he had no idea where he was. Then, he remembered he was in the Hunger Games. Out of habit, Barney reached for his basket of food that he had collected the day before. He had done so every few hours, just to make sure that the berries were still there. But, without fail, every time he checked, they were still there.

But, this time, they weren't.

Barney's eyes and mouth opened wide when the true meaning of the situation settled in. Barney grabbed for the basket and pulled it towards himself. It was completely empty, without a single berry in sight. Barney turned the basket upside down and shook it, as if expecting something to fall out. But, of course, nothing did. He needed to be quick on his feet. If an animal had eaten the berries, it would have been messy and left juice stains behind. These berries were eaten by another tribute. Barney leapt onto his feet and began barreling through the forest in an arbitrary direction, hoping to get away from whatever tribute had eaten his source of food. While he was running through the arena, Bianca emerged from behind a tree nearby, holding all of the berries she had stolen from Barney. Even though Bianca was from District 12, she recognized that killing as much as possible would do wonders for her chances of emerging victorious. Bianca lifted her throwing axe into the air and hurled it towards Barney. Miraculously, the edge of the throwing axe sank into his side as he slumped to the ground amidst an explosion of thick blood, appearing black in the night. Barney's cannon was quick to sound through the arena. Bianca's face was completely void of expression, as if he was feeling every positive and negative emotion and that they were all cancelling out like the sides of a math equation.

 _Barney Fischer, District 10 Male: 14th, Killed by Bianca, Day 2_

The rest of the night passed in complete peace, with no interaction between the tributes whatsoever. The sun rose on Day 2. Day 2 would see two tribute deaths.

That morning, the career pack was apprehensive about hunting down their prey in one big pack of four. It was common knowledge that one or two trained careers could easily take down most any enemy, and so it would be impractical to put four careers to work on one tribute. As such, the group decided that they would split into two groups of two, and that they would go throughout the games in those duos.

Jason wandered out of the cornucopia and asked a sponsor for a sheet of paper. The gift only costed a couple of cents and so they received it quickly. Jason tore the paper in half. Then, he placed the two halves on top of each other and ripped them in half in the opposite direction. He took a pencil stub of his and labeled each one.

"Jason," was what he wrote on the first one, followed by "Cutter", "Freya", and "Inchtalla". He folded each slip of paper into halves, then into fourths, then into eights. Jason dropped them all in a steel bucket.

The first group will be… "Freya and Inchtalla," Jason announced after drawing two names from the pail. The two girls walked towards each other, smiling.

"And, that leaves me and Cutter to be group two, I guess," Jason said.

"So, I guess we'll go our separate ways. But, at the end of each day, we'll all come back to the cornucopia. Sound like a plan?" Freya asked. The others nodded.

The first group, which became known as alphas, ventured out towards the dark and shadowy grove in the north portion of the arena. The rest of the forest, though beautiful, was far too open for anyone to really feel safe without having some sort of shelter or cover. They reasoned that a tribute could not build a sufficient shelter in just a few hours, and so they headed for the grove which looked very safe indeed. Wherever all of the other tributes wanted to go was where the careers wanted to be.

The second group, which became known as the betas, travelled to the east. They reasoned that it contained the arena's longest river, and that any tribute would be better off being right next to a river. It would be a stable source of water, the most critical human requirement for survival. Although it would be nice to be in some far-off corner of the enchanted forest, the betas said, it would be even nicer to be promised an infinite source of water.

Around nine in the morning, the betas laid eyes on the stocky Cypress from District 7. The instant that Jason laid eyes on the boy, he called for his ally and went in for the kill. But, Cypress had a significant head-start, and he was the fastest runner imaginable from working in the lumber industry for his entire life. After a few hours, Jason and Cutter needed a few seconds of rest. They stopped for a single moment, but Cypress' impeccable endurance was still being held. Cypress escaped, and the careers cursed under their breaths.

Then, at almost exactly noon that day, the alphas made their first kill. Freya and Inchtalla had spread apart a bit, and were walking parallel to each other about fifty yards apart. Freya was prowling through the arena, tossing aside bushes and combing through every place imaginable. That that when she heard the whimper. It was so quiet that Freya thought for a moment it was just her vivid imagination. But the sound was too high-pitched, too genuine to be fake. Freya prowled toward the source of the squeal, throwing aside a bush and finding Arla behind it, quivering with fear. Freya pulled back her bowstring and launched an arrow into Arla's chest. The arrow wormed its way into his heart and triggered his cannon almost immediately, proclaiming the end of the boy's life.

 _Arla Carver, District 9 Male: 13th, Killed by Freya, Day 2_

The next kill of the day was also made by the alphas, but this time the killed was Inchtalla instead of Freya. Inchtalla had wrapped the handle of her trident in gauze in an attempt to keep it from glistening in the overhead sun too much. Too many times had an outer district tribute seen the glow of her trident before she saw them and been able to get away. Inchtalla locked her fingers around the shaft of the weapon so tightly that her knuckles turned white when she saw a pair of eyes glaring at her from the bough of a tree. Inchtalla looked closer and harder and made out a girl's form. Inchtalla climbed up the tree, using her trident almost like a climbing pickaxe to climb up the large tree. Inchtalla slid the trident into the girl's tired-out form, and she fell, dead.

 _Matilda Rioux, District 6 Female: 12th, Killed by Inchtalla, Day 2_

Days 2 thru 4 passed, deathless. In that span of time, not much happened at all in the arena. Each day, the careers split up into two groups of two and ventured out. But, each day, their endeavors were fruitless. They were beginning to grow painfully frustrated, and so decided to join forces as one group of four in order to see if it would be a better plan-of-attack.

Then, on Day 5, when the frustrated careers were prowling across the east sector of the arena, they saw a flash of movement above them. They whipped their heads up and spotted a terrified Tandra curled up in the bough of the wide oak tree. Grinning, the careers pulled out their weapons and began aiming for the girl. But, their efforts were futile. The layer of leaves was simply so thick that their weapons would always get caught and wouldn't make contact with Tandra. The careers then resorted to trying to climb the tree, with various degrees of success. The career that made it furthest was Freya, who used two of the arrows from her bow to dig into the tree and pull herself up. Allies cheering her on, Freya was mere meters away from helpless Tandra. That was when the shaft of the arrow that her entire weight was on, snapped. She tumbled backward to the ground, and a sickening crack filled the air when she did. Freya grimaced and whimpered with pain, trying to seem strong and proud for her home district. But, she eventually burst out crying nonetheless. She could not control it. The others understood, and requested medicine from a sponsor. Quickly, they received a case of several different ointments and pills, as well as an instruction manual. Over the course of the next few hours, the others put back together Freya's mangled back. By the time they finished, it was almost midnight. Trying to walk back to the cornucopia would take forever, and so the careers decided to camp out underneath Tandra. She couldn't stay up there forever, and the careers swore that they would be ready when she did.

Tandra, tucked away in the top of the tree, began formulating a plan once she was sure that all four of the vicious careers were asleep. Taking infinite care, Tandra pulled out a coil of rope that she had retrieved from the cornucopia. She used it to bind a sturdy stick and a sharp rock together. She had created a sort of saw, and even though it was not a very good saw it still worked. Tandra got to the long and tedious work of cutting the branch that was above the place that the careers were sleeping. It was painful work, and by the time she had made three millimeters progress she was drenched in sweat. Tandra kept herself motivated by thoughts of her family and friends back home in District 8. Within three hours, she was almost halfway there. Tandra's arms screamed with pain as she sawed through the wood. Back and forth and back and forth, with a constant rhythm. Then, seven painful hours after she had started, the branch cracked. It plummeted towards the earth, towards the small grassy patch below the tree, and most importantly towards the careers.

Freya bolted awake instantly when she heard the cracking sound, and when she saw the branch falling from above her she scrambled up and ran away, screaming for her allies. Awaking instantly was Inchtalla, who was able to scramble away just out of the path of the falling branch. A hollow thump sounded when Cutter flew up into the air and fell back down outside of the path of the branch. Jason was not so lucky, and by the time he realized what was happening the branch had smashed his body to a pulp. His cannon sounded less than one second after he had been struck by the branch.

 _Jason Ripley, District 2 Male: 11th, Killed by Tandra, Day 5_

Day 6 passed, deathless. On Day 7, one tribute dropped from dehydration.

 _Zanna Riggs, District 5 Female: 10th, Dehydration, Day 7_

One tribute died on the eighth day in the arena. It was another career kill, and it was administered by Inchtalla. Inchtalla plunged her trident into Rory's chest when she found him hiding in a small ditch amidst a patch of strawberries.

 _Rory Balderas, District 11 Male: 9th, Killed by Inchtalla, Day 8_

That left the final eight: Cutter from 1, Freya from 2, Pallas from 3, Inchtalla from 4, Cypress from 7, Tandra from 8, Cyndy from 10, and Bianca from 12.

The gamemakers realized that they hadn't interfered at all throughout the entire games, and so decided to throw in a twist to spice things up a bit.

The gamemakers unleashed a horde of muttations into the arena. Ten feet tall and made of solid stone, vines climbed up their rocky bodies and strangled their torsos. They were humanoid, and their mouths opened wide to reveal an arrangement of fangs, each one six inches long. Their feet thumped over the earth as they terrorized the tributes.

Then, three hours after the mutts had been unleashed, Pallas needed to stop for a short break. He had gotten substantial space between him and his pursuers, and he reasoned that he would be fine if he just stopped for one second. He could not be more wrong, and the moment he stopped running the mutts caught up to him. They beat his insides to a pulp and then buried their fangs into his body, sucking out his blood and then throwing him aside like an empty juice box.

 _Pallas Trenholm, District 3 Male: 8th, Killed by Pallas, Day 9_

Day 10 saw two dehydration deaths, mere minutes apart. The gamemakers were disappointed with three dehydration deaths in the games so far, and they even considered delivering water to all of the tributes. But, they didn't because that would just draw out the games even more and make them more boring.

 _Bianca Burkett, District 12 Female: 7th, Dehydration, Day 10_

 _Cyndy Wenger, District 10 Female: 6th, Dehydration, Day 10_

On Day 11, Cypress tumbled out of the tree that he was hiding in and fell to the ground, smacking his head against a rock. He was going to die within a few hours, and without sponsorship he would die. Fortunately, a generous sponsor delivered him a packet of medicine after watching him for a few hours. Too late. He was already dead.

 _Cypress Beade, District 7 Male: 5th, Fell Out Of A Tree, Day 11_

The gamemakers concluded that it was time to drive the final four tributes inward for a bloody finale that would crown their next victor. As such, the gamemakers made the arena pitch-black and herded the tributes together via fireballs. Hot and made of hard stone, they almost perfectly modeled real meteors. One of them smashed into Cutter and killed him instantly. The number of tributes had been reduced to three.

 _Cutter Denault, District 1 Male: 4th, Fireball, Day 11_

Freya, Inchtalla, and Tandra all met up at the cornucopia. Freya brandished her bow, a quiver of arrows resting on her left shoulder. Inchtalla held her trident, glistening in the light produced by the asteroids that were flying overhead. And, Tandra held the saw that she had used to chop off the branch that fell and killed Jason a few days prior.

Freya and Inchtalla, as one could imagine, did not take kindly to having their allies killed. As such, so rapidly that Tandra barely had time to react, the two girls lunged towards her and pinned her to the ground. Inchtalla held her to the ground, and Freya stood nearby, ready to shoot an arrow straight into Tandra's torso. Now that she had Tandra, nothing on Earth was going to entice her to let her go. Inchtalla lifted her trident into the air, and Tandra squeezed her eyes shut and Inchtalla speared her heart with the sharp prongs of her trident.

 _Tandra Hyland, District 8 Female: 3rd, Killed by Inchtalla, Day 11_

The final battle of the twenty-first Hunger Games was between Freya Digard of District 2 and Inchtalla Couhlin of District 4. They were two of the most beloved tributes that year. Freya was one of the finest products of District 2's combat academy, and she had brung pride aplenty to her home district throughout her time in the arena. She was the niece of Olivia Seager, one of the nation's best victors. Inchtalla was the cross between a fisher father and merchant mother, and had endless talents. From hula-hooping to dancing to memorizing lists of random numbers, Inchtalla certainly would be a great victor to add to the nation's lineup.

The final battle began, and it was almost thirty minutes before Freya triumphed. Freya had cornered Inchtalla against the cornucopia, her back pressed against the damp wood as Freya pulled back her bowstring. Inchtalla was trapped, and all she could do was pray that her death would be quick as Freya released the arrow.

 _Inchtalla Couhlin, District 4 Female: 2nd, Killed by Freya, Day 11_

"Freya Digard of District 2, you are the victor of the twenty-first annual Hunger Games!" Lorenzo roared across the arena, voice surging with thrill.

Freya held her bow and arrows into the air, whooping triumphantly as a hovercraft appeared to collect the girl. Freya grinned madly as she climbed into the craft, waiting to be taken away to the fame that would engulf the rest of her life.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The nation was enthralled by Freya, and many were very excited to see Olivia Seager's niece follow in her aunt's footsteps and return home to District 2 victorious. District 2 gave Freya thunderous applause; now that they had Freya they had a whopping seven victors.

Freya's victory tour was nothing out of the ordinary, and many regarded her as another arrogant career that they needed not pay much attention to.

Freya moved into the Victor's Village of District 2, the seventh victor to do so.

Freya would live to the age of ninety-four, dying in a car accident around the time of the ninety-ninth annual Hunger Games. Four years after her victory, she would marry a man that she would stay married to until his death a great many years later. Freya would never reproduce and would never adopt any children, and after her husband's death she would live a quiet and reserved life to herself.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Freya settles down into the Victor's Village of District 2, the seventh victor to do so.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Alrighty! Here's Freya, our next victor. I hope that you enjoyed that little bit about Freya being Olivia's niece. If you liked the chapter, or would like to tell me your thoughts, please consider leaving a review! Whether positive or negative, I would love to hear what you think about this chapter. Until next time :)**


	23. The 22nd Hunger Games

**The 22nd Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Much change was occurring in Panem by the time that the twenty-second annual Hunger Games rolled around. The first major shift was the resignation of President Lizeth Dyson. Lizeth shocked the nation when she was found guilty of the assassination of a political opponent. Perhaps even a mind as fair and pure and Lizeth's could succumb to temptation if invitation towards sin was presented in just the right manner. In order to avoid severe social backlash and political ridicule, Lizeth Dyson resigned. This left the presidential throne empty. An election was thrown together, and the people of the Capitol selected a woman named Roxann Shannon to take up the position that Lizeth had vacated. Roxann was a curious and clever woman, and her innovation and intelligence made her a great candidate to carry the nation forwards. The nation had a mostly positive outlook towards Roxann, and many were eager to see how she would approach the many problems plaguing society at the time. Closely follow Roxann's inauguration was the resignation of Head Gamemaker Lorenzo Chastain. The success of Lorenzo's career had very strongly been linked to Lizeth, and now that there was a new President the Capitol wanted a new Head Gamemaker as well. President Shannon carefully sifted through twelve thousand auditions before selecting a fifty-five year-old man named Roscoe Agnew to take the position. Roscoe was a clever man, with a keen build and dangerously curious eyes. His personality much paralleled that of President Shannon. This may have contributed to her selection of him as Head Gamemaker. Roscoe promised the nation that, however long his career may last, he would pump out thrilling and exciting arenas each new year. The country had a mixed view towards Roscoe; many people looked forward to seeing his ideas come to life but also missed Lorenzo immensely. Regardless of all hesitation and uncertainty, the twenty-second Hunger Games were declared and the construction of Roscoe's first arena began. The arena for the twenty-second Hunger Games was a true mysterious majesty of a place. It was a one-for-one recreation of the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The cornucopia stood in the town square of Pripyat, a town just over four kilometers from the damaged reactor. Pripyat looked like a normal town. There were butcher shops. There were baker shops. There were toy shops. There were houses and schools and everything else that a normal town might have. But, it was anything but normal. There were no people. Over the years, nature had begun claiming the land back for itself. Vines climbed the walls of the buildings and trees towered tall over the landscape and moss covered the cobblestone streets. It was as if nature and mankind had been smashed together and were being presented alongside each other in one, picturesque landscape. Inside of the homes, it looked as if they were still populated. Sewing needles lay set down on couches and children's homework lay set down on tables next to pencils and crayons. It looked as if every single person in the town had got up and left at a moment's notice. In fact, that is exactly what happened. This brings us to the damaged Chernobyl reactor, four point four kilometers from Pripyat. It dominated the landscape, a huge steel fortress containing thousands of tons of harmful radiation. The further away that the tributes got from Pripyat and the closer that they got to the reactor, the better supplies they could find. Any tribute that dared to enter the power plant would be killed instantly by the radiation. The wildlife of the place was horribly deformed, hence the powerful radiation that was coursing through the arena. Just one note: the arena itself was not actually radioactive. No gamemaker would be stupid enough to create a radioactive arena. That would make for the most boring games imaginable. Only the interior of the power plant was dangerous, and the rest of the arena was completely safe. The career alliance consisted of six members, as it most often did. The District 1 male was noticeably the strongest member by a long shot. He made the sponsors swoon via his incredible strength, endurance, agility, and talents with the knife, sword, bow, and axe. The gamemakers even considered giving him an eleven in training, but decided not to for unclear reasons. His district partner, the District 1 female, put on a much less stellar showing than he did. The girl used a machete to slice and slash and maim her way towards a nine, an amazing score, but still not a ten. The District 2 male was a huge mass of a boy, his talents with the knife and crossbow scoring him a ten. His district partner also scored a ten. The District 2 female had the second highest odds of winning (after the District 1 boy). She had a dangerously intelligent attitude. She was a mysterious trickster and temptress, and she made the outer district tributes quiver with fear. District 4 put on the least stellar showing of the trio. Their boy and girl both earned nines, displaying their skills with the trident and harpoon. The training scores were slightly higher than average; two eights and five sevens were scored outside of the career pack. The eights were earned by Timber from 7 and Chantal from 10. The sevens were scored by Himalia from 7, Armida from 9, Regena from 9, Tony from 12, and Emille from 12. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There was a single alliance besides the careers. It was formed between Cayenne and Larke, the two District 11 tributes. The two had been best friends since childhood, and formed an alliance. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Gold Carson, 17, (10) 6-1 and Swan Amatangelo, 16, (9) 10-1

District 2: Julius Amabile, 18, (10) 9-1 and Isabella Gilstrap, 18, (10) 8-1

District 3: Zesca Cobb, 16, (4) 27-1 and Ximena Durrett, 17, (5) 22-1

District 4: Alistair Krezel, 16, (9) 11-1 and Sunrise Engel, 18, (9) 11-1

District 5: Nebula Spinwell, 15, (3) 39-1 and Elektra Ridland, 16, (3) 33-1

District 6: Zeller Poole, 12, (2) 66-1 and Cassidy Blizard, 13, (3) 57-1

District 7: Timber Vaccaro, 18, (8) 14-1 and Himalia Septimus, 18, (7) 15-1

District 8: Burnett Ekstrom, 15, (3) 46-1 and Anastasia Rosser, 13, (2) 59-1

District 9: Armida Bingham, 18, (7) 15-1 and Regena Prosser, 18, (7) 15-1

District 10: Mitchell Sherrill, 18, (6) 16-1 and Chantal Bateman, 17, (8) 13-1

District 11: Cayenne Gamboa, 14, (5) 27-1 and Larke Kenter, 16, (6) 18-1

District 12: Tony Scales, 16, (7) 16-1 and Emille Cavanaugh, 16, (7) 16-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The tribute's stomachs churned with terror as they rose up into the arena atop their pedestals. The sight of the abandoned town of Pripyat was enough to instill a feeling of suspense and fear in any man or woman, and the array of twenty-four girls and boys were certainly no exception. Many were unsure whether to run into the bloodbath at the start of the games. If they did, they would be guaranteed supplies that would help them in the difficult days to come. If they ran away into the arena the moment that the gong rang, they would be banking on whether or not the arena had valuable supplies that they could use. Was that risk worth taking if it meant being spared from the risk of death in the bloodbath? That was the question that was racing through the tribute's minds as the flashing numbers above them approached zero.

When the countdown reached its close and the gong rang through the arena, it was a scene of pure chaos. Tributes burst forward and backward, scrambling to keep their thoughts straight as they scooped up supplies and tried to avoid the watchful eyes of the bloodthirsty careers. A number of tributes turned tail and fled at the very beginning. They were Burnett from 8 and Tony from 12.

Back at the cornucopia, Gold sprinted at the head of the onrush. His feet thumped over the cobblestone ground as he breathed heavily in and out, surging with thrill. Gold was in business when he spotted a whimsically curved sword waiting for him in the heart of the cornucopia. Gold ran towards it, locking his fingers around the leather handle as he scanned the clearing for prey. After a few seconds, he was onto the nearest boy like a hound. Gold brought the blade into the air and slashed it across the boy's chest, causing him to slump like a stone as his eyes glazed back into his head. Many of his essential organs had been taken out by Gold's blow, and by the time he hit the ground with a sickening thump he was dead.

 _Nebula Spinwell, District 5 Male: 24th, Killed by Gold, Bloodbath_

Alistair was not far behind Gold, as despite lacking in some areas he was a very fast sprinter. Alistair grinned when he spotted a harpoon that sat lodged between two stones fifty yards from his pedestal. Alistair retrieved the harpoon and scanned the clearing for his target, setting his eyes on a capable girl with a high training score. Alistair exhaled as he launched the harpoon through the stale air, letting it fly thirty yards before sinking into her shoulder. A spray of blood exploded from the wound, and it was only a matter of time before she passed away. Alistair ran over to rip the harpoon out of her side as he reveled in his first kill.

 _Chantal Bateman, District 10 Female: 23rd, Killed by Alistair, Bloodbath_

Swan smiled as her dexterous fingers wrapped around a bow and quiver of arrows that she found on a shelf in the cornucopia. Swan hurriedly threw the quiver over her shoulder, pulling back her bowstring and launching one of her arrows towards a girl less than twenty yards from her. Swan's aim was perfect, and the arrow lodged itself between two of the girl's ribs. She fell to the ground, gurgling for a few seconds before succumbing to the severe blow her lungs and heart had been dealt.

 _Anastasia Rosser, District 8 Female: 22nd, Killed by Swan, Bloodbath_

Inside of the cornucopia, two outer district tributes grappled over the only hatchet that had not yet been claimed by one of the careers. Regena and Mitchell stood, fighting over the throwing axe and beating each other up in an attempt to claim the weapon for their own. Then, almost forty seconds after the fight had begun; Mitchell ripped the hatchet out of Regena's iron grip. Mitchell slammed the hatchet into Regena's chest, and she screamed as she fell to the ground, limp.

 _Regena Prosser, District 9 Female: 21st, Killed by Mitchell, Bloodbath_

Gold was quick on his feet when he spotted a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. Gold whipped his head around to find a tiny, sinewy little boy less than five yards from him. He was laughably easy prey, and Gold's curved sword cleaved apart his tiny frame. By the time he was finished, the poor boy was in ribbons.

 _Zeller Poole, District 6 Male: 20th, Killed by Gold, Bloodbath_

The trickery of one of the outer district boys was no match for Alistair's keen eyes. The boy was keeping low to the ground as he tried to sneak by the watchful career without being spotted. But, Alistair was not stupid enough to fall for his trickery. Alistair hurled his harpoon through the air, and it sank into his skull before he had enough time to scream. Alistair thought that it would only be a matter of time before he succumbed to the grievous wound and so walked away from it all. However, Sunrise, in an attempt to steal the glory, came by a few seconds later. After glancing around to make sure that Alistair wasn't watching, Sunrise beat the boy the rest of the way to death. In the official records, the kill was no longer Alistair's and was now Sunshine's. She had stolen the glory by delivering a few blows just before his death.

 _Armida Bingham, District 9 Male: 19th, Killed by Alistair and Sunrise, Bloodbath_

Unbeknownst to Sunrise, Alistair had seen every moment of the scene play out. Alistair seethed with fury as he ran over to Sunrise and snapped her neck in one clean movement. She tumbled to the ground with a thump, dead. If Alistair had any remorse for his district partner, he didn't show it. Perhaps no insult surpassed the stealing of a kill in the eyes of a career like Alistair.

 _Sunrise Engel, District 4 Female: 18th, Killed by Alistair, Bloodbath_

In the meantime, Swan had made another kill. Swan's fingers locked around a throwing knife that she found on a counter in the cornucopia. She hurled the throwing knife through the air towards a nearby boy that looked to be an easy target. Swan's aim was perfect, and the arrow lodged itself into his skull. Swan ran over to his side to rip the knife out of his head once she was sure that he was dead.

 _Timber Vaccaro, District 7 Male: 17th, Killed by Swan, Bloodbath_

After chasing them around for a while, Gold trapped the alliance of Cayenne and Larke inside of the cornucopia. Gold walked inward slowly, forcing the two terrified tributes backward. Their hearts leapt into their throats when their backs bumped against the back of the cornucopia. They had nowhere to run from the bloodthirsty career. The two tributes squeezed their eyes shut, praying that their deaths would be swift as Gold killed them both in rapid succession.

 _Cayenne Gamboa, District 11 Male: 16th, Killed by Gold, Bloodbath_

 _Larke Kenter, District 11 Female: 15th, Killed by Gold, Bloodbath_

Mitchell was determined to make at least one kill with his axe during the bloodbath. Even though he was an outer district tribute, he recognized that his odds of winning would get higher and higher the more that he strived to kill. Mitchell clutched the weapon so tightly that his knuckles showed a ghostly white. When he spotted a distracted Julius running by him, the opportunity was too sweet to resist. Mitchell's impeccable aim did not fail him when he tossed the throwing axe through the air, and the serrated edge of the weapon lodged itself into Julius' skull as his knees buckled under him and he slumped like a stone. Julius' body put up a good fight, and it was several minutes before he died. But, no human, not even one as strong as Julius, could survive an axe to the skull. About six minutes later, Julius' body stopped fighting and he went completely limp.

 _Julius Amibile, District 2 Male: 14th, Killed by Mitchell, Bloodbath_

District 2 was having a massive spell of bad luck that day, and it was soon after Julius' death that their Isabella met her end as well. Mitchell ran over to rip his axe out of the skull of the boy he had just killed. Mitchell decided to test his luck even more by trying to kill Isabella. Mitchell hurled the axe towards Isabella, letting it flip end over end as it cut through the moldy, stale evening air. The throwing axe plunged into Isabella's chest, lodging itself between two of her ribs and impaling her lungs. Her knees buckled instantly, and Isabella's life was ended soon after that. In a single minute, the District 10 boy had killed both of the District 2 tributes.

 _Isabella Gilstrap, District 2 Female: 13th, Killed by Mitchell, Bloodbath_

However, Mitchell's satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment were short-lived. The other careers had seen Mitchell kill both of the tributes from 2, and seethed with fury as he shamed District 2 so. Swan was the first to make a move, and she pulled back her bowstring. Swan loosened her grasp, unleashing the arrow and launching it through the air towards the weakling. Swan made sure that the arrow made contact with his head, wanting his death to parallel those of the 2 tributes. Swan's fury ensured that her aim was perfect, and Mitchell tumbled forward into blackness the moment that the arrow punctured his brain.

 _Mitchell Sherrill, District 10 Male: 12th, Killed by Swan, Bloodbath_

The careers managed to make one more kill during the bloodbath. As one final hoorah from the careers before the bloodbath ended, Gold managed to pin a stray boy to the ground. Gold made his death long and drawn-out, trying to put on as much of a show as possible as he drained the boy of his sanity. Once he was practically begging for death, Gold slashed him across the chest. By the time that the spray of sticky blood from his torso died down, he was dead.

 _Zesca Cobb, District 3 Male: 11th, Killed by Gold, Bloodbath_

Fourteen cannons rang through the arena. Fourteen bloodbath deaths was a lot. Even if it didn't seem like much, the dwindling number of tributes would become a problem before the gamemakers knew it. They would have to ensure that the number of natural deaths be cut down if they wanted a long and exhilarating games.

At the cornucopia, the fractured career pack got to the long and painful work of rounding up the fourteen corpses and piling them up into a pile in a far-off corner of the town square. It was hard work, and in turned out that dead girls and boys weighed much more than many of them were expecting. Apart from the splatters of blood staining the cobblestone ground, there were no signs that anyone had died there once they were finished. Gold, Swan, and Alistair got to the work of setting up a camp in the cornucopia for them to sleep inside of at night. Three sleeping bags laid side by side on the ground, a body-head activated warming packet inside of each one. A lit flashlight and lamp sat next to each sleeping bag, and with the addition of a pillow for each one it was actually rather cozy. They took one hour-long shifts that night guarding the cornucopia. In this way, they managed to avoid being robbed for the whole night.

However, the audience's main focus was not on the careers. It was on the ways that the outer district tributes spread out.

A vast number of tributes headed towards the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the distance. They were Himalia from 7, Burnett from 8, and Tony and Emille from 12. Most of these tributes had not learned about the Chernobyl disaster at all and so did not know how dangerous the damaged reactor really was. The trek towards the huge plant was much more than one day's walk, and so those tributes were forced to settle down for the night, their journeys not yet completed. Burnett was the slowest runner out of the quartet, and he settled down for the night just shy of halfway to the plant. Burnett walked off of the pathway and settled down on the dry, grassy ground. He pulled a layer of leaves and muck over him in order to shield him from the sight of the other tributes. It wasn't exactly a five-star hotel, but it got him through the night rather well. He woke up the next morning with no cuts or bruises at all. Emille was slightly faster than Burnett, and she made it just a few hundred feet further than he did. Emille had a backpack that she had salvaged from the cornucopia, unlike Burnett. Once the sun set below the rocky horizon, Emille sat down, her back leaned against a sturdy willow tree. Emille unzipped the backpack, and her heart leapt into her throat when she saw what was inside. An entire thermos of clear, drinkable water, and half a cup of dried fruit. In her eyes, it was a great haul. Without even meaning to, she fell asleep right then and there. Tony was a fast runner, hence his developed leg muscles that he had trained working in the District 12 mines. Tony made it 4 kilometers in to the 4.4 kilometers necessary to reach the power plant, and when he physically couldn't run any longer he crunched up into a little cove in the side of a large hill to his left. Even though Tony had ran into the bloodbath, he had run away with nothing but his bare hands. It was cold that night, but Tony was a durable boy and he powered through the night.

Himalia, however, was a different story. She was a speedy and durable runner, and she was able to keep running long after the last sign of the oily yellow sun had sunk below the jagged horizon. It was around midnight when Himalia reached the power plant's front doors. Being the curious girl she was, Himalia flicked on her flashlight and broke the lock holding the door shut with a tool. Locks are people's way of telling you to stay out, and perhaps Himalia should have heeded the warning. The moment that she entered the steel structure, she began to experience heavy nausea. By the time she was halfway down the first corridor, she starting vomiting herself silly. Himalia desperately attempted to escape the chamber of death, but it was futile. Her thrashing body was only a few yards from the entrance when her body gave up and she tumbled forward into blackness, killed by the radiation. The gamemakers left her corpse right there, where it was. Perhaps it could serve as a sign to the other tributes about how they should think twice before entering the building that had caused so much destruction a few centuries prior.

 _Himalia Septimus, District 7 Female: 10th, Radiation, Day 1_

Ximena and Cassidy both stayed in the town of Pripyat. Ximena ventured out towards the very edge of the town, eventually settling down in the village's school. It was eerily dark as she creaked open the front door and slipped inside. Ximena felt around for a light-switch and found a rope hanging from the ceiling. She pulled it down, and the room became illuminated by the orangish-yellow light from the ceiling. Ximena was standing in a foyer sort of area. She turned around a corner to the right and found herself in a math classroom, the board still covered with markings of addition and subtraction problems. Ximena smiled, perhaps thinking back to her own time as an elementary school student. Ximena ventured through the building further, walking in and out of different classrooms before settling down in a wardrobe in an art classroom. It was a tight fit, and it stank horribly of mold, but it would have to do if she wanted to stay hidden from the watchful eyes of the careers. She pulled a bit of cloth from her bag and used a rope to tie it around her nose and mouth, hoping to filter out some of the odors and dusts in the air. Cassidy, unbeknownst to the fact that Ximena was in the same building, settled down in the school as well. However, Cassidy found a home underneath one of the risers in the school's music classroom. It was rather spacious under there, and with the addition of her sleeping bag and pillow it was cozy little place. Cassidy added in a hand-held heating packet, and once the entire space had been heated up it was hard to imagine a more comfortable place to sleep. Before going to bed, she poked a few holes in the walls with a tool so that she would always have fresh air.

Elektra was the odd one out. She didn't settle down for the night in a permanent location, instead travelling around the arena all night and taking breaks occasionally. She spent a few hours exploring Pripyat before venturing out into the forest beyond and then towards the power plant. Elektra was at the front entrance to the reactor. She threw open the door. She stepped forward. Elektra's foot landed on something that was hard, yet soft. Elektra looked down, and her stomach lurched with terror. The body of Himalia, who had died a few hours prior, stared back at her with a cold, hard gaze. Elektra suppressed a scream as she ran out of the plant and darted away as fast as she could, not bothering to be quiet as she raced away from the girl's corpse. She made quite a racket, and many of the other tributes heard or saw her running by before she ended up hiding in a little cove for the night.

Many of the tributes woke up bright and early the morning of Day 2. Per usual, it was the outer district tribute's priority to find food. They found various different ways to meet their calorie needs in the arena. For example, Cassidy cooked the wheat that she found growing outside of the school and used it to make bread. She was a great cook, and the food was actually rather yummy.

Given the small number of tributes, the gamemakers were more surprised than they should have been that Days 2 and 3 passed without any deaths at all. The careers had split up every day and had ventured out, combing through every square inch of the place in search of whatever tributes they might find. They found none. The crop of tributes consisted much of intelligent and clever individuals, and they hid from the careers well.

In this timeframe, some of the tributes had changed their plans-of-attack for surviving in the arena. Emille, for one, travelled back to Pripyat after realizing how much her proximity to the power plant was taking a toll on her body. She made camp in a back closet of the town's bank. Also, Ximena moved around in the school. Instead of camping out in the wardrobe in the back of the art classroom twenty-four-seven, she started changing her positions a lot. First, she went to the kitchen and hid in one of the food cupboards. Then, she went to one of the history classrooms and hid behind one of the desks. Ximena jumped around the school.

However, it was only a matter of time before Ximena's food supply ran out and she was forced to leave the safety of the building in order to forage the desolate place for whatever she could find. Ximena walked out of the school, and to her great misfortune stood face-to-face with a grinning Gold. Gold cut her to ribbons before she had time to scream, wiping off his bloodstained blade in the grass once her cannon had faded away fully.

 _Ximena Durrett, District 3 Female: 9th, Killed by Gold, Day 4_

That left the final eight: Gold and Swan from 1, Alistair from 4, Elektra from 5, Cassidy from 6, Burnett from 8, and Tony and Emille from 12.

Days five thru ten passed, deathless, an enormous span of time with no bloodshed whatsoever. The gamemakers had had great intentions building the arena as a town, but they had installed far too many places for the tributes to hide. The careers grew more and more frustrated each day with the fruitlessness of their endeavors, and they resorted to ridiculous tactics like trying to light Pripyat on fire. The gamemakers extinguished the inferno before it could get out of hand, though.

Then, at around one o'clock in the afternoon on Day 10, Head Gamemaker Roscoe Agnew came up with a brilliant idea that he hoped would throw a wrench into the works and make the games more exciting for everybody. Roscoe saw how the careers were thirsty to get their hands dirty. He saw how Tony and Emille lay so weak from hunger and dehydration they could barely move. He saw how Cassidy had a jagged wound down her leg that she would die from unless she could get medicine.

Roscoe declared the first ever feast.

"Attention tributes!" Roscoe proclaimed for all to hear. The acoustics of the arena were exceptional, and he was heard by all of the tributes. "In precisely one hour's time, there will be a feast at the cornucopia. At the center of the arena are marvelous items that could well save your life any second of any day in this grand arena. I am well aware that you will have no idea when it is time for the feast. As such, a timer, counting down to zero, will be projected into the sky right about now. There are items that each and every one of you need desperately. Think twice about not showing up."

At that, a timer appeared in the sky. It displayed 1:00:00. Then, it began counting down.

It was no surprise that, in one hour's time, every single one of the remaining tributes showed up for the feast of death. The three careers, of course, were more than happy to get their hands a little dirty and to bump off some of the 'weaklings'. Elektra made an appearance because she was very weak from dehydration and needed water. Tony and Emille showed up because they needed food. Cassidy went into the feast because she needed medicine to keep her leg from becoming infected. Burnett showed up because he wanted to do his part in cutting the length of the games as short as possible.

Then, at two o'clock that evening, the feast began. The tributes burst forward, scooping up supplies and avoiding each other in a chaotic rhythm reminiscent of the initial bloodbath. The first to meet their end in the bloodbath was Emille. She had leaned over to pick up a huge gallon-jug of water, when Alistair, being the bloodthirsty career that he was, pounced upon her. Alistair tackled Emille, pinning her to the ground. Emille put up a good fight, but in the end she was no match for the career. All of Emille's hopes of victory were extinguished when Alistair pulled out his harpoon and plunged it straight into her heart.

 _Emille Cavanaugh, District 12 Female: 8th, Killed by Alistair, Day 10_

Burnett ran across the yawning mouth of the cornucopia when he spotted an orange backpack on the other side of it. While he was doing so, Swan pounced out of the mysterious darkness of the cornucopia and tackled him. Burnett's death was swift when the serrated edge of Swan's knife lodged itself between two of his ribs, and his eyes were sent rolling back into his head within seconds.

 _Burnett Ekstrom, District 8 Male: 7th, Killed by Swan, Day 10_

That was when the career alliance suffered their next loss. Tony picked up a baton that lay in a cluster of dead flowers at his feet. Tony locked his fingers around the weapon so tightly that his knuckles turned white as he smashed it upon the nearest career: disoriented Swan. The blow to the head instantaneously shattered her skull, and by the time that she hit the ground she was dead.

 _Swan Amatangelo, District 1 Female: 6th, Killed by Tony, Day 10_

Gold was quick on his feet when he spotted Elektra trying to worm her way past him. Gold raised his blade into the air and slashed it across Elektra's back. Elektra screamed as she fell limp on Gold's blade, dropping the bag of loaves of bread she was carrying as she tumbled to the ground at his feet.

 _Elektra Ridland, District 5 Female: 5th, Killed by Gold, Day 10_

Alistair's keen sense of vision did not fail him when he took a quick peek inside of the cornucopia. There, in the darkness, was an unmistakable sight: a pair of glowing eyes glaring back at him. Alistair lunged towards them to discover Cassidy hiding inside the cornucopia and applying healing salve to the gash running down her leg. By the time that Cassidy noticed Alistair looming above her, it was too late. Alistair's harpoon had already wormed its way into her torso. Tending to her leg wound was the least of Cassidy's problems as she passed away a few minutes after.

 _Cassidy Blizard, District 6 Female: 4th, Killed by Alistair, Day 10_

It was then that Gold and Alistair teamed up in an attempt to take down the only other remaining tribute: Tony from 12. Staying close to each other, Alistair and Gold raced Tony all around the arena. Tony was a tremendously fast runner, but in the end he was no match for the two trained careers. Gold hurled his curved blade through the air, letting it flip end over end before it lodged itself into Tony's back. Tony cried out in pain as he fell forward onto the ground, and Alistair finished the job by stomping up and down on his back until his body gave up fighting.

 _Tony Scales, District 12 Male: 3rd, Killed by Gold and Alistair, Day 10_

That left Gold Carson of District 1 and Alistair Krezel of District 4 to vie for the title of victor. At first, they did not actually realize that they were the last two remaining tributes. In fact, they had no idea. They wandered back to the cornucopia that night, walking and talking and just being friends. They went to sleep, not knowing that they were the last remaining tributes.

The morning of Day 11, when they still had not realized that they were the only tributes left in the arena, the Head Gamemaker had to make the announcement.

"My deepest congratulations to the final two tributes of the twenty-second annual Hunger Games. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor," Roscoe declared.

Gold and Alistair finally realized that they were the only tributes left. That very instant, Alistair darted over to pick up a curved blade just like Gold's, knowing that he wouldn't stand a chance if he fought using his harpoon. The final battle between the two boys began. It was a long battle, filled with near-victories and rescues and the boys cursing under their breaths whenever the other managed to evade them. The screech of metal against metal had filled the air for two long hours when Gold triumphed, slicing off Alistair's head in one clean slice and sending it tumbling to the ground as the rest of his body collapsed.

 _Alistair Krezel, District 4 Male: 2nd, Killed by Gold, Day 11_

"Gold Carson of District 1, you are the victor of the twenty-second annual Hunger Games!" Roscoe announced grandly as a hovercraft appeared to collect him.

At first, Gold tried to suppress the oncoming grin. But, he just could not control it. He burst into laughter as he climbed up into the hovercraft. He had just won the Hunger Games. What a truly spectacular surprise.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The Capitol had begun to form a liking towards career victors, given how confident and loyal to the nation they were. Gold was certainly no exception, and he made a great addition to their beloved lineup of victors. As for Gold himself, he loved all of the attention and was proud to have brought the pride to his family and to his district that he did.

His victory tour went rather well, although District 4 was disgusted at how he had decapitated their beloved Alistair in the final fight.

Gold moved into the Victor's Village of District 1, the fourth victor and first male victor to do so.

Gold would live to the age of one-hundred four, dying from bone cancer around the time of the one-hundred ninth annual Hunger Games. In this lifetime, he would marry two different women. With his first wife, he would have two children. With his second wife, he wound not reproduce but would adopt twin sons.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Gold moves into the Victor's Village of District 1, the fourth victor to do so.

Velvet Farrow becomes engaged to her future spouse, a man named Lucius Kritz.

Seeder Kaiser marries her high-school sweetheart, Willow Carrita.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: There we go! I've been neglecting to give District 1 more victors recently for reasons that I'm not quite sure of. Anyways, what did you think of Gold? And what did you think of the first feast? If you would like to, please drop a review. Thanks for reading!**


	24. The 23rd Hunger Games

**The 23rd Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

There was no pretty way to say it: the games of the year prior had been a flop. The bloodbath had been relatively thrilling, but things had just gone downhill from there. It was one of the most boring games to date at the time, causing Roscoe to resort to a feast to end the boring games quickly. This pleased the districts immensely, as it showed them that even the Capitol couldn't entirely control the actions of their pawns. As a direct result of this, Head Gamemaker Roscoe Agnew payed the ultimate price at the hands of an assassin sent by President Roxann Shannon. This left the position of Head Gamemaker empty. After thousands of auditions, President Shannon selected Vance Calhoun to take the position. Vance was a man in his early fifties. He had worked much of his life as a fashion designer; his creativity, ingenuity, and dynamism enticed Roxann to elevate him from merely a Gamemaker to a Head Gamemaker. Vance reflected on the failure of the games prior and realized that he could not create an arena with lots of places to hide. Also, he did not want to create an arena based off of a specific event in history. In order to gain inspiration, Vance headed to a local playground in the Capitol and asked lots of small children what his next arena should be. After all, few things are more vivid than a child's imagination. Vance noticed that one of the most recurring themes from the children's suggestions was candy. And so candy it was. The arena for the twenty-third Hunger Games was a candy wonderland that looked to be straight out a dream. The arena was a rolling grassland that stretched out as far as the eye could see in every direction. The ground was covered with electric pink grass that was made out of sugar. The grass was absolutely delicious, and it crunched under one's foot in the most satisfying way. Sidewalks traversed the landscape like ribbons stretching from one horizon to the other. The sidewalks were made of solid chocolate, so rich and creamy to the very core that it made the tribute's mouths water feverishly. Huge candy canes stretched to the sky, their bands of red and white covered with deliciously sticky sugar. The cornucopia was in the very center of the wonderland, in the midst of a gingerbread village. Just to the right of the cornucopia was a chocolate fountain. The fountain sprayed chocolate high into the air twenty-four hours per day. Covering the arena were patches of gumdrops, edible lumps of gummy sugar that filled the mouth with a delightfully sweet taste. The sky was a beautiful azure blue. The mouth-watering aroma of the place was the most delicious scent imaginable, and it made the tribute's mouths flood with saliva. Even the flowers that burst from the ground were made of candy; tart stalks of licorice with sugar cookies and frosting forming the actual flower. Everything natural in the arena was edible, and Vance was rather proud of his creation. The career alliance consisted of six members. The District 1 male was your typical all-in-it-for-the-glory career. His confidence, sureness-of-self, and talents with the bow, axe, and sword all contributed to his earning of a nine. He would have earned a ten if not for a little stumble during his private session in which the dummy was torn off of its stand and fell to the ground. The District 1 girl was most skilled with the bow and the axe. She was a dangerous career: clever and intelligent. She liked to play with her food before she ate it, and she liked to draw out her kills as long as possible. District 2 put on a much more stellar showing. Their boy earned a ten. His looks and strength made the sponsors swoon over him. Their girl earned a ten as well. She scored the highest odds of winning out of all of the tributes, with eight to one chances of emerging victorious. Her talents were with the knife and the sword. District 4's boy earned a ten, making him the only career outside of District 2 to walk home with a double digit training score. He was skilled with the trident, as per usual. The District 4 female was noticeably the weakest career in terms of weaponry. However, she was agile, enduring, and an incredibly fast sprinter. Outside of the career alliance, many high scores were earned. The District 7 boy and District 11 boy both earned eights, the forward by displaying his axe-wielding skills and the latter by showing off his strength and knife skills. Three sevens were scored. They were earned by the District 7 girl, the District 9 boy, and the District 12 girl. They displayed their skills with the hatchet, scythe, and baton respectively. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There was a single volunteer besides the careers: Hector McKenzie of District 8 who volunteered into the games to save her fiancée. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Jacinth Bergeron, 18, (9) 10-1 and Olivine Flank, 16, (9) 11-1

District 2: Lyum Harnett, 17, (10) 9-1 and Alexis Millet, 18, (10) 8-1

District 3: Icarus Paracelsus, 18, (5) 21-1 and Innara Whiting, 15, (3) 38-1

District 4: Kylo Lepore, 18, (10) 8-1 and Marena Cavallo, 16, (9) 11-1

District 5: Radix Hunter, 16, (4) 32-1 and Eliza Simonite, 18, (5) 24-1

District 6: Zephyr Maxie, 13, (2) 75-1 and Ashlyn Breston, 17, (5) 25-1

District 7: Grover Dawkins, 16, (8) 14-1 and Aviva Gornick, 16, (7) 16-1

District 8: Scotty Tuttle, 18, (4) 26-1 and Hector McKenzie, 18, (4) 26-1

District 9: Mardell Hales, 16, (7) 15-1 and Mellissa Palma, 18, (6) 16-1

District 10: Heriberto Arthur, 13, (4) 49-1 and Florrie Byars, 15, (6) 17-1

District 11: Solomon Crisp, 16, (8) 13-1 and Kasandra Yazzie, 12, (4) 69-1

District 12: Mihilo Tice, 13, (3) 50-1 and Emmanuelle Micah, 18, (7) 14-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The tributes inhaled deeply through their noses as they rose up into the arena atop their pedestals, savoring the delectable aroma of the sugary wonderland that surrounded them. Many sighed with relief. There would be no starvation or hunger in these games. Several of the tributes stood on their pods, taking in the splendor of the candy village until the moment that the flashing numbers above them reached zero.

The gong rang, and only one tribute ran away immediately: Mardell from 9. The other tributes surged forward, their feet thumping over the cookies n' crème sidewalks that all radiated from the peppermint cornucopia that loomed over them. Marena led the onrush, as despite lacking in some other areas she was a lightning-fast sprinter. The instant that Marena's keen eyes spotted a machete lying in the grass twelve yards from her, she grinned as she ran to retrieve it. The career locked her eager fingers around the weapon. Marena heard a small sound behind her, and she whipped her head around to find a boy that was attempting to kill her with hopes of eliminating competition early. But, Marena would have none of it. She thrust her machete forward, and it lodged itself into the boy's chest as he fell to the ground, never to rise again.

 _Icarus Paracelsus, District 3 Male: 24th, Killed by Marena, Bloodbath_

Lyum, another fast sprinter, was quick on his feet when he spotted a hatchet waiting for him on a countertop inside of the cornucopia. Lyum darted over to collect the weapon, clutching it in his grasp so tightly that his knuckles showed a ghostly white reminiscent of the silvery sheen of ice just before it cracked under one's weight. When a weak girl with a low training score attempted to worm her way past Lyum, she was laughably easy prey. Lyum swung the hatchet forth, and it buried itself into the girl's skull as she dropped to the ground with a thump. Lyum ripped the weapon out of her skull once he was sure that she was dead, and he reveled in his first kill.

 _Kasandra Yazzie, District 11 Female: 23rd, Killed by Lyum, Bloodbath_

Alexis' speed did not fail her when she spotted a curved sword lying in a cluster of candy canes thirty yards from her; Alexis beat one of the other careers to it. Alexis leaned over and picked up the sword, looking around for a bit before hacking open the torso of the nearest boy. He screamed as he clutched his torso, desperately attempting to contain his organs inside of his body. Alexis' district partner and friend, Lyum, quickly finished the job by plunging the serrated edge of his hatchet into the boy's lower torso, polishing him off and marking the first collaborative kill of the twenty-third Hunger Games.

 _Scotty Tuttle, District 8 Male: 22nd, Killed by Alexis and Lyum, Bloodbath_

Solomon, the muscular and stocky District 11 boy, darted straight into the cornucopia and began rummaging through the supplies. Solomon had retrieved a sickle and ran out of the darkness of the horn. Unfortunately for him, Solomon immediately found himself face-to-face with a smirking Olivine. In a quick moment of self-defense, Solomon thrust his sickle forward and slashed it across Olivine's chest as she crumpled to the peppermint grass amidst an explosion of scarlet. Solomon quickly polished her off by slicing open her forehead.

 _Olivine Flank, District 1 Female: 21st, Killed by Solomon, Bloodbath_

Jacinth's dexterous fingers closed around a sword that he found on a tabletop inside of the cornucopia. Jacinth ran out of the horn and found himself less than twelve yards from one of the outer district boys who was completely oblivious to his presence. Jacinth lifted the boy into the air and threw him aside like a rag doll, knocking him to the ground. He tried to stand back up and escape, but he had barely gotten onto his hands and knees before Jacinth's sword found a home lodged between two of his ribs.

 _Zephyr Maxie, District 6 Male: 20th, Killed by Jacinth, Bloodbath_

Emmanuelle from 12 was not about to let an opportunity to kill slip past her; she knew that killing would do wonders for her odds of survival and that getting her hands dirty couldn't hurt. Emmanuelle spotted the sinewy District 5 girl near her, and she pounced upon her. Emmanuelle had no weapons, and so she had to resort to brute force to kill the 5 girl. She ended up resorting to pounding her head against the cornucopia again and again, and she died from head trauma just over a minute later.

 _Eliza Simonite, District 5 Female: 19th, Killed by Emmanuelle, Bloodbath_

Emmanuelle was much disoriented after killing Eliza, and needed some time to get situated. Nearby Alexis took advantage of this moment of distraction by lunging towards the 12 girl and pinning her against the cornucopia. Emmanuelle's death was quick after the sharp tip of Alexis' sword wormed its way into her heart.

 _Emmanuelle Micah, District 12 Female: 18th, Killed by Alexis, Bloodbath_

When Kylo spotted the blond merchant boy from District 10 out of the corner of his eye, he was on him like a hound. Kylo made his first kill of the games when he picked up a rope that lay at his feet and tied it around the 10 boy's neck, securing it into a tight knot and choking the boy. Through all of this, he was able to remain relatively calm and actually untie the knot, gasping for breath. Kylo would have none of it, and he lunged forward to grab either side of his neck with his two bare hands. The snap was sickening to hear.

 _Heriberto Arthur, District 10 Male: 17th, Killed by Kylo, Bloodbath_

Most of the outer district tributes had scurried away from the cornucopia, and the eager careers got to the work of inspecting the clearing for any stray prey. There were none left apart from the sneaky Mellissa from District 9, who was hiding behind a crate inside of the cornucopia. She was wielding a sword and put up an admirably good fight against smirking Kylo, but in the end her skills could not match those of the trained career. Kylo eventually subdued her by shoving the end of his knife deep into her throat. Mellissa moaned and gurgled for a bit before tumbling to the ground, her eyes glazed back into her head.

 _Mellissa Palma, District 9 Female: 16th, Killed by Kylo, Bloodbath_

That was it. Nine cannons boomed across the vast arena. Vance was rather disappointed with nine bloodbath deaths; he was hoping for more. The one upside to this was that the games would be extra-long and thrilling. After the bloodbath, the large number of fifteen remaining tributes swelled out across the arena, occupying every nook and cranny of the candy wonderland. The fractured career pack stayed at the cornucopia to sort through supplies and to pile up the bodies in a far-off corner of the clearing. They had five surviving members, much more than the four or three that they usually had. In a neat row on the floor of the cornucopia, they set out five sleeping bags. They set up a rotation of shifts to watch the others, and they fell asleep to the aroma of peppermint patty and candy canes.

Those tributes that stayed in the clearing were certainly testing their luck due to its close proximity to the careers. Only two tributes stayed in the gingerbread village. They were Innara from 3 and Aviva from 7. All of the other tributes ran as fast as they could away from the cornucopia once they had received supplies, but not these two girls. Innara alternated between walking and jogging for the rest of Day 1, reaching the edge of the village and emerging into the candy cane forest many hours after all of the others. When she did, she actually turned back in favor of camping out in the gingerbread village for the night. The houses were extremely small and cramped, but Innara eventually found a building that she could hide in without feeling claustrophobic. It was the town's church, and she found a good hiding spot under the priest's podium, which was, naturally, made completely out of the most delicious chocolate that Innara had ever tasted in her life. At first, Innara tested it slowly to make sure that it wasn't poisonous. Once she came to the conclusion that it was safe to eat, she began stuffing her mouth with the delicious candy. It was sweet and delicious to the very center, and it left Innara craving more. She went to sleep at around eleven o'clock, after she had eaten as much as she dared without the podium collapsing due to the thinness of its supporting walls. Aviva was the only other tribute to stay in the gingerbread village, and she took quite a different approach to the night than Innara had. Aviva did not settle down in one place for the night, instead opting to be a hunter-gatherer and to keep moving around day and night. Aviva's keen senses of vision and hearing did not fail her throughout the night, and whenever she heard a career pacing nearby she would always see them before they saw her and she would have time to hide—and time to call them names. Aviva quite enjoyed the adventure of exploring the entire town, and with the careers asleep, she had nothing to worry about as long as she was relatively quiet.

The huge chocolate mountain looming in the distance was certainly an attractive destination, with its crumbling facades of dripping sugar and peppermint filling. Four tributes headed toward it once the bloodbath was over. They were Radix from 5, Hector from 8, Solomon from 11, and Mihilo from 12. Solomon was the fastest runner of the quartet, hence his strong legs and determined standpoint. It was almost two in the morning when he finally reached the foot of the chocolate mountain, and he began climbing it. It was not cold or slippery at all and so wasn't very dangerous, although his leg muscles screamed with exhaustion. Five hours later, Solomon had reached the peak of the mountain. He noticed that the air was no thinner up there than it was at the surface. Weird. Solomon looked down upon the beautiful sight below him: the glowing candy land with its beautiful lights and candy cane trees. It was very calming to see something so peaceful, and after crawling under a peppermint bush Solomon fell asleep almost instantly. Right behind Solomon was Hector, another fast runner. Although Hector could run incredibly fast, she was not nearly as endurant as Solomon; she needed to pepper long breaks throughout traversing the arena. Once Hector reached the foot of the candy mountain, she crumpled to the ground with exhaustion. Hector used the last ounce of her strength (and of her willpower) to crawl over to a ditch in the ground and curl up inside of it. She fell asleep within seconds, her backpack beside her as she caught some Zs. Mihilo from 12 was a rather average boy in terms of his speed, and he made it about halfway to the foot of the mountain when he curled up behind a thick bush of electric blue lollipops to sleep. He certainly tried to fall asleep, but he couldn't. The sight of the blue lollipops above him was too captivating. But, Mihilo told himself that if he ate them it would just make it more difficult for him to sleep when he wanted to. Then, finally, half an hour of tossing and turning later, Mihilo told himself that he would try just one. The lollipops were delicious, and within the next hour he had completely eaten four of them. So much for sleep. The slowest of the quartet was Radix, who took his sweet time strolling towards the candy mountain. He was just over a third of the way there when night fell, and he strayed from the path. Radix sat down behind a steep hill and began taking inventory of the contents of his backpack. He tried to fight his tiredness, but it was no use. Suddenly, a dark wave fell over him as he tumbled into the dark void of sleep.

Several tributes opted to head toward the bubblegum foothills just east of the cornucopia. The foothills were about thirty feet tall each and each was made of pink hard-candy. They all burst with bushes that were covered with flowers. The petals of the flowers were made of cotton-candy chewing gum. The tributes that headed in that direction were Grover from 7, Mardell from 9, and Florrie from 10. Grover ventured to the very edge of the arena, mere yards from the force field that encircled the candy wonderland. He crouched down in a small cove dug in the ground, wielding his axe and ready to defend himself against any friend or foe that may come along. None did, and after about three hours of tirelessly waiting around he fell asleep. Florrie from 10 went with a similar strategy to Grover. Florrie ventured out as far as she dared, always throwing little bits of material ahead of her just to make sure she wouldn't hit the force field. Once she had walked for about thirty minutes, she began gorging herself on the bubblegum flowers. They were delicious. The first one that she tried was a purple one. She shoved it into her mouth, and smiled with satisfaction as the grape flavor washed through her. She chewed it precisely ten times, then spit it out and went for a different flower. They were different flavors each time. Next, Florrie found a bubblegum one. Then, she found lemon, followed by raspberry, strawberry, chocolate, cinnamon, orange, banana, peppermint, and many, many more. She had tasted about a hundred different flavors when she decided to blow a bubble. She shoved ten pieces into her mouth, all of the flavors blending together as she chewed them into a rubbery ball. Then, she began blowing a bubble. She had ten pieces in her mouth, so, naturally, the bubble was absolutely huge. It was about a foot in diameter, and it completely blocked out her vision save for the corners of her eyes. Eventually, it popped with a loud sound that burst in Florrie's ears and sent her reeling back. It was if she had been punched in the face, and she needed some time to recover. Very unfortunately for Florrie, that loud pop was enough to attract the attention of the nearby career pack. The careers raced toward Florrie. Florrie's ears were ringing from the sound of the pop, so she couldn't hear well. And, her vision was blocked completely because some of the gum had gotten stuck in and over her eyes. Florrie had no idea what was going on as Alexis did the honors, grinning with satisfaction as she slashed her curved blade across her chest. Florrie fell to the ground, screaming, and smirking Kylo finished the job when he thrusted the prongs of his bronze trident into her chest.

 _Florrie Byars, District 10 Female: 15th, Killed by Alexis and Kylo, Day 1_

There was one outlier among the tributes, and that was Ashlyn from District 6. Ashlyn was the only tribute that headed south toward the field of gumdrops. Perhaps she reasoned that she would be glossed over by the careers, who would never expect any tribute to be hiding in the open space. The pros and cons bounced around in her mind, but despite all ifs and buts and coconuts she settled down rather nicely behind a huge blue gumdrop. She leaned against it and tore open the pack she had taken from the cornucopia. Once everything was settled, she began testing the gumdrop slowly to make sure that it wasn't poisonous. Once she was sure it was safe to eat, Ashlyn began gorging herself on the sugary blue-raspberry. Once she had bitten a hole about the size of a basketball in the gumdrop, she leaned her head against her backpack and fell asleep, holding her knife in hand just in case any of the other tributes had any ideas.

The morning of Day 2 arrived, and the careers started hunting immediately. They decided to go with the strategy of hunting together in one big pack of five instead of venturing out individually. The quintet argued for a bit about where to search before deciding upon the chocolate mountain in the distance. They reasoned that it would have lots of places to hide and would give the tributes on it a good view of below. This would mean that the most tributes would be there, they assumed. They were right. The career pack darted through the arena as quickly as they could, and within two hours they had reached the foot of the mountain. They began climbing up the steep slope, and it was less than ten minutes before they discovered Solomon crouched down in his cove. Solomon immediately leapt up, clutching his knife so firmly that his knuckles showed a starch white. Solomon knew he couldn't fend off the trained careers for long, but he was not about to give up without a fight. He immediately pranced out of the cove, running away in an attempt to place as much distance between himself and his pursuers. The first to lunge toward Solomon was Jacinth. When Solomon saw Jacinth lunging toward him and brandishing his sword, Solomon leapt over his crouched-down form and planted his feet firmly on the ground, kicking up lots of sugary dust that made him sneeze. Now, in place of now-disoriented Jacinth, was Alexis. Alexis dove toward Solomon, calling for her allies in an attempt to corner the boy against one of the candy canes nearby. In one leap of faith, Solomon hurled his knife four yards through the air. He was not a good knife-user, but the knife miraculously found its way into Alexis' heart as she slumped like a stone, screaming and trying to staunch the flow of blood that was exploding from her torso.

 _Alexis Millet, District 2 Female: 14th, Killed by Solomon, Day 2_

Solomon had angered the other careers immensely, and he didn't have time to rip the knife out of Alexis' corpse. Instead, Solomon fled for his life as the careers were hot on his tail, flinging their weapons forth in an attempt to kill the boy that had killed their Alexis. The careers chased around Solomon for four long hours. Then, Solomon tripped on a rock and fell face-first into the ground. His efforts to get back up onto his feet were futile, and the careers caught up to him within a second. That very moment, Marena plunged her machete into Solomon's back. Solomon had a strong build, and he put up a good fight against the wound. But, all of his hopes of recovery were quelled when Jacinth flung his sword into his calf.

 _Solomon Crisp, District 11 Male: 13th, Killed by Marena and Jacinth, Day 2_

Days 3 and 4 passed, deathless. In this timeframe, not much happened in the arena. However, Ashlyn got up from her hiding spot in the gumdrop moor and decided to move toward the gingerbread village to raid the cornucopia of its supplies when she was sure that the careers were away. On Day 5, the District 6 girl watched from far away as the careers packed up their supplies. Once the quartet disappeared over the horizon, Ashlyn was in business.

Ashlyn darted towards the cornucopia, leaping and bounding across the arena. In fact, she was so distracted by the notion of raiding the cornucopia that she bumped into an unsuspecting Innara, who was wandering around the gingerbread village surrounding the cornucopia. The two fell to the ground, breathing heavily as they scrambled to their feet. Innara proposed a truce, but Ashlyn would have none of it. Ashlyn pulled out her sword and Innara produced her knife. Innara was able to fend Ashlyn off for about two minutes, but in the end the meager skills of the 3 girl were no match for those of the experienced Ashlyn. Ashlyn thrust forth her sword, and it sank into Innara's neck as she fell to the ground, a fountain of thick blood spurting from her neck as she writhed on the ground in pain, screaming. Ashlyn, not wanting to attract the attention of the careers, polished her off by stabbing her in the stomach with her sword.

 _Innara Whiting, District 3 Female: 12th, Killed by Ashlyn, Day 5_

Ashlyn took a few moments to pillage dead Innara of everything she had been carrying with her. Once Ashlyn had gotten everything, she chickened out and darted away into the field and back to her little home. Ashlyn sat down, back leaned against the huge blue gumdrop. She looked at what she had with her.

There were only two items. There was a black sleeping bag. The second object was the strangest contraption that Ashlyn had seen in her life. It was a square about one foot in diameter, and it was made of metal. It looked to be made out of lots of different parts of things mashed together, with gears and wires and knuts and bolts locking together in a rather harmonious way.

That was when Ashlyn noticed the small trigger at the bottom of the machine. It must have been some kind of gun. But, it had no hole to load in ammunition. What could it be? After a few minutes of exploration, she found a small hole on the opposite side from the trigger. She aimed the hole away from her, toward the ground. Not knowing what to expect, Ashlyn pulled the trigger.

What followed was a low-pitched hum. A beam of glowing light shot from the gun and hit the ground, where it melted the peppermint grass and the chocolate ground into hot liquid. Intrigued, Ashlyn crawled away from the gumdrop she was hiding behind and aimed the gun directly at it. When she pulled the trigger, the entire thing melted in a huge glob of sugary blue liquid that oozed lazily across the ground. Whatever Innara had done to make this contraption did not matter to Ashlyn. All she knew was that it had potential. It had potential to get her back home to District 6.

On Day 6, the careers were combing through the arena when they found the sinewy District 12 boy, Mihilo, hiding behind a rock. He swiftly met his end after Lyum whacked him across the head with his baton.

 _Mihilo Tice, District 12 Male: 11th, Killed by Lyum, Day 6_

Days 7 thru 9 passed, void of any conflict between the tributes. It had been a long time since the last kill had been made, and so the gamemakers declared a feast to cut down the number of tributes by a substantial amount. Out of the ten remaining tributes, seven showed up to the feast. They were the four careers, Aviva and Grover from 7, and Mardell from 9. Mardell showed up because his water supply had run out two days prior and he would die from dehydration soon. Aviva showed up for the exact same reason. Grover made an appearance because he had suffered a bad wound on his torso and would die without medicine from the cornucopia.

The feast began, and the tributes burst forward in a scene of pure chaos. The first tribute to meet their end in the feast was Grover. Grover was running across the yawning mouth of the cornucopia when Kylo leapt out of its mysterious darkness and tackled him. Kylo lifted his knife into the air and brought it down upon Grover's torso. Grover's screams were cut out instantly after the knife wormed its way into his heart, and Kylo ripped the knife out of the boy the moment that his cannon sounded.

 _Grover Dawkins, District 7 Male: 10th, Killed by Kylo, Day 10_

The next kill that was made was an accidental kill. Jacinth had picked up a throwing axe off of a shelf in the cornucopia and spotted his target: nearby Mardell. Jacinth lifted the hatchet into the air and hurled it as hard as she could. The moment that the weapon left Jacinth's fingers, unsuspecting Marena ran across its path. The weapon sank into Marena's side as she slumped like a stone, her cannon booming through the arena. She had absorbed the blow, leaving Mardell unscathed.

 _Marena Cavallo, District 4 Female: 9th, Killed by Jacinth, Day 10_

Mardell, Jacinth's intended prey, took the opportunity to escape and began darting away from the clearing as fast as his legs could carry him.

"Oh no you don't" Jacinth spat as he picked up the nearest weapon—a throwing knife—and hurled it through the air toward Mardell. The knife missed, and Jacinth cursed under his breath as he reached for another weapon—this time, a brick. Jacinth threw the brick through the air, and it landed into Mardell's back and knocked him to the ground. Jacinth ran over to disoriented Mardell and smashed him in the head over and over again with the brick, killing him from head trauma a minute later.

 _Mardell Hales, District 9 Male: 8th, Killed by Jacinth, Day 10_

Then, the three surviving careers teamed up in an attempt to take down Aviva, who was attempting to escape the cornucopia with a package of water canteens. Aviva could not outrun the trained boys, and Kylo flung his knife into the back of her head the moment before she disappeared into the candy cane forest.

 _Aviva Gornick, District 7 Female: 7th, Killed by Kylo, Day 10_

On Day 11, the audience's attention was diverted to Hector, the only volunteer outside of the careers. Hector's water supply had run out three days prior, and she was slowly dying from dehydration. At this point in the games, water was very expensive and so no sponsor was generous enough to open their purse for her. Hector died on the floor of the candy cane forest.

 _Hector McKenzie, District 8 Female: 6th, Dehydration, Day 11_

Only five tributes remained, and the gamemakers wanted to wait for one more death before driving the tributes inward for a bloody finale. Radix gave it to them when he fell prey to dehydration on Day 13.

 _Radix Hunter, District 5 Male: 5th, Dehydration, Day 13_

That left Jacinth Bergeron of District 1, Lyum Harnett of District 2, Kylo Lepore of District 4, and Ashlyn Breston of District 6 to vie for the crown. The gamemakers needed a method to herd the tributes toward the cornucopia, and so they unleashed a hoard of gingerbread men muttations upon the tributes. The mutts chased the four tributes around the arena. The first to reach the cornucopia was Ashlyn, who was close to it and so didn't need much time to reach it. She was closely followed by Kylo, then by Lyum. Jacinth, however, was not so lucky. He had been running through the arena when he tripped. He regained his balance before he could fall, but the stutter had given the gingerbread men enough time to catch up to him. They mauled Jacinth's body to a pulp, and he screamed all the way through.

 _Jacinth Bergeron, District 1 Male: 4th, Gingerbread Muttations, Day 13_

At the cornucopia were Lyum, Kylo, and Ashlyn. All three of them had climbed up on top of the cornucopia, and the fight was between Lyum and Kylo at that point. The two boys were fighting each other, thinking that once one of them triumphed it would be easy for them to bump off Ashlyn without any difficulty. While Lyum and Kylo were distracted fighting each other, Ashlyn developed a plan in her mind.

 _The cornucopia is made of peppermint. Peppermint is made of sugar. Sugar melts with heat._

While the two boys were distracted, Ashlyn slipped off of the cornucopia onto the ground. She pulled out her gun, and aimed it at the peppermint cornucopia. She pulled the trigger, and over the course of thirty seconds the entire cornucopia melted to the ground in a huge mass of oozing liquid. The two careers were consumed by the lazily flowing mass of scorching sugar. They screamed as their bodies were burned to death, and the trumpets sounded in their victorious trill the moment that their cannons faded away fully.

 _Kylo Lepore, District 4 Male: 3rd, Killed by Ashlyn, Day 13_

 _Lyum Harnett, District 2 Male: 2nd, Killed by Ashlyn, Day 13_

"Ashlyn Breston of District 6, you are the victor of the twenty-third annual Hunger Games!" Vance declared, congratulating the nation's newest victor.

Ashlyn just grinned slyly. Through much more than her fair share of luck, she was the only tribute remaining in the arena. As she climbed into the hovercraft, thoughts raced through her head about her family and friends back in District 6. No matter what happened, she would never forget the time that she had served in the games. Never as long as she lived.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The nation was glad to see another victor be added to District 6's lineup. With the addition of Ashlyn, District 6 had the third most victors of any district. Only Districts 1 and 2 had more victors than District 6, now. The Capitol adored Ashlyn, and it was alleged that she was a perfect comedian who could make anybody laugh. She was worshipped by her home district before settling into the victor's village.

Ashlyn's victory tour was average. However, all three of the career districts were infuriated at how a 'weakling' like her had somehow lasted longer than the powerful tributes that they had trained for their entire lives.

She moved into the Victor's Village of District 6, the third victor to do so.

Ashlyn would live to the age of fifty, dying an untimely death in a house fire around the time of the fifty-seventh annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would marry once. She would have one child in her early thirties, but would go to extreme lengths to conceal the identity of the father.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Ashlyn moves into the Victor's Village of District 6, the third victor to do so.

Brandi Coyne marries her first and only husband, a man named Creselda Reyl.

Slate Ogston marries his first wife, Maren Lynx.

Blaze Skalnik fathers twin children, whom he names Madison and Mason.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks for reading! Here's Ashlyn, our next victor. What did you think of her tactic of melting the cornucopia and scorching the careers to death? If you would like to, please drop a quick review. Only two more chapters to go until the infamous first quarter quell!**


	25. The 24th Hunger Games

**The 24th Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Roxann Shannon returned as president of the nation for another year, as did Head Gamemaker Vance Calhoun. The games of the previous year had been a massive hit in the Capitol; the audience adored every aspect of it, particularly the arena. This gave them a window into what Vance was capable of creating, and many recognized his true artistic eye. As such, Vance's return as Head Gamemaker was celebrated throughout the Capitol. The arena that Vance designed for the twenty-fourth annual Hunger Games was a true, stunning majesty of a place. The arena was a large circle with a radius of approximately ten miles. Two heavy lines were drawn in the ground. One of them ran north to south, splitting the arena vertically into two halves. The other line ran from east to west, splitting the arena horizontally into two halves. This divided the entire circle into four slices. Each of the slices represented one of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. The first segment represented the element of earth. It was a large forest, with birch trees reaching so high that their tops disappeared into the sky. The ground of the earth sector was covered with magnificent green grass that rose up to the tribute's knees and brushed against their calves in the most satisfying way. This part of the arena was filled with fruit. Everything from pink to orange to black fruits hung from trees, some safe to eat and some poisonous. The wildlife of the place was rich in diversity. The main animals were the deer, squirrels, and rabbits that roamed the area munching on leaves and such. The second sector represented air. It was a completely open field of wheat, with sharp and swift winds that bit into the tribute's skin and made fingers of ice run down their spines. At night, this area would drop to below freezing. However, anyone brave enough to venture into the area would be treated with the most important commodity of all: water. In a far-off corner of the air sector was a large lake, its surface sparkling like polished glass in the round, gem of the sun overhead. It was filled with leaping fish, delicious and safe to eat. The water was crystal clear and felt almost invigorating to drink. The third sector represented fire, and it was perhaps the most menacing of the sectors. It was a series of islands suspended above an endless ocean of bubbling lava. The islands were connected by metal bridges. It looked extremely dangerous, and it was. One false step and a tribute would be sent tumbling into the lava with zero chance of survival. However, anyone who dared to reach the end of the huge obstacle course would be able to take control of the sniper tower that lay at its far end. Having this would be a huge advantage for any tribute. The fourth and final segment represented the final element, water. It was a huge ocean sprinkled with islands. Some were rich in resources, and some had none. The water was safe to swim in, but it was absolutely disgusting to the taste. It was not poisonous at all, but it contained tons of salt that would make any tribute that tried to drink it even thirstier. The four sectors of the arena clashed at the cornucopia, where the huge mass of ivory towered above the clearing where the two-dozen pedestals modestly sat. The field in front of the cornucopia was largely filled with survival materials such as food and water. The further toward the cornucopia one traveled the better supplies they could find. The inside of the cornucopia was where the weapons were. The careers this year were some of the best that the academy had ever seen; they had trained extra hard with hopes of bringing home the crown after a 'weakling' victory the year prior. District 1, as usual, produced a gorgeous pair of tributes that were talented left, right, and center. Their male was a wizard with the dagger, and he made the sponsors line up and down the block. Their female, however, was the one that really stole the show. She was knockout gorgeous girl, and her impeccable skill with the axe and bow helped her to climb the hierarchy of tributes with ease. She was the de facto leader of the careers, and rightly so. She had the highest odds of winning, with six to one odds of taking home the crown. District 2's tributes were focused much less on looks than they were on getting down to business. The District 2 male was impeccably skilled with blades, especially ones that were curved. "When they're curved, something about them just makes them feel like an extension of my arm," he reported to the master of ceremonies, Caligula Flickerman, in his interview. The District 2 female was not very skilled with weaponry, but she was a dangerously intelligent girl in her attitude, personality, and disobedience. She really was a rebel: not in the revolution kind of way but in the teenager kind of way. It is strongly believed that she would not have earned a ten in training if not for the flirtatious stunt she pulled with one of the top gamemakers immediately following her private session. District 4 produced the least stellar showing of the trio. Their boy was the oldest tribute in the games, at eighteen years and three hundred-forty days old. He was most talented with the trident and harpoon, but was also satisfactory with most blades. The other half of the District 4 team, the District 4 girl, earned the lowest score of the pack. She only scored an eight. Outside of the career districts, the scores were rather average. Besides the careers, Theodore from 7 earned a nine by displaying his showmanship with the hatchet. Four eights were earned by Aviva from 7, Rebecca from 9, Sal from 10, and Bennett from 11. Two sevens were earned by Lenard from 9 and Ashleigh from 10. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There were two volunteers outside of the careers. The first was Nydia Prezkscop of District 5, who volunteered into the games for her twelve year-old niece. The second was Weston Berryman of District 8, who volunteered "out of sheer curiosity" he alleged in his interview. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Bastion Marcillo, 18, (10) 8-1 and Evianna Bauer, 18, (10) 6-1

District 2: Julian Bretscher, 16, (10) 7-1 and Mallory Rundlett, 15, (10) 9-1

District 3: Talix Caligor, 17, (4) 26-1 and Dayta Albrand, 18, (5) 19-1

District 4: Islay Meller, 18, (9) 8-1 and Oxna Rankine, 16, (8) 10-1

District 5: Menelik Tabler, 16, (4) 29-1 and Nydia Prezkscop, 15, (3) 73-1

District 6: Caden Alcantar, 14, (2) 93-1 and Viatrix Wiltse, 16, (3) 59-1

District 7: Theodore Lockhorst, 18, (9) 11-1 and Aviva Pisani, 16, (8) 14-1

District 8: Weston Berryman, 13, (2) 103-1 and Lindy Lyon, 14, (3) 71-1

District 9: Lenard Hutchison, 17, (7) 18-1 and Rebecca Cushman, 17, (8) 15-1

District 10: Sal Brumfield, 16, (8) 14-1 and Ashleigh Gagnon, 16, (7) 19-1

District 11: Bennett Vance, 18, (8) 14-1 and Serafina Seaton, 12, (4) 121-1

District 12: Carlos Rafferty, 14, (4) 60-1 and Carmella Manuel, 16, (6) 20-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The tributes frantically looked around as they rose up into the arena atop their pedestals in an attempt to take in their surroundings. Their worlds were a mash of the salty spray from the ocean, the constant heat pulsating from the lava, the songs of the birds radiating from the forest, and the biting wind from the wheat field. The cornucopia towered above them, a mass of ivory that was bursting at the seams with water and medicine and everything else that would bring them life in the arena. Some of the tributes were absolutely petrified. Some cried. Yet, some cracked their knuckles. The countdown above them reached zero. 3, 2, 1. Their ears rang with the sound of the gong. The bloodbath of the twenty-fourth Hunger Games would be, simply put, an all-out massacre. Fifteen lives would be claimed in the bloodbath. The twenty-fourth Hunger Games broke the record for most bloodbath deaths, a record previously held by the bloodbath of the seventh Hunger Games in which fourteen kills were made.

The careers immediately assembled themselves, surging forward and setting their eyes on the bounty of weapons that lay in front of them. Evianna was ahead of all the others by a significant amount, bolstered not only by adrenaline but by the sight of the axe that lay in the grass forty yards from her pedestal. Without slowing down, Evianna bent down and locked her dexterous fingers around the weapon in one graceful movement. She began to slow down, scanning the field for prey before hurling the axe through the air. It flipped end over end before burying itself perfectly into the skull of a nearby boy, sending his knees buckling and his body weight slumping like a stone onto the ground. Evianna ran over to his side to rip the axe out of his head as the bloodbath began in earnest.

 _Carlos Rafferty, District 12 Male: 24th, Killed by Evianna, Bloodbath_

Bastion, another fast runner, was quick on his feet when he spotted a pair of twin cutlasses bound together on the ground in front of him. Bastion ran over to retrieve them, breaking the rubber band that held them together and then brandishing one in each hand. He spotted the brunette merchant girl from District 12 attempting to worm her way past him. Bastion surged forth and made his first blow, slashing one of his cutlasses across the girl's chest. She screamed as she fell to the ground, but Bastion was not done yet. The rest of the girl's death was quick work, and she was in ribbons by the time that he was done.

 _Carmella Manuel, District 12 Female: 23rd, Killed by Bastion, Bloodbath_

Mallory panned her eyes across the bounty of weapons at the cornucopia, looking for a knife. She began to panic. The knife was her best weapon, and without it her kills would be substantially less entertaining for the audience (and for the sponsors). Mallory sighed with relief when she spotted one lodged between two crates inside of the cornucopia. Mallory ran over to where the blade sat, wrapping her eager fingers around the leather sheath. She darted out of the cornucopia, only to find herself face-to-face with one of the outer district tributes. Mallory shot her hand forward, planting the knife into her chest as she dropped to the dewy ground with a thump.

 _Ashleigh Gagnon, District 10 Female: 22nd, Killed by Mallory, Bloodbath_

Evianna was pumped with thrill after making the first kill of the games, and she was determined to make another. Searching for prey wasn't any work at all; the instant she turned around she found herself less than five yards from a boy with a laughably low training score. Evianna threw the serrated edge of her axe into the sinewy boy's shoulder. He didn't have time to react at all before plummeting to the ground in death.

 _Weston Berryman, District 8 Male: 21st, Killed by Evianna, Bloodbath_

At this point, Viatrix from 6 was having a panic attack. She was crumpled up in a pathetic heap on the ground, crying and screaming and completely lost in the chaos of the bloodbath. She was easy prey for a smirking Julian, and his machete cut into her back.

 _Viatrix Wiltse, District 6 Female: 20th, Killed by Julian, Bloodbath_

When Oxna spotted two girls walk into the cornucopia, she developed a plan. Oxna called for her district partner, Islay. The two District 4 tributes ran toward the cornucopia's yawning mouth, trapping the two girl's inside. "I get 7, you get 11!" Oxna yelled to Islay, telling him which one of the petrified girls to kill. The two were killed in rapid succession, and the two careers shared a high-five after finishing the job.

 _Aviva Pisani, District 7 Female: 19th, Killed by Oxna, Bloodbath_

 _Serafina Seaton, District 11 Female: 18th, Killed by Islay, Bloodbath_

Being the District 3 girl that she was, Dayta grinned when she spotted an electric taser laying on a countertop inside of the cornucopia. Dayta had had lots of experience with using tasers, as her father was a retired peacekeeper and told his daughter some of what he knew from his time in Panem's military force. Dayta ran over to pick up the weapon. She whipped her head around to find herself face-to-face with Mallory. Mallory smirked delicately as she raised her knife into the air, ready to deliver the blow that would end Dayta's life. Panicked Dayta fumbled around for her electric gun. She flicked the switch, and a faint hum of life sounded from the machine. Dayta placed the metal onto unsuspecting Mallory's neck. The powerful electric circuit coursed through Mallory's entire body. The instant that Dayta flicked off the switch of her taser gun, Mallory dropped to the ground with a thump. Dayta quickly pillaged Mallory of her knife.

 _Mallory Rundlett, District 2 Female: 17th, Killed by Dayta, Bloodbath_

Sal from 10 had managed to pick up a bow and arrow out of the cornucopia. When Sal spotted unsuspecting Islay mere yards from him, the opportunity was too sweet to resist. Sal nocked an arrow into his bow and pulled back the bowstring. Islay whipped his head around just as the sharp tip of the arrow entered his side. All it took was another arrow to the head to polish him off.

 _Islay Meller, District 4 Male: 16th, Killed by Sal, Bloodbath_

Bastion and Evianna both spotted the stocky boy from District 11 at the exact same moment. In synchronization, Evianna hurled her axe toward the boy and Bastion unleashed the force of his two twin cutlasses. The weapons assaulted either side of his body, and he fell to the ground the moment before the two careers barreled toward him to rip their respective weapons out of his corpse.

 _Bennett Vance, District 11 Male: 15th, Killed by Bastion and Evianna, Bloodbath_

Being from District 7, Theodore was very skilled with the axe. He was in business the moment that he spotted a throwing axe sitting on a shelf in the cornucopia. Theodore raced over toward the weapon, locking his fingers around its wooden handle. Theodore tossed the axe through the air, allotting it time to sink into the torso of a nearby girl. She fell to the ground instantly; letting out an empty moan as she slowly died from the grievous wound he had been dealt. Theodore couldn't bear to see a human in so much pain; he ripped his weapon out of the girl's side and walked away, letting time do the rest. Then, Evianna stumbled upon the girl's nearly dead form and finished her off by cutting her axe into her torso. The poor girl was mere seconds away from death from blood loss and barely felt it.

 _Rebecca Cushman, District 9 Female: 14th, Killed by Theodore and Evianna, Bloodbath_

Julian grinned slyly when he opened a crate inside of the cornucopia and found an outer district boy hiding inside with hopes of waiting out the bloodbath and coming out once it was all over. He had no such luck, and Julian plunged his machete into his throat. He moaned and gurgled, going limp as blood pooled up in his mouth. He could not survive the wound, and he died within a minute.

 _Caden Alcantar, District 6 Male: 13th, Killed by Julian, Bloodbath_

Bastion was at war with himself when he spotted two different outer district tributes: one to his left and one to his right. Which tribute did he go for? The tribute on his left was a rather weak boy that would be harmless to his victory. The tribute to his right was even weaker, but showed good nature survival skills and so could be problematic to the careers at a later time. Bastion decided to go in for the kill upon the girl to his right, decapitating her in one clean slice.

 _Nydia Prezkscop, District 5 Female: 12th, Killed by Bastion, Bloodbath_

Immediately after killing Nydia, Bastion claimed the life of the other tribute. His sword cleaved apart his tiny frame.

 _Talix Caligor, District 3 Male: 11th, Killed by Bastion, Bloodbath_

This had been the longest bloodbath in Hunger Games history. Lasting almost forty minutes, it was now drawing to its close. Evianna made the last kill, slamming her axe into the calf of a weak and sinewy girl. She instantaneously fell to the ground, and Evianna finished her off by delivering a blow to her abdomen.

 _Lindy Lyon, District 8 Female: 10th, Killed by Evianna, Bloodbath_

Fifteen kills broke the record for most bloodbath deaths. Vance was extremely satisfied with fifteen bloodbath kills. It almost seemed to be 'making up' for the fact that the bloodbath of the year prior saw only nine deaths. With the bloodbath at its close, the nine remaining tributes spread out across the vast arena. The fractured career pack of Bastion, Evianna, Julian, and Oxna stayed at the cornucopia. Evianna immediately took charge, and rightly so; she had made the most kills, earned the highest percent of sponsors, and scored the highest odds of winning. Even though it was Evianna's main concern ordering around the others, she did a lot of work herself as well. Julian and Oxna were sent out to hunt for any stray tributes, but they found none. Meanwhile, Evianna and Bastion stayed at the cornucopia. Bastion arranged the career's sleeping quarters whilst Eviana organized the supplies.

Out of the five outer district tributes remaining, three headed for the earth sector of the arena. Perhaps the natural scene was much more attractive than those of the other three sectors. The three tributes were Menelik from 5, Lenard from 9, and Sal from 10. Sal was the fastest runner of the trio; his legs had endured hard work back home in District 10, thereby making them very strong and of great endurance. Sal was the first to reach the edge of the arena, doing so roughly two hours after the bloodbath had drawn to its close. Once Sal had travelled for about an hour and a half, he began constantly throwing bits of stone ahead of him with hopes of finding the force field. It took him a long time to find the force field. But, about half an hour later, Sal threw a rock at the force field that immediately shot back and hit him in the forehead. After rubbing his forehead and grunting with pain, Sal settled down mere yards from the force field. After setting up his camp for the night, he went out on a search for food. His first order of business was to make a basket, which he masterfully crafted from reeds that were growing on the side of a small pond close to his camp. He collected his food in the basket, and by the end of the day he had a diverse assortment of berries and other fruit in the basket. He fell asleep that night leaned against a tree. Lenard was just behind Sal in terms of his speed. About three-quarters of the way to the force field, he began to feel extreme fatigue. Within ten minutes, the exhaustion was so extreme that he crumpled to the ground. He muttered something about having to keep going. He stood back up, waved back and forth, and then plopped to the ground once more. He could not fight it. Sleep would come to him within seconds if he let it. Using the last ounces of his strength, Lenard lugged his exhausted self into an area heavy with leaves and sticks. He immediately collapsed, falling asleep with a great view of the twinkling stars overhead. Of the three tributes, Menelik was by far the slowest. It was almost three in the morning, and he was halfway to the force field. He mumbled something about needing a good night's sleep for the difficult day ahead. Menelik strayed from the path and sat down under a tall willow tree that would provide him shade if the temperature should ever turn extreme. Menelik plopped down to the ground and unzipped the backpack he had managed to snag from the cornucopia. Paranoid, he minimized the zipping sound by unzipping the pack as slowly as possible. Inside was an empty water canteen, a knife, and a packet of rubber bands. Not too shabby.

Only one tribute ventured into the air sector: Dayta from 3. Despite lacking in some other areas, Dayta had lightning-fast feet and determination that was as strong as titanium. In about two and a half hours, Dayta had reached the edge of the arena. She plopped down in a ditch that was possibly dug by a mole or other mammal. That was a good sign. It meant that there would be animals in that place. Animals meant food. Once Dayta was nice and cozy in the ditch, she began riffling through the things she had salvaged from the bloodbath. A packet of dried fruit. A canteen of water. And, most importantly, her taser. Dayta was satisfied with what she had gotten from the cornucopia. She tried to stay awake and organize her things. But, she couldn't fight the urge. Her eyelids sagged as she fell asleep, and a dark wave rolled over her as she tumbled into a dark well.

One tribute travelled to the water sector of the arena: Theodore from 7. Luckily, he had managed to snag an inflatable raft from the cornucopia. Theodore stood at the shore of the beach. He tore open the packaging of the raft and read the instructions for inflation. It took him almost half an hour to fully inflate, and by the time he was done his vision was filled with black spots. Theodore dropped the raft into the ocean. He lifted his foot up to step into it when a gust of stray wind from the air sector sent the raft floating away at an alarmingly fast rate. Theodore yelped with panic as he ran to grab the raft. But, it was already too far away. He stepped in the water and began wading toward it. Still, too far away. He began swimming through the cool water toward the raft when all of his supplies began floating out of his open backpack. Cursing, Theodore grabbed all of the items that had floated away. He looked back at the raft. It was merely a speck on the horizon. Theodore clapped his hands over his mouth and screamed as loud as possible in order to vent his fury. Theodore had almost nothing. The raft had flown away. All of the supplies from his backpack had floated away. He had nothing left but the throwing axe that was strapped to his back. Theodore lied down under a rock shelf that night to sleep. The night was cold and long, and his sleep consisted of dozens of very short and scattered wake-ups.

The Capitol was more surprised than they should have been that not a single tribute ventured out into the fire sector of the arena. It was very dangerous, after all. The comforting darkness of the forest and the tall wheat of the field were certainly much more inviting than the bubbling pool of lava and the rocky islands.

The morning of Day 2 arrived after what was a very long night for many of the tributes. The careers began hunting immediately, splitting up and searching around the arena for their prey. Each career was assigned one sector to comb through. Before even starting, Oxna requested the water sector. She was from District 4, after all. The other three tributes were assigned these sectors: earth for Evianna, fire for Bastion, and Air for Julian.

It was around noon that day when the careers made their first kill. Oxna was patrolling the water sector when she heard a snore coming from under a nearby shelf of rock. There it was again. Oxna treaded over to find Theodore contentedly snoozing away. Oxna shoved her trident into Theodore's sleeping form, and he died before he even woke up.

 _Theodore Lockhorst, District 7 Male: 9th, Killed by Oxna, Day 2_

That left the final eight: Bastion Marcillo from District 1, Evianna Bauer from District 1, Julian Bretscher from District 2, Dayta Albrand from District 3, Oxna Rankine from District 4, Menelik Tabler from District 5, Lenard Huchison from District 9, and Sal Brumfield from District 10.

Day 3 passed, empty of conflict. On Day 4, Julian was patrolling the air sector of the arena when he heard a small yelp of surprise from behind him. He whipped his head around and saw a pair of eyes staring back at him. Dayta's eyes. Grinning Julian immediately lunged at Dayta, but she scampered away. It was difficult for him to see her through the wheat, but Julian was never far behind the panicked girl. Eventually, he caught up to her. Daya lifted her leg into the air and, with all of the strength she could muster up, kicked Julian's machete out of his hand. It spiraled away before disappearing over the tips of the golden wheat. Without showing a single expression, Dayta flicked her taser to life. She placed the metal tips onto Julian's neck, and he immediately began thrashing around and contorting into strange positions. After his cannon shot sounded, Dayta promptly flicked the taser off with hopes of conserving its battery power for later.

 _Julian Bretscher, District 2 Male: 8th, Killed by Dayta, Day 4_

On Day 5, all three of the careers decided to head toward the fire sector of the arena. They were intrigued by the floating stone islands, and sometimes human curiosity is the most unstoppable force of all. The three careers spent the whole day traversing the network of islands, running across the bridges and travelling towards the dark tower in the distance. They were just shy of halfway to it when the gamemakers caused the islands to begin shaking. At first, it was a faint tremor that they dismissed as their imaginations. But, within half an hour, the islands were vibrating back and forth so fast that the careers had to bury their fingers into the dirt ground to prevent from being thrown off. The relentless gamemakers wouldn't stop until one death happened. It was a battle of strength between the trio of tributes; they all had to be stronger than the weakest person. About ten minutes later, Oxna just couldn't take it anymore. She screamed as she was thrown off of the island, plummeting down into the boing lava below.

 _Oxna Rankine, District 4 Female: 7th, Shaking Islands and Lava, Day 5_

Two deaths occurred within ten minutes of each other on Day 6. The first death was from Menelik, who fell prey to dehydration two days after his water supply ran out.

 _Menelik Tabler, District 5 Male: 6th, Dehydration, Day 6_

The second death occurred merely nine and a half minutes after the first. Lenard was so weak and so hopeless from dehydration that he decided to commit suicide to escape the pain. Lenard searched for a good rock before finding a very sharp one. Sitting down in the place that he wanted to die in, he drew a heavy line from his wrist all the way down his right arm. He repeated the same for his left arm. Blood immediately poured from the sliced-open limbs, and within an hour he had died from blood loss.

 _Lenard Huchison, District 9 Male: 5th, Suicide, Day 6_

It was around nine o'clock p.m. on Day 7 when Bastion and Evianna finally reached the sniper tower. They threw open the front entrance and walked inside, plugging their noses to drown out the moldy smell. The District 1 duo climbed the wooden spiral staircase. They reached the very top of it and emerged out onto the sniper station. Bows and arrows were mounted on each station, with a window and stool on each one so that they could see their enemies. Bastion and Evianna discussed their strategies for a bit before walking over to pull back the bowstrings and waiting.

It was about two hours later when Dayta and Sal, the only surviving tributes other than the careers, both ran onto the lava islands at the same time and began making their way toward the sniper tower. They both had plans for victory, and had made a truce that they would not kill each other, only work together to kill the careers. Sal planned to destroy the foundations of the tower so that it would collapse and the careers would die. Dayta planned to light the tower on fire so that the careers would burn to death.

The careers began firing at the two forms that they saw. However, they were such fast runners that the careers could never hit them. Sal and Dayta both reached the tower at the same time and began working on their plans. Solomon took out the saw he had crafted and began destroying the foundations of the wooden tower. Dayta sat down cross-legged on the ground and build a bow to start a fire. She ripped of whatever bits of spare wood she could find from around her to nurture the growing flame, and within two minutes it was a roaring inferno almost two feet high. She had to be quick with her plan, or else the careers would run down and face her and all would be over. She began nudging the flaming logs toward the base of the tower, and it quickly caught fire. All she had to do was wait. Admittedly, she had to scatter some wood around the perimeter of the tower in order to do any sort of damage. But, the dry wood was extremely flammable. A bit later and the base of the building was caught up in a white-hot fire.

When Bastion and Evianna noticed that the tower was on fire, they dropped their weapons and raced down the spiral staircase to the ground. Nails popped under them like gunfire as the staircase collapsed behind them. Then, in a scene that lasted about ten seconds, Dayta's fire had reached the most critical foundations of the building. At this point, Dayta knew that her plan was falling in to place and so she had time to place distance between herself and the soon-to-collapse tower. The entire tower collapsed to the ground with a sound so loud that it left a ringing in Dayta's ears. Bastion, Sal, and Evianna were crushed to death, in that order.

 _Bastion Marcillo, District 1 Male: 4th, Killed by Dayta and Sal, Day 7_

 _Sal Brumfield, District 10 Male: 3rd, Killed by Dayta and Himself, Day 7_

 _Evianna Bauer, District 1 Female: 2nd, Killed by Dayta and Sal, Day 7_

"Dayta Albrand of District 3, you are the victor of the twenty-fourth Hunger Games!" Vance proclaimed uproariously, accompanied by a symphony of trumpets to congratulate their newest victor.

Dayta removed her arm from over her face. She could not believe it. She was the only remaining tribute in the arena. She suppressed a smile as she climbed into the hovercraft that would carry her away to the technological district that she loved.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

District 3 was relieved to finally have their third victor, seeing as it had been nearly two decades since their last one. The Capitol thought that Dayta was smart, funny, and charismatic. She was a great addition to the nation's beloved lineup of victors, and many had a gut feeling that she would not be forgotten for a very long time.

Dayta's victory tour went well. It had a futuristic and technology theme, the way she liked it.

Dayta moved into the Victor's Village of District 3, the third victor to do so.

Dayta would live to the age of ninety-five, succumbing to diabetes around the time of the one-hundred first annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would marry and have one daughter. However, her marriage with her first husband would dissolve. Two years after their divorce, she would marry another man with whom she would have two children and stay married to until his untimely death from heart failure a few decades later.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Dayta moves into the Victor's Village of District 3, the third victor to do so.

Amelia Spangler marries her fiancée after four years of courtship, a man named Bruce Pamela.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Dayta, our first District 3 victor in 17 years! Holy cow! It's been a long time since I've given District 3 a victor, and I hope Dayta did the technology district justice.**

 **Anyways, let's get to what I know you're thinking. It's what I'm thinking too. Next chapter is the infamous first Quarter Quell in which every district holds an election to vote for their two tributes. I'm super excited! It's sure to be the longest chapter of this story by a wide margin. It'll be filled with twists and turns of all kinds. It'll keep you on the edge of your seat all the way through. I'm hard at work planning things out and starting to write little bits and pieces of it right now. The one downside is that it'll take much longer to come out. Right now, the release date that I have in mind is Monday, December 25th. How fitting, given that it's the 25** **th** **Hunger Games and the 25** **th** **of December. It'll also be a little Christmas surprise for all of my readers that celebrate it :). But, I hope that the sheer amount of work that I'm putting into it will be able to make up for the fact that it'll take almost three weeks to get out.**

 **If you would like to take a quick moment to, please review! Your feedback means the world to me, whether positive or negative. All I want is to become a better writer on this site and so your reviews warm me down right to the core. I'll see you next time with the first Quarter Quell!**

 **-Cjborange :)**


	26. The 25th Hunger Games

**The 25th Hunger Games: The 1st Quarter Quell**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

It had been a quarter of a century since the Hunger Games were enacted upon the citizens of Panem. Twenty five years, each one seeing the deaths of twenty-three district children. In penance for their uprising, over five hundred district children had been killed in the Hunger Games. Yet, the districts had refused to let the cooling coals of rebellion burn out. Riots were happening all over the nation, now more than ever. The rebellion that had ended twenty-five years ago had been a tiny spark. The people joining the cause were like kindling being added to the fire. In a feat of rebellion that pleased the districts immensely, a District 7 man snuck in to the presidential mansion and murdered President Roxann Shannon. The killer, a man named Grover Pisani whose daughter had been reaped for the Hunger Games of the year prior, was tried and hanged for treason. The presidential throne was left empty. That was, until a man named Coriolanus Snow rose to power. Coriolanus was already a prestigious government official, which certainly helped. But, he did not earn the title of president fairly. He invited some of the highest ranking government administration in the country to an elaborate dinner part in which he poisoned the wine. He proposed a toast at the end of the party. To avoid suspicion, Coriolanus drank the poisoned wine along with everybody else. All of the others died within minutes. However, Coriolanus produced his vial of antidote from his pocket and chugged it down. He was safe from the poison. But, the wounds on the inside of his mouth inflicted by the poison would periodically spout blood for the rest of his life. This act scared the rest of the Capitol so much that they let him assume the title of president without question.

At a mandatory viewing that night, the nation watched as Coriolanus Snow produced a wooden box. Inside the box were hundreds of envelopes, neatly aligned in rows. "One of these envelopes is to be opened every twenty-five years," Coriolanus proclaimed, his eyes sparkling in an almost childlike way. "Each envelope contains a rule twist that that year's games will follow. Those special games shall be dubbed Quarter Quells. I shall read the first one right now," he declared as he reached into the box and pulled out the very first one, clearly labeled '25'. He unfolded the square of paper and smoothed it out, reading aloud the twist for the first Quarter Quell to the terrified nation. "On the twenty-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that their children are dying because of their choice to initiate violence, every district will be made to hold an election and vote on the tributes who will represent it". At that, Coriolanus folded the paper back up and placed it back in the envelope. Then, the screen cut to black. The words that Coriolanus had read from the envelope were exactly what happened the next week. Shipped off to every district were thousands of sheets of paper. At the reaping that year, one paper was handed to each citizen aged twelve thru eighteen. Every teenager in the nation was to write down a boy and a girl that they nominated to represent their district that year. Then, the peacekeepers would come around to collect the slips of paper. The ballots would be carried into the Justice Building and counted by the mayor of the district. This instantaneously silenced all rebellion, something that pleased Snow immensely. He had stomped out the cooling coals of rebellion, and he had no intentions of loosening his grip on the presidency any time soon. Those that had lied, cheated, stolen, or gotten others arrested walked up to the stage with their heads held low after the votes were counted up. The odds were not in their favor.

This mighty Quarter Quell needed a mighty Head Gamemaker. Coriolanus Snow decided to hire an old gamemaker that had been a Capitol favorite. After giving Capitol citizens a poll on who they would like to return as head gamemaker, it was concluded that Snow would appoint Leto Spitz for the job. Leto had been the Head Gamemaker for the second thru fifth Hunger Games. He had produced such victors as Sapphire Waber and Molly Toliday, and every single one of his arenas had been some of the most spectacular the nation had ever seen. Leto appointed a team of almost five-hundred gamemakers to work on what he promised would be the grandest arena in the history of the Games. He did not disappoint. The arena for the twenty-fifth Hunger Games was, in a sense, a replica of Panem. The grand golden cornucopia stood proudly in the very center of the almost ten-kilometer long circle. The cornucopia was almost fifty feet high, and it was stamped with Capitol insignias inside and out. The circular arena was split into twelve equal slices, each slice representing one of the districts of Panem. The twelve slices met at the very center of the arena, which represented the Capitol. The District 1 slice was the most breathtaking place imaginable. It was a rolling green meadow with lime green grass. Pathways made of ruby and diamond stretched across the landscape. Marble statues of previous victors covered the arena. Rainbows stretched across the azure blue sky. Every single feature was absolutely gorgeous. District 2's slice was a mountain range, with tall mountains whose icy slopes stretched to the sky. It was a very comfortable temperature in the morning but could drop to below zero degrees Fahrenheit at night. The slice modeled after District 3 was a maze. The labyrinth's twists and turns were enough to confuse any tribute. However, an argosy of valuable supplies were scattered throughout it. The fourth sector was populated by a vast sea. Obviously representing District 4, fish jumped from the water. They would be great sources of food. Throughout the sector were islands: spits of sand in the middle of the vast ocean. They had little resources but would be great hiding places for the weaker tributes. Scattered on the sea floor were sparkling golden tridents. District 5's sector was a field of cement that was built over by a power grid. Inside of the main control panel was a huge crate filled with bottled water. The section for District 6 was a large runway with a massive airplane parked on it. The interior of the airplane had air conditioning, a clean and virtually infinite water supply, and even a working toilet. However, there was only one entrance. Given the thinness of the aisle way, any tribute that stood in front of the entrance would trap any other tributes inside without hope of escape. District 7's slice was an oak forest with trees so tall that they stretched to the sky. The District 8 slice was a textile mill. Inside of the mill was a bountiful supply of food and water, as well as knives. District 9 was, unsurprisingly, a field of wheat dotted with small ponds. District 10's was a rolling meadow, with cows, horses, pigs, goats, chickens, and sheep roaming the landscape. District 11 had a peach grove. Its peaches were juicy and sweet all the way through. District 12's slice was a thick forest of spruce trees. In the very center of the area was a deep hole that descended into the earth. After about one hundred meters down, the cave leveled off into a long hallway and then split into the three different shafts. This would be a great hiding space, but would be risky for similar reasons as the District 6 slice.

Out of all the tributes, District 1 really produced the cream of the crop. Their male, who had led a riot and led to the deaths of hundreds of civilians, scored a ten via his skills with the blade. The sponsors lined up and down the block for him. But, it was the District 1 girl who really stole the show. Diamond Griego was the first tribute to score an eleven in twenty-three years. She scored the second highest odds of winning in history, second only to Sapphire Waber of the second Hunger Games. Her looks and her skills with bows and axes made the sponsors swoon, and she made the outer district tributes quiver with terror. District 2 put on a rather pathetic showing, contrary to their usual. Their male was chosen by his peers because he was a pickpocket, and he barely managed to snag a four in training. Their girl was turned over because she was an orphan and would not be missed. District 3's tributes were similar to those of District 2. The District 3 male managed to score a four via his talents with the bow and arrow, while the District 3 female snagged a five with the gamemakers. District 4's male made a spot into the career alliance, along with the two District 1 tributes. He was a sociopathic murderer who was considered by most of his district to be mentally insane. It was hard to deny that he was crazy in the head, and his district couldn't wait to dispose of him in the Quarter Quell. His score of ten earned him the second highest odds of winning in the games, after Diamond. His district partner was much weaker than he; the District 4 girl, Talisa, was voted in because of how she liked to steal from the homeless for fun. District 5's male was an attempted murderer as well, the murderee being his ex-girlfriend. District 5's girl only earned a three, one of the lowest scores in the games. She was chosen because she accidentally lit a power grid on fire the year before, killing hundreds of its workers. The District 6 male was the son of a pilot who had accidentally crashed a plane and killing most of its passengers. District 6's girl was the daughter of the corrupt mayor, and the people voted her in just for the pleasure of giving their mayor a taste of his own medicine. District 7's tributes both scored eights and above, with their boy having an eight and their girl sporting a cool nine. Their male was guilty of identity theft, whilst the girl was a kleptomaniacal wreck who broke and stole objects from dozens of people each day. District 8 put on a varied showing. The boy, the son of a major drug-dealer, barely managed to snag a meager three in the training. The female, however, scored a six with her sheer intelligence and wit. She'd been a computer hacker all her life and defaced websites with inappropriate and sometimes rebellious words and phrases. The District 9 boy was another orphan. The District 9 girl was guilty of blackmailing thousands of dollars out of high-ranking government officials, and she managed to score a six with her knife wielding skills. The tributes from 10 both had hurt livestock in some form. Their male shot and killed livestock just for fun, whilst the female lit entire fields on fire and trapped helpless animals inside. The District 11 male was a liar who caused dozens of innocent people to be imprisoned for his crimes. The District 11 girl was the fourth and final addition to the career pack. She was guilty of murdering several people over the outcome of a professional sporting event, and she scored a cool ten. The District 12 male caused a mine to collapse, trapping dozens of workers inside to either be crushed to death or die from dehydration. District 12's girl was yet another orphan. The training scores were varied this year. In total, one eleven, three tens, two nines, one eight, three sevens, four sixes, two fives, four fours, two threes, and one two were scored. Just one note: The odds of winning for the tributes were rather bloated. Because of Diamond's eleven, the odds of the other tributes winning should be much lower than usual. However, the odds displayed below are the same as if Diamond had not scored that pretty score. Therefore, all twenty-four odds of winning add up to much more than one. There were no volunteers, of course, because the Quarter Quell banned volunteers. The Capitol promised to the tributes that, whichever one of them should escape the arena alive, their crimes would be forgiven and they could live out the rest of their days pardoned from whatever terrible punishment they would have been given otherwise. Here are the tributes:

District 1 Male: Erasmus Pritchett, 16, (10) 6-1 _Chosen because he led a riot, causing hundreds of civilian deaths._

District 1 Female: Diamond Griego, 17, (11) 3-1 _Chosen because she was a serial killer._

District 2 Male: Invictus Moseley, 16, (4) 27-1 _Chosen because he was a pickpocket._

District 2 Female: Peyton Corlette, 13, (2) 75-1 _Chosen because she was an orphan and would not be missed._

District 3 Male: Daniel Oliphant, 16, (4) 30-1 _Chosen because he lit the Justice Building on fire, killing the mayor and three children trapped inside._

District 3 Female: Zanna Hilsbery, 18, (5) 21-1 _Chosen because she regularly shoplifted._

District 4 Male: Maxx Burkholder, 18, (10) 5-1 _Chosen because he was a sociopathic murderer who killed eight people._

District 4 Female: Talisa Lapierre, 17, (7) 15-1 _Chosen because she liked to steal from homeless people for fun._

District 5 Male: Jaxom Rozinov, 18, (6) 16-1 _Chosen because he attempted the murder of his ex-girlfriend the year prior._

District 5 Female: Esther Rubia, 14, (3) 69-1 _Chosen because she destroyed a power grid, killing twenty workers._

District 6 Male: Casey Frondell, 18, (5) 20-1 _Chosen because his father crashed a plane that he was flying, killing many passengers._

District 6 Female: Hazel Brizycki, 18, (4) 25-1 _Chosen because she was the daughter of District 6's corrupt mayor._

District 7 Male: Willow Baldwin, 17, (8) 14-1 _Chosen because he was guilty of identity theft._

District 7 Female: Eva Knott, 18, (9) 13-1 _Chosen because she broke and stole many objects._

District 8 Male: Cordell Bollinger, 18, (3) 35-1 _Chosen because his father was a drug-dealer primarily to teens and young adults._

District 8 Female: Savannah Reynolds, 16, (6) 23-1 _Chosen because she was a computer hacker who defaced websites with rebellious words and phrases._

District 9 Male: Florencio Goldsmith, 15, (4) 39-1 _Chosen because he was an orphan and would not be missed._

District 9 Female: Marisa Isaac, 18, (6) 22-1 _Chosen because she blackmailed and extorted thousands of dollars from several people._

District 10 Male: Santos Severson, 17, (7) 14-1 _Chosen because he often shot and killed livestock for fun._

District 10 Female: Anette Sneade, 18, (7) 13-1 _Chosen because she lit a field on fire, killing hundreds of livestock trapped inside._

District 11 Male: Christian Lavenia, 13, (6) 29-1 _Chosen because he lied and caused nearly twenty innocent people to be imprisoned for his crimes._

District 11 Female: Arletta Gaddis, 16, (10) 8-1 _Chosen because she was guilty of murdering two people over the outcome of a professional sport event._

District 12 Male: Andre Plunkett, 18, (9) 10-1 _Chosen because he accidentally caused a coal mine to collapse, trapping two-dozen men to die inside._

District 12 Female: Miccah Hendricks, 12, (1) 201-1 _Chosen because she was an orphan and would not be missed._

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The loud, mechanical hum that the nation knew all too well flooded the tribute's ears as the arose into the arena atop their pedestals. The bloodbath of the first Quarter Quell was arguably one of the more thrilling of the first Hunger Games century. It would claim the lives of ten tributes.

When the gong rang, not a single tribute turned tail and fled from the get-go. Every single one of the twenty-four tributes surged forth, scooping up supplies and weapons and whatever else they could find strewn in and around the golden cornucopia.

Diamond was the fastest of the four careers. Her legs were strong, and she had a determined disposition. Surprisingly, little Esther from 5 was able to match her pace, as despite lacking in other areas she was an incredibly fast sprinter. Although Diamond had no weapons on her, she was not about to let the opportunity to kill Esther slip past her; Esther had humiliated Diamond rather strongly in training by hiding all of her favorite weapons and making jokes about her behind her back. Diamond ran over to Esther and grabbed her firmly with both hands. Diamond threw Esther aside like a rag doll. She crumpled to the grass. Diamond leaned down to where she laid thrashing on the ground. Diamond grabbed either side of Esther's neck with her strong hands. The snap was sickening to hear as Diamond made the first of ten bloodbath kills.

 _Esther Rubia, District 5 Female: 24th, Killed by Diamond, Bloodbath_

Erasmus was only a few paces behind Diamond, spurred on by the sight of a knife that lay in a cluster of pink blossoms approximately fifty yards from his pedestal. In one graceful swoop, Erasmus leaned over and locked his eager fingers around the serrated knife. Erasmus began to slow down, scanning the field for easy prey. When the computer hacker from District 8 ran right past him, it was too easy. Erasmus dove forth, plunging his knife deep into the girl's torso as she fell to the ground with a hollow thump. The rest of her death was quick work for Erasmus, and when he was finished he wiped off his bloodstained sword in the grass.

 _Savannah Reynolds, District 8 Female: 23rd, Killed by Erasmus, Bloodbath_

Maxx grinned when he spotted a four-pronged trident leaning against the exterior wall of the golden cornucopia. He ran over to retrieve it, closing his fingers around the cool metal as it sparkled magnificently in the round, gem of the sun overhead. Maxx turned around. He smirked delicately as he tossed the trident through the air. The trident sailed into the shoulder of the nearest boy, spearing his throat and lungs in one swipe.

 _Santos Severson, District 10 Male: 22nd, Killed by Maxx, Bloodbath_

Now, Arletta from 11 was the only one of the four careers that had yet to make a kill. When she spotted one of the weaker girls mere yards to her right, the opportunity was too sweet to resist. Arletta looked around for whatever weapon she could find, picked up the nearest one (which happened to be an axe), and swung it into the girl's neck. She screamed as she fell limp on Arletta's axe.

 _Miccah Hendricks, District 12 Female: 21st, Killed by Arletta, Bloodbath_

Clever Anette from 10 developed a plan with hopes of eliminating at least one of the more powerful tributes early. Anette's father was an engineer who designed electric fences, and so Anette had some knowledge of logic and physics. In a remote area of the clearing where she could remain hidden from the watchful eyes of the careers, Anette snatched a bow and arrow. She pulled the bowstring back and tied it in place with a rope. Next, she fastened the bow to the side of the cornucopia. Then, holding the other end of the rope tightly in her grasp, Anette turned around the corner of the cornucopia and waited. Here is how her plan would work: whenever some tribute ran across the area where the bow was fastened, Anette would let go of the rope. This would, if her plan worked, cause the arrow to land in their body without Anette having to do any work. At least, that's how it should have worked. Mere moments later, Christian from 11 ran right across the arrow's path. However, when Anette let go of the rope, the built-up elastic tension caused the bow to fly around the wall toward unsuspecting Anette. The arrow bombarded her torso, and it wormed its way perfectly into her heart. Anette had been killed by her own booby-trap. How ironic.

 _Anette Sneade, District 10 Female: 20th, Accidentally Killed by Herself, Bloodbath_

Maxx ripped his trident out of Santos' limp form, already hungry to make his next kill. Maxx spotted the sinewy orphan girl from 2 about forty yards from him. The career jogged forward, sporting his trident. He tossed the weapon through the air once he had a distance of less than ten yards. The girl whipped her head around and instinctively ducked, the trident sailing over her head and landing in the grass behind her. They were both defenseless. In a fight of sheer strength, Maxx could easily empower the little girl. As such, she decided to flee the scene. But, Maxx would have none of it. He grabbed the girl's torso and chucked her to the ground, causing several snaps and pops to emanate from her body. A few more bangs later and Maxx decided to walk away and let time do the talking. Seconds after the smirking career walked away, however, Arletta stumbled upon the 2 girl's half-dead form. Arletta used a curved sickle she had found to slice upon the girl's chest, finishing the job that her ally had started mere moments prior.

 _Peyton Corlette, District 2 Female: 19th, Killed by Maxx and Arletta, Bloodbath_

It was then that the career alliance lost their first member. After Arletta killed Maxx, she began pillaging her of her supplies. She ripped Peyton's backpack off of her blood-lathered back and unzipped it, investigating its contents. She reached her hand inside and counted the objects inside. This was a rather unintelligent decision, for moments later a tentative Eva from 7 ran up behind her and hacked her head in half with her axe. Eva recoiled in disgust as a spray of dark, sticky blood assaulted her body.

 _Arletta Gaddis, District 11 Female: 18th, Killed by Eva, Bloodbath_

Now that Eva had killed one of the careers, she decided that she might as well kill a few other tributes before she departed the bloodbath. Unlike a career, Eva only decided to go for what she considered very easy prey. She scanned the clearing for a few moments before setting her eyes on the boy from 8. He had a low training score, and his sinewy form would make him an easy target. Eva darted forth and slammed her axe into the boy's shoulder. It cut through his flesh before stopping a few inches above his waist. He didn't have time to run or scream before he collapsed to the ground, splashing Eva with yet more sticky blood.

 _Cordell Bollinger, District 8 Male: 17th, Killed by Eva, Bloodbath_

Maxx was in business when he spotted a girl running past him as fast as her legs could carry her. Maxx pounced upon the girl like a cat and stabbed her through the neck with his trident, sending her tumbling backward onto the cool grass. He ripped his trident out of her neck, opening up four holes from which blood spouted. Next, Maxx shoved his trident into her stomach. The golden prongs protruded from her back. When her body went completely limp, she slid off of Maxx's trident. Maxx pillaged her of her orange backpack.

 _Zanna Hilsbery, District 3 Female: 16th, Killed by Maxx, Bloodbath_

The clearing around the cornucopia was completely empty except for the careers and one other tribute. The sinewy Christian Lavenia was the only tribute besides the careers, and he sat inside of the cornucopia taking inventory of the contents of a black suitcase. The careers all stood around the yawning mouth of the horn, trapping him inside. It was several minutes before Christian actually realized that he was trapped. After collecting the supplies he wanted, he turned around, got to his feet and ran. Consequently, he ran straight into Diamond's serrated dagger. Diamond, Erasmus, and Maxx all gathered round for the full hour that it took him to die, watching him scream all the way. When Christian's eyes rolled back into his head, ten cannon shots boomed across the arena.

 _Christian Lavenia, District 11 Male: 15th, Killed by Diamond, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the fourteen remaining tributes spread out across the vast arena. Erasmus, Diamond, and Maxx stayed at the cornucopia for a few hours after Christian's cannon. Most of this time was spent organizing supplies and piling up the dead bodies in a far-off corner of the clearing. Each career had a job, and after thirty minutes they would rotate tasks. Erasmus started out on sorting supplies, while Diamond started out on corpse duty and Maxx did the foraging around the clearing for any stray tributes. He found none, unsurprisingly. After half an hour, the careers rotated jobs. It was a haphazard system, and sometimes they needed to stay at their posts for much longer than half an hour to finish up this or that. After about ten rotations, they were all itching to get hunting. Erasmus and Maxx ventured out leaving only Diamond behind to guard the supplies. They told Diamond somewhat comedically to assume that they were dead if they weren't back by midnight. That actually wasn't too remote of a possibility, given how strong the crop of tributes was.

District 1's sector was certainly alluring to many a boy or girl. With it marble statues and rolling green hills, it was the most breathtaking place imaginable. Two tributes entered the sector at the conclusion of the bloodbath: Talisa from 4 and Eva from 7. Eva was a much quicker runner than Talisa. By the time the first bit of the sun dipped below the horizon, Eva had reached the edge of the arena. It would be lying to say that she wasn't exhausted; she was dripping with sweat and her muscles burned like fire. She needed somewhere to sleep for the night. After scavenging around for about forty minutes, she found the perfect place. About twelve statues had fallen down into a ditch. By crawling underneath the spider-web of victors and presidents and gamemakers, Eva was hidden from the sight of anybody that happened to wander by. She actually had quite a decent amount of room to move around in her little den. She had several supplies on her. She had snagged from the cornucopia: ten yards of rope, a pot, and a package of just add water pasta. At this point, companies had begun to take the Hunger Games as an opportunity to advertise their products. The company that produced the pasta saw their sales skyrocket when Eva ate the pasta and smiled at the delicious taste. Apart from Eva, Talisa also ventured into the District 1 sector. Although District 1 had few places to hide, the number of muttations inside of it was relatively small. Of course, Talisa didn't know this when she chose it. Perhaps she went there because of its sheer beauty. However, looks can be deceiving. Around eleven o'clock at night, Talisa spotted an array of beady, black eyes staring at her from underneath a broken marble fountain. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she slowly backed away. The creatures leapt out of their hiding place and pounced upon Talisa. They were rabbits: cute and fuzzy and adorable. But, they were killers. Talisa was able to fend them off. She pulled her katana out of her backpack and prepared for a fight. The closest mutt to her was a rabbit that was chocolate brown and had a puffy tail as white as snow. She decapitated it in one clean slice. The muttations were gaining on her. All of the sudden, a lightbulb went off in Talisa's head. Talisa ran over to a fountain that had filled with dirty rainwater and looked to be the home of an ecosystem of fungus and algae. With all of her might, she pushed on the fountain until it tumbled over and dumped out. All of the rabbits were washed away by the current. After the water soaked into the grass, the rabbits were able to regain their senses. But, their fur was so wet and heavy from the water that they couldn't move. Talisa had outfoxed them! She laughed with satisfaction as she watched the creatures struggle to move, their fur hanging straight down toward the ground.

District 2 only attracted the attention of one tribute: Invictus from 2. He himself was from the masonry district, and perhaps the majestic mountain reminded him of home. His mother had died while giving birth to him, and his father worked long hours in a quarry. When goings were slow, Invictus would have to pickpocket. That was the reason why he was voted into the Quarter Quell by his peers. Invictus was determined to get home to his family. That thought was enough to boost his confidence, and he ran and ran all the way through the night. Then, only two hours into the second day, he heard voices coming from around the corner. Quickly, he ducked behind a corpse of bushes and crumpled himself up into a ball. He listened to the voices having their conversation.

"I told you he wouldn't be in here!" the first voice, male, exclaimed.

"Come on, Maxx. You saw him during training. That kid couldn't hide if his life depended on it. You saw how much he _yearned_ for home. Of course he'd be in here. He's the easiest prey left, and I'm not about to give up on finding him," the other career, who must have been Erasmus, said. Invictus' stomach crumpled with terror when he realized that they were talking about him.

Then, they walked around the corner. Invictus locked eyes with one of the boys. He couldn't tell which one until the career raised his lantern to reveal Erasmus' delicately smirking face.

"Look what we have here!" Erasmus said, unsheathing his knife.

The two careers pounced upon the helpless boy. Weaponless, he couldn't defend himself apart from a few scattered fist blows and foot kicks. The careers tied him to the ground with sturdy rope and walked in circles around him, obviously trying to draw out Invictus' death as long as possible. Sometimes, one of them would lunge forward, causing Invictus to scream into his gag. They must have been getting tired of him within an hour. They were wasting time, after all. Erasmus delivered the blow that ended the pickpocket's life, plunging his knife deep into his torso and sitting back as his blood crawled across the terrain like water.

 _Invictus Moseley, District 2 Male: 14th, Killed by Erasmus, Day 2_

District 4's slice attracted a single tribute: District 12's Andre. Andre was a new look for 12: his tall, jet black hair and stocky form was a contrast to 12's usual brunette hair and brown eyes. Andre had managed to salvage a rather large bounty of materials from the cornucopia, not the least of which were a bag of ten matches and two entire just-add-water steaks. Andre's parents both worked as fishers, and so he was knowledgable on how to use and operate a boat. Andre found a canoe resting on the ocean's shore and leapt into it, using the oars to force himself into the water. It starting out rough, and it took him a while to get use to the sea's rough currents. After about an hour of sailing, however, he reached a rather nice island with a flat area that he could sleep on. It was so dark he could barely see as he fumbled to find materials substantial to start a fire. Once he had a teepee primarily made out of driftwood, he pulled out a match and began lighting little bits of tinder on fire to throw in. The fire spread quickly, and he soon had a nice little bonfire. Andre took out a small container and filled it with some water he had. He carefully set the steak into the pot and fastened a little harness for it. He held the steak over the fire, and watched as it turned red and juicy all the way to the core. It was delicious, and after he ate it he doused the fire with sand from the beach. His camp that night was under a tree, between two banks of sand.

By the time the sun set, the District 6 sector had two human inhabitants: the two tributes from District 9. Florencio Goldsmith and Marisa Isaac (allies) had settled into the airplane. It was very warm, and with the addition of two sleeping bags it was rather cozy in there. The airplane had a working toilet and sink. The door could be locked. It seemed completely safe, and it was. At least for now. At roughly three o'clock in the morning on Day 2, the tributes were snoozing away when the lights flicked on. Marisa and Florencio jolted awake, grabbing their weapons and leaping to their feet. What they found was a flight attendant mutation a few yards from them.

"Thank you for choosing Capitol Airlines!" the flight attendant chirped cheerily, beaming at the two tributes. "Can I help you?"

Marisa and Florencio glared at each other, not sure what to do.

"Yeah. Can I have a snack? Maybe some popcorn?" Florencio asked, breaking the pensive silence.

"Sure thing!" she replied, and then wandered off, her heels clicking across the floor.

"I don't trust her as far as I can throw her," said Marisa the moment she disappeared around the corner.

"Me neither. She's a mutt for sure," agreed Florencio.

At the mention of the word 'mutt', the flight attendant burst back around the corner, her eyes bloody red and wielding a knife in each hand. She darted toward the tributes, her skin beginning to glow red and her clothing catching in reddish-purple flame.

"Run!" Florencio screamed. The two tributes stumbled toward the nearest window and began banging on it, trying to escape. But, the glass was too strong for them to break. The flight attendant mutt had caught up to them, and it went for Florencio first. The lady tore open his stomach, revealing its contents. She began to destroy Florencio's body, and within moments the boy was dead.

 _Florencio Goldsmith, District 9 Male: 13th, Flight Attendant Muttation, Day 2_

Whilst the mutation was killing Florencio, Marisa had some time to escape. She had made a break for the front door. She threw it open and tumbled out, running down the staircase and darting over the cement runway. She had a significant headstart, and she was able to outrun the lady (who was in heels). After about ten minutes of chasing, Marisa acknowledged that she would get nowhere without trying to kill the mutt. She stood right in front of a building.

"She's made entirely of AI," Marisa mumbled to herself. "She won't be good at changing direction quickly."

Marisa stood, her back pressed against the large building. Then, the moment before the flight attendant hit her, Marisa dove to the left. The mutation crashed into the building, and she was trapped under the weight of the rubble. However, a huge chunk of rock hit Marisa as well. She was stuck against the rock as it skidded across the ground, battering her to a pulp. She had killed the flight attendant, all right. But, she had killed herself as well.

 _Marisa Isaac, District 9 Female: 12th, Crushed by Building, Day 2_

The District 7 sector attracted the most tributes. By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, four tributes were in the forest. They reasoned that the forest had lots of places to hide, and they were right. With its comforting darkness, it certainly seemed like the safest place to be. But, it had the most muttations of all. They would see. The sector's four inhabitants were Jaxom from 5, Casey and Hazel from 6, and Willow from 7. Willow was the fastest runner of the quartet. He had spent much of his life running through his local grape grove picking grapes, and so he had quiet feet that leapt over the terrain. Never once did he let a stick crack under his weight, and never once did he make a single sound. He had looks to match his grace, too. Needless to say, sponsors lined up and down the block for him. Once Willow grew tired, he settled down for the night beside a small lake. It was a rather cozy place to be, and the sounds of the birds chirping merrily put him to sleep quickly. Hazel was the runner-up in terms of speed; she made it about halfway to the force field by the time she had to go to sleep.

Jaxom and Casey, from 5 and 6 respectively, spotted each other at around five o'clock in the morning on Day 2. Casey thought that Jaxom had not seen him and so he tried to scamper away silently. But, Jaxom had seen him. Unsheathing his knife, Jaxom thundered toward where Casey lay crouched down behind a corpse of bushes. Casey immediately leapt to his feet, pulling out his only weapon. Casey's axe glistened in the light of the setting sun as he held it in the air, ready for a fight. Everybody knew that Jaxom could outlast Casey any day in a fight. But, Casey was clever. Jaxom made the first move, lunging at his opponent and attempting to slit his throat. But, Casey leapt out of the way and ran around the disoriented boy, slamming his axe down into his enemy's shoulder. He ducked, and the axe swung over his head (searing off a few of his stray curls along the way). They, Casey tossed his axe into the air. It lodged itself perfectly into the branch of a tree, and the protruding arm of the branch began hurtling toward the ground toward oblivious Jaxom. The branch instantly crushed him to death. It was quite a bloody show, and Casey recoiled with disgust as he was splashed with Jaxom's blood.

 _Jaxom Rozinov, District 5 Male: 11th, Killed by Casey, Day 2_

The sun rose on Day 2. The rest of Day 2 was empty of conflict between the ten tributes. However, there were a number of close encounters. The first occurred at around eleven o'clock a.m. The gamemakers saw how much Willow was beloved by the audience, and they were itching to see what he was capable of. And so, they sent a swarm of Satyr mutts after him. They leapt across the floor of the forest as they chased after him. Willow's only weapon was his hatchet, and he managed to fend them off for an hour. He shinnied up a tree like a squirrel and dropped rocks on them, picking them off one by one. The second encounter of the day occurred only a few minutes before midnight. District 6's Hazel had a close scrape with death when she heard two voices a few yards away. She ducked behind a tree and watched as Diamond and Erasmus walked straight past her without noticing her presence. After the two careers disappeared over the horizon, Hazel sighed with relief.

The morning of Day 3 came in the form of a cannon shot. Daniel had been wandering through the arena when he hit the force field. He immediately shot back, a powerful electric current coursing through his body and running through his heart and brain. He promptly died, and his dead body skidded against the ground before smashing into the stump of a felled tree with a thump.

 _Daniel Oliphant, District 3 Male: 10th, Collided with the Force Field, Day 3_

Around nine in the morning on Day 3, something monumental occurred in the first Quarter Quell. Maxx and Diamond had been out hunting, while Erasmus stayed at the cornucopia to guard the supplies. Maxx and Diamond split off from each other and went their separate ways, agreeing to unite at the foot of the mountain in District 2's sector at sundown.

Diamond was wandering through the arena, newly felled snow crunching under her feet in the most satisfying way. She stopped herself mere feet from the force field. She took a deep breath. She had nearly suffered the same fate as Daniel. Diamond began throwing rocks at the force field to amuse herself. She had spent much of the dark morning hours hunting, and so she was tired. She deserved a break. She threw her first stone. It hit the force field and shot back. Diamond caught in in her hand. She repeated this process a few more times, catching the stone each time.

Diamond threw her twelfth rock. The rock flew on its path and flied _past_ where the force field was before completely disappearing from Diamond's vision. Forehead wrinkling in confusion, Diamond tossed another rock in the exact same spot as the previous one. It disappeared over where the force field should have been.

There was a hole in the force field.

What had actually happened was this: the cost of the elaborate arena had not left much money over for construction of the force field. This led to the existence of multiple spots where the force field was weaker, or even simply was nonexistent.

Diamond jogged forward, intrigued. She cautiously reached her hand out toward where the hole in the force field was. Her hand went right through. She moved her finger across to find the edge of the hole. After about four feet, her finger hit the sizzling force field. Diamond pulled her finger back. Spots of it were charred and reddish-brown. Diamond bit her lip as she fashioned an ice pack and placed it over the wound.

Her curiosity finally got the best of her. Diamond climbed up into the hole and threw herself outside of the force field.

Diamond Griego had escaped the arena.

Diamond plopped out of the arena. She was standing in a huge field of cement, whitish-grey stony ground spreading out as far as she could see in any given direction. She turned around and looked up at the arena. It was a huge steel building, nearly a mile tall and many miles long and wide. It was a pleasing sight to see all of the supporting shafts and screws and rods of metal working in harmony to keep the building up.

The instant that Head Gamemaker Leto Spitz heard of the incident, he urgently sprung up from his office chair and darted out of the building. He began racing as fast as he could toward the arena, where he hoped to escort Diamond back into the arena.

Back at the arena, Diamond wandered further. She was breaking the law, and she knew it. She was defying the Capitol with every breath she took outside of that arena.

Diamond's heart leapt into her throat when Leto burst around the corner, forehead hot with fury.

"What do you think you're doing?" Leto roared. Diamond tried to make a run for it, but Leto grabbed her firmly by the torso. The once-mighty Diamond Griego was now reduced to a nervous wreck. Her heart was beating a mile a minute.

"I… just… thought this was part of the arena… I thought there was something useful I could use," she stammered anxiously.

"Well, you thought wrong! If you value your life, you will go back into the arena right now and never exit on your own accord. Ever. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?" he barked, and Diamond shrunk back.

"Yes. Sir," she said finally before running back into the arena that loomed over her.

From that moment, Diamond knew that she couldn't just sit there and do nothing. She looked back at what the gamemakers had done to tributes that had made the Capitol look foolish. If any tribute made a single sign of rebellion, they were killed instantly. No exceptions. Diamond knew the gamemakers would kill her unless she did something. But what could she do?

She knew exactly what she could do. Diamond ran over the terrain, picked up her supplies, and ran over to District 12's sector. Diamond knew about the huge ravine, and that would be a good hiding place.

Diamond entered the ravine, going down and down and down in the elevator. She searched meticulously for a space with no cameras. Then, she crawled inside a hollowed-out cove of stone. She looked around. No cameras here.

Diamond pulled out her knife and brought it to her neck. Biting down on a sapling she had found, she cut the knife into her skin. She screamed as red was exposed, but she kept digging deeper. A desire to show the Capitol that they couldn't control her motivated her more than anything else ever would. Finally, the blade clanged against something metal. She reached up and pulled it out of her shoulder. Her tracker.

She smashed her tracker against the stone wall. It was tough, and after about ten hard strikes Diamond had made a dent of a few millimeters in depth. After about twenty minutes of smashing, she delivered the straw that broke the camel's back. Diamond smashed it into the wall, and the tracker exploded in an explosion of electric-blue liquid. With her tracker destroyed, everybody thought she was dead. She smirked as she leaned back against the wall. The gamemakers would send no threats after her now. She could last as long as she wanted down there, with her gallon jug of water and packet of just-add-water meals. All she had to do was wait.

Day 4 was the most boring day yet in the arena. Progress had slowed to a crawl. There was literally no movement outside of Erasmus and Maxx, who thought that Diamond was dead. Day 5 was similarly deathless, although Andre had a close scrape with death with a pack of lizard muttations.

Day 6 would see the death of one tribute. It was a combat death. The fight was between Talisa from 4 and Eva from 7. The moment that the two locked eyes from about fifty yards apart, they ran towards each other and clashed their weapons. They both knew that, with the dwindling number of tributes, killing as much as possible would do wonders for their odds of survival. Talisa was very, very talented with the knife, and the edge of her blade cut soundlessly through the air. Moreover, she had attained a rather handsome number of sponsors, primarily via her looks. However, Eva was from District 7, born to a lumberjack father and author mother. She had an impressive two kills under her belt, and she was the stronger fighter of the duo. After a ten-minute long fight, Eva triumphed. She thrust her axe forward, and it lodged itself perfectly into Talisa's stomach and protruded from her back. She fell backward to the ground, signs of life draining from her one by one until her cannon sounded.

 _Talisa Lapierre, District 4 Female: 9th, Killed by Eva, Day 6_

Day 7 offered an argosy of thrill and excitement among the Capitol audience: two lives would be claimed on that day.

Around noon, the gamemakers sent a herd of huge lizard muttations after Andre from 12 and Hazel from 6. The lizards were almost ten feet tall, and they were rainbow colored. Their eyes glowed brilliant red and their tongues flickered in and out, hissing menacingly. They started out slow and then gradually started to grow faster. About ten minutes later, Hazel managed to kill one of her pursuers. She hurled her knife toward the creature, causing it to die instantly. However, the two other lizards were still chasing her. Andre managed to decapitate two of his, killing them. For Andre's third lizard, he managed to slice off one of its legs. This did not render it immobile, but did make it much more difficult and awkward for it to move.

Then, at two o'clock that evening, the two remaining lizards had chased Hazel to exhaustion. She tried to shinny up a flag pole in her panic, the flag of Panem snapping in the wind above her as she shinnied up it. However, the lizards began gnawing away at the bottom of the pole. Hazel watched with panic as the flagpole fell to the ground, smashing her to a pulp and killing her.

 _Hazel Brizycki, District 6 Female: 8th, Killed by Lizard Muttations and Falling Flagpole, Day 7_

Andre was able to successfully kill the third and final lizard mutation. He plunged his axe into a nearby tree, causing it to fall on top of the lizard and squash it to death. Andre had killed all three lizards, and he was so tired he could barely lift a finger. He fell to the ground and fell asleep right there.

Four o'clock that evening came in the form of a cannon. When Andre's final lizard mutation had been killed, its guts had splashed everywhere. Some of them had landed on Andre. The guts were extremely poisonous, and they ate through Andre's skin and consumed his flesh and bones. He woke up, screaming, as his entire body was eaten away. He tried to reach for a nearby bush of poisonous berries to commit suicide, but the reach was too far for him. Andre was killed there on the forest floor, but even then the acid did not stop. Within an hour, Andre's body had disappeared and not a single trace of his existence remained.

 _Andre Plunkett, District 12 Male: 7th, Killed by Acidic Lizard Muttation Guts, Day 7_

On Day 8, Willow met his end. He was scavenging for food when he let a stick crack under his weight. Unfortunately, this was enough to attract the attention of nearby Erasmus and Maxx. The two whipped their heads around, and Willow was assaulted by their weapons before he had time to move or scream. The two charged forth, and Erasmus planted his dagger into Willow's forehead as Maxx thrust his trident into his stomach.

 _Willow Baldwin, District 7 Male: 6th, Killed by Erasmus and Maxx, Day 8_

Day 9 saw the death of Casey, who fell prey to dehydration three days after his water supply ran out.

 _Casey Frondell, District 6 Male: 5th, Dehydration, Day 9_

On Day 10, the gamemakers believed that there were three tributes remaining. As such, they herded the tributes together via fireballs. They sent them after Eva, Erasmus, and Maxx. The three were fast runners, but Maxx was just the slowest of the trio. A fireball landed mere feet behind him, and the scalding debris assaulted his back. He fell into the crater, screaming as he was burned to death by the hot earth that the rock had left behind.

 _Maxx Burkholder, District 4 Male: 4th, Burned by Hot Fireball Debris, Day 10_

The ravine that Diamond had been hiding in all this time was beginning to fall in around her. She made the quick decision to leave the ravine, or else be left behind to be crushed to death. Needless to say, the gamemakers were very shocked when they saw the girl that they believed to be dead running across the terrain, very much alive and functioning.

"It's not possible," Head Gamemaker Leto Spitz mumbled when he saw the girl running across the terrain.

"Septimus!" Leto called for his most loyal gamemaker. Septimus snapped to attention.

"Kill that Diamond girl this instant! She's a rebel! We can't let her win!" Leto roared.

"We can't just kill her, though!" Septimus protested. "She's beloved by the audience. She's the first eleven in twenty-three years!"

Leto surged forth and grabbed Septimus by either side of the neck, seething with fury. "Now, I'm going to speak slowly so you can understand," he said as he restricted Septimus' breathing. "If you value your career and your life, you will blow up that girl's tracker immediately!"

Leto released the gasping man. "Yes. Sir," he said as he rushed to the controls.

"Sorry, sir. We can't do that. Her tracker's gone. Maybe it's ruined or something. Maybe she broke it," Septimus reported, cheeks flushing red with embarrassment.

"WHAAAAAAAAAAT!" Leto roared so loud that the very earth seemed to shake. Leto kicked Septimus out of the way and sat down in his chair, fumbling with the controls. Septimus had been right. Diamond's tracker was gone. Destroyed. Ruined.

Screaming with fury, he tried to launch a fireball at the girl. However, Leto did not fully understand how a fireball in the Games works. When a gamemaker launches a fireball at a tribute, he is actually launching the fireball at his or her tracker. Since Diamond had no tracker, the fireballs did not work on her. Diamond had beaten the system.

Meanwhile, back in the arena, Diamond smirked as she burst into the clearing. Her plan had fallen perfectly into place. Diamond hurled her knife as hard as she could toward Erasmus' back, and he saw her just as the knife entered his chest. Diamond had no time to make Erasmus' death a bloody show. She simply ripped the knife out of his chest and continued on.

 _Erasmus Pritchett, District 1 Male: 3rd, Killed by Diamond, Day 10_

That left Diamond Griego of District 1 and Eva Knott of District 7 to vie for the crown. Eva had been disarmed of her only weapon, her axe, in a duel with Erasmus mere minutes before. Diamond cornered Eva toward the edge of the golden cornucopia so that she had nowhere to run. Diamond cut her down. She had all the time in the world to make Eva's death a bloody show, and make it a bloody show she did. She drew out the girl's death for hours, and by the time she was practically begging for death Diamond plunged her knife deep into her heart, leaving Diamond the only remaining tribute.

 _Eva Knott, District 7 Female: 2nd, Killed by Diamond, Day 10_

"Diamond Griego of District 1, you are the victor of the twenty-fifth annual Hunger Games, the first Quarter Quell!" Leto roared, his voice laced with fury inside and out.

Diamond just smirked delicately as she climbed into the hovercraft. Snow would make sure that she never saw the end of this. He would make her life hell for as long as she lived.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

Diamond returned to District 1 and found her mother, father, brother, sister, aunt, two uncles, and best friend mysteriously gone. This was no coincidence. This was a warning from President Snow. Diamond had made the Capitol look foolish with her stunt with her tracker, and Snow made sure that Diamond never saw the end of it. Whenever Diamond made a new friend, they mysteriously disappeared within hours of Snow hearing about them. Diamond lived cold and alone for the rest of her life, and she turned to alcohol to dissuade her demons.

Diamond's victory tour went terribly, as many were disgusted by her tactics in the arena. Most extremely was District 7, who showered her with hate for the entirety of her stay. Of course, there was also the very real fact that Diamond was a serial killer; that was why they had voted her into the games. However, from the day she left the arena until the day she died, Diamond never whispered a single word of crime or disobedience forevermore. Coriolanus' move of killing her loved ones had worked. Now that she had nobody to love and nobody to be loved by, the Capitol was Diamond's only source of life and nourishment. She respected their rules and commands without question. She would bow to them forever.

Diamond moved into the Victor's Village of District 1, the fifth victor to do so.

Diamond would live to the age of fifty, dying from liver cancer around the time of the forty-second annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would never marry or have children.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Diamond moves into the Victor's Village of District 1, the fifth victor to do so.

Velvet Farrow marries her first and only spouse, a man named Lucius Kritz.

Freya Digard marries her fiancée after two years of courtship, Pharoah Hinters.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: Merry Christmas everybody! I hope that your holiday is filled with festivity and warmth. With that out of the way, this chapter is, by far, the longest of this story. Just shy of 10,000 words, it's taken me nearly a month to write. I hope you've enjoyed it! What do you think of the reasons that each tribute was voted in? What do you think of Diamond's scheme of destroying her tracker to beat the system? How about the way that she escaped the arena? Did you have any favorite tributes other than the careers? If you have the time to leave a quick review, please do so! Your comments and critiques mean the world to me, whether positive or negative. Happy holidays, and I'll see you next time with number twenty-six!**

 **P.S. I'm running dangerously low on arena ideas for future games! If you could leave any arena ideas in the reviews or via PM, that would be greatly appreciated :)**


	27. The 26th Hunger Games

**The 26th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

President Coriolanus Snow was disgusted at the outcome of his mighty Quarter Quell. After Diamond Griego pulled her little stunt the year prior, Coriolanus commanded that labor quotas for District 1 be doubled. That was exactly what happened, and food imports to District 1 nearly halved. Snow finally loosened his iron grip on the luxury district as the twenty-sixth annual Hunger Games rolled around. The first order of business for Snow was to execute Head Gamemaker Leto Spitz for allowing such an act of rebellion and defiance to play out under his watch. This left, vacated, the position of Head Gamemaker. Rising to the occasion was Estella Whited. Snow appointed Estella as head gamemaker because of her creativity and her artistic eye. Estella appointed her own team of roughly fifty gamemakers, and construction of the twenty-sixth Hunger Games' arena began. The arena was a rectangular shape, a new concept; every single arena prior had been a circle. On the right side of the arena sat the cornucopia. Made of dark-blue stones that had been worn down by wind and time, the cornucopia towered above the twenty-four pedestals. The cornucopia housed four kinds of weapons: machetes, spears, knives, and bows. Machetes and spears were presented in the most plentiful numbers, and there was no shortage of them. Past the cornucopia, the arena was a huge maze made of sun-baked brick. The walls of the maze stretched to the sky. The maze would shift and move constantly, making it impossible for any tribute to set up a permanent shelter. Every night at midnight, a pack of mutts would be released after the tributes that would not give up until they saw blood. Surrounding the entire arena was a tundra. Completely bare, the tundra was broiling hot in morning and biting cold at night. It was a great accomplishment for Estella, especially given that she was the youngest Head Gamemaker in the first Hunger Games century at just over thirty years old. The career alliance this year consisted of five members, a deviation from the typical number of six. District 1 produced a brother-sister pair, beautiful as always. They both fancied sword-fighting, and their impeccable skills with the sword scored them both tens. The boy also was the fastest runner in the entire academy, and he was your typical all-in-it-for-the-honor career. His sister, on the other hand, was a much more precise and deliberate killer. She looked dainty and weak on the outside, but really she was a sociopathic murderer. She liked to play with her food before she ate it, and she was willing to draw out her kills as long as possible. Her dangerous, edgy, and almost bipolar attitude as well as her talents with the sword and knife scored her a ten along with her brother. District 2's pair was dangerously strong and powerful as always. The District 2 male was the son of two peacekeeper parents. They taught him everything that they knew to help prepare him for the games. That, coupled with the fact that he attended the academy since the age of nine, made him the single most powerful tribute in the games. The District 2 female certainly faded into the background in terms of her position in the careers. Even though she earned a ten, she had a small and petite form. This was a hiding advantage for her, but it also made her weaker. The two District 4 tributes were much less impressive than their fellow careers from 1 and 2. The boy was only sixteen, and he only earned a nine. He was by far the fastest runner out of all of the tributes, and his endurance and agility were stellar. The District 4 female, Galatea Feany, did not earn a slot in the career alliance. She had not trained at the academy at all. In fact, she was one of District 4's poorest residents. She volunteered into the games with hopes of winning and helping her family escape the clutches of poverty. Outside of the careers, the training scores were remarkably high. The notable example of this was District 7's Fabian Eubanks, who used an axe to slice and slash and bludgeon his way up to a nine. Silvana from 7 and Dalton from 10 scored eights. Sevens were earned by Ossie and Gisele from 9, Rubin from 10, and Chantelle from 12. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There were no volunteers besides the careers and Galatea. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Romeo Frondel, 18, (10) 7-1 and Juliet Frondel, 18, (10) 8-1

District 2: Thor Rosner, 18, (10) 6-1 and Hestia Severence, 17, (10) 11-1

District 3: Taliesin Devegvar, 13, (3) 77-1 and Mazarine Peters, 16, (5) 25-1

District 4: Dock Rinker, 16, (9) 14-1 and Galatea Feany, 17, (4) 26-1

District 5: Idris Thernstrom, 17, (6) 20-1 and Oriane Loats, 18, (4) 25-1

District 6: Antonio Rendon, 18, (4) 30-1 and Agripina Alves, 16, (4) 24-1

District 7: Fabian Eubanks, 17, (9) 13-1 and Silvana Layman, 18, (8) 15-1

District 8: Colton Schmitz, 15, (3) 50-1 and Chassidy Keaton, 17, (5) 24-1

District 9: Ossie Harman, 15, (7) 16-1 and Giselle Zaragoza, 18, (7) 15-1

District 10: Dalton Michaud, 18, (8) 14-1 and Rubin Gamble, 18, (7) 15-1

District 11: Marcelino Quarles, 17, (6) 17-1 and Carmina Mckee, 17, (6) 17-1

District 12: Venice Gatewood, 12, (3) 110-1 and Chantelle Noyes, 18, (7) 16-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The cool morning wind whipped and snapped in the tribute's ears as they rose up into the arena atop their pedestals. Out of the twenty-four tributes, only one would come out alive. Time would tell who that would be.

When the gong rang, one tribute turned tail and fled the bloodbath: Mazarine from 3. Back at the cornucopia, Dock proved his speed to the audience. He raced across the stone ground as fast as his legs could carry him, and he reached the bounty of supplies nearly twice as fast as the others. Dock swept up a throwing knife that lay in a cluster of grass about thirty yards from his pedestal. Dock turned sharply on his heel and flung the knife into the neck of the nearest boy. The knife cut into the boy's tender flesh as he collapsed to the ground, gurgling as blood pooled up in his mouth.

 _Antonio Rendon, District 6 Male: 24th, Killed by Dock, Bloodbath_

Juliet, another fast runner, swept up a throwing axe that sat on a shelf inside of the cobalt-blue cornucopia. The career emerged from the cornucopia's mysterious darkness and into the clearing, itching to get down to business. Juliet hurled the throwing axe through the air, and it disemboweled the petite boy that was standing mere yards away. The blow knocked him off of his feet, and he landed on the ground a few feet behind, blood exploding from his body.

 _Taliesin Devegvar, District 3 Male: 23rd, Killed by Juliet, Bloodbath_

Hestia was quick on her feet when she spotted a bow and arrow waiting for her on a shelf inside of the cornucopia. She ran to retrieve it. She threw the quiver of arrows over her shoulder and locked her fingers around one of the arrows, pulling back the bowstring. Hestia aimed for the nearest girl, but missed. Cursing under her breath, Hestia nocked her second arrow. Hestia's second arrow struck lucky, and the arrow lodged itself into the girl's chest and protruded from her back. She slumped like a stone amidst an explosion of scarlet, the first female to die in the games.

 _Agripina Alves, District 6 Female: 22nd, Killed by Hestia, Bloodbath_

Romeo was in business when he spotted a knife and canteen of water right in front of the cornucopia's yawning mouth. Romeo threw the water into his pack and brandished his knife. He pounced upon the nearest girl. She was completely cut down by Romeo within seconds, the wizard with the knife that he was.

 _Giselle Zaragoza, District 9 Female: 21st, Killed by Romeo, Bloodbath_

Thor's eager fingers locked around a curved sword that he found deep within the darkness of the cornucopia. Thor ran outside of the cornucopia and found himself mere yards from the two District 11 tributes—allies. The career cleaved apart their frames with ease, and once they were in ribbons Thor wiped off his bloodstained sword with his shirt.

 _Marcelino Quarles, District 11 Male: 20th, Killed by Thor, Bloodbath_

 _Carmina McKee, District 11 Female: 19th, Killed by Thor, Bloodbath_

District 7's Fabian sighed with relief when he found an axe at his feet. He leaned over and picked up the weapon, holding it high above his head and bringing it down upon a nearby boy. His head was split in half, killing him immediately.

 _Idris Thernstrom, District 5 Male: 18th, Killed by Fabian, Bloodbath_

Romeo's knife whizzed quietly through the air toward its target: the strong and handsome District 10 boy who had attracted the attention of many sponsors. The sharp edge of the blade lodged itself into his shoulder. Romeo ran over and beat him the rest of the way to death, raising his knife in triumph once he was sure that he was dead.

 _Dalton Michaud, District 10 Male: 17th, Killed by Romeo, Bloodbath_

Thor, the strongest career, went for Fabian from 7. But, Fabian would not go down without a fight. He ran out of the way and thrust his axe toward Thor's shoulder. Thor rebutted Fabian's blow, attempting to knock his weapon out of his grasp. Their duel was long, and Fabian certainly had the advantage because his weapon had a long handle and could smack aside any scattered blows from Thor's sword. However, Fabian was so distracted that it was easy for Juliet to prance around behind him and plant her throwing axe into his back. Fabian fell limp on Juliet's axe, and the two careers shared a short moment of triumph as his last signs of life faded away.

 _Fabian Eubanks, District 7 Male: 16th, Killed by Juliet, Bloodbath_

Hestia tossed her spear into the abdomen of the merchant girl from 12. The spear sank into her back and protruded from her stomach. The girl opened her eyes and mouth wide open, as if in shock, before crumpling to the ground in a heap. Hestia took a quick moment to pillage her of her only supplies: an alarm clock and a packet of dried apple slices.

 _Chantelle Noyes, District 12 Female: 15th, Killed by Hestia, Bloodbath_

Dock swept up a machete that sat on the ground inside of the corncuopia's mysterious darkness. Dock emerged and planted the machete into the forehead of the stocky District 8 boy. He crumpled to the stone ground, blood lazily oozing from his forehead.

 _Colton Schmitz, District 8 Male: 14th, Killed by Dock, Bloodbath_

Mere seconds after killing Colton, the sinewy orphan girl from 4 ran across Dock's field of vision. Even though she was his district partner, she was an orphan and was one of the weakest tributes remaining. Dock hurled his machete through the air, and it sailed into her neck.

 _Galatea Feany, District 4 Female: 13th, Killed by Dock, Bloodbath_

Thor made his third kill of the bloodbath with style. The jagged edge of his curved sword found a home in the back of one girl. Thor ripped the sword out of her body and slammed it into her again, like he was trying to cut down a tree with an axe. The poor girl screamed and screamed. Thor grinned triumphantly as he delivered the final blow, slicing the girl's head in half.

 _Chassidy Keaton, District 8 Female: 12th, Killed by Thor, Bloodbath_

Romeo made the final kill of the bloodbath when he threw his spear into the chest of the nearest girl. The sharp tip of the spear cut through her innards and protruded from her back, and the girl crumpled to the grass as the other four careers gathered around to watch her die. After nearly an hour, the girl closed her eyes and passed away. All of the other tributes had scampered away from the cornucopia, and the bloodbath had reached its end. Fourteen cannon shots boomed through the arena.

 _Oriane Loats, District 5 Female: 11th, Killed by Romeo, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the ten remaining tributes swelled out across the arena. The five careers, of course, stayed at the cornucopia to sort through the supplies. Funnily, not a single career had perished in the bloodbath. Romeo, Juliet, Thor, Hestia, and Dock all stayed at the cornucopia. Romeo, Juliet, and Thor sorted the supplies. The careers all assigned Hestia to pile up the dead bodies in a far-off corner of the clearing. Hestia had made the least kills and was the youngest career, and she was undoubtedly the weakest remaining career.

Dock was ordered to comb through the areas immediately surrounding the clearing with hopes of catching any stray tributes. His efforts seemed fruitless at first. That was, until about an hour later. Dock was quietly treading across the cobblestone ground of the clearing when he spotted a pair of beady, black eyes staring at him from behind a slab of rock. The tribute immediately shrunk back behind the rock, but Dock had already seen them. Dock lunged toward the slab of rock and found a boy shivering with fear. Dock plunged his machete deep into his neck. He gurgled as blood pooled up in his mouth and poured from his neck.

 _Venice Gatewood, District 12 Male: 10th, Killed by Dock, Day 1_

Out of all of the outer district tributes, Rubin was the fastest. She worked on a mockingbird farm with her parents back in District 10. Mockingbirds are observant and cautious creatures, and so anybody that hopes to hunt them must have quick and quiet feet. Rubin had been trained her entire life to be quiet and quick, and that really paid off there in the arena. She leapt gracefully across the earth without making a single sound, and Rubin was the first tribute to reach the maze's entrance. She held in her breath with anticipation as she stepped into the maze. Seconds later, Rubin heard shuffling behind her. She whipped her head around and found that the entrance to the maze was closing behind her. The only way out of the maze was to find the exit. For the rest of the day, Rubin ran through the maze. She was an intelligent and logical girl, and she hugged the maze's right wall with hopes of never getting lost. By the time that the sun dipped below the horizon, she was deathly tired. Her eyelids sagged as if pulled down by pieces of invisible string. At that very moment, Rubin emerged into a clearing in the maze. Using the last few ounces of her strength, Rubin dragged herself into a dark corner and tumbled into the dark well of sleep.

Silvana wasn't the fastest runner in the world, but she was determined and persistent. She kept running long after the sun had disappeared below the horizon, and it was four o'clock in the morning when she finally stopped to sleep. She slowly lied down on the ground in a dark corner and fell asleep.

Silvana woke up at about seven o'clock that morning to a strange sensation. Two very furry arms were rubbing against her body. At first, she didn't know where she was. She could be back in District 7, and the arms could be the arms of her favorite teddy bear. But, they were not the arms of her favorite teddy bear. Silvana jerked to her senses the instant that she realized that a banana spider with a legspan of nearly ten feet was injecting its eggs into her body. Silvana leapt to her feet and raced away from the huge spider. The spider hissed with fury as it chased after her, its legs scuttling over the brick ground of the maze in the creepiest fashion imaginable. Silvana ran and ran, adrenaline exploding through her body as she ran through the arena. She dropped her backpack and all of her weapons after a few minutes in order to knock off weight and run faster. After almost half an hour of being chased by the banana spider, Silvana turned around the corner and bumped into Romeo. The two tributes collapsed to the ground beside each other, and the spider was able to catch up to them. The huge spider injected its venom into their two bodies, freezing them in place. Then, the monster mauled apart Silvana and Romeo to a pulp. The spider eeked triumphantly as it laid its eggs in their corpses while they were still warm.

 _Silvana Layman, District 7 Female: 9th, Killed by Banana Spider Muttation, Day 2_

 _Romeo Frondel, District 1 Male: 8th, Killed by Banana Spider Muttation, Day 2_

This arena was, truly, the muttation arena. Every single day, every single tribute would be attacked by one muttation or another. It was mere hours after Silvana's encounter with the spider that a thirty foot-long snake that rested in the maze awoke from its slumber, thirsty for blood. The snake muttation slithered across the arena, killing mice and worms and anything else that it could find. Not to eat, just to kill. The snake had a keen sense of smell, and it was only a matter of time before it found its prey in a tribute.

Around noon on Day 2, the snake heard the shuffling of human feet from around a corner of the maze. The snake coiled itself up behind a rock and watched as Dock walked into the clearing. The snake lunged at Dock, causing his heart to leap into his throat. Dock lifted his trident high into the air and thrust it forth, trying to fend off the monster. But, the creature's scales were too strong to be punctured by Dock's trident. The snake's only weak spot was its face. The snake hissed with fury as it tried to wrap itself around Dock and constrict him. This attempt succeeded, and the long snake began wrapping itself around Dock's feet. As one final hoorah, the boy hurled his trident toward the snake's head just as its razor-sharp teeth sank into his neck. The snake screeched with pain as it collapsed to the ground, limp. Dock ripped the snake's teeth out of his neck. He was already beginning to feel nauseous.

Over the next few hours, Capitol citizens contributed large sums of money toward medicine to stave off Dock's infection. It was an unfathomably expensive gift, but within five hours a parachute containing a jar of medicine lazily floated down into Dock's eager fingers. He unscrewed the lid and slapped the medicine onto his wound. He had been snatched from the claws of death, and Dock swore his gratitude by promising that he would make his next kill before sundown.

Ossie from 9 was certainly having a rather bad day. He had run into the bloodbath but had escaped with nothing but a moderate knife wound from Juliet. The injury from Juliet's blow was slowly killing him, but he didn't have enough sponsors to get the medicine to help him. All Ossie could do was roll around on the floor of the maze and will the poison to work its way out of his body. That was, until Dock stumbled toward him. Ossie could barely lift a finger as the prongs of Dock's trident raked across his leg. Dock stretched out Ossie's death for nearly three hours, and once he began to grow bored of him he slammed his machete into Ossie's neck, killing him.

 _Ossie Harman, District 9 Male: 7th, Killed by Dock, Day 2_

Weirdly and unexpectedly, Days 3 thru 7 passed completely deathless. Every single day, the tribute's muttations returned. But, the tributes that had survived the first encounters learned new information, and they knew their mutt's strengths and weaknesses.

On the evening of Day 7, Head Gamemaker Estella Whited declared a feast.

"My deepest congratulations to the final six tributes of the twenty-sixth annual Hunger Games," she proclaimed tumultuously. "At noon tomorrow, there will be a feast in the taiga surrounding the arena. I am well aware that many of you have no idea how to get to the taiga. This is understandable. You will be given directions to reach the taiga at the conclusion of this announcement. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor."

The instant that Estella's voice cut out, a hovercraft flew overhead and dropped each tribute a message in a bottle. The tributes hastily uncorked their bottles and flattened out the rolled-up squares of paper inside. They were maps of the maze. Each tribute's maze had a line drawn in gold ink that showed them how to reach the taiga from where they were at the current time.

At noon on Day 8, the feast began. A gong rang across the arena, and the tributes burst forth. The only tribute that failed to show up to the feast was Mazarine, who was well-stocked and didn't see it necessary to risk her life in the feast.

The tributes surged forth, scooping up supplies and avoiding the careers. The first tribute to meet their end was Hestia. Rubin swept up a spear that lay in the snowy grass right in front of her pedestal. With all of her might, Rubin threw the spear through Hestia's torso. Her aim was perfect, and Hestia collapsed to the ground soundlessly. Her blood painted the snow red.

 _Hestia Severence, District 2 Female: 6th, Killed by Rubin, Day 8_

The second of the three feast kills was made by Juliet. At this point in the competition, the career alliance was more haphazard than anything else. They would have to split apart sometime, and Juliet wanted to eliminate the biggest threats before that happened. In a move of betrayal, Juliet swung her sword into Dock's neck. Dock crumpled to the ground, his warm blood melting the puffy white snow around him.

 _Dock Rinker, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Juliet, Day 8_

Thor did not take kindly to Juliet betraying her ally. Thor pounced upon Juliet, slamming her into the ground and punching her in the torso with his fists. Thor made Juliet's death as long as possible, regularly administering her medicine just so that she could heal, and just so that he could hurt her more. Thor only made the final blow once Juliet was begging for death. After killing her with his curved sword, Thor marched off proudly. He was the only remaining career in the twenty-sixth Hunger Games.

 _Juliet Frondel, District 1 Female: 4th, Killed by Thor, Day 8_

The gamemakers couldn't give up now that they had reduced the number of tributes to three. They gave Thor, Mazarine, and Rubin a few hours to spread out across the arena. Then, they sent the final round of muttations after them. The muttations were lions with talons of steel and roars so loud that the very earth seemed to shake. The lions started off as slow runners, but over time they got faster and faster. Thor and Rubin were fast enough runners to outrun them. Those two tributes leapt atop the stone cornucopia where the lions could not reach them. They were safe. Mazarine, however, was not so lucky. She was not fast enough to outrun the lions, and they mauled her apart. Her remains were rather unsightly, and the gamemakers cleaned them up quickly.

 _Mazarine Peters, District 3 Female: 3rd, Lion Muttations, Day 8_

Thor and Rubin stood on top of the cornucopia, and their duel began. Thor unsheathed his curved sword, and Rubin produced an axe from her backpack that she had gotten from a sponsor a few days prior. They were the two most beloved tributes of the year. Thor was one of the academy's best students in years, and he made the sponsors swoon. Rubin, however, was the true underdog. She was beautiful, graceful, and talented. She put up a good fight. Her quick feet and intelligence were enough to let her survive nearly five minutes up atop the cornucopia against Thor. But, in the end, Rubin's skill could not match that of Thor. After a six minute-long fight, Thor triumphed, slashing his sword across Rubin's chest and watching as her tired-out form tumbled backward off of the cornucopia, inciting roaring from the hungry lions.

 _Rubin Gamble, District 10 Female: 2nd, Killed by Thor, Day 8_

"Thor Rosner of District 2, you are the victor of the twenty-sixth annual Hunger Games!" Estella roared.

Thor raised his bloodstained sword into the air, whooping and roaring with triumph as a hovercraft appeared to collect him.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

District 2 welcomed their newest victor with open arms, happy to see him added to their growing lineup. Upon Thor's victory, District 2 had attained an astounding eight victors and were securely ahead of the other career districts in terms of number of victors. Many people in the other districts saw Thor as a stereotypical career. The Capitol adored him because of how strong, confident, and loyal he was to his district and to the nation.

Thor's victory tour was rather average apart from a few rude remarks from Rubin's father during his stop in 10.

He moved into the Victor's Village of District 2, the eighth victor to do so.

Thor would live to the age of eighty-nine, poisoned to death around the time of the ninety-fifth annual Hunger Games. A group of paparazzi showed up to his house to interview him on his opinions about the tributes of the ninety-fifth Hunger Games. To their great alarm, they found him dead on the couch of his home. They hastily called the police. The autopsy concluded that he was poisoned to death. The killer was never caught. In his lifetime, he would never have children. He would never get married. However, he would enroll in a committed relationship with the girl of his dreams, just sans marriage.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Beatrice Toland and Markus Gardd get married, marking the first ever union in marriage between two victors.

Dayta Albrand marries her first spouse, a man named Avagadro Rubin.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Thor, our eighth victor from District 2! I have two things to acknowledge in this author's note.**

 **Firstly, I've been getting lots of reviews about how many victors I'm giving District 2. I received a few reviews saying that the 2 victors are boring because they all follow the exact same formula. I totally agree. However, I still stand by Haymitch's statement that careers win "almost every single year". From now on, I will strive to make District 2 victors more interesting and I'll give them more character development that'll make them worth remembering. I hope this can create a win-win scenario between me and my readers, because I value your opinions in making this story as great as it can be :)**

 **Secondly, thank you so so so so much for all of the arena ideas! I'm set for at least two decades because of all of your wonderful ideas. They're all so creative. A huge thank you to FanFiction Tribute for this chapter's arena. I had lots of fun terrorizing these kids with the muttations XD**

 **Thanks for reading, and please review if you have a quick moment. This story has just surpassed 50 reviews, which is insanity in my eyes. I'll see you next time with the twenty-seventh Hunger Games! :)**


	28. The 27th Hunger Games

**The 27th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

President Coriolanus Snow kept a firm grip on the presidency, returning for his third year. Snow made the decision to introduce a new feature into the games: parcel day. Precisely one week after the victor was crowned, hundreds of trucks filled with food and other commodities would be shipped off to the victor's district, where they would be thankfully received by the district's poor. Coriolanus told the nation that this was a reminder of the Capitol's generosity, but most people realized that it was just a ploy to embarrass the poor districts. Their starving were forced to watch as trucks filled with food and water were sent to District 2, where last year's victor hailed from. Perhaps this would make the games extra thrilling, for any outer district tribute would be willing to fight harder if victory meant quelling starvation and poverty in their district for the next few years. Estella Whited returned for her second year as Head Gamemaker. Her team of gamemakers was very similar to last year's except for one or two new people. Estella's newest arena was a mechanical wonderland. The cornucopia, made of rows of metal bars stacked in alternating directions like a Lincoln log house, sat nestled in a ditch in the very center of the arena. Surrounding the cornucopia, the twenty-four pedestals were made of iron. Directly north was a huge junkyard, filled with broken cars and bicycles and mountains of scrap metal that seemed to scrape the sky itself. To the east was a factory. It was made of solid, shining metal, and its smokestacks cast long shadows over the arena. Inside of the factory was a single room. It was massive, and dozens of assembly lines stretched from end to end. To the south was where the real fun was. To the south was a puzzle area. The first puzzle was a jigsaw puzzle of a scene in the fifth Hunger Games where Misty Sablone smashed Amaryll Wild to death with her own baton. Once a tribute surpassed that, they would be given a series of logic puzzles including riddles and memory challenges. There were, in total, ten different levels to the sector, and any tribute that could reach the end would be rewarded with a massive supply of weapons and survival materials. To the west was a skating rink. It was a huge valley in the ground, and a huge curved metal sheet had been bolted into the ground. Pairs of skates were provided, and any tribute could put them on and slide down into the valley atop the sheet of iron, the skates scraping soundlessly against the ground as they glided along. The arena certainly gave an edge to the District 3 tributes, and time would tell how that would turn out. The careers had seven members this year, slightly more than their usual. The District 1 pair was as beautiful as always. Their boy had mastered the art of sword fighting during his years at the academy, and the way his sword whizzed and cut soundlessly through the air drove in his strength to those watching. The District 1 girl was a master archer, having the highest odds of winning out of all of the tributes. District 2 produced a formidable pair, both scoring tens and striking fear into the hearts of the outer district tributes. Their male was a muscular boy; his strength with brute force weapons like crowbars and batons earned him a ten. Their female was dangerously unpredictable, and perhaps that made her the most terrifying career of all. District 4's tributes were much better than those of the year prior, something that pleased the academy immensely. Their male's looks as well as his determined disposition caused him to stand out in the eyes of many a sponsor, the only problem being his slightly injured foot. District 4's female was of strong African American heritage, a new look for 4 and a contrast to their usual crop of brown hair and amber to blue eyes. She was able to score a cool ten with her skills with the trident and harpoon. The careers' sixth member was the District 7 male. He was an absolute wizard with the axe. He sliced and bludgeoned and maimed his way toward a ten in training, and he astounded the other careers so much that they offered him a slot in their alliance, which he accepted. He scored the highest score outside of the career districts. The training scores outside of the career districts were remarkably high. Outside of the careers, three nines were earned. The District 7 female earned a nine via her remarkable skills with bows and axes. The two District 3 tributes earned nines as well. They were technological whizzes, and they were by far the most intelligent tributes in the games. The boy worked as a mechanical engineer back in District 3, along with his father and mother. The girl was one of the most intelligent people in District 3. They both earned nines, some of the highest scores that the technology district had ever seen. Two tributes earned eights: Cedrick from 10, who fancied the knife, and Zinnia from 11, who fancied scythes. Georgie and Annalee from 9 and Radcliffe from 11 managed to score sevens. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Garnet Springer, 18, (10) 7-1 and Amethyst Gemstone, 16, (10) 6-1

District 2: Reginald Basford, 16, (10) 7-1 and Claudia Seyfert, 17, (10) 8-1

District 3: Ferrian Brightsteel, 18, (9) 10-1 and Magnet Lisagor, 18, (9) 9-1

District 4: Caspian Barsony, 15, (9) 8-1 and Chloe Auguste, 16, (10) 7-1

District 5: Draex Gladnick, 14, (5) 18-1 and Kaerine Cessana, 18, (5) 17-1

District 6: Damaris Prisco, 12, (2) 70-1 and Sabryna Maguire, 16, (3) 40-1

District 7: Phoenix Bardell, 18, (10) 7-1 and Juniper Haslett, 17, (9) 10-1

District 8: Ethan Okeefe, 16, (4) 28-1 and Kellye Camacho, 16, (4) 28-1

District 9: Georgie Hyland, 14, (7) 19-1 and Annalee Hamrick, 18, (7) 16-1

District 10: Cedrick Ashley, 17, (8) 14-1 and Tenney Graham, 15, (6) 16-1

District 11: Radcliffe Antonio, 17, (7) 15-1 and Zinnia Frost, 18, (8) 13-1

District 12: Bristel Pickan, 13, (5) 32-1 and Charity Burnet, 17, (5) 20-1

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Steam sprayed out from the sides of the tribute's pedestals as they rose up into the mechanical wonderland. Everything was metal as far as they could see. When the gong rang, every single one of the twenty-four tributes surged forth to scoop up the materials strewn in and around the cornucopia. Perhaps they realized that food would be scarce in the arena, and they would be right. The bloodbath of the twenty-seventh Hunger Games would claim the lives of eleven tributes, a number that Estella was relatively pleased with.

The gong rang, and the tributes surged forth. Reginald seemed to be leading the charge at first; he was ahead of the others by a substantial amount. However, about halfway to the horn he tripped on a jagged piece of rough metal and face-planted into the ground. He tried to scramble to his feet, but he wasn't quick enough. Ferrian was on him like a hound, and he wielded a heavy metal pipe wrench. Ferrian brought down the pipe wrench, slamming it into the side of Reginald's head. Ferrian was strong and determined, and his next powerful blow dented the career's skull.

 _Reginald Basford, District 2 Male: 24th, Killed by Ferrian, Bloodbath_

Amethyst grinned when she spotted a bow and quiver of arrows on a countertop inside of the cornucopia. Amethyst threw the quiver over her shoulder and pulled back her bowstring, aiming for a nearby girl that looked to be easy prey. Amethyst released her grasp, and the arrow sailed into the back of the girl's head. She collapsed to the ground, blood lazily oozing from the back of her head and painting her hair red.

 _Kellye Camacho, District 8 Female: 23rd, Killed by Amethyst, Bloodbath_

After seeing his district partner make a kill, Garnet was determined to make one of his own. The career swept up a sword that sat in a cluster of gears right in front of the cornucopia's yawning mouth. Garnet spotted movement above him. He sprang to his feet and found himself face to face with a boy with a knife who was hoping to kill him and eliminate competition early. Garnet would have none of it. He stabbed his sword into the boy's chest, and it wormed its way through his body and protruded from his back.

 _Draex Gladnick, District 5 Male: 22nd, Killed by Garnet, Bloodbath_

Magnet closed her dexterous fingers around a sledgehammer that she found on the ground about fifty yards from her pedestal. She lifted the hammer high into the air and brought it down upon the head of a nearby boy. The force of Magnet's blow was powerful, and it left a dent in his skull that lead to his swift end.

 _Damaris Prisco, District 6 Male: 21st, Killed by Magnet, Bloodbath_

Chloe was in business when she retrieved a trident from inside of a suitcase that was hidden away inside of the cornucopia. Hands firmly grasping the cold bronze, Chloe emerged from the cornucopia's mysterious darkness and into the chaos of the bloodbath. Chloe brandished her trident and hurled it through the air. It sailed into the neck of a girl, and the three prongs speared her throat. She clawed at her throat and gurgled as blood pooled up in her mouth.

 _Charity Burnet, District 12 Female: 20th, Killed by Chloe, Bloodbath_

If Ferrian had any aversion to killing other tributes, he didn't show it. He went in for his next kill upon a nearby girl who looked to be easy prey. Ferrian thrust forth his pipe wrench, and it slammed into her skull with great force. She collapsed to the ground with a thump, and it only took a few more blows to the head before she died from head trauma.

 _Sabryna Maguire, District 6 Female: 19th, Killed by Ferrian, Bloodbath_

The first collaborate kill of the twenty-seventh Hunger Games was made then and there. Phoenix, the District 7 male who was thirsty to prove himself to his fellow careers, swung his axe into the waist of a weak and young boy. The sharp edge of the axe disemboweled his torso, and he fell to the ground, screaming. Then, Chloe ran over to where the boy laid thrashing on the ground and subdued him, shoving the prongs of her bronze trident into his lower abdomen.

 _Georgie Hyland, District 9 Male: 18th, Killed by Phoenix and Chloe, Bloodbath_

Magnet made her second kill of the bloodbath with style. She swung her sledgehammer toward the left side of a girl's head. The hammer bombarded the left side of her head, but Magnet kept swinging the hammer along its path. Then, once the sledgehammer had traveled a full 180 degrees, she swung it back to the left. She repeated this process a couple of times, slamming alternating sides of the girl's head with her sledgehammer until she died.

 _Kaerine Cessana, District 5 Female: 17th, Killed by Magnet, Bloodbath_

Phoenix made his second kill, lifting his axe in the air and bringing it down upon the head of a girl that everyone knew wouldn't survive for very long anyways. The axe split her head in half all the way down to her neck.

 _Annalee Hamrick, District 9 Female: 16th, Killed by Phoenix, Bloodbath_

All of the outer district tributes had scampered away from the bloodbath with whatever supplies they could find. All that was left at the cornucopia was the seven careers and the two District 3 tributes. In unspoken agreement, Ferrian and Magnet dove forward and attacked the careers. Ferrian's first target was Caspian, the only career who had yet to make a single kill. Ferrian's wrench left a dent in his skull, and he fell to the ground, unable to make any coordinated movements. Magnet finished him off by slamming her sledgehammer into his upper torso, causing his lungs to sink inward.

 _Caspian Barsony, District 4 Male: 15th, Killed by Ferrian and Magnet, Bloodbath_

The duel between the District 3 tributes and the careers was long; it lasted nearly thirty minutes. Although the careers were strong, the gizmos were quick on their feet and stealthy. By the time that the duel ended, they had managed to knock off one more career. The fight had traveled into the junkyard at this point. Magnet picked up a broken wheel out of a pile of junk and hurled it toward Chloe's head. Chloe was knocked unconscious instantly, and she was crushed under the wheel as she slowly died.

 _Chloe Auguste, District 4 Female: 14th, Killed by Magnet, Bloodbath_

At this point, the District 3 tributes (fittingly nicknamed 'the Brainiacs' by viewers) were beginning to grow tired. The Brainiacs didn't try to fight the pursuing careers. They simply ran and ran and ran as fast as their legs could carry them. They were fast and graceful in their movements, and they were always able to dodge whatever knife or sword or wrench or arrow was flung their way. They were agile, too. No doubt about that. By the time that the sun had dipped below the horizon, the careers just gave up. They could always pick off the Brainiacs later. The careers threw out a string of profanities before venturing back to the cornucopia to get the good-night's rest that they knew they needed.

At this point, Ferrian and Magnet were by far the most popular tributes in the eyes of the Capitol sponsors. They were kind of unspoken allies at that point, but the agreement wasn't official until around ten o'clock that night. The Braniacs delved deeper and deeper into the junkyard, all night long. At around ten o'clock, they needed to stop to rest. They settled down behind a large pile of rusty and old car chassis.

"So, I guess we're allies then?" said Ferrian, sticking out his hand for Magnet to shake.

"Yeah," Magnet replied promptly. "Allies."

Several other tributes shared the Braniacs' attraction to the junkyard sector of the arena. After all, it was a great area to be. There were tons of hiding places and lots of shadows to hide in in case a threat came along. Two other tributes—Juniper and Zinnia—ventured into the junkyard at the conclusion of the bloodbath. Juniper was the faster runner of the duo, but she had to be quiet. Because everything in the arena was metal, the quietest sound was amplified to an immense degree as it echoed around the arena like a clap of thunder. Juniper had very quiet feet, even with the added weight of her axe. She ran and ran and ran as fast as legs could carry her, hoping to get as far away from the cornucopia as possible by nightfall. Juniper found a peculiar place at the edge of the arena. In one spot, the ground appeared to drop off and create a sort of valley. The bottom of the valley was bathed with shadow. To test whether or not it would be a good hiding spot, she slid her backpack down to the bottom of the valley. It was completely hidden in darkness. Juniper rolled down into the ditch, settled for the night. She had a remarkably good start. Zinnia was slightly behind Juniper; Zinnia was a faster sprinter but needed to take breaks much more often. Zinnia eventually settled for a broken car that sat in a pile of other broken cars on the outskirts of the arena. Zinnia threw open the door and crawled inside. There were leather seats, and it was a nice place to sleep for the night. The girl took inventory of her spoils from the bloodbath. A packet of three matches, a canteen of water (empty) and a packet of dried cucumber. Trying not to think about all of the creepy crawlies that she might be sharing the car with, Zinnia used her backpack as a pillow. She lied down and fell asleep to the sound of her own breathing.

The factory to the east had a single human resident by nightfall: Tenney from 10. Tenney was delicate and graceful in her movements as she scampered soundlessly across the arena. Tenney tried to keep to the shadows most of the time, with hopes of keeping out of the watchful eyes of the stronger tributes. Her disposition was determined; she was able to keep running all through the night. She only stopped to sleep at around one o'clock in the morning, once she had reached the factory. The girl threw open the front door of the factory and walked in. She tried the light-switch, but it didn't work. It was just her and her flashlight as she set up camp in the operator's office. There was already a couch in there, which was a start. Tenney only had one supply from the cornucopia: a single throwing knife. She had managed to snatch it from under the nose of one of the careers. Tenney had managed to escape the incident alive, but not without a gash that ran from her neck to her right shoulder. She found that the office's drawer held a roll of medical gauze. Tenney gratefully unrolled the gauze and wrapped it around her arm, hoping to staunch the flow of blood and lower the risk of infection. She would have to see if she could get medicine for the wound, or else some career's blade might be the only thing to show her kinder than a horrible infection.

Those tributes that ventured into the skating rink at the conclusion of the bloodbath were certainly testing their luck, as there were not many places to hide. Regardless, two tributes took this path: Cedrick from 10 and Radcliffe from 11. Cedrick was the faster runner. He actually decided to take inventory of his backpack's contents while he was running to save time and energy later. Inside of Cedrick's backpack was a knife and a packet of rubber bands. He sighed with disappointment. That night, Cedrick found a home in the operator's booth at the skating rink. There was a little compartment in the basement for storage, and Cedrick camped out there for the night, holding his knife firmly in hand in case any predators came along. Radcliffe, though strong, wasn't a very fast runner. He only made it about halfway to the force field before night fell and he needed to rest. He slept for the night at the lowest point of the skating rink. His only possession was a half-full canteen of water that he had managed to snatch from the cornucopia.

The puzzles to the west were certainly alluring to many a tribute; two tributes travelled toward them: Ethan from 8 and Bristel from 12. Bristel was the only tribute that actually made it to the puzzles: Ethan was tired and stopped for the night about three-quarters of the way there. Bristel finally reached the first level after nearly ten hours of jogging: the jigsaw puzzle. It took him about two hours to assemble the three-hundred piece jigsaw puzzle, but the second he snapped the final piece into the puzzle the left wall opened and he travelled on to the next level: a memory puzzle. He completed that with ease, and then decided to rest. He could always finish the rest of the puzzles in the morning.

The morning of Day 2, Ferrian and Magnet woke up bright and early. They knew that they were at the very top of the careers' kill list, and they knew that the careers knew that they were in the junkyard. As such, they got up at about five in the morning and exited the junkyard, instead travelling into the skating rink.

Around noon that day, Ferrian and Magnet developed a plan. They dashed forth toward the cornucopia and peeked to make sure that there was no guard. There was no guard. Their plan was falling perfectly into place. Taking infinite care to be silent, the two allies snuck forth and pillaged the cornucopia of everything that they could use: wires and nuts and bolts and everything else that they needed. Then, they booked it away from the cornucopia.

The rest of Days 2 and 3 passed deathless as the Braniacs worked together on their trap. The two tributes were inspired by Woof Dozier, the victor of the thirteenth Hunger Games. Around noon on Day 4, the Braniacs snuck toward the cornucopia. Magnet knocked the guarding career, Garnet, unconscious. Then, they laid out their trap.

That evening, as the careers wandered back to their camp, the Braniacs' plan was falling perfectly into place. The careers all wandered perfectly into the electrical trap. Magnet flicked the lever, and a low pitched-hum of life emanated from the machine. Magnet and Ferrian peeked around the corner and saw the careers thrashing and contorting into strange positions as the powerful electric current coursed through their bodies. After about two minutes, Magnet flicked the switch off. The careers fell to the ground in a series of loud thumps, dead.

 _Claudia Seyfert, District 2 Female: 13th, Killed by Ferrian and Magnet, Day 4_

 _Amethyst Gemstone, District 1 Female: 12th, Killed by Ferrian and Magnet, Day 4_

 _Phoenix Bardel, District 7 Male: 11th, Killed by Ferrian and Magnet, Day 4_

After their cannon shots faded away fully, Ferrian bumped off unconscious Garnet, who had been guarding the supplies before he was knocked unconscious mere moments prior. Ferrian's wrench dented his skull and sunk his brain inwards, killing him instantly.

 _Garnet Springer, District 1 Male: 10th, Killed by Ferrian, Day 4_

A tribute died from dehydration a few minutes after nine o'clock on the morning on Day 5.

 _Ethan Okeefe, District 8 Male: 9th, Dehydration, Day 5_

That left the final eight: Ferrian and Magnet from 3, Juniper from 7, Cedrick and Tenney from 10, Radcliffe and Zinnia from 11, and Bristel from 12.

On the morning of Day 6, the gamemakers decided to throw a wrench into the works and shake things up a little. They sent the first round of muttations after the tributes. They were bulls, but they were not living. They were metal machines nearly ten feet tall, and they were made of gears. Inside of each bull was a furnace that caused steam to spray out of the bull's nostrils whenever they charged. The bulls terrorized the tributes for the better part of an hour before actually doing any damage. The gamemakers sent roughly half of the herd after the Brainiacs (now the dominant tributes since the careers had been eliminated). The muttations instantaneously destroyed their electrical wire trap. The two tributes scrammed, not bothering to leave anything tidy behind them as they raced away from the muttations. After about three hours of chasing, the bulls were recalled by the gamemakers. They didn't want to tire out the tributes too much, after all.

Day 7 was the most boring day in the arena yet. Progress had slowed to a crawl. There was little movement outside of the Brainiacs. Day 8 was similarly empty of conflict. Day 9 saw the Brainiacs begin work on a strange project at the cornucopia. They seemed to be rewiring the landmines in the cornucopia. Ferrian seemed to be doing the majority of the job, whilst Magnet seemed to be gathering materials for him to use for their next project. It was hard work to dig up each one and rebury it in a different location, but by the end of Day 9 they seemed to have finished the job. Now, all they had to do was wait.

The gamemakers, curious to see how the Brainiacs' trap would work, sent a hoard of dog muttations after the weakest remaining tribute, Bristel from 12. They chased him all the way toward the cornucopia, where the Braniacs stood by and waited. Bristel stepped right onto the pressure plate. The moment that he did, the three mines surrounding him exploded. In an explosion that could be heard from all the far-off corners of the arena, Bristel and his pursuing dog muttations were blown sky-high. His remains were rather unsightly, and the gamemakers cleaned them up quickly.

 _Bristel Pickan, District 12 Male: 8th, Killed by Ferrian and Magnet, Day 9_

Day 10 saw three deaths. The first death occurred a few hours before noon when a tribute fell prey to dehydration.

 _Radcliffe Antonio, District 11 Male: 7th, Dehydration, Day 10_

The second and third deaths occurred just before sunset. The gamemakers had not seen much of Tenney or Zinnia, and so decided to force them toward each other to see what they were capable of. They did this via fireballs, and the two girls quickly realized that the gamemakers wanted them to kill each other. Now that the number of tributes had dwindled down to single digits, they reasoned that killing would not be a bad strategy. Tenney unsheathed her throwing knife as Zinnia brandished her sickle. The two tributes danced around each other, scattering cuts and such but nothing major. Then, in unison, the two tributes lunged toward each other. Tenney's throwing knife entered Zinnia's chest just as Zinnia's sickle cut into Tenney's neck, and the two tributes collapsed to the ground, slowly dying from the wounds that they had given each other.

 _Tenney Graham, District 10 Female: 6th, Killed by Zinnia, Day 10_

 _Zinnia Frost, District 11 Female: 5th, Killed by Tenney, Day 10_

That left only four tributes remaining. The two Brainiacs stayed at the cornucopia and rounded up all of their weapons. They also re-armed their traps in preparation for the final fight. Juniper began practicing with her axe, smashing it into cars and denting them. Cedrick began sharpening his knife on a sharp piece of rough metal.

Finally, at exactly noon on Day 11, the final round of muttations was unleashed. They were mechanical spiders, with rows of jagged dentures and metal legs that crawled over the ground in the creepiest way imaginable. The two non-Brainiac tributes raced away from the creatures. The first of them to reach the clearing was District 10's Cedrick. The moment he stepped on the pressure plate, the Brainiacs' land mine trap blew him to smithereens, launching his remains sky-high and leaving only three remaining tributes.

 _Cedrick Ashley, District 10 Male: 4th, Killed by Ferrian and Magnet, Day 11_

At last, Juniper burst into the clearing. Juniper was remarkable skilled with the axe, and she danced around the two Brainiacs for a few minutes. The most that Juniper was able to do was deal the others a few cuts and scratches, but nothing major. Finally, Juniper decided that she should go big or go home. She lunged forward toward Ferrian and buried her axe deep into his chest. Right before she did so, Magnet smashed Juniper in the back with her sledgehammer. Ferrian fell limp on Juniper's axe at the same moment that Juniper fell unconscious from Magnet's sledgehammer blow. With Juniper unconscious, it only took a few more powerful blows from Magnet to spell her death.

 _Juniper Haslett, District 7 Female: 3rd, Killed by Ferrian and Magnet, Day 11_

That left Ferrian Brightsteel and Magnet Lisagor of District 3 as the only two remaining tributes. Magnet stood virtually void of injury, whereas Ferrian lay on the ground, mere seconds from death, Juniper's axe sticking out of his chest at an awkward angle. Magnet stood by and watched as Ferrian's blood lazily crawled over the terrain. It was only a matter of time before Ferrian died. The symphony of trumpets played their familiar melody the second that Ferrian's cannon shot faded away fully.

 _Ferrian Brightsteel, District 3 Male: 2nd, Killed by Juniper, Day 11_

"Magnet Lisagor of District 3, you are the victor of the twenty-seventh annual Hunger Games!" Estella sang.

Magnet smiled as she raised her fists into the air, triumphantly celebrating her victory.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The Capitol was enthralled by Magnet. Her strategy of eliminating the careers and taking over as the dominant alliance intrigued many viewers. Also, her move of reburying the land mines around the cornucopia would be used again several times in the future, most notably in the seventy-fourth annual Hunger Games. Magnet was most notable for her great sense of humor; she could make almost any audience laugh. She was similar in many ways to Dayta Albrand, the victor of the twenty-fourth Hunger Games. The two victors became great friends.

Magnet's victory tour was somewhat of a flop. The career districts were infuriated at how she had electrocuted their tributes to death, and a large portion of the outer districts were disgusted by her tactics as well. She received the cold shoulder from most of the districts, apart from District 3 where she received a hero's welcome.

Magnet moved into the Victor's Village of District 3, the fourth victor to do so.

Magnet would live to the ancient age of one-hundred and eight, dying from cystic fibrosis around the time of the one-hundred and seventeenth annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would marry and have five children.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Magnet moves into the Victor's Village of District 3, the fourth victor to do so.

Flux Stafford marries his first wife, a woman named Thama Louelle.

Mags Flanagan adopts her first child, a five year-old boy name Oliver Drury.

Odius Ruttler gets married to his fiancée, Luciana Romulus.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you so much for reading, and thank you to Ferrian Brightsteel for this wonderful arena idea! They also requested that I put a tribute with their name in this chapter, which I did. I hope that I portrayed him the way you imagined, friend. I had lots of fun writing this chapter, and I hope that you had fun reading about Magnet. This games was certainly a peculiar one, with the careers dying and being replaced with the Brainiacs and all.**

 **Anyways, I have a new story on my profile! It's called "the strongest among them". It's a Hunger Games fanfic, just like this one. If you'd like to read that one, I think you'll enjoy it. I'm certainly enjoying writing it :)**

 **Until next time, readers! I'll see you next time with number twenty-eight. Have a great day/night :)**


	29. The 28th Hunger Games

**The 28th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

After a series of wildly exhilarating games the years prior (the twenty-fourth with Dayta, the twenty-fifth with Diamond, the twenty-sixth with Thor, and the twenty-seventh with Magnet), the Capitol was caught in a full Hunger-Games frenzy. Betting was on overdrive, and the support for the games was higher than ever before in the Capitol. Even dastardly Coriolanus Snow turned away from his work poisoning whoever objected to him and instead focused on hiring the finest team of gamemakers that the Capitol had ever seen. Estella Whited returned for her third year as Head Gamemaker. Her next arena was a model of Mount Olympus. In Greek and Roman mythology, mount Olympus was the homeland of the many great gods and goddesses who controlled the universe. Estella read as many ancient myths as she could find with hopes of recreating the majestic place as marvelously as possible. She did not disappoint. The mountain itself stood tall, like a piece of rough metal jutting far beyond the clouds. Despite its altitude, there was no snow. The mountain's slopes were steep, but were surprisingly easy to navigate. Many pathways carved into the mountain existed that allowed for quick transportation from any given region of the mountain to any other. Atop Mount Olympus itself stood the hall of the gods. It was a building made out of solid white marble. It stood hundreds of feet tall, looming over everything else in the arena. Rows of white columns depicting famous events in Greek and Roman history surrounded the building. Inside was the throne room: a series of twelve massive thrones. On each throne was written, in Greek, the name of the god that it belonged to. In the very center of the hall was a roaring fire, which the Romans believed was the source of the prosperity and life of their society. Surrounding the hall of the gods was a rolling green field, with grass the color of lime. Sheep, cows, and goats roamed the area. The grassy field was strewn with lovely marble statues of the many heroes, gods, and goddesses from mythology. The largest of these statues was a model of the monster Typhon, the deadliest monster of them all. Its mouth gaped wide open and served as the cornucopia for the games. All of the weapons were things that were commonly used by the Greeks and Romans during battle. This included daggers, javelins, crossbows, darts, knives, swords, and bows. The careers this year were some of the strongest that the academy had ever seen; after the bitter humiliation of the careers the year prior they were determined to come back strong and hopefully take home the victory. The District 1 pair was as gorgeous as always, conforming to the typical District 1 look. Their male earned a ten by wowing the gamemakers with a wide variety of skills, particularly with axes, swords, and spears. Their female earned a nine, scarcely missing a ten because of how she lost track of time during her session. Her looks as well as her humor made the sponsors swoon, and her hair, dyed purple at the roots, was beautiful as well. The District 2 tributes were more scary and intimidating than they were beautiful. Their male was particularly dark in every one of his features, from the shadows on his face to his menacingly unsettling gaze. He scored double-digits, showing the gamemakers his showmanship as well as his talents for strength and weaponry. District 2's girl earned the highest odds of winning out of all of the tributes. It was no coincidence. She was a mysreiously intriguing girl. She was a wizard with the throwing knives, and her age and score made her a great contender for victor. District 4 produced a varied showing, with one tribute earning a ten and one tribute earning a nine. The boy was only fifteen, making him the youngest career in the games. His skills with the knife wowed the sponsors. District 4's female was a strikingly beautiful girl; with her strawberry-blonde hair and sea-green eyes she was able to impress many of the sponsors. She was a wizard with the trident and bow, so much that she earned a ten. Outside of the career districts, several tributes earned remarkably high scores. Four eights were earned. The first eight scorer, Zacharia Picadilly of District 7, was a very handsome boy whose talents for the axe impressed many. His district partner, the beautiful Blossom Luther, displayed talent for the throwing knives. District 10's Winter and District 11's Hyacinth earned eights as well, both showing their skills with curved blades. There was a plethora of sevens. In fact, five sevens were earned in these games! The most notable tribute to earn a seven was Bellatrix Jespersen, the District 6 female. She was only twelve years old, and yet she had scored a seven by displaying her skills with the bow and arrow. The Capitolites couldn't help but adore her humor and her likability, and Bellatrix earned many sponsors. Scorpio from 6, Ezequiel and Lindsey from 9, and Wren from 12 scored sevens as well. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: Hyacinth Christmas from District 11, who volunteered into the games to save her girlfriend. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Quinn Challengor, 17, (10) 7-1 and Lucretia Croxen, 17, (9) 8-1

District 2: Falcon Jagoe, 16, (10) 8-1 and Maverick Donner, 18, (10) 6-1

District 3: Obsidian Bialas, 18, (5) 15-1 and Celestine Osorio, 14, (4) 40-1

District 4: Sebastian Rhea, 15, (9) 10-1 and Maria Dutra, 18, (10) 8-1

District 5: Eris Sigalot, 13, (3) 60-1 and Persephone Kovitz, 17, (6) 18-1

District 6: Scorpio Sgourakes, 16, (7) 17-1 and Bellatrix Jespersen, 12, (7) 20-1

District 7: Forrest Vinson, 18, (8) 10-1 and Blossom Luther, 15, (8) 22-1

District 8: Zacharia Picadilly, 13, (4) 42-1 and Valerie Clairfreund, 12, (3) 70-1

District 9: Ezequiel Stamper, 18, (7) 15-1 and Lindsey Montaigne, 17, (7) 16-1

District 10: Carter Nobili, 16, (6) 21-1 and Winter Corderoy, 18, (8) 12-1

District 11: Orion Rudolph, 12, (6) 22-1 and Hyacinth Christmas, 18, (8) 12-1

District 12: Wren Flint, 18, (7) 14-1 and Jasmine Donaghey, 14, (4) 44-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

Sharp blades of sunshine cut into the tribute's vision as they rose up into the arena atop their golden pedestals. Many tributes placed their hands on their foreheads to block out the rays of the gem of the sun so that they could see well. The yawning mouth of Typhon, the father of all monsters, stood less than two hundred yards from them. Strewn in and around it were Greek and Roman battle weapons.

When the flashing numbers reached zero and the gong rang, only little Orion from 11 turned tail and fled at first. Back at the cornucopia, two tributes seemed to be neck-and-neck, sprinting at the head of the onrush: Maria from 4 and Carter from 10. Carter dropped to the ground when he spotted an orange backpack, whereas Maria ran towards a belt of throwing knives that sat in a cluster of pink blossoms to her left. Maria clipped the belt securely around her waist and began throwing. Her first try stuck lucky. The throwing knife lodged itself into strong Carter's back. He screamed as he fell to the ground, staining the grass red as he died.

 _Carter Nobili, District 10 Male: 24th, Killed by Maria, Bloodbath_

While Falcon may not have been the best tribute with weaponry, he was certainly the strongest tribute in terms of physical strength. Falcon spotted a weak girl out of the corner of his eye. The career ran over to where she was and grabbed her by the torso, slamming her into the ground as she crumpled like a rag doll. Falcon leaned over and used a katana that rested beside a yellow flower near her to slash open her chest, causing blood to spray from her abdomen.

 _Valerie Clairfreund, District 8 Female: 23rd, Killed by Falcon, Bloodbath_

Hyacinth was one of the few non-career tributes who didn't seem to mind killing, even if it wasn't in self-defense. Hyacinth darted as fast as she could into the cornucopia's comforting darkness and grabbed the first thing she could find: a scythe and a canteen of crystal-clear water. Hyacinth ran out of the cornucopia and found herself face-to-face with a boy that was trying to kill her with a machete. Hyacinth thrust forth her scythe. The force of the blow sent the wind-knocked boy to the ground, and Hyacinth buried the sharp tip of her scythe deep into his stomach to polish him off.

 _Obsidian Bialas, District 3 Male: 22nd, Killed by Hyacinth, Bloodbath_

Maverick was in business when she saw a spear sitting on a table inside of the cornucopia. Maverick closed her eager fingers around the cool wooden shaft and swirled around, facing the cornucopia's opening. She ran out into the chaos of the bloodbath, itching to make her first kill. It was too easy, for mere seconds later one of the outer district boys ran straight across her path. Maverick buried the sharp flint tip of her spear deep into his back, and it drove through his torso before protruding from his stomach. He waved back and forth a few times, off-kilter, before collapsing to the ground, dead.

 _Zachariah Picadilly, District 8 Male: 21st, Killed by Maverick, Bloodbath_

Having pulled her throwing knife out of Carter's skull, Maria fluidly attacked her next victim: a dark-haired boy who was grappling over a backpack with another tribute roughly three feet away. The boy screamed as Maria's throwing knife entered the side of his head, sliding into his skull and piercing his brain. He fell limp to the ground beside the horrified girl that he had been fighting with.

 _Eris Sigalot, District 5 Male: 20th, Killed by Maria, Bloodbath_

After killing Eris, Maria diverted her attention to the girl that he had been fighting with. The girl sat, eyes wide-open, quivering in Maria's wake. Her death was quick after Maria plunged her throwing knife deep into her waist.

 _Jasmine Donaghey, District 12 Female: 19th, Killed by Maria, Bloodbath_

Little Celestine from 3 was the next to fall when Falcon snuck up behind her and kicked her to the ground. She tried to scramble to her feet, but she wasn't quick enough to outrun Falcon. The swift career slashed his katana across Celestine's face. She screamed as she clawed at her face, a huge gash running from her eye down to her neck. Then, Quinn from 1 ran over and finished off Celestine by shooting her in the central abdomen with a stone-tipped arrow.

 _Celestine Osorio, District 3 Female: 18th, Killed by Falcon and Quinn, Bloodbath_

Lucretia made the final kill of the bloodbath. She was thirsty to prove herself to her fellow careers, as she was one of the two careers who had yet to make a single kill in the bloodbath. She picked up a war axe that lay in a corpse of bushes to the side of the cornucopia. Lucretia flung the axe toward the back of a boy that was just about to disappear into a grove of trees. The axe's sharp edge buried itself into his back. He fell to the ground, splattering the marble steps with red as he slid down them and came to a stop at their base.

 _Scorpio Sgourakes, District 6 Male: 17th, Killed by Lucretia, Bloodbath_

Eight bloodbath deaths was a miniscule number. It somewhat infuriated Estella, who was expecting a longer and more eventful bloodbath given the strong crop of tributes this year. The six careers, all of them surprisingly still alive, stayed at the cornucopia. Supplies at the cornucopia were scarce, as the vast majority of them had been taken away by the other tributes. Nevertheless, the careers were able to throw together a camp for the night. Five sleeping bags lay in a row on the floor of the cornucopia (actually, only four, because they only had four and one of them was just a blue tarp bag). The six careers played rock, paper, scissors, and determined that Lucretia would be stuck with the tarp. She sighed with slightly sarcastic disappointment. That night, the tarp bag was scratchy but warm.

The tributes that headed up toward the hall of the gods were certainly testing their luck, as it was obvious that that would be the first place for the careers to head to the next morning. Regardless, three tributes headed for this route: Persephone from 5, Blossom from 7, and Orion from 11. Out of the three tributes, Blossom was by far the fastest. Being from District 7, which had tough labor quotas, she had to be a fast runner to make ends meet and to support her family. Blossom was the only tribute to actually reach the hall of the gods before nightfall. The climb up to the palace was particularly difficult not because of its length, but because of its slope. For every foot of length travelled on Mount Olympus, a tribute increased in elevation by three and a half inches. The particular parts of the body exercised by the long climb were the biceps, the backs of the lower legs. Every part of Blossom screamed for her to stop except for her willpower, and by the time five o'clock in the evening arrived Blossom had finally reached the very top of Mount Olympus. She turned back and took a quick moment to admire the view. She looked down and saw the entire arena sprawling out beneath her. She was scared back into reality by the sight of the career's camp. It took all of Blossom's strength to push open the front door. The inside room was well-lit. Rows of columns lined the walls, and in the very center of the room was an array of twelve thrones around a crackling fire. Blossom had little energy left to admire the scene. She dragged herself into a dark corner and leaned against her only pillow. A dark wave of sleep rolled over her. Persephone was the second-fastest runner of the trio after Blossom. Persephone, named after a Greek goddess herself, was knowledgeable of Greek mythology from the stories her father and mother told her before bed each night. She knew that the halls of Mount Olympus were filled with food and marvelous wine that made the mouth explode with flavor. Persephone wasn't usually a determined individual, but it's a whole different animal when your life can be ended at any second. Persephone kept walking long into the night, only stopping about twice every hour for five-minute breaks. Once she finally reached the hall of the gods, she walked around behind the building and fell asleep, not bothering to leave anything tidy around her. Little Orion from 12, the only tribute to run away from the bloodbath, was not nearly as fast of a runner as Blossom and Persephone. He travelled about halfway up the mountain before stopping for the night, hoping to get a good night's rest for the difficult days to come. He had nothing, and his throat felt dry from dehydration. Water would be his number one priority in the morning.

Three tributes stayed in the rolling green field surrounding the cornucopia. They were Lindsey from 9, Winter from 10, and Wren from 12. Winter, being from District 10, realized that the cows roaming the field would be great sources of food. Winter had a curved knife that she had retrieved from a sponsor a few hours prior, and so she decided to kill one of the cows. It was quick work. Finally, Winter began starting a fire to cook the meat of the wild beast. She started the fire inside of a small cave that would shield her from the eyes of the others. The meat was delicious, and Winter's teeth gratefully sank into the tender steak. She realized that she could keep killing animals for as long as she needed to in order to get food to eat. A spark of hope was lit inside of her. District 12's Wren had only managed to grab a crowbar from the cornucopia. Wren had little food. The only way to get good food was from sponsors. And, the only way to get sponsors was to get your hands a little dirty. Wren picked up his crowbar, the matte metal lacking a sheen despite the brilliance of the overhead sun. Wren prowled the arena before eventually finding Lindsey, District 9's girl, snoozing away in a ditch beside her backpack.

Lindsey woke with a start as Wren's crowbar raked across her leg. Lindsey fumbled for her weapon, a knife, but couldn't find it; Wren had already confiscated it and placed it about ten feet away. Wren struck Lindsey again, this time in the abdomen. Lathered in her blood, Wren killed the girl over the course of the next few minutes. The girl was a bloody mess by the time that Wren was done. He backed away, admiring his handiwork as the girl's cannon shoot filled his ears.

 _Lindsey Montaigne, District 9 Female: 16th, Killed by Wren, Day 1_

Those that travelled down the slopes of Mount Olympus particularly intrigued the audience. Many of these tributes may have been driven by sheer curiosity. After all, the urge to discover new things can seem almost irresistible. A whopping four tributes followed this path: Bellatrix from 6, Forrest from 7, Ezequial from 10, and Hyacinth from 11. Forrest made it the furthest down, ending about a kilometer downward from where he had started. Forrest noticed that the air seemed much fuller down there than up atop Mount Olympus, which made sense. He settled down in a small cove, hoping to get a good-night's rest. Ezequial had absolutely no luck, as he made it about a hundred yards down before slipping and falling. He tumbled down, down, down the side of Mount Olympus. He fell for nearly ten seconds before slamming into the hard ground, killing him instantaneously.

 _Ezequiel Stamper, District 9 Male: 15th, Fell off of Mount Olympus, Day 1_

Bellatrix made it about fifty yards down before having second thoughts. She climbed back up to the field on which the arena proper resided, and slept for the night with her back against a shady oak tree. The most interesting story, however, was that of Hyacinth. She was determined to make it down the mountain and see what lied at the bottom. However, she recognized that this would be impossible in one night. Eventually, she decided to stop in a small cave etched into the mountainside. However, right before she settled in, she received a cryptic note from her mentor, Seeder Kaiser.

 _I love dogs! Don't you? They're just the cutest little darlings in the world! I heard that my friend, Hayden, has three of them. He lives down the street from me. They're usually nice, but if they get mad, they'll bite!_

Hyacinth sat down on a rock and read the note a few times. There must be a hidden message somewhere in the note. She tried reading only every other letter, but ended up with nonsense. She tried virtually every algorithm imagine, with no luck. Suddenly, it struck her. What the note said caused a worm of dread to form in her stomach.

I heard that my friend, Hayden, has three of them = I heard that my friend, Hades, has a three-headed one.

He lives down the street from me = He lives underground.

They're usually nice, but if they get mad, they'll bite! = They're usually asleep, but if you wake them up, they'll kill you.

Instantly, Hyacinth picked up all of her supplies and scrammed. As she did, a three-headed dog nearly ten feet tall leapt out of the shadows. It was Cerberus, Hades' pet dog in mythology. Hyacinth ran and ran and ran. Apparently, the gamemakers had not programmed the muttation's intelligence very well. It was not very good at turning corners, and after merely thirty or forty seconds of chasing Hyacinth it fell off of the mountain and tumbled down, further and further, before disappearing from sight.

The morning of Day 2 came in the form of a cannon shot. The careers woke up bright and early, hoping to catch a sleeping tribute or two. The six careers split up and ventured out across the arena. At around eight o'clock in the morning, Maverick turned into a cave and found Winter bathing in a pool of naturally condensed water. Without hesitation, Maverick ran up to the unsuspecting girl and thrust her spear through her torso. Her blood dyed the water red.

 _Winter Corderoy, District 10 Female: 14th, Killed by Maverick, Day 2_

Days 3 and 4 passed, void of conflict among the thirteen remaining tributes. The number of tributes was still higher than it would be after a standard bloodbath, and so Estella decided to throw in a twist. All of the cows and horses roaming the arena turned into savage beasts that would hunt the tributes down and would not be satisfied until they saw blood. The muttations were fast, but the terrified tributes were faster. It was an hour later that they actually made their first kill in Orion, the weakest tribute remaining. A horse rammed its head into his torso, knocking him to the ground before trampling him to death. Then, the mutts were recalled by the gamemakers.

 _Orion Rudolph, District 11 Male: 13th, Killed by Horse Muttation, Day 5_

Noon on Day 6, the careers suffered their first losses. Quinn and Sebastian were wandering through the arena as buddies, staying close to each other. Hyacinth was hiding behind a corpse of bushes about fifty yards away from where the two tributes walked. Taking infinite care to be as silent as possible, Hyacinth knocked one of her two arrows into a crossbow that she had received from a sponsor present. Hyacinth lifted the crossbow into the air and pulled the trigger. The arrow buried itself into Sebastian's shoulder, to the great alarm of Quinn.

 _Sebastian Rhea, District 4 Male: 12th, Killed by Hyacinth, Day 6_

Quinn, alarmed at the death of his ally, pulled out his sword and began searching for the tribute that had killed Sebastian. After about ten seconds, he finally spotted Hyacinth's eyes peeking at him from over the corpse of bushes. Too late. Hyacinth's arrow had already entered his neck. He fell to the ground, clawing at his throat as he gurgled and moaned himself to death.

 _Quinn Chellengor, District 1 Male: 11th, Killed by Hyacinth, Day 6_

Day 7 passed, deathless. Day 8 saw the death of one tribute. Maria had long prowled the arena, and she finally struck lucky when she stepped into the green field and spotted a pair of brown eyes peeking at her from behind a marble statue. Those brown eyes were unmistakable as human. Maria ran around behind the statue. Her prey tried to run, but Maria would have none of it. She hurled her throwing knife; it buried itself into the tribute's arm as they fell, their blood splattering the marble statue.

 _Forrest Vinson, District 7 Male: 10th, Killed by Maria, Day 8_

On Day 9, the gamemakers unleashed a fierce muttation into the arena. It was a model of the hydra, a nine-headed swamp creature with the ability to regrow two heads for each of its heads that was cut off. The monster spent the entirety of Day 9 terrorizing the tributes, always moving on after about an hour of chasing any given one tribute. It finally went in for the kill a few minutes before midnight. The creature pounced upon helpless Bellatrix, who had already wasted her weapon trying to kill the monster a few minutes prior. The hydra's hissing was the last thing that Bellatrix heard before it mauled apart her body to a pulp.

 _Bellatrix Jespersen, District 6 Female: 9th, Killed by Nine-Headed Hydra Muttation, Day 9_

That left the final eight: Lucretia from 1, Falcon and Maverick from 2, Maria from 4, Persephone from 5, Blossom from 7, Hyacinth from 11, and Wren from 12.

On Day 10, Estella began to grow frustrated at how the tributes were abusing the use of the hall of the gods. The two tributes inside of it, Blossom and Persephone, could clearly see each other. They just refused to kill each other. Those two had large supplies of water and virtually never left the darkness of the building. Estella wanted to shake things up.

A single thunder bolt, one that could have been summoned by Zeus himself, struck the hall of the gods at exactly noon on Day 10. The building immediately began collapsing inward, and Blossom and Persephone screamed as they scrambled to exit the building before it crushed them to death. Blossom was certainly the more agile of the pair, as she was able to dodge the falling debris easily. Her closest scrape with death occurred when a chunk of marble nearly eight feet wide fell from the ceiling merely five yards from her. Blossom was bombarded with debris and shards from the marble that buried themselves into her skin like sharp glass. Blossom was thrown out of the hall of the gods and into the outside world.

Persephone was not so lucky. She was less than twenty yards from the exit when a huge piece of marble fell from the ceiling and landed directly on top of her, crushing her flat instantaneously. She died right away as Blossom clung on to her life outside.

 _Persephone Kovitz, District 5 Female: 8th, Killed by Falling Debris, Day 10_

Outside, Blossom began the long and very painful process of tearing the shards of marble out of her body. She sobbed miserably from the agony as she ripped them out of her flesh, each one opening a hole from which blood drizzled. Some sponsor medicine helped a bit, but it was agonizingly painful. Her moans of pain lasted the entire day until Maria stumbled upon her thrashing form and finished her with her knife.

 _Blossom Luther, District 7 Female: 7th, Killed by Falling Debris and Maria, Day 10_

The morning of Day 11, a message in a bottle was floated down to each of the six remaining tributes. The message inside was an advertisement for a bottled-water stand at some kind of carnival or fair.

 _Get your water now! The most refreshing water in the world! Untouched by human hands!_ The advertisement boasted. Next to the words was a picture of a well-dressed man sipping crystal-clear water from a plastic bottle.

This message was not random. The phrase "get your water now" was really a warning to the tributes. At noon on Day 11, every single lake and river in the arena dried up. Now, there was no water left. The tributes would have to kill as much as they could, less the games last so long that their water ran out and they died from dehydration.

The morning of Day 12, the gamemakers sent a hoard of skeletons after the tributes. They had bows and arrows and had impeccable aim. They disemboweled two of the careers by nightfall, when they were recalled by the gamemakers.

 _Lucretia Croxen, District 1 Female: 6th, Killed by Archer Skeleton Muttations, Day 12_

 _Maverick Donner, District 2 Female: 5th, Killed by Archer Skeleton Muttations, Day 12_

Day 13 would turn out to be the final day in the arena. The gamemakers herded the final four tributes together via satyr muttations. The four remaining tributes all met up at the marble cornucopia, and the final battle began. Falcon had his katana, Maria her throwing knives, Hyacinth her bow, and Wren his crowbar.

Falcon and Marena, the two careers, went for each other at first. The two outliers, Hyacinth and Wren, went for each other. Hyacinth and Wren's battle ended soon. It lasted only about three minutes, after which time they had all given each other a series of minor cuts and bruises. Then, in a leap of faith that would either make or break his chances of survival, Wren lunged forth and smacked Hyacinth in the head with his crowbar. Hyacinth screamed as she fell to the ground, her skull dented from the strike. Hyacinth tried with all of her might to cling on to her life, but it was impossible. She passed away on the ground of the arena, just short of victory.

 _Hyacinth Christmas, District 11 Female: 4th, Killed by Wren, Day 13_

The fight between the careers, Falcon and Maria, was quick to crown its victor. Falcon had already been rather tired from being chased by the satyrs and so he was pretty tired, a disadvantage. Maria eventually went with the strategy of disorienting him by delivering fake blows and twitching her arms slightly just to make him panic. In his fatigue-addled state, Maria could easily corral Falcon into a vulnerable position. When that happened, she hurled her throwing knife into his stomach. The blade wormed its way into his heart, and he crumpled to the grass as his cannon shot sounded.

 _Falcon Jagoe, District 2 Male: 3rd, Killed by Maria, Day 13_

The final battle of the twenty-eighth Hunger Games was between Maria Dutra of District 4 and Wren Flint of District 12. Their fight was long; even though Maria was a fast runner Wren was agile and could always escape. He was often out of range of Maria's scattered blows, and Maria grew rather frustrated after a while. After a ten-minute long duel between the two, Maria triumphed. She was able to catch up with Wren. Maria grabbed him by either side of the torso and knocked his crowbar out of his hand. Maria watched as his crowbar spiraled through the air before disappearing from sight. At that, Maria grabbed either side of his head. Mere seconds after the sickening snap, the trumpets sounded in their victorious trill in congratulation of Maria's victory.

 _Wren Flint, District 12 Male: 2nd, Killed by Maria, Day 13_

"Maria Dutra of District 4, you are the victor of the twenty-eighth annual Hunger Games!" Estella proclaimed as a hovercraft appeared to collect District 4's first victor in nearly two decades.

Maria giggled with excitement as she climbed into the hovercraft that would whisk her away to the fame and celebration that awaited her back in the district that she loved.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

District 4 was elated to finally have another victor: Maria was their first victor in seventeen years. Their last victor, Mags Flanagan, was beginning to find it difficult to manage so many tributes and was happy to share the job with Ms. Dutra. The Capitol adored Maria, and many were happy to see her added to the nation's growing lineup of victors.

Maria's victory tour was rather average, except for her stop in 12 where she was showered with ill-will for the entirety of her stay. They were cold about their loss, as it had been many years since a tribute from 12 came as close to victory as Wren had.

Maria moved into the Victor's Village of District 4, the third victor to do so.

Maria would live to the age of sixty, strangled to death by her shower curtain around the time of the seventieth annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would never marry but would adopt a single son.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Maria moves into the Victor's Village of District 4, the third victor to do so.

Odius Ruttler's daughter, Sophie, is born.

Dayta Albrand has her first child with her husband, a boy named Circuit.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: Surprise! I know that my last update was yesterday, but let me do some explaining. It was New Year's Eve, so I got to stay up until midnight. I wrote this chapter to pass the time while waiting for the New Year. I wrote it from 7:00 to about 10:00 and spent the rest of the night revising and editing and such. By the time I finished it was only a few minutes before midnight. Mission accomplished!**

 **With that out of the way, I hope you've enjoyed! Here's our first District 4 victor since Mags, not a long gap for an outlying district but certainly a huge one for a career district like 4! Please review if you have a quick moment, and I'll see you next time. Happy new year everyone!**


	30. The 29th Hunger Games

**The 29th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Despite the several twists, quirks, and flaws of the last few years' arenas, the Capitol was never really finished experimenting with and improving upon their old formula. They had been experimenting with different landscapes, shapes, weather-patterns, and the other technical aspects of arenas past. They came to the conclusion that the arenas that made the audience (in the Capitol, at least) surge with exhilaration were those that were open and variable in terrain. Estella Whited took these facts into account when she began designing the arena for the twenty-ninth annual Hunger Games. Meanwhile, President Coriolanus Snow faced the first of many hurdles throughout his presidency; large numbers of riots had begun to spring up in districts like 3, 6, and 8. Snow rigged the reapings of those districts in order to seal the fates of the children of some of the most dominant rebels. The arena that Estella Whited designed for the games was an underground cavern. A huge chamber stood in the very center of the arena from which tunnels spread out and wormed their way through the earth. The cornucopia and all of the supplies surrounding it were glow-in-the-dark. All of the cave system's life was bioluminescent as well. Everything from the snakes that slithered across the walls to the spiders that crawled in the corners to the fuzzy worms that inched across the ground glowed a brilliant yellow. Scattered around the arena were patches of mushrooms that glowed in the dark. They were edible. They tasted of cream and vanilla. The most prominent supplies in the cornucopia were knives, swords, bows and arrows, and machetes, although many other weapons were supplied, just in much smaller numbers. Then, there were the flashlights. The cornucopia burst at the seams with flashlights. Each flashlight had a total of exactly five hours of battery life, so the tributes would have to use them sparingly in order to preserve their power for when they really needed it. In an arena like this one, the element of surprise would be strongly against, or in favor of, the tributes. The only thing in the arena that actually emitted light was the cornucopia. It emitted golden rays of light that fell across the stone ground in beams. Something that Estella particularly liked about the arena was the way that human eyes appeared in it. The curvature and texture of the human eyeball made it so that human eyes would seemingly glow like the eyes of a cat. The career alliance consisted of five members. The District 1 male was the leader of the career pack. He displayed a wide range of skills, particularly with swords and axes. District 1's female was of heavy Asian heritage, a new look for 1 and a contrast to their typical crop of blondes. Her talents with the axe and sword earned her a nine, just short of her district partner. The District 2 male made the sponsors swoon because of his confidence, talent, and looks. He was your typical all-in-it-for-the-honor career, and his skill set mainly revolved around the knife. He was also a fast and agile runner. District 4's male was the youngest career, scoring a nine with a harpoon and trident. The District 4 female was likely the second strongest career after District 1's boy. She displayed a wide range of skills, including bows, axes, and swords. She had looks to match, too. Then, there was the District 2 girl, Discordia Komine. She actually rejected a spot in the careers, something virtually unheard of from District 2. She earned an eleven, the third tribute in history to do so. She was not the most skilled tribute in the world, but she used fear to her advantage. She liked to play with her food before she ate it. She wanted to stalk around her prey and fill them with terror before killing them. She was dangerous. Although the other careers didn't admit it, it was obvious that they were scared of her. Outside of the career districts, the training scores were impeccably high. Four nines were earned outside of the careers. The first was earned by Glenn Ember, District 7's male who displayed exemplary skill with bows and axes. The second nine scorer was Dalton Etheridge, the District 10 male who was a great knife wielder. Nines also went to Lillian from 11 and Aspen from 12. A single 10 was earned outside of the careers. It was scored by Adriene Ostrander from District 8, whose skill set included the knife, bow, crossbow, sword, and axe. The rest of the tributes scored between eight and three in their private sessions. Despite the strong crop of tributes, there were no volunteers outside of the career districts. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Aragon Ciardi, 18, (10) 4-1 and Akoya Hazlewood, 17, (9) 8-1

District 2: Thane Lubach, 16, (10) 7-1 and Discordia Komine, 18, (11) 3-1

District 3: Zephyr Bruce, 17, (6) 20-1 and Vespera Hardacre, 15, (5) 27-1

District 4: Cerulean Kennett, 15, (9) 9-1 and Isla Mazzeo, 18, (10) 6-1

District 5: Oberon Blythe, 17, (5) 23-1 and Caspia Gregg, 17, (5) 23-1

District 6: Nebulon Kinthart, 14, (4) 50-1 and Isabel Brontsema, 13, (3) 60-1

District 7: Glenn Ember, 18, (9) 10-1 and Solstice Knowles, 16, (8) 14-1

District 8: Robbie Kasper, 12, (6) 36-1 and Adriene Ostrander, 18, (10) 7-1

District 9: Haywood Rutherford, 17, (7) 15-1 and Libbie Mcculloch, 17, (6) 16-1

District 10: Dalton Etheridge, 17, (9) 10-1 and Florinda Musgrove, 18, (8) 12-1

District 11: Aster Cruz-Sanchez, 18, (6) 17-1 and Lillian Meadows, 16, (9) 12-1

District 12: Aspen Luovenpaux, 16, (9) 13-1 and Rosanna Cyndalence, 13, (5) 41-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The tribute's eyes took a while to adjust to the darkness of the arena. Those whose pedestals were in dark areas actually had an advantage. Those whose pedestals were in light areas were at a disadvantage because they would have to take time to adjust their eyes to the darkness after the mines deactivated.

One tribute, Caspia from 5, tried to move her head as far away as possible from her pedestal so that her eyes would be in a dark area, where they could adjust. However, Caspia lost her balance. She fell off of her pedestal directly on top of the land mines. Her corpse was thrown against the ceiling in a mass of scattered bits, dying before the games even began.

 _Caspia Gregg, District 5 Female: 24th, Killed by Land Mines, Pre-Bloodbath_

The two tributes whose pedestals had been right next to Caspia's saw her remains on the ceiling and both vomited with disgust. Their vomit splashed over their pedestals and onto the mines. Those two tributes were blown up.

 _Aster Cruz-Sanchez, District 11 Male: 23rd, Killed by Land Mines, Pre-Bloodbath_

 _Robbie Kasper, District 8 Male: 22nd, Killed by Land Mines, Pre-Bloodbath_

The gong finally rang. When it did, every single tribute ran toward the cornucopia. Not a single tribute turned tail and fled at the very beginning. The first tribute to reach the weapons was Akoya, who swept up an axe that leaned modestly against the glowing cornucopia. Akoya turned sharply on her heel and planted the axe into the stomach of a nearby girl. The girl collapsed to the ground, the axe sliding even further into her torso as she did. Her blood stained the stone ground red.

 _Isabel Brontsema, District 6 Female: 21st, Killed by Akoya, Bloodbath_

The next to fall was little Rosanna from 12. She tripped on a sharp piece of rough stone and face-planted into the ground. Unfortunately for her, she fell right into one of the beams of light radiating from the cornucopia. Nearby Discordia, brandishing her curved sword, found it easy to cleave apart her tiny frame.

 _Rosanna Cyndalence, District 12 Female: 20th, Killed by Discordia, Bloodbath_

Adriene, the ten-scorer from District 8, didn't seem to mind killing nearly as much as the typical girl from 8. In fact, Adriene was actually itching to get down to business and get in some kills during the bloodbath. She swept up a knife that sat in a cluster of glow-in-the-dark mushrooms about ten yards from her pedestal. Adriene flung the knife into the forehead of the nearest boy. He fell to the ground with a thump, his body slowly shutting down from the grievous wound that he had sustained.

 _Nebulon Kinthart, District 6 Male: 19th, Killed by Adriene, Bloodbath_

Discordia, having wrenched her curved sword out of Rosanna's torso, fluidly attacked her next victim, a stormy-grey-eyed by who was taking inventory of the contents of an orange backpack. Discordia's sword slashed across his back. He screamed as he fell limp onto Discordia's sword, marking Discordia's second kill.

 _Zephyr Bruce, District 3 Male: 18th, Killed by Discordia, Bloodbath_

District 10's Florinda, one of the strongest non-career tributes, locked her dexterous fingers around a pickaxe that sat on a countertop within the cornucopia. Florinda exited the cornucopia and, keeping to the shadows, quietly shuffled toward distracted Isla. Florinda slammed the butt of her pickaxe into Isla's skull, knocking her unconscious. Over the course of the next few minutes Florinda beat her the rest of the way to death, wiping off her bloodstained weapon with her shirt once she was finished.

 _Isla Mazzeo, District 4 Female: 17th, Killed by Florinda, Bloodbath_

Cerulean and Thane both spotted the blonde merchant girl from District 9 at the exact same moment. Cerulean hurled his trident into her stomach at the exact same moment that Thane thrust his dagger into her back. The girl crumpled to the ground onto their weapons, marking the first collaborate kill of the games.

 _Libbie Mcculloch, District 9 Female: 16th, Killed by Thane and Cerulean, Bloodbath_

Akoya, eager to make her next kill, fidgeted anxiously with her axe. When one of the weaker girls ran directly across her field of vision, she was laughably easy prey. The trained career swung her axe into her waist, sending the girl's weapon spiraling away and clattering to the floor. Discordia came over and finished her off, lodging the serrated edge of her sword deep into her head, chipping her skull.

 _Vespera Hardacre, District 3 Female: 15th, Killed by Akoya and Discordia, Bloodbath_

Although Aragon had yet to make a kill, one thing was certain: he was an overachiever. Aragon spotted a serrated axe that lay on a table. With hopes of adding a little style to his tactics, he zigzagged toward the weapon instead of running straight. However, during his complicated maneuver, he tripped on a gash in the ground and fell face-first onto the axe. Aragon screamed as the axe's edge sank deep into his face. He ripped it out, screaming and wailing at the top of his lungs as blood oozed from the gash. With his last ounce of energy, Aragon swung the axe into Adriene's torso, but missed. Aragon passed out from loss of blood, and confused Adriene picked up his axe and bludgeoned the career the rest of the way to death.

 _Aragon Ciardi, District 1 Male: 14th, Accidentally Killed by Himself and Intentionally by Adriene, Bloodbath_

Discordia made the final kill. She caught a quick glimpse of a boy running through one of the beams of light emanating from the cornucopia. Discordia was on him like a hound. Discordia grabbed him by his head and threw him to the ground, hacking mercilessly at his head and throat with her curved sword.

 _Dalton Etheridge, District 10 Male: 13th, Killed by Discordia, Bloodbath_

Twelve kills had been made in the bloodbath, an average number. However, three of those occurred before the gong rang. Therefore, the number was actually only nine. Estella was having a streak of bad luck in terms of number of bloodbath kills. The year before had had eight kills, and this year had nine. If this trend continued, Estella might have needed to begin fearing for her career or even for her life. Dastardly Coriolanus Snow had nailed into her hands the importance of the games being a reality television show for the Capitol, and so it made Estella's stomach squirm with terror at the thought of this absurd trend continuing.

Only three careers remained: Akoya from 1, Thane from 2, and Cerulean from 4. Each of the three careers was assigned a certain task to carry out at the cornucopia. Akoya organized the supplies. This was much easier said than done because she had to be constantly using her flashlight due to the darkness of the cornucopia's interior. Thane immediately went out hunting, but returned back that night with his efforts fruitless. Cerulean was evidently the weakest career, but he did have some use. His father was an engineer who designed boats and other vessels. As such, Cerulean held knowledge of electricity. He ended up using bits and pieces from the several tasers provided in the cornucopia to rig up a system of flashlights surrounding the cornucopia. Cerulean worked all through the night, but he was rewarded for his perseverance when the contraption worked. With the flick of a switch, a series of nearly a dozen flashlights illuminating the clearing could be turned on and off at once. The others congratulated exhausted Cerulean on his job and insisted the he needed rest. He was more than happy to agree, and he slept like a rock for what little time remained until they needed to go out hunting the next morning.

The cave was dark and damp; many a tribute had to walk slowly to keep from slipping or sliding on the slick rock ground. Two tributes headed north: Solstice from 7 and Aspen from 12. Solstice had managed to escape the bloodbath with a coil of rope, a package of rubber bands, a pillow, and a flashlight. Her only weapon was a knife that she managed to snatch from Akoya's hands at the cornucopia. Solstice was miraculously able to escape unscathed. However, she had embarrassed the careers. Solstice knew that she was high on their kill list. As such, she kept to the shadows for the better part of her journey. Solstice travelled all through the night, and by the time midnight had arrived she reached a rather good hiding place: a cove hollowed out into the wall of a clearing. A massive stalactite hung from the ceiling and blocked the entrance to the cove, which meant that Solstice had to squirm and wiggle her way around it to get into the hiding place. It was dark, and there were very few places that anybody could see her if she crawled into the corner. She fell asleep almost instantly, resting assured that she had survived Day 1. Aspen from 12 was a different story. Aspen's strategy was to keep low to the ground for the first few hours after the bloodbath to keep out of the sight of the stronger tributes. After the first two hours of so, he got up and began jogging. In the cave, the slightest sound echoed so he had to be quiet in his footsteps. He ran on his tip-toes, a strategy that was rather risky for fear of stumbling but proved effective for Aspen. After alternating between walking and jogging for the entire rest of Day 1, Aspen finally reached the river that surrounded the arena. The sound of the river roared in his ears, and the cold droplets that splattered against Aspen's face refreshed him. Aspen took a can and a rope that he had retrieved from the cornucopia. He used a rock to punch a hole in the side of the can. Then, he fed the rope through the hole tied he two ends. He lowered the can down into the river and pulled it back up. He was happy to see that it was full to the brim with crystal-clear water. For about an hour, Aspen tested it slowly to make sure that it wasn't poisonous. Once he was sure it was safe, he began gulping down the cool liquid. It splashed against his throat in the most satisfying way, and whenever he finished he just dipped the can back into the river for more. All fear of dehydration was eliminated from Aspen. That was, if he could avoid getting lost.

A single tribute headed east: Lillian from 11. Lillian had ran into the bloodbath and left with nothing but a can of sardines and a single flashlight. After a few hours of travel time, Lillian began to grow hot. Then, she began sweating. She couldn't help wondering why she was so hot! Her question was answered when she turned into a tunnel and saw a light at the end of it. Lillian ran toward the light, not bothering to quiet her footsteps. Finally, she emerged on the lava. She looked down into the bubbling pit. It was filled with lava. Just as an experiment, Lillian picked up a rock and threw it in. It soared downward before landing into the lava and sinking in. The heat was unbearable; beads of sweat rolled down Lillian's face. She couldn't sleep there, no way. She ran away and away, and the temperature gradually returned to the coolness that she liked. Dehydration would be her first problem in the morning, provided that she could sleep through the night.

Three tributes headed south: Glenn from 7, Haywood from 9, and Florinda from 10. Despite lacking in other areas, Haywood was an impeccably fast sprinter. He travelled the deepest into the cave system. Around seven o'clock at night, Haywood and Florinda had an encounter. Florinda was strolling through the area, looking for food and fresh water when she spotted Haywood, a figure roughly forty yards away. Florinda didn't think she could survive in a fight against Haywood; she instantly threw herself against the wall and ever so slightly inched into a darker, shadowy area of the wall. The wait for Haywood to leave was torturous, and Florinda seemed to be exploding with panic when Haywood walked right past her without looking back. Once he was merely a speck on the horizon, Florinda exhaled sharply with relief. District 7's Glenn was actually knowledgeable on past Hunger Games arenas. He knew that there was virtually always some kind of barrier, some kind of natural "wall" to prevent contact with the force field. He also knew that caves most often contained rivers. Therefore, he reasoned that there would be a rushing river surrounding the arena. He could not be more correct, and he smiled, affirmative of his prediction, when the roaring drone of the river filled his ears. All he had to collect the water was a small container. He needed about twenty feet of rope. This was a cheap sponsor present, and once he had it he fashioned himself a little water collection device. Lowering the container into the river, he pulled it back up and saw crystal-clear water at least an inch high inside of it. Glenn's thirst was quenched as the cold liquid splashed against his throat in a satisfying way.

Oberon from 5 and Adriene from 8 both headed west at the conclusion of the bloodbath. West was certainly a risky direction to go; it was immediately obvious that that path would be the bumpiest, rockiest, and most difficult ride. But, the two tributes took this as a double-negative and realized that the careers would never expect them to be there. Adriene, the fastest runner, had a knife, Aragon's axe, and a strange mechanism that she snatched from the cornucopia on a whim. She ran all the way through the day and night, and she was the third and final tribute to reach the river. Quick to realize that the mechanism from the cornucopia was a water collection device, all fears of dehydration were quelled. Oberon had gone into the cornucopia and escaped with nothing. No supplies, only a few scattered scratches from careers. He alternated between walking and jogging for the entirety of Day 1, and he reached about a third of the way to the river before dropping from exhaustion. He would need a good night's rest for Day 2, and he knew it. Might as well get it. If he could.

That left Discordia, the District 2 girl and eleven scorer. She shaped herself up as a real hunter. She would hunt day and night, staggering one hour-long power naps throughout the day as opposed to taking one long sleep session at night. She used the shadows to her advantage, leaping between them. There was something gracefully elegant yet sinister about her movements that instilled a rather queer feeling into the scene.

Discordia met her first human prey around six o'clock at night on Day 2.

Discordia was prowling through the arena when she heard it. A small whimper coming from a dead-end just around the corner. Smiling, Discordia turned the corner. She could see her prey's eyes, glowing at the end of the hallway like a cat's. It was Oberon, the District 5 boy. Discordia stalked toward him, taking her time and trying to fill Oberon up to the brim with terror. All Oberon could see of his predator was her two, round, glowing eyes. Every minute or so, Discordia would close her eyes, rendering her invisible. Oberon was shaking and sobbing with terror. All of the sudden, the fear became too much. Oberon let out a scream. Discordia lunged toward him and smacked him in the head, silencing him.

For the next hour, Discordia walked around and around the boy. Every now and then, she would lunge forward just to make him jump. Oberon's entire world had been reduced to sheer terror. In the course of human events, it is possible to define two different kinds of terror. There is the logical kind of terror. This is the kind that you feel when you lose your keys and look everywhere to try to find them. This is the kind of terror that you feel when you're running out of time in a video game and have to take fast routes to get to places quicker. Then, there is the all-out, senseless, mania kind of terror. This is what Oberon was feeling. This is the kind of terror that makes your entire world collapse into a dark void of fear. This is the kind of terror that makes you run up the stairs as fast as possible when you turn the basement lights off at night.

Finally, after two hours of terrorizing the poor boy, Discordia was clearly beginning to grow bored. She lunged forth toward the weeping boy. He wailed with pain and fear as Discordia relentlessly slashed at his neck and upper torso.

 _Oberon Blythe, District 5 Male: 12th, Killed by Discordia, Day 2_

The rest of Day 2 passed virtually empty of conflict among the remaining tributes. The careers and Discordia went through with their hunting routine, but their efforts were fruitless. The morning of Day 3 came in the form of a cannon shot. The careers went out early that morning with hopes of catching some sleeping tributes. Because of the cave's lack of sunlight or nighttime, every tribute had different definitions of when it was time to sleep. Some tributes might think it was midnight whereas some might think it was noon. The career pack was doing their routine sweep of the arena when Thane threw forth his flashlight beam. It landed directly on Solstice, who had dropped all of her supplies in the river the day prior by accident. She was completely helpless as Thane did the honors, slitting her throat with his machete.

 _Solstice Knowles, District 7 Female: 11th, Killed by Thane, Day 2_

A single death occurred on Day 3. Haywood had long heard the sound of rushing water from the river, but it was very difficult to find the correct path to reach it. The cave system was like a maze; even though Haywood knew the general direction of the river he couldn't find a good path to it. Little did he know that, this entire time, he was being pursued by Adriene. Adriene, even though she was from District 8, didn't mind killing and wanted to end the games as quickly as possible. Adriene tried to keep at least fifty feet behind Haywood at all times. She also tried to keep to the shadows. Once or twice Haywood even turned around because he heard something. He dismissed the sounds as his imagination. Then, hours later, he finally found the river. Haywood ran to the edge of the ravine, at the bottom of which the river roared past. This was Adriene's chance. She darted up behind him and pushed him forward. He screamed as he stumbled to regain his balance, but he was unable. He tumbled forward into the freezing water, instantly swept away by the current. The water was freezing; his body forfeited to hypothermia roughly one and a half minutes later.

 _Haywood Rutherford, District 9 Male: 10th, Killed by Adriene, Day 3_

Discordia made her next kill around nine o'clock in the morning on Day 4. She used the exact same strategy as she had used on Oberon, postponing the killing of the tribute for nearly two hours before slashing open their stomach with her blade.

 _Lillian Meadows, District 11 Female: 9th, Kiled by Discordia, Day 4_

That left the final 8: Akoya from 1, Thane and Discordia from 2, Cerulean from 4, Glenn from 7, Adriene from 8, Florinda from 10, and Aspen from 12.

The gamemakers couldn't let the games end so soon; it was merely Day 4 and the final eight had already been determined! If the games ended soon, millions of dollars' worth of muttations would go unused, only to produce a victor whose hardships were miniscule compared to the usual.

Day 5 was declared by the gamemakers to be the muttation day of the arena. At six different times during the day: 12, 4, and 8 in the morning, and 12, 4, and 8 and night, a different round of muttations would be thrown into the arena.

The first set of mutts was unleashed at midnight on Day 5. They were bioluminescent rattlesnakes that slithered over the ground and had jaws that could open as much as two feet. The snakes caught one sleeping tribute off-guard, injecting her with their poison so that she would be paralyzed and then tearing her body apart with their fangs.

 _Florinda Musgrove, District 10 Female: 8th, Killed by Rattlesnake Muttations, Day 5_

The second round of muttations were jet-black spiders, but all of the tributes went unharmed through the storm of them. At noon, huge mice roughly three feet tall were released, but they did not kill or injure anybody.

Four in the afternoon saw a swarm of poisonous wasps released into the arena. They caught up to Cerulean, the slowest runner out of the remaining tributes. They dug their stingers into his flesh and injected their venom into him. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground. But, this poison was not enough to kill Cerulean. Even if he waited for several days he would come nowhere near death. Luckily, a group of Capitol scientists had recently made a breakthrough concerning the hormones and motives of the common hornet. This allowed them to create a type of hornet that was fast, powerful, and had a thirst for blood. Its venom could cause nausea, vomiting, hallucinations, and death in extreme cases.

These were the first tracker jackers. The gamemakers finished off Cerulean with them.

 _Cerulean Kennett, District 4 Male: 7th, Killed by Wasps and Tracker Jacker Muttations, Day 5_

The gamemakers sent the tracker jackers after another tribute, killing him as he tried to run.

 _Glen Ember, District 7 Male: 6th, Killed by Tracker Jacker Muttations, Day 5_

The tracker jackers and wasps were recalled by the gamemakers. The final round of mutts was released at eight o'clock that night. They were star-nosed mole-rat muttations. They chased the tributes inward toward the cornucopia, where the bloody showdown would commence.

Although Thane was a very fast runner, he wasn't the most agile. He tripped on a sharp piece of rough stone and fell to the ground onto his nose. A crunch sounded, but his broken nose was the least of his problems. The rats caught up to him, mauling apart his corpse as he screamed.

 _Thane Lubach, District 2 Male: 5th, Killed by Star-Nosed Mole-Rat Muttations, Day 5_

The final four met up atop the cornucopia, where they were slightly out of reach of the bloodthirsty muttations that banged against the cornucopia, causing it to shudder in its frame. Akoya had her axe, as did Adriene. Discordia brandished her curved sword, whereas Aspen wielded his knife.

A fight instantly began between Akoya and Adriene. Their axes banged against each other. Sparks flew. The scream of metal against metal had long filled the air when Adriene triumphed, planting her axe securely into Akoya's neck and triggering her cannon shot.

 _Akoya Hazlewood, District 1 Female: 4th, Killed by Adriene, Day 5_

Adriene wrenched her axe out of Akoya's neck and turned around just in time to see Discordia charging toward her. Adriene swung forth her axe, but Discordia batted it out of the way with her blade. The two watched as Adriene's axe flew along its path and disappeared from sight. Adriene wept as Discordia slashed open her abdomen. She continued to slash it across Adriene's face and neck, killing her and reducing the tribute count to two.

 _Adriene Ostrander, District 8 Female: 3rd, Killed by Discordia, Day 5_

That left Discordia Komine of District 2 and Aspen Luovenpaux of District 12 to vie for the crown. Coincidentally, Aspen was already in a prone position upon Adriene's death. Aspen was expecting Discordia to take a bit of time to revel in her kill, giving him time to get situated. But, that did not happen, and Discordia charged straight toward unsuspecting Aspen. Discordia knocked Aspen off of the cornucopia, watching as he fell straight into the pack of hungry mole rats that tore his body to a pulp.

 _Aspen Luovenpaux, District 12 Male: 2nd, Killed by Discordia, Day 5_

"Discordia Komine of District 2, you are the victor of the twenty-ninth annual Hunger Games!" Estella trilled, her voice accompanied by a symphony of trumpets in congratulation of Discordia's victory.

Discordia raised her bloodstained sword high into the air, whooping and cheering in celebration of her victory.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

Discordia was a hit in the Capitol; her beauty, grace, and elegance made her easily one of the most coveted victors of the first Hunger Games century. In fact, Discordia was the one who kicked off the victor prostitution industry. As a direct result of this, the tesserae system went into effect. The reasoning for the tesserae system went like this: older youths would be more likely to take tesserae than younger ones. This would increase the number of older tributes, which would increase the number of older victors. A young victor, anywhere between twelve and fifteen, could not be prostituted because they were not old enough. By the time that happened, the victor would probably be lost in the sea of new victors and would be forgotten. By increasing the number of older victors, the number of eligible victors for the selling would increase. Discordia, unsurprisingly, was in high demand, and prices for her went through the roof. Throughout the districts and the Capitol, Discordia earned the nickname "The Terror of the Twenty-Ninth" because of her antics.

Discordia moved into the Victor's Village of District 2, the ninth victor to do so.

Her victory tour was rather quiet and somber, as the majority of the districts' population were terrified of the girl's tactics.

Discordia would live to the age of eighty-nine, dying from appendicitis around the time of the one-hundredth annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would not marry of have children. However, she would begin work training children at District 2's combat academy, particularly with swords and axes.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Discordia moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, the ninth victor to do so.

Isaac Crandall marries his first spouse, a woman named Ada Love.

Gold Carson marries his fiancée, Admirance Hester.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Okay, so I got a bag of chips a few days ago that said "Instructions: Open bag. Eat chips." I just found it super hilarious for some reason. Sorry I had to XD**

 **How'd you like the chapter? Discordia certainly was a fun victor to write; I really liked her antics. Lots of new things this chapter! The first tracker jackers, the first victor prostitution… lots of new stuff! I've gotten lots of nice reviews recently that have made me really happy. Thanks for those :D**

 **Thanks for reading! Next chapter we get another canon victor: the District 9 Female from Catching Fire. Even though she's not named in the series, I still consider her a canon victor. Until next time :D**


	31. The 30th Hunger Games

**The 30th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Ravaging the Capitol like wildfire was a new fad that nobody could stop talking about: dyed skin. It started when Head Gamemaker Estella Whited announced on her social media that she had dyed her skin a light-blue hue. This method of fashion quickly spread throughout the Capitol's entire population, as everybody wanted to look like the talented and gorgeous Estella. Soon it was impossible to step into a Capitol street without spotting several individuals with pink or purple or periwinkle skin. Estella herself knew that she couldn't risk staying head gamemaker for much longer. Her past two games had both been flops, and Estella knew that she would receive the severest of penalties if this absurd trend continued. She decided to remain as head gamemaker for just one more year, after which she would resign and serve as simply a gamemaker. She had the perfect idea for her final arena. It was inspired by the recent skin-dying craze that was sweeping the Capitol. It was inspired by color. The arena was a huge network of colored yarn, stretching every which way. Every color of the rainbow and more was incorporated, and the yarn was virtually indestructible. The network of yarn was so tight that the tributes could wiggle through it and crawl to anywhere they wanted. Sandy islands scattered the surface of the arena, sitting atop platforms of quartz. Even the sand on the islands was colorful; each grain of sand was a different color. All were vibrant and bold in hue. The cornucopia was made of metal. It was splattered with paint. The supplies strewn in and around the cornucopia were rainbow-themed as well. The backpacks were multicolored. So were the leather sheaths of the arrows, the handles of the knives, the sleeping bags, the crates, the suitcases, and everything else. The yarn that made up the arena, cozy and warm, could support almost any weight. There were mutts galore hidden throughout the arena, all of which blended into the rainbow yarn, being polychromic themselves. The career pack consisted of six members. District 1's pair was as beautiful as always. Their male greatly preferred blades, such as the knife and the sword, although he could really fight with anything. Their female displayed a wide range of skills, including bows, axes, and swords. District 1's tributes were shockingly gorgeous careers, and sponsors lined up and down the block to shower them with gifts. District 2, weirdly, produced a much less stellar showing. Their male preferred the crowbar, pickaxe, and baton due to his strength; he was easily the strongest and most muscular tribute. He was certainly a lesser with the knife, the most versatile and abundant weapon in most arenas. Their female was a very fast runner, and had impeccable aim, but, not unlike her district partner, was a lesser with blades. District 4 really stole the show. They produced the cream of the crop. Their male was the oldest tribute in the games; the day of the reaping was less than one week before his nineteenth birthday. He was impeccably talented with the trident, crossbow, dart gun, bow, and sword. He had looks to match, too. District 4's female was similar in build and skillset to her district partner, with the added addition of the machete to her list of preferred weapons. She was rather beautiful as well. Training scores were rather average outside of the career districts. Three eights were scored. District 7's Petal was skilled with the hatchet and axe, scoring an eight. Eights also were scored by District 9's Barley and Anthony from 11. There was also a plethora of sevens. In fact, seven sevens were scored! They were earned by Artemis from 5, Sparrow from 7, Clifford from 9, Laurete and Emerald from 10, and Carlo and Brooke from 12. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: Pollux Danieli of District 3, who had been abused most of his life and volunteered knowing that his life had little worth left. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Cartier Marceaux, 16, (10) 7-1 and Dreame Necklace, 16, (10) 7-1

District 2: Janus Parish, 16, (9) 8-1 and Galadia Racter, 17, (9) 8-1

District 3: Pollux Danieli, 17, (5) 22-1 and Alixia Chaplin, 17, (6) 19-1

District 4: Oliver Beverly, 18, (10) 5-1 and Azura Donaghue, 18, (10) 5-1

District 5: Cairo Deptula, 15, (4) 28-1 and Artemis Lamarche, 14, (7) 18-1

District 6: Tallen Korznicki, 16, (6) 23-1 and European Neckrich, 17, (6) 22-1

District 7: Sparrow Tierra, 12, (7) 21-1 and Petal Galaxy, 18, (8) 13-1

District 8: September Huber, 17, (5) 22-1 and Petra Cornwell, 17, (5) 22-1

District 9: Clifford Stauffer, 16, (7) 15-1 and Barley Chisolm, 18, (8) 12-1

District 10: Laureate Rudolph, 18, (7) 13-1 and Emerald Vanhoose, 18, (7) 13-1

District 11: Anthony Petosa, 16, (8) 12-1 and Camellia Rosemary, 12, (6) 24-1

District 12: Carlo Florafauna, 17, (7) 15-1 and Brooke Handbag, 17, (7) 15-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

Priceless were the surprised, astonished expressions on the faces of the tributes as they saw the arena for the first time. You couldn't blame them. This arena was so stylistically different from anything that had come before it. Apart from muttations, the arena lacked food of any kind. As such, when the gong rang, every single tribute headed toward the bloodbath. Water and nutritious food were plentiful in and around the cornucopia. As for weapons, knives, swords, axes, spears, and shears were the most plentiful. Despite this, many other weapons were presented, just in smaller numbers. The bloodbath of the thirtieth Hunger Games would claim the lives of fifteen tributes, a very high number compared to the average of eleven or twelve.

When the gong rang, the careers immediately lead the charge. Sprinting at the head of the onrush were Oliver and Azura, the two District 4 tributes who really qualified as the cream of the crop. Out of these two tributes, Azura was evidently the fastest. Azura swept up a halberd that leaned against the cornucopia, sparkling in the gem of the sun overhead. She turned sharply on her heel and swung the halberd's sharp edge into a boy who was zigzagging to avoid attacks as he raced towards a package of jerky. The sharp edge buried itself into his stomach. He collapsed to the ground, heaving himself dry as his stomach collapsed inward from the blow. Azura finished him off by delivering a blow to the head, cracking open his skull and polishing him off.

 _Laureate Rudolph, District 10 Male: 24th, Killed by Azura, Bloodbath_

Oliver, the other fastest runner, was quick on his feet when he spotted a flail lying modestly atop a silver crate just inside of the cornucopia. Oliver rushed over to retrieve the flail. He closed his fingers around the wooden shaft and whipped his head around. At this point, European from 6 was rushing toward Oliver in an attempt to kill him while he was looking away. When Oliver set his gaze on hers, the girl dropped her spear and booked it away. But, her speed could not match that of the trained career. Oliver smashed the spiked ball at the end of his flail into the back of her head. She wept as Oliver bludgeoned her the rest of the way to her death. After her death, Oliver ditched the flail in favor of a knife.

 _European Neckrich, District 6 Female: 23rd, Killed by Oliver, Bloodbath_

Janus, another fast runner, picked up a belt of throwing knives that sat about fifty yards from his pedestal. Janus began throwing the moment that the belt was securely clipped around his waist. He pulled one of the knives out of its socket and hurled it at a nearby boy. He screamed as the knife dug into his shoulder. He fell to the ground, clutching the wound and finding it extremely difficult to remove the tightly-lodged knife. Oliver, eager to test out his new knife, ran over to finish the boy off, hacking open his torso.

 _Cairo Deptula, District 5 Male: 22nd, Killed by Janus and Oliver, Bloodbath_

Petra from 8, despite her training score of only 5, was prepared to get her hands a little dirty if it meant more sponsors and less time before her trip home. Petra picked up a mace off of the ground and slammed it into the head of a nearby girl. She yelped with pain and shock as she fell limp onto Petra, knocking them both to the ground like dominoes. Dreame from 1, noticing the commotion, ran over to the scene and finished off both of the girls with her sickle. They were in ribbons by the time that she was done, and Dreame smiled with satisfaction at the sight of their corpses, lathered in their own blood.

 _Alixia Chaplin, District 3 Female: 21st, Killed by Dreame, Bloodbath_

 _Petra Cornwell, District 8 Female: 20th, Killed by Dreame, Bloodbath_

Azura, having successfully wrenched her halberd out of Laurete's stomach, swiftly and fluidly attacked her next prey: a dark-haired boy who was grappling over a backpack with another boy about ten yards away. Azura brought her halberd down upon the boy's head, splitting it in half all the way down to the base of his neck, leaving the other boy in shock.

 _Carlo Florafauna, District 12 Male: 19th, Killed by Azura, Bloodbath_

Azura efficiently attacked the other boy, but he was quicker than she. The other boy scrambled to his feet and ran away, where the adrenaline made him able to outrun Azura, to her great dismay. However, his luck had run out. He ran right across the field of vision of Cartier, District 1's boy who was ready with a machete. Cartier plunged the machete deep into the boy's hip, shattering a few of the bones critical to balance. He fell forward onto the ground, having escaped the District 4 girl but falling at the hands of the District 1 boy, marking his first kill.

 _Talen Korznicki, District 6 Male: 18th, Killed by Cartier, Bloodbath_

Cartier ripped his knife out of dead Talen and quickly attacked the nearest girl, one of the strongest tributes outside of the careers: Petal from 7. Cartier lunged toward Petal, brandishing his knife and ready to kill her. Petal swung around and buried her axe directly into Cartier's stomach. Shocked, he clutched his stomach and ripped out the axe. He tried to swing it in Petal's direction, but black spots already clouded his vision. Barley, the unassuming District 9 girl who wielded a sickle, slashed the weapon against Cartier's back, finishing him off after the blade punctured a few of the organs essential for the sustenance of life.

 _Cartier Marceaux, District 1 Male: 17th, Killed by Petal and Barley, Bloodbath_

Cartier falling in death between them, Petal and Barley locked eyes. In unspoken agreement, they lunged toward each other. They crashed into each other and fell to the ground, fumbling for their weapons. Barley was the quickest to find her weapon; the moment she locked her desperate fingers around her sickle she thrust it forth and raked it across Petal's chest. Barley scrambled to her feet and ran away from the bloodbath, having apparently had enough trouble for a day.

 _Petal Galaxy, District 7 Female: 16th, Killed by Barley, Bloodbath_

Galadia, District 2's girl, rose to the occasion when she caught a glimpse of a strong and stocky girl running across her field of vision. Galadia grabbed the nearest weapon—a dagger—and drove it into the girl's chest. She collapsed, moaning and gurgling as she died from the grievous wound that she had sustained.

 _Emerald Vanhoose, District 10 Female: 15th, Killed by Galadia, Bloodbath_

Oliver and Azura teamed up for their next kill when the spotted the redheaded baker girl from 12 running into the cornucopia. The two District 4 tributes ran forward, trapping the poor girl inside of the horn. She grabbed the nearest weapon, an axe. The 12 girl put on a rather pathetic showing, and the two tributes were easily able to kill her: Oliver with his knife and Azura with her halberd.

 _Brooke Handbag, District 12 Female: 14th, Killed by Oliver and Azura, Bloodbath_

Dreame attacked the nearest boy with her sickle. He wept as Dreame ruthlessly hacked at his face, neck, and upper torso with her sickle. The boy, September from 8, had intentionally humiliated Dreame during training by hiding her favorite weapons and spreading a rumor that she cried when the academy selected her as District 1's female volunteer. As such, Dreame was not at all sad to see him go. Just for good measure, Dreame hacked apart his corpse for a good minute until he was merely a pile of scattered bits on the ground just so that his family would have nothing to bury. Then she spat.

 _September Huber, District 8 Male: 13th, Killed by Dreame, Bloodbath_

Janus made his second kill of the bloodbath when one of his throwing knives entered the chest of the nearest girl. She crumpled to the ground in a heap, her blood staining the ground around her dark red.

 _Camellia Rosemary, District 2 Male: 12th, Killed by Janus, Bloodbath_

Sparrow from 7, despite being only twelve years old, had a goal in mind of killing at least one career during the bloodbath. Sparrow picked up a crate containing jugs of water and climbed up on top of the cornucopia. The climb was difficult, as he had to carry the weight with him as he climbed. However, thoughts of his family and friends kept him motivated. He only had one chance to get this right. Sparrow took out one of the jugs of water and hurled it with all of his might at Galadia, who was standing directly below. Galadia yelped in pain as the jug of water smashed into her head, but Sparrow wasn't done. He hurled another jug of water, this one landing on his head perfectly as well. Finally, the little boy decided to go big or go home. He lifted the entire crate into the air and hurled it down at Galadia's head. The weight knocked her unconscious. At this, Anthony from 11 swept up a spear and drove it through the unconscious career's torso, finishing her off.

 _Galadia Racter, District 2 Female: 11th, Killed by Sparrow and Anthony, Bloodbath_

Oliver made the final kill; he hurled one of his knives into the direction of a boy who was the last remaining tribute at the cornucopia. The knife buried itself into his back, and all was silent. The silence was broken when fifteen cannon shots boomed through the arena, equating to the fifteen tributes whose lives were lost in the bloodbath that day.

 _Clifford Stauffer, District 9 Male: 10th, Killed by Oliver, Bloodbath_

With one of the largest bloodbaths in history at its conclusion, the nine remaining tributes swelled out across the arena. Barley, who had left the bloodbath about halfway through, naturally had a headstart. Barley leapt into the maze of cord-like yarn. It supported her body weight with ease; she was able to wiggle freely across the arena. Only a few feet below the surface, she was easily visible to any casual onlooker. She crawled down as far as she could go, while continuing to travel away from the cornucopia. With the added weight of her sickle, knife, and canteen of water, it was sometimes difficult to wiggle upward whenever she reached a place so tight that she couldn't get through. The maze of yarn was just that—a maze. After about an hour of travelling, Barley wiggled up to the surface and looked behind her. The huge terrain, bursting with color, spread out around her. She saw the careers like little ants in the distance, and she felt satisfied with herself for getting so far away. She took a little rest. The bloodbath had been hard work for her body. Barley simply laid back and fell asleep to the softness and stretchiness of the yarn that surrounded her. Artemis from 5 decided to not go into the web of yarn immediately. Instead, she ran across the surface. Although the yarn dropped under her weight, it did not come even close to breaking. She ran and ran and ran before finally reaching the forcefield. At its time, it was the smallest arena in Hunger Games history, with a radius of merely half a mile or so. Artemis had retrieved a bow and quiver of arrows from the cornucopia. That was everything she had. She clutched onto the bow for dear life (which it very well could be) and wiggled her way down into the web of yarn. Her first impression was the warmth. It was cozy, and the yarn in her area was fuzzy purple and stretchy. Some parts even were decorated with aquamarine shimmering glitter. She wiggled about ten yards. Water would be her biggest concern in the days to come. She would see.

Sparrow from 7 and Anthony from 11 were virtually neck-and-neck in terms of speed. This made it so that, inevitably, they had an encounter around four o'clock that evening. Sparrow was the first to notice Anthony. Sparrow unsheathed his knife just in case the worst came to worst. The scraping sound caught Anthony's attention; he nocked a bow into his crossbow. The two stood there for about twenty seconds, not quite sure what to do, aiming their weapons at each other. Neither boy could tell whether the other one was friend or foe. Then, slowly, they set down their weapons and began trekking toward each other.

"We'd survive longer with the two of us," Anthony said, staring at Sparrow's knife (which he still had out just in case). Anthony's message was clear. Sparrow put his knife back into its sheath and hung it at his side.

"Yeah," Sparrow said, evidently nervous. Sparrow was only 12. Anthony was 16. They both had scored high, though. Sparrow was good at survival. He was stealthy. He knew how to purify water and start a fire. Anthony, on the other hand, was a combat person. He used the knife to his advantage, and he was courageous. He was loyal too.

"Yeah," Anthony confirmed. The two shook hands, creating an alliance. The gamemakers were curious to see what the two boys were capable of, and so they sent a hoard of bloodthirsty rabbit muttations after them. The rabbits were about two feet tall each; they were rainbow colored, and they were bloodthirsty. The two boys easily fought them off, for they were much faster runners than the rabbits.

Poor little Pollux from 3, the only volunteer outside of the careers, was all by himself. He had gone into the bloodbath and escaped unscathed, but empty of supplies. Pollux trekked through the maze of yarn hopelessly, and when he came to the force field he really didn't bother to throw bits of whatever ahead of him. He had been abused his entire life, and he had recently been diagnosed with severe depression. Little Pollux walked straight into the force field, and his little body gave up fighting from the powerful electric current that was coursing through his brain.

 _Pollux Danieli, District 3 Male: 9th, Killed by Force Field, Day 1_

That left the final eight: Dreame from 1, Janus from 2, Oliver and Azura from 4, Artemis from 5, Sparrow from 7, and Anthony from 11.

The morning of Day 2, the careers were reluctant to go hunting for two main reasons. The first reason was that it would be difficult to hunt in an arena as strange as this one. Wiggling through the yarn was difficult with the weight of several weapons on one's body. The second reason was due to a strange division that had started between the careers. The two District 4 tributes, Oliver and Azura, began to try to separate themselves from the other two careers (Dreame from 1 and Janus from 2). Whenever Azura or Oliver had a task, they would always separate themselves from Dreame and Janus. Dreame and Janus, in turn, seemed to do the same to the District 4 tributes. The most commonly accepted theory on this divide was that the two District 4 tributes began to see themselves as superior to those from 1 and 2. They had made the first kills, they were the oldest, they had the highest training scores. It was no surprise that, when the careers went out hunting on Day 2, they split into two groups of two: Dreame from 1 and Janus from 2 in one group, and Oliver and Azura from 4 in the other. It was also no surprise that Days 2 and 3 passed completely empty of conflict between the tributes.

On the morning of Day 4, Estella knew that she had to do something about the dehydration that was sweeping the arena. Every single outlier was facing dehydration head-on at this point in the competition, and if Estella failed to provide water to them the games would end and she would certainly lose her career or even her life. As such, the heavens opened up and in rained. The rain was crystal clear and tasted invigorating to drink. The tributes laughed with glee as they scrambled to fill whatever container they had with the stuff. The taste of the water was absolutely magical. It had a golden taste to it that is impossible to explain to anybody that has never tasted it. After the games, many businesses pestered Estella for the recipe for the stuff. But, Estella refused.

The morning of Day 5, Estella knew that she had to shake things up a little. She drove the tributes together via cat muttations. The cats were as white as virgin snow, a contrast to the rainbow-theme of the arena. The cats were fast, and their claws and jaws scratched many a tribute that was scrambling to escape them.

Finally, about two hours later, the first death since Day 1 occurred. The cats had driven Artemis from 5 and Barley from 9 together. Knowing the ways of the gamemakers, they reasoned that the cat mutts would not go away until either girl killed the other. Artemis pulled out her bow and arrow, and Barley brandished her sickle. The two tributes dueled for several minutes before Barley triumphed, slashing her blade cleanly across Artemis' chest. She tumbled backward into the cords of yarn, her blood dying the yarn around her red. As they had predicted, the gamemakers recalled the cats afterward. That was enough bloodshed for the day.

 _Artemis Lamarche, District 5 Female: 8th, Killed by Barley, Day 5_

All fears of dehydration were quelled, for on the evening of Day 5 the marvelous, splendid rain began falling down upon the arena.

Days 6, 7, and 8 passed technically deathless. However, Barley from 9 had a close scrape with death around noon on Day 8. She was looking for food when she spotted Dreame from 1 walking through the yarn less than thirty yards from her. Taking care to be as silent as possible, Barley crept down and wiggled away from the career.

On the morning of Day 9, a stumble occurred in the alliance of Sparrow and Anthony. Sparrow had done lots of hard work on Day 8, and so Anthony decided that he needed a rest. Anthony ushered Sparrow to bed, where he fell asleep. He awoke to a scraping sound. Sparrow peeked up from his sleeping place and saw his ally sharpening his sword on the metal bowl of some soup that they had gotten from a sponsor. Sparrow was very paranoid (dehydration wasn't helping either); he thought that Anthony was sharpening his knife to try to kill him in his sleep. Sparrow leapt to his feet and grabbed his bow and arrow, threatening to kill Anthony if he took a step closer. When Anthony protested, Sparrow didn't believe him. He released an arrow; it flew through the air; it buried itself into Anthony's stomach and into his heart.

 _Anthony Petosa, District 11 Male: 7th, Killed by Sparrow, Day 9_

Day 10 passed, deathless. Then, on the night of Day 11, when all three of her fellow careers were asleep, Dreame crept out of her sleeping bag and grabbed her sickle. Dreame tip-toed over to where Janus sat guarding the supplies and slit his throat before he had time to scream.

 _Janus Parish, District 2 Male: 6th, Killed by Dreame, Day 11_

The sound of Janus' cannon caused Oliver and Azura to bolt awake. Dreame quickly made up a lie.

"Some tribute came here and slit Janus' throat! I got up and tried to kill them, but they ran away. I couldn't see them in the dark," Dreame lied.

Azura and Oliver sprung up to their feet and grabbed their weapons. They ran over to Janus' corpse, where a huge gash ran across his neck. They seemed to be investigating what weapon the wound was made with.

"That was made by a sickle. No doubt about it," said Oliver, noticing the curvature of the gash. They turned their heads around and looked at Dreame, who was guiltily holding her sickle in hand.

Abruptly, a fight broke out among the careers. Perhaps it was triggered by the fact that the others knew Janus' wound had been inflicted by Dreame. Perhaps it was triggered by the fact that the careers would have to split up and some point. Naturally, Dreame was first to meet her end, bleeding out from a halberd wound inflicted by Azura.

 _Dreame Necklace, District 1 Female: 5th, Killed by Azura, Day 11_

That left Oliver and Azura the only remaining careers; a duel broke out between the two tributes. After a while, Azura triumphed, stabbing her halberd deep into Oliver's abdomen. Azura marched back into the cornucopia smugly. She was the only remaining career in the thirtieth Hunger Games.

 _Oliver Beverly, District 4 Male: 4th, Killed by Azura, Day 11_

That left only three remaining tributes: Azura from 4, Sparrow from 7, and Barley from 9.

On Day 12, Azura crawled up onto one of the sandy islands and began developing a plan. Azura ripped some twigs out of one of the bushes on the island. She used her halberd to begin sawing away at some of the yarn just off the coast of the island. It took nearly one minute of hard sawing to cut out a stretch of yarn about three feet long. Then, she fashioned a bow. The process of starting a fire was long and hard, but within an hour she had a fire. She dipped a stick into the fire and took it out, watching the end burn. Then, she placed the piece of burning wood into the maze of yarn. The fire instantly began spreading.

Unfortunately for Azura, however, the fire caused the platform that the island was suspended on to begin melting. When it did, Azura slid off of the melting platform straight into the heart of the fire, being burned at the stake by her own fire.

 _Azura Donaghue, District 4 Female: 3rd, Accidentally Killed by her own Fire, Day 12_

That left Sparrow Tierra of District 7 and Barley Chisolm of District 9 to vie for the crown. The gamemakers quickly extinguished Azura's fire, and then forced the two tributes together via very strange muttations. At first glance, the muttations appeared to be balls of fluff. Actually, they were gerbil-like creatures that had fur almost six inches long. Packs of about fifty each were sent after both of the tributes; the time came when Sparrow and Barley spotted each other.

Sparrow and Barley ran toward each other across the yarn. Sparrow was confident, but his speed and skill could not match that of Barley. Barley triumphed, slashing her sickle across Sparrow's chest. Little Sparrow collapsed to the ground, his limp body slowly sinking further and further down into the web of yarn. His cannon fired, leaving Barley the only remaining tribute.

 _Sparrow Tierra, District 7 Male: 2nd, Killed by Barley, Day 12_

"Barley Chisolm of District 9, you are the victor of the thirtieth annual Hunger Games!" Estella proclaimed tumultuously in congratulation of District 9's first ever victor.

Barley dropped her sickle and smiled for the invisible cameras she knew were all pointed at her.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

District 9 was elated to see Barley emerge victorious; she was their first ever victor. District 9 praised the Chisolm name, and Barley was worshipped by her home district before settling into the Victor's Village.

Barley moved into the previously vacant Victor's Village of District 9, bringing the district of grain its first ever victor. Districts 7 and 10 were left still victorless.

Her victory tour was average, and nothing of note happened during it.

Barley would live to the age of eighty-four, dying from a heart attack around the time of the ninety-sixth annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would marry and have three sons.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Barley moves into the Victor's Village of District 9, the first victor to do so.

Velvet Farrow's daughter, Kaetlyn, is born.

Slate Ogston marries his fiancée of eight months, Julia Linderson.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Barley, District 9's first victor! Now ten districts have at least one victor. Thanks for all of your reviews, as I value your feedback whether positive or negative. I'll see you next time with the thirty-first games!**


	32. The 31st Hunger Games

**The 31st Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

The nation stood in suspense as it anxiously awaited the announcement of whether or not Estella Whited would return as head gamemaker. The twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth games had both turned out as flops, and Estella's reputation had been severely tarnished. However, the thirtieth games, the games of the year prior, had been a massive success. Many saw this as redemption for Ms. Whited, but Estella herself knew better than to return as head gamemaker. If the thirtieth games had been a flop just like its two predecessors, she certainly would have paid with her life, or worse. However, the popular demand from the Capitol was that she return as head gamemaker, even if it be a single more year. With great tentativity, Estella returned as head gamemaker for the thirty-first annual Hunger Games. Her next arena had better be a good one. If it wasn't, she would most certainly face the severest of penalties. Estella reflected on the success of the games the year prior. A feature of the arena that really made a voice for it was its abstractness. There wasn't a fixed landscape, and there was nowhere in the world that even came close to resembling it. She decided to carry this knowledge into the thirty-first games' arena. The arena for the thirty-first games looked like a scene straight out of heaven. A huge glass platform stood in the very center of the arena. This sheet of glass sparkled like water, and it housed the cornucopia. The cornucopia was made from hundreds of different colors of glass, and the cornucopia sparkled with the magnificence of a thousand diamonds. Surrounding the main glass platform were several other platforms of glass, connecting to the main by glass staircases. This created a sort of leveled arena. Waterfalls, their water crystal clear, cascaded down from the higher levels and plummeted either onto the lower levels or into the endless abyss below. Throughout the arena, there were hidden rooms aplenty: nearly ten in total, in fact, although most were never found. Each hidden room was hidden in a different way; each room housed an argosy of valuable and useful supplies. The cornucopia, like last year, contained several different supplies. Opulent were the supplies of knives and swords. In fact, nearly eighty percent of the cornucopia's weapons were blades. Among the knives, there were machetes, daggers, and more, and cutlasses, katanas, and broadswords were among the swords. The careers were rather strong this year; they had six members. The District 1 male, Vivaldi Strauss, was the one who really stole the show. He was strong, confident, and sure-of-self. He displayed a wide variety of skills to the gamemakers, especially with daggers and bows. He was from a family that manufactured musical instruments, giving him impeccable dexterity and resourcefulness. The District 1 female scored a nine, just short of her district partner. She displayed her talents with the bow and sword. She actually had a long gash along her forehead that she acquired for unspecified reasons. She refused to let the stylists cover it up, but the long gash earned her the nickname "Scar" among the outlier tributes. District 2 produced the most stellar showing. Their male, a master strongman and sword-wielder, earned a ten with the gamemakers. His district partner displayed the archetype of a "girly-girl". She acted sweet and pretty and cute prior to the games, but she emphasized that she did have a not-so-sparkly streak in her. They would see. The District 4 boy, of impeccable aim and skills with the trident and spear, earned five-to-one odds of winning, tied with the District 2 male. The District 4 girl showed off her talents with the throwing knives and the axe, earning her a nine. Outside of the careers, the training scores were rather average. The two District 7 tributes earned eights, the only tributes to do so. There was a plethora of sevens in the last four or five districts; sevens were scored by Marin from 8, Anabel from 9, Diego and Hilda from 10, and Jessica from 12. There were no volunteers except for the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Vivaldi Strauss, 17, (10) 4-1 and Amber Giannone, 17, (9) 7-1

District 2: Clavemont Raptor, 15, (10) 5-1 and Calla Donato, 18, (9) 6-1

District 3: Senika Zeller, 17, (5) 22-1 and Ixabel Hinsey, 16, (5) 24-1

District 4: Marlin Coppi, 16, (10) 5-1 and Alexandra Schulte, 16, (9) 6-1

District 5: Adonis Wallans, 15, (3) 50-1 and Arissa Tourney, 17, (5) 22-1

District 6: Luxor Cervera, 18, (6) 18-1 and Jinx Beaconsfield, 18, (5) 19-1

District 7: Lark Castells, 14, (8) 21-1 and Hazel Woodtke, 17, (8) 13-1

District 8: Marin Kelsey, 18, (7) 15-1 and Alyce Anaya, 16, (6) 21-1

District 9: Omer Turk, 16, (6) 21-1 and Anabel Mclendon, 17, (7) 16-1

District 10: Diego Kovach, 16, (7) 17-1 and Hilda Feldman, 18, (7) 15-1

District 11: Drake Tiemann, 15, (6) 24-1 and Bianca Castaldin, 14, (6) 28-1

District 12: Keneth Seidel, 15, (5) 27-1 and Jessica Leger, 17, (7) 16-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The sun shone bright, its beams of brilliant light cascading across the glass arena. The beams of light that hit the cornucopia were scattered every which way, throwing areas of blue or purple or pink light onto each of the tribute pedestals. It really was a show of light, not of landscape. Estella's last arena, though abstract, was a huge success. Would this trend continue into the thirty-first Hunger Games? Time would tell.

When the gong rang, a sizable number of two tributes ran away from the bloodbath. They were Luxor from 6 and Jessica from 12. Back at the cornucopia, Vivaldi lead the onrush. He was easily the fastest tribute, and he was several strides ahead of the others. Vivaldi went for the steadfast classical Hunger Games weapon and swept up a sword that leaned against a suitcase roughly thirty yards from his pedestal. Vivaldi scanned the clearing for easy prey. When he spotted the sinewy boy from District 5 attempting to worm his way past him, it was too easy. The career blocked the boy's path and shoved his sword deep into his stomach. The blade cut through his body and protruded from his back. Malnutrition having reduced him virtually down to bones, it wasn't long before his little gave up fighting.

 _Adonis Wallans, District 5 Male: 24th, Killed by Vivaldi, Bloodbath_

Marlin, another fast runner, picked up a dagger that sat atop an ornate glass countertop inside of the cornucopia. Marlin ran out of the cornucopia and into the chaos of the bloodbath. He raced over to the nearest girl and grabbed her by either side of the torso, throwing her against the ground like a rag doll. She crumpled to the glass floor, weeping as Marlin hacked open her neck and upper torso with his dagger.

 _Hilda Feldmen, District 10 Female: 23rd, Killed by Marlin, Bloodbath_

Clavemont gritted his teeth in frustration as he dueled with the tall, dark-haired boy from District 8. To Clavemont's great surprise, he was actually a fantastic sword-fighter. The career began to grow immensely frustrated at the boy's talents, having expected him to be an easy kill. Finally, Clavemont triumphed, slicing off his head with one clean slice and watching as his blood splattered the glass floor an evil red.

 _Marin Kelsey, District 8 Male: 22nd, Killed by Clavemont, Bloodbath_

Vivaldi, having securely pulled his sword out of Adonis' limp form, swiftly and fluidly attacked his next prey: a nearby girl who was trying to escape the bloodbath with a package of jerky. She had no such luck, for Vivaldi was a faster runner than her. Although the girl tried to run, Vivaldi caught up to her and shoved his sword into her back. At least it was a swift death, her mentor, Woof, would later tell the press.

 _Alyce Anaya, District 8 Female: 21st, Killed by Vivaldi, Bloodbath_

Calla locked her eager fingers around a crossbow that she found on the ground right in front of the cornucopia's yawning mouth. Calla nocked an arrow in the crossbow and aimed it at the back of a nearby boy, who was trying to escape the cornucopia alongside his district partner. The arrow buried itself into the back of his head. His dark-red blood splattered his horrified district partner as he fell to the ground in death.

 _Senika Zeller, District 3 Male: 20th, Killed by Calla, Bloodbath_

Calla was onto the other girls' case, no matter how fast she tried to run. The career nocked an arrow into her crossbow and pulled the lever. The arrow whistled through the air and buried itself into her back. She crumpled to the ground. Clavemont, Calla's very own district partner, ran past to finish him off, gashing open his back with the sharp edge of his broadsword.

 _Ixabel Hinsey, District 3 Female: 19th, Killed by Calla and Clavemont, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Alexandra closed her grasp around a spear. The dexterous girl tossed the spear toward the nearest boy. The weapon sank into his calf as he slumped like a stone, screaming with pain. Alexandra ran in closer to her prey, finishing him off by ripping out the spear and driving it into his torso, piercing his heart.

 _Keneth Seidel, District 12 Male: 18th, Killed by Alexandra, Bloodbath_

Alexandra pulled her spear out of Keneth's limp form. She turned sharply on her heel and threw the weapon into the abdomen of a tall blonde girl that was running across her field of vision. Alexandra's aim was perfect, as the spear landed perfectly between the girl's shoulder blades. The spear blocked the canal responsible for respiration. The blood flow to the girl's brain promptly ceased, killing her and marking Alexandra's second bloodbath kill.

 _Bianca Castaldin, District 11 Female: 17th, Killed by Alexandra, Bloodbath_

District 7's Lark gracefully swept up a belt of throwing knives that he found deep within the cornucopia's darkness. Lark exited the cornucopia and began throwing as soon as the belt was securely clipped around his waist. He pulled out the first knife, a kukri, and threw it at the nearest girl. Lark's kukri knife flipped end-over-end before lodging itself into her skull. It was only until after her cries of agony ceased abruptly that Lark realized he had killed his very own district partner.

 _Hazel Woodtke, District 7 Female: 16th, Killed by Lark, Bloodbath_

Amber, the only career yet to make a kill, picked up a baton that sat humbly on the ground about one-hundred yards from her pedestal. She used the bar of metal to smash in the head of the nearest boy. His head's insides were reduced to a pulp, and his skull had been bashed in at several places. His grievous wounds were too severe for his body to keep fighting.

 _Omer Turk, District 9 Male: 15th, Killed by Amber, Bloodbath_

Marlin made the bloodbath's closing kill. He used his dagger to slice a deep gash into the forehead of a girl with a training score of only five. This was enough to knock her off of her senses and her logical thinking, and so the girl screamed as she clambered around and clutched her forehead. Marlin finished her off by slashing his dagger across her chest. Her body put up a good fight, but in the end the amount of blood spouting from her wounds was far too much to leave any hope of recovery. She slipped away from the world in death. As her blood-lathered form went completely limp, eleven cannon shoots boomed across the arena.

 _Arissa Tourney, District 5 Female: 14th, Killed by Marlin, Bloodbath_

Estella was rather pleased with eleven bloodbath kills. In her experience as head gamemaker, she had learned that too many bloodbath kills could be just as bad as too few. Lots of bloodbath deaths meant a short and boring games, whereas few bloodbath deaths made for a pathetic start. Eleven was right in the middle, right in the limbo between thrilling and excessive that pleased Estella immensely.

At the conclusion of the bloodbath, the careers immediately assembled themselves. After a few minutes of reconciliation, the careers began hunting immediately. They returned to the cornucopia that night, their efforts fruitless. This year's tributes were certainly some of the best hiders that the Hunger Games had ever seen. They were stealthy and swift as well, something that would make the career's lives difficult in the weeks to come.

Although the arena appeared to be abstract, it was not completely random in terms of layout. The cornucopia stood in the center. It was of medium elevation as well. Travelling south, a tribute would be lowering in elevation. Travelling north, a tribute would gradually be travelling higher in elevation.

A vast minority of the tributes travelled south. In fact, only two tributes headed in this direction: Luxor from 6 and Diego from 10. Luxor was one of the few tributes to head away from the bloodbath, and so he had a substantial head-start over Diego. Despite being eighteen, Luxor was a graceful and elegant runner. He was also rather quiet in his movements, and the way he leapt soundlessly and slid across the glass attracted the attention of many a sponsor. He had the looks to match, too; by the end of the day, his total sponsor loot included a canteen of water, a package of dried peach slices, a knife, and more. The gamemakers, curious to see what Luxor was capable off, sent a creature after him around three o'clock in the evening. The creature was a unicorn, but its horn was made of periwinkle glass that seemed to sparkle with the brilliance that a thousand diamonds could not match. The creature was fast, and the encounter terrified Luxor out of his skin. It seemed hopeless, but then he thought back to Marisa Isaac's strategy during the first Quarter Quell. Marisa had taken advantage of the fact that muttations were bad at changing direction quickly. A spark of hope was lit inside of Luxor. With all of the power he could muster up, Luxor got as far ahead of the unicorn as possible. Then, he stood in front of a cube of sparkling silver glass. The unicorn charged toward him. At the last second, Luxor dove out of the way. The unicorn crashed into the glass cube. It was trapped under the collapsing structure. Luxor had triumphed. Yet, that was the least of his problems. The crashing sound had attracted the attention of the careers, and so Luxor had to be on the lookout for the entire day. Fortunately for him, the careers never found him.

The other tribute that travelled south, Diego, actually had a supply of spoils from the bloodbath. Diego had gotten into several duels at the horn, all of which he had one. His hoard included lots of food and water as well as a trident. Diego had no idea how to use a trident, and so he spent the rest of Day 1 practicing. He remained as quiet as possible throughout his endeavors. By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, the boy had learned all the ins and outs of his three-pronged weapon. His skills with the trident would be tested the next day. He would see.

It was a much more popular approach to head north, higher in elevation. Five tributes took this route: Jinx from 6, Lark from 7, Anabel from 9, Drake from 11, and Jessica from 12. Jessica, having turned away from the bloodbath, had a substantial head-start over the four others. Nothing much stood out about Jessica except for maybe her beautiful misty-grey eyes, but those weren't enough to earn her sponsors. To earn sponsors, you had to impress them. And everybody knew that there was only one way to do that.

Jessica, although from District 12, didn't seem to mind killing. In fact, she even seemed to be looking forward to it if it meant seeing her friends and family again. The colored glass that produced the arena was tough, and it took every ounce of Jessica's strength to break off a chunk of glass capable of doing any serious injury. When Jessica heard light snoring from around the corner of a small cove she was in, her plan was falling perfectly into place.

Anabel, the snorer that Jessica had heard, woke up mere moments later to the horrible sensation of Jessica's glass shard raking across her calf. Anabel bolted to her senses and fumbled for her weapons, but could not find them. Jessica had confiscated them and placed them outside of the cave, where they were beyond Anabel's reach. Seemingly unfazed by Anabel's screams of pain, Jessica raked her glass shard across the back of Anabel's left heel. Anabel lunged forward and tried to grab Jessica, but the swift and clever District 12 girl had already scurried away with her supplies and Anabel's. Anabel tried to chase after her, but her vision and hearing were already becoming foggy. It was only a matter of time before Anabel died from loss of blood. Now, only half of the tributes remained.

 _Anabel Mclendon, District 9 Female: 13th, Killed by Jessica, Day 1_

Jessica's efforts to gain sponsors had worked, and within the next hour she had received many weapons and other supplies from sponsors that liked her willingness to kill.

Lark was evidently the strongest tribute outside of the careers. He even had a kill under his belt. It was no surprise that he went out with hopes of killing that evening. He made no kills. The sound of Anabel's cannon meant that there was a killer on the loose, and that was enough to scare Lark into settling in for the night. He decided to go behind one of the waterfalls that cascaded from the higher levels. The stream of water wasn't that strong, so Lark reasoned that he'd probably be able to get to the other side of the waterfall unharmed. He held his breath and ran forward, through the waterfall.

What Lark expected to see was the face of some column behind the waterfall. That was not what he saw. He emerged in a sort of cave. Intrigued, Lark delved deeper. The walls, ceiling, and floor were stone brick, and Larke's flashlight helped him to make out the fact that the room was spotless of mold. That was strange, since mold should have flourished in the dark and damp room. Abruptly, Lark reached the dead-end of the hallway.

He found himself in a room filled with marvelous things. A gallon jug of water sat on a table that looked to be made out of gold and jade. Next to it was an entire cart of knives. A bed, comforter, pillows and all, stood nestled into a corner. An electric lantern stood, ready for the lighting, on a desk. Countless supplies littered the room, things that could last Lark nearly a week if he managed them properly. By the bed's side was a book. Curious, Lark picked up the book. The book was a record book, chronicling every single sponsor gift ever given. Lark began to read the book. The first page in the book detailed the first sponsor gift ever given, a jar of wound sealer and disinfectant cream given to Molly Toliday on Day 10 of the third annual Hunger Games. This place was a miracle in and of itself, but the District 7 boy still took precautions to make sure that he kept as silent as possible. At last, when he deemed it time for bed, Lark took off his belt of throwing knives. He left it on his bedside just in case and read through the book until he was tired. The bed was comfortable; soon, Lark found himself drifting off into sleep.

Drake from 11 had certainly been luckier than most in many different ways. For one, he was one of District 11's wealthiest citizens. But, that was irrelevant. Drake had run into the bloodbath and had escaped unscathed, with a rather decent collection of spoils. He slept for the night right beside a waterfall, hoping that the rushing of the waterfall would block out the sounds of whatever noises Drake would make in his sleep. Little did Drake know that he was sleeping right outside of the cave in which Lark resided.

Lark rose up bright and early the next morning. It came as a great shock to him when he saw Drake snoozing away right outside of the cave. Lark had left his throwing knives inside of the cornucopia, but now that he knew about Drake he was too paranoid to go back inside the cave and turn his back to the entrance. Quickly and without equivocation, Lark reached forward and pushed Drake into the waterfall. Drake fell into the cool water, liquid pouring directly into his lungs and throat. Drake couldn't swim; he slowly sank down into the shallow pool and drowned as Lark watched with earnest.

 _Drake Tiemann, District 11 Male: 12th, Killed by Lark, Day 2_

The rest of Day 2 passed empty of conflict among the tributes. This was understandable, as the second day in each arena is typically utilized by the tributes to sort out their game plan and organize their spoils from Day 1. Therefore, they typically rarely emerge from their hiding places and there are very few deaths. This rang true of Day 2, as the few tributes that remained rarely exited their hiding places. It was much too early for muttations with any capability to kill or injure. Typically, the gamemakers would spice days up like these by sending mutts after the stronger tributes. But, they had done that already on Day 1.

Day 3 was similarly deathless. Around noon, the gamemakers sent a hoard of sphinx muttations after Lark. But, he was able to outsmart them by tricking them into running into a waterfall, where they melted.

On the morning of Day 4, the gamemakers realized that the all six of the careers still remained. This would make for a rather boring finale, as the careers would all rat out the weaker tributes and then they would be the only ones surviving. They wanted some outliers to be in the finale, to give the Capitolites a few underdogs to root for. As such, the gamemakers sent a black panther to pursue the six careers.

The careers heard the sound of the creature's claws scraping over the glass floor before they saw it. They sprang to their feet and grabbed their weapons. When the saw the monster that was pursuing them, they knew that they would have to kill it or die trying. The careers began haphazardly shouting commands to each other, and in the mass of confusion the only tributes to charge forth and attack the creature were Vivaldi and Calla. Calla, who had a sickle, swung the blade into the panther's torso. This didn't do much damage, but angered the creature. Calla ducked out of the way when the panther tried to smack her away with its paw.

The six careers all ran toward the creature in a strange show of unison that the games hadn't really seen before. Taking down the panther was hard work, and they even suffered a loss: Alexandra, whose stomach was hacked open the panther's talons while she was trying to stab it in the side.

 _Alexandra Schulte, District 4 Female: 11th, Killed by Panther Muttation, Day 4_

The careers went out hunting immediately after they had finished sufficiently nursing their wounds dealt to them by the black panther muttation. They didn't find any kills until about six o'clock that evening, when Marlin turned around a corner and found himself face-to-face with Lark, who was sharpening his axe against a metal sponsor parachute carriage.

Lark jumped to his feet and tried to back away from Marlin, hoping to outrun the career. It was foolish to think that such a thing would be possible, but perhaps he was too terrified to form comprehensive thoughts at the time. Once he realized that he needed to face Marlin head-on, he turned around and charged toward the approaching career.

Their duel was surprisingly long; they were both battered down, tired, and covered with cuts and scrapes within fifteen minutes. However, after nearly twenty minutes of teeth-grinding and dueling, Marlin triumphed over Lark, plunging his trident deep into his abdomen.

Lark collapsed to the ground, heaving himself dry as his stomach tried to recover from the grievous wound that it had sustained. The boy was strong, and it was nearly five minutes before his body gave up fighting.

 _Lark Castells, District 7 Male: 10th, Killed by Marlin, Day 4_

Days 5 and 6 passed in the arena, deathless and void of interaction or conflict among the nine living tributes. Day 7 saw the death of Jinx, who fell at the hands of Vivaldi. Vivaldi was out hunting when he heard shuffling around the corner of a large sheet of glass. Vivaldi zipped around the corner and found a completely defenseless Jinx cowering beside it. Vivaldi speared her torso with his sword. She slid off of the sword as her form went completely limp.

 _Jinx Beaconsfield, District 5 Female: 9th, Killed by Vivaldi, Day 7_

That left the final eight: Vivaldi and Amber from 1, Clavemont and Calla from 2, Marlin from 4, Luxor from 6, Diego from 10, and Jessica from 12.

Day 8 passed, deathless. On Day 9, the gamemakers herded Luxor and Diego together via unicorn muttations. Luxor certainly had the advantage, having faced the unicorns before on Day 1. Diego, though unexperienced with the magical creatures, could still outrun them if he dropped his backpack and kept only his weapon. The two tributes spotted each other over the horizon. They would either have to kill each other or both be killed by the unicorns. They both silently agreed that, if they had to choose between dying from a knife wound or being mauled apart by a unicorn, the knife would be much faster.

Their duel was long, and each boy took turns trying to outrun the other. Nearly an hour later, Luxor triumphed over his opponent, throwing several shards of glass into Diego's face to distract him and then throwing one of his knives squarely into his shoulder.

 _Diego Kovach, District 10 Male: 8th, Killed by Luxor, Day 9_

Days 10 and 11 passed deathless. On Day 12, another hiding passageway like Lark's was discovered by Marlin. He instantly ran back to the cornucopia to alert his fellow careers, and they all took out toward the place that burst at the seams with valuable supplies.

On Day 13, the gamemakers sent the skeleton muttations from the twenty-eighth games after the careers, which were out hunting in one big pack at the time. The master archer skeletons killed two of the tributes, one with an arrow to the skull and the other with an arrow to the shoulder.

 _Amber Giannone, District 1 Female: 7th, Killed by Archer Skeleton Muttations, Day 13_

 _Calla Donato, District 2 Female: 6th, Killed by Archer Skeleton Muttations, Day 13_

Day 14 passed deathless. Jessica was the next to fall, dying at the hands of Vivaldi's broadsword on Day 15. Her blood splattered the glass floor an evil red. She had discovered the third hidden room earlier that day; the careers were immensely pleased to pillage her of the valuable supplies that she was carrying.

 _Jessica Leger, District 12 Female: 5th, Killed by Vivaldi, Day 15_

On Day 16, the gamemakers herded the tributes toward the cornucopia via viper snake muttations.

Luxor was running away from the snakes when he felt a chorus of needle-sharp fangs sinking into his ankle. He fell to the ground with panic and agony. The other snakes easily caught up to heaving Luxor; their teeth sank into every region of his body. At least it was a swift death, his mentor remarked back in the Capitol.

 _Luxor Cervera, District 6 Male: 4th, Killed by Viper Snake Muttations, Day 16_

The only three tributes remaining were the three male careers. They met up at the cornucopia. Clavemont was the first to fall, his head sliced off in one clean sweep of Vivaldi's broadsword.

 _Clavemont Raptor, District 2 Male: 3rd, Killed by Vivaldi, Day 16_

That left Vivaldi Strauss of District 1 and Marlin Coppi of District 4 to vie for the crown. They were two of the most beloved tributes that year. Their duel was certainly a thrilling one, for it was filled with twists and turns of all kinds; the playing field had been almost perfectly leveled by the fact that Vivaldi had a gash in his leg dealt by Clavemont a few minutes prior. Marlin fought with his trident whereas Vivaldi's broadsword cut soundlessly through the air. After nearly an hour, Marlin triumphed, shoving his four-pronged trident deep into Vivaldi's chest.

 _Vivaldi Strauss, District 1 Male: 2nd, Killed by Marlin, Day 16_

"Marlin Coppi of District 4, you are the victor of the thirty-first annual Hunger Games!" Estella proclaimed, her voice accompanied by a symphony of trumpets that trilled in grand congratulation of Marlin's victory.

Marlin raised his bloodstained fists into the air, roaring proudly and celebrating his first moments as Panem's newest victor.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

District 4 was pleasantly surprised by Marlin's victory; after a two decade gap between their second and third victors they were not expecting to get their fourth victor merely three years later. Marlin received a hero's welcome by District 4, hailed as their fourth victor. The Capitol loved Marlin, for career victors were always loyal to the Capitol and were always confident and sure-of-self.

He settled into the Victor's Village of District 4, the fourth victor to do so.

Marlin's victory tour went rather well in every district except for District 1. There, Vivaldi's father attempted to assassinate Marlin. Marlin barely survived, but with a bullet wound between his shoulder blades that would stay there for the rest of his life. The killer was easily identified, and he was hanged for his crime.

Marlin would live to the milestone age of one-hundred, dying on his one-hundredth birthday from a respiratory infection. He would marry his high-school sweetheart the year after his victory, who he would stay married to until her death about seventy years later. Marlin's entire lifetime passed without him bearing or adopting any children.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Marlin moves into the Victor's Village of District 4, the fourth victor to do so.

Mags Flanagan adopts her second child, a six year-old homeless girl named Samantha.

Odius Ruttler's second son, Maximus, is born.

Gold Carson bears his first child with his wife, a baby boy named Jasper.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks to Book Artist for this chapter's arena. I had fun writing it :)**

 **I need your input on something. I've received several reviews saying that the unbroken block of text at the start of each chapter is difficult to read. Would you rather have that paragraph be unbroken, or be split into several smaller paragraphs? I'm not doing a poll or anything, I'd just like to hear your thoughts :D**

 **What did you think of Marlin? Keep in mind that, now that school is back in session, I will not be able to update as often as I was able to during winter break. I'm hoping to get out two chapters a week.**

 **Please review! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter, whether positive or negative. It's all I want to become a better writer on this site, so I value your feedback. I'll see you soon with the thirty-second games :D**


	33. The 32nd Hunger Games

**The 32nd Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

The retirement of Estella Whited was something that the entire nation saw coming. She was growing overwhelmed with the duties of being head gamemaker, and she wasn't exactly at ease with the fact that every year came with the possibility of her execution. At the time, she was one of the most coveted head gamemakers in history; many were sad to see her go. Immediately, the entire nation turned their eyes toward the vacated position of head gamemaker. Nearly five thousand Capitolites auditioned for the role. After sifting through them all, President Coriolanus Snow, now in his eighth year as president of Panem, selected a fifty year-old man named Augustine Hummel for the role. Although much of the Capitol missed Estella, they had a hopeful outlook towards Augustine's enthusiasm in leading the Hunger Games. Could his first games be a one to remember? Time would tell.

The arena that Augustine designed for the thirty-second annual Hunger Games was a warzone. It was set up like a city, but not in the classical sense. Trees towered high above the tributes, scattered around the city. Vines climbed freely up the sides of the buildings. Flowers took root in the sidewalks' cracks. It was as if nature and man had been smashed together and were being presented in one picturesque landscape. The entire place was set up to look like it had just gone through a terrible war. Some of the buildings had collapsed. Hundreds of holes from grenade blasts dotted the arena. And, at the far end of the arena stood a huge crater into which some kind of powerful explosive had been dropped. All of the buildings within half a mile of the impact had toppled away from it like dominoes. The cornucopia, masterfully crafted from ivory, stood in the very center of the arena, in the city square. Its weapons were metallically sleek and sharp. Among these weapons, provided in the most plentiful numbers, were swords, knives, throwing knives, tridents, whips, and many others.

This year's career alliance consisted of seven members, more than their usual six. District 1, overall, provided the strongest batch. Their male, a steadfast classic who could work magic with the knife and sword, was the nephew of Victor Gold Carson, one of District 1's best victors. He also excelled with the crook and flail, a rather unique set of weapons that made him stand out in the eyes of many a Capitol citizen. District 1's female was a knockout gorgeous girl, the typical showing of the luxury district. She was one of the finest products of the thirty-second Hunger Games, perhaps second in strength only to her district partner. She was a very enthusiastic girl with a sense of humor. She preferred the bow or whip, although she could really fight with anything. District 2's tributes were, strangely, weaker than they usually were. The male, your typical all-in-it-for-the-honor career, managed to snag an impressive nine in training by displaying his talents with the halberd and knife. His district partner, a dangerously mysterious girl, scored a cool nine via her skills with the crossbow and whip. District 3 produced one career: Wyatt Kerdler. Wyatt scored a ten in training, the highest score outside of Districts 1, 2, and 4. Wyatt was unlike many other District 3 tributes in that he was able to climb the hierarchy of tributes not by his wits or his smarts, but by his sheer strength. His sheer visceral power made the outliers quiver with fear. He could fight with many weapons, most primarily the brute force weapons like the baton. He also could work magic with the sword. District 4 saw two nines. One was earned by their male, Urchin, who was among the five tallest tributes in the history of the games at the time. He, along with his district partner, preferred the trident. He also excelled with the spear and bow. His district partner fought mainly with the trident but was also a wizard with the axe and hatchet.

Outside of the career districts, the training scores were rather average. Besides Wyatt's ten, the highest non-career scores were earned by Flynn Hennings and Fleur Ivelisse, the two District 7 tributes who both excelled in use of the axe. Three tributes earned sevens: Leslie from 5, Jarrett from 9, and Porschia from 10. Two tributes stood out besides the careers. Firstly, there was Fleur from 7. In her interview, she did not talk to the master of ceremonies but instead elegantly and gracefully danced away her three minutes in a complex ballet routine for the whole nation to see. Once told her three minutes were up, Fleur remarked to the audience that it had been her lifelong dream to perform dance on an elite stage, and she couldn't resist the opportunity to do it on the most watched television program in Panem. The other standout was Marigold Renezella-Mcarthur, the District 11 girl who was the only volunteer outside of the careers. She volunteered for her wife, and in her interview she tearingly promised her love that she would be home soon. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Thebes N'Kundu, 17, (10) 4-1 and Fragrance Dunnet, 17, (10) 5-1

District 2: Alabaster Peragrine, 18, (9) 6-1 and Tigris Chapple, 16, (9) 7-1

District 3: Wyatt Kerdler, 17, (10) 7-1 and Exie Crothers, 15, (5) 25-1

District 4: Urchin Moncrieffe, 16, (9) 7-1 and Patricia Fitzhugh, 16, (9) 7-1

District 5: Scorpio Ellwood, 18, (6) 18-1 and Leslie Graham, 16, (7) 16-1

District 6: Perseus Commess, 17, (6) 20-1 and Lizbeth Scribano, 14, (6) 30-1

District 7: Flynn Hennings, 18, (8) 12-1 and Fleur Ivelisse, 18, (8) 12-1

District 8: Irving Schultz, 16, (5) 24-1 and Enedina Louvelle, 16, (4) 27-1

District 9: Jarrett Spelt, 17, (7) 16-1 and Wendi Wilhite, 17, (6) 19-1

District 10: Nottuesday Curtain, 18, (6) 18-1 and Porschia Holiday, 13, (7) 40-1

District 11: Yarrow Blake, 15, (5) 25-1 and Marigold Renzella-Mcarthur, 17, (6) 17-1

District 12: Cobalt Bough, 16, (6) 16-1 and Almandine Campbell, 16, (6) 16-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The warzone arena was enough to instill a strange queer sensation into any person. The twenty-four tributes were no exception as they rose up into the arena with earnest. When the gong rang, not a single tributes ran away from the cornucopia. All twenty-four tributes surged forth and began sweeping up the supplies that were strewn in and around the ivory cornucopia.

Thebes sprinted at the head of the onrush, bolstered not only by adrenaline but also by the sight of the crook and flail that he had requested from the gamemakers. He leaned over and swept up the weapons in one graceful movement. Thebes took a few moments to pick out his prey. Then, he pounced upon a nearby girl who was zigzagging to avoid attacks as she stormed toward the cornucopia. Thebes brought down his flail and smashed it into the girl's back. She screamed as she fell to the ground. Thebes beat her to death with the curved end of his flail amidst her choked pleads.

 _Almandine Campbell, District 12 Female: 24th, Killed by Thebes, Bloodbath_

Fragrance, another fast runner, locked her firm grasp around a throwing axe that lay in the grass fifty yards from her pedestal. Fragrance spotted two boys fighting over a backpack nearby. Fragrance went in for the kill upon the taller of the two boys, hacking mercilessly at his head and neck as he wept.

 _Nottuesday Curtain, District 10 Male: 23rd, Killed by Fragrance, Bloodbath_

After securely wrenching her axe out of Nottuesday's blood-lathered form, Fragrance diverted her attention to the other boy. He was completely paralyzed with terror, trembling weakly in Fragrance's wake. Frangrance leapt toward the boy and swung her axe into the side of his torso, marking Fragrance's second bloodbath kill.

 _Yarrow Blake, District 11 Male: 22nd, Killed by Fragrance, Bloodbath_

Alabaster, having nocked an arrow into a sleek, metallic crossbow he found in a cluster of blossoms twelve yards from his pedestal, aimed for a nearby girl that looked to be an easy target. Alabaster pulled the trigger. The crossbow's dart flew through the air and buried itself into the side of the girl's head. The dart wormed its way through the girl's skull and pierced her brain as Alabaster grinned in celebration of his first kill.

 _Porschia Holiday, District 10 Female: 21st, Killed by Alabaster, Bloodbath_

Wyatt, eager to prove himself to his fellow careers, swept up a sword that leaned against a metal crate inside of the cornucopia. Wyatt exited the cornucopia and lunged toward a red-headed boy who was trying to escape the cornucopia with a package of dried pineapple. Wyatt roared as he threw himself toward the boy. Under Wyatt's weight, the small boy's thrashing didn't help him to escape. Wyatt hacked relentlessly at his abdomen; he was in ribbons by the time that he was done.

 _Irving Schultz, District 8 Male: 20th, Killed by Wyatt, Bloodbath_

Thebes fluidly attacked his next victim: a girl who was on her knees and taking inventory of the contents of an orange backpack. Thebes cried out as he threw himself toward her. Thebes slammed forth his flail, and it cracked like a whip when it landed straight on her back. She collapsed in agony, weeping as Wyatt finished him off with his sword.

 _Exie Crothers, District 3 Female: 19th, Killed by Thebes and Wyatt, Bloodbath_

Thebes whirled himself around and found himself face-to-face with dainty girl from District 8. She let out a high-pitched squeal as Thebes locked her neck into the curved end of his crook. She clawed at the weapon, but it was futile. Ironically, this only made her use up oxygen faster, and she died from asphyxia as Thebes stood by and watched smugly.

 _Enedina Louvelle, District 8 Female: 18th, Killed by Thebes, Bloodbath_

Urchin, having picked up a trident, shoved the three-pronged spear into the chest of the nearest girl. Her form went limp almost immediately after the prong of the weapon lodged themselves between her ribs and smashed into her lungs. Her limp form slid off of Urchin's trident slowly.

 _Lizbeth Scribano, District 6 Female: 17th, Killed by Urchin, Bloodbath_

When Tigris caught a glimpse of a girl trying to escape the cornucopia with a basket containing loaves of bread, she was on her like a hound. Tigris, eager to make her first kill, threw on the set of wolverine claws that she had picked up at the cornucopia. The outlier girl squealed as the chorus of sharp claws raked against her leg. She dropped the basket of bread and crumpled to the grass, where she wept as Tigris slashed away at her face.

 _Wendi Wilhite, District 9 Female: 16th, Killed by Tigris, Bloodbath_

Fleur made the final kill. The girl, graceful and agile in her movements, swept up an axe that she found just in front of the yawning mouth of the ivory cornucopia. Fleur swung the axe into the chest of a nearby boy. The boy let out a choked gasp as he fell, never to rise again, heaving himself dry as Fleur continued to deteriorate his back with her axe.

 _Perseus Commess, District 6 Male: 15th, Killed by Fleur, Bloodbath_

After killing Perseus, Fleur fled the cornucopia. All of the careers, with Fleur as their only remaining target, chased after her. Being a dancer, Fleur was swift and agile; she could outrun and out zigzag the tributes. She ran in such a strange pattern through the city that the careers easily lost her. Eventually, nearly an hour of running later, Fleur leaned against a building and slid down it. Her spoils from the bloodbath consisted of her axe, a canteen of water, a sickle, and a trident. She tried everything out. She could use the axe and sickle with ease, but just couldn't grasp the concept of the trident. _Great. Now I can roast three marshmallows at once,_ she even mumbled to herself after her epic failure. She ventured into the library, which she decided to make her home from the night. She ended up sleeping in the librarian's office, under the desk. When she couldn't sleep, she grabbed one of the books off of a countertop and began reading. The first page hooked her in, and she kept reading for hours. The careers, infuriated at how agile Fleur had outslithered them, returned back to the cornucopia, burning crimson. There, they went through to organize the supplies. They had left Wyatt behind to guard the supplies while they were out pursuing Fleur, and when the careers returned they were delighted to find that Wyatt had gotten in a start on organizing the supplies. After rehydrating and scavenging the cornucopia for their weapons of favor, they went out hunting. Thebes kept his crook and flail; Fragrance took an axe; Alabaster kept his crossbow; Tigris kept her wolverine claws; Wyatt kept his sword; Urchin kept his trident; Patricia took a harpoon. Their efforts to hunt that night were fruitless, for the arena had many places to hide. The gamemakers would have to rely on muttations and such to force the tributes together in the days to come. Flynn from 7, having escaped the cornucopia with a whip and a package of jerky, made his camp for the night inside of a movie theater. He spent most of the day gorging himself on the popcorn and snacks in the theater. He heard sound coming from one of the theaters and entered it. Moving to the back seat and keeping his whip in hand just in case, he watched the comedies that were playing. Marigold from 11, having escaped the cornucopia virtually unscathed, was instantly attracted to the greenhouse on the outskirts of the city. Whatever horrible explosives had been detonated in the area had shattered the glass of the greenhouse, and so really it was just rows of flowers surrounded by shards of glass. Marigold picked out the edible flowers and ate them, being knowledgeable of flower edibility from living in the district of agriculture. Scorpio from 5 went into a quaint little music store. Not daring to turn on the lights, he used his flashlight to guide himself through the store. He made his camp for the night in one of the sound-proof practice room, the door of which he locked. In the morning, Scorpio's wandering gaze sat on a little silver flute, the instrument that he played for fun back home in District 5. To remind himself of home, Scorpio played his favorite songs on the delicate and dainty musical instrument. Leslie from 5 settled down into an apartment and consumed a package of grapes that sat, fresh and mouth-wateringly delicious, in the fridge. She followed the instructions on a package of ramen noodles and made them in the microwave. She ate iced cream with whipped cream, both of which luxuries she could never afford back home. Jarrett from 9, a naturally-blonde boy that was very tall for his age, eventually made himself a home by sleeping on one of the beds in a mattress shop. Cobalt from 12 made his camp for the night in the kitchen of a fast-food resteraunt, where he gorged himself on the shakes, chicken nuggets, and French fries that he found.

From the bloodbath to the end of Day 1, absolute peace reigned supreme in the arena. Food was plentiful, as was clean water. However, on the morning of Day 2, all of the refrigerators and freezers in the arena abruptly stopped working. Within days, the food would begin to rot, and the tributes would have to leave their little nooks in order to find food. Day 2 saw a single death. The careers woke up bright and early, and when they did Thebes announced to his allies that it was his eighteenth birthday. Although it was impossible for him to prove this fact, it would later be proven that it was indeed his birthday. The reaping, June 23rd, he was seventeen, as was he during the tribute parade, also June 23rd, training, June 24th to 26th, the interviews, June 27th, and Day 1 of the games, June 28th. He did indeed turn eighteen on that day, and, in steadfast tradition of a cake being eaten to celebrate someone's birthday, a sponsor parachute containing a lovely chocolate cake floated lazily into Thebes' fingers. Perhaps engaging in a little bit of fun, the careers lit the candles and sang "Happy Birthday", a traditional birthday song, to Thebes. After he blew out the candles, all of the careers gorged themselves on the cake.

They went out hunting, and within hours they found Marigold hiding under one of the shelves in the broken greenhouse. Marigold sprung to her senses and grabbed her sickle. She jumped to her feet and ran away in an attempt to fend off her pursuers. She was a fast runner, but the careers were faster. Thebes did the honors after trapping her against a wall, beating her in the face and upper abdomen with his flail and then smashing her in the head with his crook. The careers all smugly marched off, leaving Marigold to die. Marigold was in agony. Many sponsors were touched by the reason that Marigold had volunteered; within minutes a package of medicine floated down and landed next to her. Marigold couldn't reach the medicine in her state. Knowing that her minutes and even her seconds were being numbered, Marigold let out one final remark. _I love you, Orchid. I'm so sorry I couldn't come home,_ she mumbled somberly mere seconds were she slipped away from the world and left her wife of seven months a widow.

 _Marigold Renzella-Mcarthur, District 11 Female: 14th, Killed by Thebes, Day 2_

The morning of Day 3, the gamemakers went with the tradition of unleashing muttations upon the tributes just to see what they were capable of. The first round of muttations were cats. They were of different breeds and sizes, but they all had the same demeanor. They were vicious monsters with fangs that jutted out several inches. The gamemakers unleashed these mutts after the careers, Fleur, and Cobalt.

The monsters were fast, but the tributes were faster. The careers were being pursued by the largest batch of nearly ten cats. Meanwhile, Fleur screamed as one of the cats bit onto her pant leg. Shaking with fear, Fleur gritted her teeth and ripped off her pant leg. Then, she ran. After a few minutes, she turned around and batted the leading cat out of the way with her throwing axe. Cobalt, wielding a knife, managed to shove his blade through one of the cat's eyes.

The careers, meanwhile, were attempting to take down the cats that were chasing them. Tigris raked her wolverine claws across one cat's back. The cat hissed with fury, fur rippling like liquid. It pounced upon Tigris. Her allies rushed to her aid. Fragrance managed to knock the cat away with her axe, killing it. Throughout all of this, the cats had been given time to catch up to them. They were able to fend them off. The same could be said about Fleur, though to a lesser extent. Her act consisted mostly of running and occasionally turning around to kill one of the creatures. Cobalt, though skilled with the sword, was quickly overwhelmed by the flow of cat muttations. One creature pounced upon him and sank its fangs into his leg. That was when Cobalt swung his sword, and, in one clean sweep, killing at least half of the remaining cats. He was still being chased after by two of them, which he killed by throwing rocks at them. Panicked, Cobalt reached down and ripped the cat's fangs out of his leg. It had bitten down so savagely that its teeth were a good two inches into his leg. Cobalt smashed the cat against a rock a few times to kill it and then ripped the fangs out of his leg. Blood spouted from the wound. The few sponsors that he had couldn't build up enough money to get him medicine, and so Cobalt was only able to lay there, trying to quiet his moans of agony as he slowly died from the venom that was coursing through his weak body. Now, only half of the tributes remained.

 _Cobalt Baugh, District 12 Male: 13th, Killed by Cat Muttations, Day 3_

Meanwhile, Fleur was able to bat aside the last cat muttation with her leg. The mutt flew through the air and smacked into a tree, where the girl was able to slaughter it with a rock. The careers were largely able to fend off the cats. They killed off all ten of them and then high-fived each other in celebration. Little did they know that mere seconds later a whole new wave of mutts would come. Running out from every corner were more cats. Seventeen of them in total. Cursing, the careers grabbed their weapons and charged.

At first, the careers seemed to be triumphing over the cats. They could kill them with ease, but soon the sheer number of them popping out from behind every corner began to overwhelm the careers. Urchin, confident, charged straight toward the largest cat in the pack. Urchin thrust forth his trident. The three-pronged spear killed the cat, but he was so distracted that he didn't even notice one of the cats coming up behind him. The cat sank its fangs into the back of his leg. Urchin's ally and suspected love interest, Patricia, ran over in an attempt to rip the fangs out of Urchin's already swelling leg. While she was leaning over, a cat leapt up and clawed at her back. Patricia screamed as she fell directly into the hoard of cats. They mauled apart her body to a pulp. They were satisfied, at least for now. The cats leapt away, returning to whatever terrible places they had been before.

 _Patricia Fitzhugh, District 4 Female: 12th, Killed by Cat Muttations, Day 3_

 _Urchin Moncrieffe, District 4 Male: 11th, Killed by Cat Muttations, Day 3_

The careers immediately flocked toward Patricia and Urchin, checking to see if they were alive. They were not. The careers said quick, rushed goodbyes and then shoved their remains into a corner of the clearing before they started to smell. Sponsor parachutes filed with medicine rained down upon them. Most of them were for Thebes, not only because he had the most sponsors but because he had the most injuries. His most severe was a huge gash that ran from his lower lip all the way down to his breast bone. For several hours, the careers did not share a word as they nursed themselves back to health.

Fleur was extremely traumatized by her encounter with the cats. After picking up her bloodstained weapons, she ran all the way back to her hiding place in the library, not to emerge for nearly thirty hours.

Day 4 was empty of conflict among the tributes; it passed without any deaths. Augustine decided to hold off on the killing after three days of consecutive death. Fleur never once emerged from her hiding place. The only careers that were able to go out hunting were Wyatt and Fragrance. They had the least wounds and were more or less clean of severe, life-limiting injuries.

Augustine wanted to prove his ruthlessness. Upon earning the job of head gamemaker, he had received a talk from President Coriolanus Snow that emphasized to him the importance of the Hunger Games not only to entertain the Capitol but also to prove its visceral power. The next muttations would emerge soon. They would see.

Day 5 passed similarly deathless. Fleur emerged from her hiding place once just to refill her water canteen. Then, the night of Day 5, the gamemakers unleashed the next chorus of mutts.

These mutts were huge mice with razor-sharp teeth and fangs. The only tribute that they pursued was Leslie, District 5's female.

Leslie received the mouse mutt. She screamed as she ran away from the creature. She was running away from it when she bumped into Frangrance, who had heard her screams and had come to kill her. Leslie and Fragrance fell to the ground. They both yelped when the mouse pounced upon them. It went for Leslie first, mauling apart her body. Her remains were rather unsightly; after the encounter the gamemakers cleaned them up quickly.

 _Leslie Graham, District 5 Female: 10th, Killed by Mouse Muttation, Day 5_

Fragrance instantly sprang to her feet and barreled back toward the cornucopia. Fragrance was a fast runner, and she screamed for her allies' aid as she bowled into the clearing with the rat right at her six. The careers grabbed their weapons. The duel between the careers and the mouse was long. In the end, the careers triumphed. It was actually Thebes and Wyatt who finished off the creature. Thebes smacked the creature in the back with his crook. The mouse turned toward him. When it did, Wyatt threw himself under it and shoved his sword into the tender flesh of the mouse's stomach. The mouse screeched with anger as it flung Wyatt out of the way with its paw. The mouse's wounds were more severe than Wyatt's and the mouse died quickly.

Wyatt's allies ran to help him. Sponsor parachutes rained down from sponsors who like the boy's bloodthirstiness. It took the others several hours to get the boy back to a condition in which he could stand or speak. He thanked his fellow careers. Then, proving his determination, he went out hunting along with his allies mere minutes later.

Days 6, 7, 8, and 9 passed, completely deathless. After Day 8, the tributes all began to grow very anxious inside. They knew that the gamemakers tended to throw a wrench into the works whenever a long time passes without any deaths. In this time, the careers heavily fortified themselves with a plan. They made up a plan for who would attack when and where if any more mutts came, and also exactly what to expect if the mutts contained any sort of pattern. They did not, but it made the careers feel more secure nevertheless.

On Day 10, the careers struck lucky. Thebes and Fragrance were combing through the city's school when they strolled into a science classroom and found little Jarrett from 9 inside, doing a little science experiment in one of the corners to occupy himself. Thebes was the first to make a move, lunging forth and attacking Jarret. The panicked District 9 boy picked up a chair and tried to smack the careers out of the way. Strangely, his efforts succeeded. He smacked Thebes in the head. Thebes yelped as the steel leg of the chair smashed into his head, knocking him to the ground. Fragrance pounced upon Jarrett, who needed some time to get situated after attacking Thebes. Fragrance slashed her sword across Jarrett's chest. Jarrett screamed as he fell to the linoleum floor, his blood splattering the ground an evil red.

 _Jarrett Spelt, District 9 Male: 9th, Killed by Thebes and Fragrance, Day 10_

That left the final eight: Thebes and Fragrance from 1, Alabaster and Tigris from 2, Wyatt from 3, Scorpio from 5, and Flynn and Fleur from 7.

Peace reigned supreme in the arena on Day 11, with little to no movement. Progress had slowed to a crawl, and nothing of note occurred. On Day 12, the duo of Thebes and Fragrance were out hunting again, this time in a grocery store. The grocery store was the largest building in the city; the District 1 duo had to scavenge in and out of everywhere in order to cover it all. It was Fragrance who ended up discovering him: Scorpio, crouched down under a shelf, munching contentedly on a loaf of nutty, dark-colored bread. Cackling, Fragrance called for Thebes. The two careers cornered the poor boy. Defenseless, he could do nothing as the two careers killed him and reduced the tribute count to seven.

 _Scorpio Ellwood, District 5 Male: 8th, Killed by Thebes and Fragrance, Day 12_

On Day 13, the gamemakers decided to, for the first time in several days, throw a wrench into the works. They unleashed a hoard of muttations after the career pack, which was absurdly large and contained five living members. At this point in the competition, usually two or even just one career remained. Five careers was certainly too much.

The snakes started as tiny little garden snakes that crawled out from the various crevasses in the ground of the arena. They were harmless, of course, but wherever the careers went, the snakes followed. The emerging snakes began to grow gradually larger, and eventually they were nearly three feet long each. Day turned into night. When it did, a huge python emerged from the ground. It was nearly twenty feet long. It slithered across the ground and hissed with bloodlust, perhaps smelling the blood of the careers. The snake's hissing jolted them awake. They leapt to their feet and grabbed their weapons. And so it was that the fight between the careers and the python began.

Thebes, the bravest of the careers, was the first to charge forth. He ran forward with an attempt to catch the snake's neck in his flail. The curved end of the flail wrapped around the python's neck and held it firmly in place. Hissing with fury, the python lifted its mighty tail and smacked Thebes away. The District 1 male flied away before smacking soundlessly into the earth.

Nearly a hundred yards away, Thebes landed on the ground with a crack. He was instantly knocked unconscious. His death took several minutes, but, inevitably, one by one, his bodily functions ceased. Thebes N'Kundu, the strongest tribute in the thirty-second annual Hunger Games, died right there on the ground.

 _Thebes N'Kundu, District 1 Male: 7th, Killed by Python Muttation, Day 13_

Back at the cornucopia, the duel continued. The python hissed menacingly whenever one of the careers attacked it. The closest that any tribute ever got to killing it was Alabster, who managed to thrust his spear into the monster's chest. The creature's tail reached for Alabster. The terrified District 2 boy ran out of the way as fast as he could. He could not outrun the monster, for merely ten seconds later the creature spread its jaws and chomped down on the boy. No trace of Alabaster Peragrine's existence remained except for a bulge in the snake's neck that travelled downward and towards its stomach.

 _Alabster Peragrine, District 2 Male: 6th, Killed by Python Muttation, Day 13_

Meanwhile, Fragrance had developed the perfect plan to kill the monster. While the creature was eating Alabster, Fragrance dove toward the snake's back and plunged her knife deep into its back. The monster roared with fury as it whipped itself around. Fragrance beckoned for her ally, Wyatt, and mouthed to him her directions. The python shot toward Fragrance. When it did, Wyatt lifted his great sword and brought it down upon the creature's back. The blade sank deep, and when it did the creature let out a choked gasp as it shrieked in agony. Fragrance, having just done a forward roll on the ground to escape the monster, leapt to her feet and smacked the python in the face with her sword. The monster was in no shape to fight back. Fragrance, Tigris, and Wyatt, the three remaining careers, inflicted several wounds to the monster over the course of the next few hours. This killed the monster. The monster that had swiftly and easily killed two of the careers. Had they not successfully killed the creature, who knows what would have happened if it had escaped!

On Day 14, the gamemakers diverted their attention to the tribute that they had seen the least of: Flynn from 7. The gamemakers caused one of the buildings near him to topple. Flynn ran perpendicular to the direction that the apartment complex was falling. This, as planned by the gamemakers, caused him to be closer to Fleur, his district partner. Flynn and Fleur knew that killing each other now would mean one less contender in the finale. The duel between Flynn and Fleur lasted for a rather long time. Their axes banged and clanged. Sparks flew. The scream of metal against metal had filled the air for far too long when, at long last, Fleur triumphed, lifting her axe into the air and bringing it down upon Flynn's head, slicing in in half all the way down the base of his neck.

Fleur watched as Flynn slid to the ground, dead. The number of tributes had been reduced to four.

 _Flynn Hennings, District 7 Male: 5th, Killed by Fleur, Day 14_

Day 15 would prove to be the final day in the arena. It was precisely noon when the gamemakers herded the tributes toward the cornucopia via fireballs. The fireballs were huge, and the tributes had to run as fast as they possibly could to get away from them. Wyatt and Tigris were running side-by-side, with roughly fifty yards between them. Then, Tigris stumbled in a small pothole. She fell forward. When a fireball landed roughly forty yards behind her, a piece of debris smashed into Tigris and killed her instantly.

 _Tigris Chapple, District 2 Female: 4th, Killed by Fireball Impact Debris, Day 15_

After Tigris' death, Wyatt was unsure whether to proceed. During training, Wyatt had excelled in many of the weapons that Tigris was carrying at the time of her death. In a decision that would either make or break his chances of survival, Wyatt raced toward the site of Tigris' death. He scavenged the plot of land around her for her supplies. Wyatt chugged down her water. He pillaged her of her weapons. And then he was off, racing toward the cornucopia and toward his fate.

Fragrance and Fleur both burst into the clearing at the exact same moment. Fleur knew that she couldn't last ten seconds against Fragrance, and so Fleur tried to hide herself from Fragrance's sight. Unsurprisingly, she was completely unsuccessful. Fragrance raced toward Fleur, and Fleur fought for her pre-ordained fate. Fragrance could easily overpower the District 7 girl. The ending blow was delivered when Fragrance brought down an axe that she had swept up a few minutes prior. The axe landed in Fleur's shoulder. Fleur fell to the ground, where she lay and wept and held her pretty self until her death a few minutes later.

 _Fleur Ivelisse, District 7 Female: 3rd, Killed by Fragrance, Day 15_

That left Fragrance Dunnet of District 1 and Wyatt Kerdler of District 3 to vie for the crown. Mere seconds later, Wyatt bowled into the clearing. Fragrance smirked delicately. She knew that she could overpower Wyatt any day. Fragrance lofted her axe into the air and smugly smirked as she tossed her axe through the air. Hastily, Wyatt picked up a backpack that sat at his feet. He placed the backpack in front of his body. The axe buried itself into the backpack.

Coursing with fury, Fragrance pulled out her sword, her other weapon. Wyatt tore the axe's sharp edge out of the backpack. Wyatt lifted it high into the air. He tossed it through the air.

What happened next is perhaps better seen in slow-motion. Wyatt threw the axe at the exact same instant that Fragrance hurled her sword. Wyatt's axe lodged itself into Fragrance's leg just as Fragrance's sword entered Wyatt's. The two careers collapsed, heaving. This was a waiting game. A hovercraft descended, ready to pick up their victor the moment that one of the tributes died.

Nearly five minutes passed, deathless. Fragrance put up a good fight. But, in the end, her wound was just a tad more severe than Wyatt's. Fragrance's eyes slowly closed as her cannon shot boomed across the arena.

 _Fragrance Dunnet, District 1 Female: 2nd, Killed by Wyatt, Day 15_

"Wyatt Kerdler of District 3, you are the victor of the thirty-second annual Hunger Games!" Augustine cheered as the hovercraft descended to collect the nation's newest victor.

Too late. Wyatt had already succumbed to the grievous wound that he had sustained. He was dead.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

Wyatt's dead body was pulled up into the hovercraft via strong electrical pulses. The medics checked his heart rate and temperature. There was no doubt about it. He was dead. They quickly revived him with a defibrillator, but the defibrillator was set for far too high of a level for young Wyatt's body. Wyatt was successfully resurrected, but the strong electrical pulse from the defibrillator would leave him with many problems for the rest of his life. His speech was often muffled. Whenever he spoke, he would repeat what he had just said two or three times quietly to himself. He suffered from tics. The Capitol actually liked Wyatt, as many were happy to see a career not from Districts 1, 2, or 4 emerge victorious.

Wyatt settled into the Victor's Village of District 3, the fifth victor to do so. District 3 had the most victors of any non-career district. They even had more victors than one of the career districts: District 4. They were even rivalling District 1, which also had five victors at the time.

His victory tour was rather ordinary; nothing of note happened during it.

Wyatt would live to the age of sixty, dying a premature death from heart failure around the time of the seventy-fifth annual Hunger Games. In his lifetime, he would not marry nor have children.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Wyatt moves into the Victor's Village of District 3, the fifth victor to do so.

Olivia Seager marries her first and only spouse, a man named Julian Lycharme.

Velvet Farrow's second child, Velvet Farrow II, is born.

Odius Ruttler's son, Euphrates, is born.

Ashlyn Breston marries her fiancé of eight years, a man named Axyl Braiden.

Dayta Albrand gives birth to her first daughter, a baby girl named Circuit.

Thor Rosner decides not to marry, as it will cause legal problems. Instead, he opts to live in a loyal, committed relationship with the girl of his dreams, just sans marriage.

Magnet Lisagor and her boyfriend, Cronus, get married in a public wedding.

Maria Dutra, a single mother, adopts her first and only child, a five year-old boy named Finn.

Barley Chisolm marries her fiancé, Sickle Arthurse.

Marlin Coppi marries his high-schools sweetheart, a nice girl named Chloe.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)

* * *

 **A/N: Phew! That News section was a bit of a doozy. In case you're wondering, I keep a spreadsheet of all of the victors and when the important events of their lives happen. I guess the victors just had a lot going on this year!**

 **This chapter was mega-long. It's the third longest chapter of this story in fact, after the** **18** **th and** **25** **th** **games in that order. I put a lot of effort into it. I had a really solid idea as to how I wanted these games to go, and I think I hit the nail on the head in terms of pulling it off. Besides the first quarter quell this is probably my favorite chapter so far :D**

 **Thanks to coolerthancool99 for this chapter's arena idea. The warzone was fun to write!**

 **Anyways, who did you think was going to win? At first I had Fragrance or Thebes winning but then I decided to go for the District 3 career because I think the Capitol would like that more than the stereotypical career. I also had the idea of the victor dying and being resurrected with a bit too strong of an electrical pulse, and I think doing that to a District 3 tribute would give the perfect dose of satire that makes the games great.**

 **If you've noticed, I've split the opening paragraph up on this chapter. Let me know what you think of that. If you like it that way, I'll continue to do that :)**

 **Thanks for reading! And thanks for the support that you've all given me. This story is now officially over 150,000 words long, which frankly blows my mind. Please review if you can! I'm always happy to take your advice because I value your feedback anywhere you give it. I'll see you next time with the thirty-third games! :D**


	34. The 33rd Hunger Games

**The 33rd Hunger Games:**

* * *

President Coriolanus Snow was disgusted at the outcome of the games the year prior. The victor having died before the hovercraft could retrieve him pleased the districts immensely. It highlighted a weakness of the Capitol. It proved that, no matter what, there was a part of the games that the Capitol couldn't control. Riots sprung up around the nation, most prominently in District 3, where Wyatt, last year's victor, hailed from. District 3 was the first to rebel, with Districts 8 and 9 jumping onto the bandwagon soon after. Districts 12 and 6 joined in on the cause. Soon, even District 4, one of the most loyal districts, had begun rebelling. Peacekeepers were summoned. People were killed in the thousands. After sixteen days, the miniature rebellion was stomped out by the Capitol. President Snow could not have the man who caused the whole thing to go unpunished, and so it was that head gamemaker Augustine Hummel paid the ultimate price at the hands of an assassin sent by Coriolanus himself. The position of head gamemaker was left vacated, and with the nasty end of Augustine there was nobody quickly willing to take his place. After about a month or so, auditions for head gamemaker began pouring in. It was as if the nation had forgotten about Augustine's fate. Such was the way of Panem. President Coriolanus Snow, now in his ninth year as president of the nation, selected a beautiful young man named Yarrow Dawnbloom to take the position. Yarrow was a hit among the Capitol; he was young, handsome, elegant, graceful, and had a marvelous sense of humor. Yarrow set up a daily talk show with the master of ceremonies. As the time for the thirty-third Hunger Games rolled around, the construction of Yarrow Dawnbloom's first arena began.

Although Panem was virtually void of religion or superstition, people still did celebrate some holidays. Most notably was Halloween. On the last day of October, kids in the Capitol would dress up as monsters or princesses or superheroes and venture out to get candy from their neighbors. Halloween originated in a far-away land to celebrate the end of the harvest season, but it still existed then in a very different form. Yarrow's first arena revolved around this holiday. The arena was a spooky Halloween nightmare. The arena's ground was stone. Covering the ground were pools filled with dark water. Mist rose from the dark pools containing strange visions. Trees, bare, rose from the ground like the hands of skeletons. Thunder and lightning danced in the sky. The cornucopia stood in the very center of the arena, made of bone. To the north was a huge mountain. The mountain dominated the landscape, but it contained the most mutts. To the south was a graveyard. The west, well, nobody really knew what the west held. It was just filled with a strange, dark fog. Any tribute that entered the fog never emerged alive. It was permanently night-time. The only light came from the powerful flood-lamps that were mounted atop stiff poles periodically throughout the arena. The tributes threw long shadows as they walked through the poorly-lit arena. The cornucopia's weapons were sleek and sharp, not unlike those of the year prior.

President Snow, wanting the most exciting games possible, interviewed some of the career victors about what they thought made a career great. The most prominent themes were skills in close-combat, and the most prominent weapon was the knife. They also had to be the perfect mixture of grace, elegance, and destruction. This year's careers all met Snow's requirements, and they were sure to be some of the best that the academy had seen in a long time. District 1's tributes were as beautiful as always, their tall stature and ocean blue eyes a sure sign that they were from District 1. Their male, a steadfast classic, chose the sword, whereas his partner chose throwing knives. The male scored a ten because, even though he focused on the sword, he could also use other weapons such as the axe and halberd well. District 1's female, though talented with the throwing knives, was also adequate for close combat, particularly with the crowbar or baton. District 2 produced the strongest batch. Their male seemed to be in the games less for the honor of winning and more for the joy of killing. Some even suspect that he received a sexual high from killing other people, but this could never be proven. Because of how he liked to draw out his kills, he greatly preferred the whip and baton over other weapons. The District 2 girl was from a lineage of peacekeepers. As such, she was skilled with the bow and arrow as well as several unique weapons, like the Warhammer and the awl. District 4's male, a wizard with the trident, was a shockingly beautiful boy. He was strong and confident. However, he did sometimes take breaks to be funny for the audience, but in a somewhat cute way. District 4's female, Molly Soltan, was the star of the show this year. She had trained at the academy for nearly ten years. She really stole the show with her knockout beauty and her mastery of weaponry, particularly with throwing knives and axes. Nobody objected when she appointed herself leader of the career pack.

The careers scored rather average scores, with five tens and one nine among them. Outside of the careers, scores were rather average. The highest score outside of the careers was scored by the District 11 boy, who worked as a vine cutter and so was a greater with the knife. Two outliers earned eights, a pretty average number. The first was Meadowlark, the District 7 female who was very skilled with the axe and knives. The second was earned by Vivian, the District 11 female who worked magic with the sickle. The rest of the tributes scored between seven and two in their private sessions. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Vuitton Trillick, 16, (10) 5-1 and Melody Sloane, 16, (9) 7-1

District 2: Triguer Hammock, 16, (10) 5-1 and Ralts Peacekeeper, 17, (10) 4-1

District 3: Jethro Zubiaga, 15, (5) 25-1 and Aetheria Mitten, 15, (5) 25-1

District 4: Hydra Agrawal, 15, (10) 8-1 and Molly Soltan, 18, (10) 4-1

District 5: Magnus Dupioni, 18, (6) 18-1 and Astruviope Clutch, 17, (4) 24-1

District 6: Bertram Masson, 16, (6) 21-1 and Ambrose Lariviere, 13, (3) 50-1

District 7: Spruce Barnes, 15, (7) 14-1 and Meadowlark Tread, 18, (8) 10-1

District 8: Ulrike Bowser, 12, (2) 80-1 and Klara Kinkling, 15, (3) 60-1

District 9: Vincente Proctor, 18, (7) 12-1 and Amberly Whelan, 16, (6) 16-1

District 10: Milford Motley, 18, (7) 12-1 and Olivine Commers, 12, (7) 29-1

District 11: Baron Gardini, 17, (9) 8-1 and Vivian Cornering, 18, (8) 9-1

District 12: Gale Tanouye, 16, (6) 16-1 and Aqua Luberoff, 14, (4) 53-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

Fingers of ice ran down the tribute's spines as they rose up into the Halloween nightmare atop their pedestals. It was a terrifying place. The cornucopia, made of bones that seemed to be rattling in place, emanated bone-warming heat that soothed the tributes. The cornucopia's warmth was such a huge contrast to the cold that, when the gong rang, every single one of the tributes decided to battle it out at the horn.

Triguer sprinted at the head of the onrush. He was several precious strides ahead of the others, bolstered on not only by adrenaline but by the sight of the whip he had requested from the gamemakers. He swept up the whip. The handle fit snugly into his grasp. Triguer cackled with glee as he lashed down the whip upon a nearby boy who was zigzagging to dodge attacks as he raced toward the cornucopia. The boy screamed as the whip wrapped around his arm. Triguer ripped the whip out of the boy's arm. The boy screamed as his entire right arm was ripped off. He collapsed to the cobblestone ground, sobbing as he quickly bled out.

 _Spruce Barnes, District 7 Male: 24th, Killed by Triguer, Bloodbath_

Molly, another fast runner, had run all the way into the cornucopia for a belt of throwing knives. She began throwing them the second the belt was securely clipped around her waist. Molly threw two of the knives at a nearby outlier. The girl screamed as the knives cut into her neck and chest. She moaned and gurgled, spasming on the damp ground as blood pooled up in her mouth.

 _Astruviope Clutch, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Molly, Bloodbath_

Vuitton's favorite weapon fell firmly and snugly into his grasp. He leapt to his feet and swung the sword into the nearest boy. The sword decapitated him in one clean slice. His head tumbled to the ground, splattering the stones an evil red.

 _Vincente Proctor, District 9 Male: 22nd, Killed by Vuitton, Bloodbath_

Having ripped the sharp teeth of his whip out of Spruce's arm, Triguer fluidly attacked his next victims: two girls who were grappling over an axe less than ten yards away. Triguer slammed his whip into the back of the older girl as the other girl sprang to her feet and tried to run away.

 _Amberly Whelan, District 9 Female: 21st, Killed by Triguer, Bloodbath_

The other girl, the one who had been fighting with Amberly, was a fast runner, but in the end she could not outrun the trained career. Triguer slammed his whip down upon her back, watching with satisfaction as the sharp teeth dug into the girl's back. She fell to the ground with a loud noise. Ralts, Triguer's district partner, polished the girl off with her baton before returning to the horn.

 _Aqua Luberoff, District 12 Female: 20th, Killed by Triguer and Ralts, Bloodbath_

Melody gritted her teeth as she dueled with Vivian, the girl from District 11. To Melody's great dismay, the girl was actually a fantastic sword-fighter. After a thirty second-long duel, Melody threw all caution to the wind and charged forward. Vivian, shocked by her sudden burst of energy, couldn't sidestep fast enough before the sword buried itself into her chest and protruded from her back.

 _Vivian Cornering, District 11 Female: 19th, Killed by Melody, Bloodbath_

Melody pulled her sword out of Vivian's limp form and fluidly attacked her newest prey: a weak girl who was crawling low to the ground with hopes of staying out of the sight of the careers. Melody made eye contact with the girl, and she froze in place, paralyzed with terror and quivering in Melody's wake. Melody charged forward and slashed her sword into her side, watching as blood flowed from the wound like water.

 _Ambrose Lariviere, District 6 Female: 18th, Killed by Melody, Bloodbath_

Ralts smirked when she saw two girls running into the cornucopia together, probably allies. Ralts beckoned for her ally and close friend, Hydra. The two charged toward the mouth of the cornucopia, trapping the two girls inside. Ralts disemboweled the taller of the two girls with her baton, smashing her in the head until her skull cracked in two.

 _Klara Kinkling, District 8 Female: 17th, Killed by Ralts, Bloodbath_

Hydra was quick to go in for the kill upon his prey, spearing her in the chest with his trident. Ralts and Hydra shared a high-five at the sight of their two limp forms.

 _Olivine Commers, District 10 Female: 16th, Killed by Hydra, Bloodbath_

Molly, wanting to make a splash to impress the sponsors, removed two throwing knives from her belt and threw them at two different tributes at the exact same time. Miraculously, both throwing knives found their targets. The first to bleed out was a dark-haired boy whose head had a knife sticking out of the nape of his neck.

 _Gale Tanouye, District 12 Male: 15th, Killed by Molly, Bloodbath_

The other throwing knife took significantly longer to kill its target, simply because the knife landed in its victim's shoulder and not somewhere more vulnerable.

 _Bertram Masson, District 6 Male: 14th, Killed by Molly, Bloodbath_

Triguer made the final kill. There was only one outlier left at the cornucopia: young Ulrike from District 8. Triguer gave him only two lashes. He collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain. The other careers gathered around to watch him die. They soon grew bored, however, and requested that Triguer finish him off so that they could get hunting. Triguer obeyed, growing a little bored himself, by burying the sharp teeth of his whip into the boy's chest and then peeling off his skin.

 _Ulrike Bowser, District 8 Male: 13th, Killed by Triguer, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the twelve remained tributes swelled out across the arena. Six of them were careers and six were outliers, a blend that wasn't ideal per se but could still work if Yarrow managed it right. He would have to make sure that the deaths of careers all were cancelled out by the deaths of outliers, or else the games would be short and boring.

The careers instantly began hunting. Multiple divisions seemed to be forming in the careers, primarily in the district partnerships. District 1's male and female, District 2's male and female, and District 4's male and female all seemed to be sticking together and keeping apart from the other districts. When they had thrown together their favorite weapons, they began hunting immediately in pairs of two, the two tributes from each district in each group. Time would tell if this strategy would be efficient. The District 1 tributes were good friends, and so that group worked. District 2's pair weren't the greatest cronies, but they did coordinate well. The tributes from District 4 had virtually identical skill sets, and so they worked well together. They went their separate ways, the District 1 tributes heading for the graveyard, 2 for the mountain, and 4 for the forest.

At the conclusion of the bloodbath, the mountain seemed to be the most alluring feature in the arena. It dominated the arena, like a sharp piece of rough metal sprouting from the earth. Completely fruitless, it had lots of great hiding places. It was almost perpetually shrouded in darkness. The mountain seemed to be popular among the outliers. After grabbing supplies and running away, Milford ran toward the mountain and began scaling it. The ground was slick; he often needed to walk slowly to keep from sliding across the rocky floor. About halfway up, he camped out for the night in a small crevasse. Aetheria and Meadowlark had allied before the games. They had opposite skillsets, which meant that one always had a skill that the other lacked. Aetheria was a lesser in weaponry but was an impeccable wilderness survivalist, able to identify the edible moss on the mountain. Many could see the fighter in Meadowlark's eyes. It was true; she was a fantastic warrior and wasn't worried about getting her hands dirty if she needed to. The two allies trekked up the mountain, huddling close to each other to keep warm. Aetheria's spoils from the bloodbath included a bowl and a coil of rope. Meadowlark had an axe and two knives, one of which she handed over to Aetheria for whatever horrors the arena may hold. Hunger and dehydration were beginning to take in as they trekked up the mountain. Finally, they saw something almost heavenly: candy! Candy corn and lollipops and taffy dotted the floor. In unspoken agreement, the two girls lunged forward and munched down the candy, abandoning all caution as to the fact that it could be poisonous. It wasn't. The two girls feasted on the stuff. That night, they huddled together for warmth in a small cove.

The graveyard had only one human inhabitant by the end of Day 1. Each gravestone provided a place to hide. Additionally, the place was constantly shrouded in darkness and so really anywhere could be a hiding place. Baron, the strongest tribute outside of the careers, sought out refuge in the graveyard after escaping the bloodbath with a backpack that he had stuffed with weapons. He hid behind a huge gravestone and fell asleep almost immediately. The names on the graves were the names of dead tributes from previous Hunger Games. Of course, their bodies were not buried there, they were all in the tribute vaults, but it added a sensation of queerness and spookiness to the scene.

The forest, while it had the most coverage, also had the most dangers, particularly mutts. Magnus went there after the bloodbath, seeking its darkness. One would have expected the number of inhabitants in the dark forest to be higher. Perhaps the tributes were just too scared to enter. Magnus trekked on and on, as if it was broad daylight and he wasn't in an environment in which he could die at any second. Perhaps that was what he was pretending. Perhaps that was what made him not so scared. Jethro from 3 also hid in the forest, seeking its shelter. He had escaped the bloodbath with everything electronic he could find. He instantly began work on some kind of project. He had little food or water. As such, he had to manage his food and water sources wisely. He licked condensed liquid off of the stepping stones, and he ate the edible moss that clung to many of the trees. Nobody was quite sure how far he would make it. He was weak, but he was an impeccable survivalist and worked magic with his machines. Time would have to do the talking.

After the bloodbath, the rest of Day 1 passed in peace. Every tribute went to their hiding place and stuck there. Perhaps there was a sort of comfort in having a place to call home. Once a tribute found their place to stay, they stuck to it and perhaps only ventured out a few hundred yards for food or water.

From the "morning" until "noon" of Day 2 (there wasn't really day or night because it was always dark) there was a lot of movement but little action. Aetheria and Meadowlark left their little crevasse and went out searching for food. They were growing fed up with the disgusting moss. They ended up finding some of the candy that was scattered around the arena. They gathered up lots of candy corn and put it in a pan that they had received from a sponsor a few minutes prior. They were apprehensive about starting a fire, primarily because any sort of light would stick out like a sore thumb in the foggy darkness of the Halloween arena. The two girls barricaded themselves into a cave. They used saplings that had taken root in the mountain for firewood. Then, they melted the pot of candy corn into a thick liquid. They doused the fire before waiting for the melted candy corn to re-harden. When it did, they turned the pot over and out fell a "pancake" of sugary deliciousness. They all dug in, enjoying their meal. Other than Aetheria and Meadowlark's pancake expedition, the morning of Day 2 was rather dull. It wasn't until the evening of Day 2 that things really started picking up.

Yarrow, wanting to get the ball rolling towards an exciting games, unleashed the first hoard of muttations. They were bats. About two feet in wingspan, the creatures gathered in swarms of nearly a hundred. Their only features visible in the darkness of the arena were their blood red eyes, mirroring the color of the blood that they craved for so much. The bats attacked three main targets: the careers, Magnus, and the duo of Aetheria and Meadowlark.

The careers received the largest swarm of bats. Their eeking was so loud that they had to repress the urge to slam their hands over their ears and drown out the screeches. They were so caught off-guard that for several seconds it was all they could do to swat them away and run in the general direction of their weapons.

Vuitton and Melody both had swords, which were the most useful weapons against the monsters that also preferred close-range battle. Triguer's whip worked somewhat, but it was rather inefficient against the creatures that didn't seem to feel pain. Ralts' baton and Hydra's trident worked. Molly, however, ditched her throwing knives in favor of a crowbar.

At first, Melody seemed to be doing most of the damage to the bats. She was the most agile of the careers. That, coupled with the fact that she was a wizard with her sword, allowed her to subdue many of the bats with ease. The strategy that she found most helpful was to sweep her sword across her entire field of vision, knocking off several bats, and then motioning for one of her allies to take out the ones that were disoriented from the slash.

Vuitton quickly joined in with his sword, slashing and stabbing away at the bloodthirsty creatures. However, the cloud of bats was growing so big that he soon couldn't see where he was going. He made a wide slash with his sword. Vuitton's sword cut through the air, along its path, and buried itself into nearby Melody's head. Melody screamed as she dropped to the ground. All of the bats lunged toward where she lay. Melody screamed in agony and thrashed around as the bats hooked onto her and began sucking her blood.

 _Melody Sloane, District 1 Female: 12th, Killed by Vuitton and Vampire Bat Muttations, Day 2_

A good three-quarters of the bats were now devouring Melody, and so it was easy for the other careers to slash away at the bats and kill them now that they weren't moving as much. Soon, the careers had slaughtered all of the bats. They had succeeded. At least, five of them had. They all looked at each other in earnest as they pushed away Melody into a corner of the clearing before she started to smell.

Meanwhile, in the forest, Magnus was facing a group of about five bats on his own. He seemed to be doing well. Magnus eventually outsmarted them by standing right in front of a wide-trunked tree. Then, when the bats were right about to hit him, he dove out of the way. The bats all smacked into the tree, where they fell to the ground. Magnus quickly dug a hole with his shovel and buried them, where they suffocated to death under the weight of the dirt.

Those tributes had been able to, at varying degrees of success, defend against the vampire bats. Aetheria and Meadowlark, however, was kind of a different story. They had retrieved a blanket from a sponsor a few hours prior. It was just in time. When the bats came for the two girls, they buried themselves under the thick blanket and covered their faces, waiting for the swarm of bats to pass. When the bats lifted the blanket off of them, they knew that they had no choice but to fight. Meadowlark certainly had the advantage. Her axe cut through the air, taking out one or sometimes even two bats with each wide breadth. The fight lasted nearly an hour, with no side winning. Eventually, the bats were recalled by the gamemakers. After all, they didn't want to shake up the tributes too much. They wanted them to be at least somewhat prepared for the much greater horrors that were to come.

The other tributes, the ones that had not been targeted by the vampire bats, were rather spooked by the attack. They had heard the screeching of bats and the screaming of tributes, but they didn't know what the threat was. Many of the tributes barricaded themselves into hiding just in case the threat came for them. Even the mighty careers needed to spend the rest of Day 2 nursing their wounds at the cornucopia before they could go hunting. The only real event that happened after the bat attack was in the duo of Aetheria and Meadowlark up on the mountain. They asked for some glue from sponsors, which was an extremely cheap gift. Then, they got to work. It took a long time for the glue to dry because of how damp the arena was, but eventually the glue did dry. They had fashioned themselves a sheet of rock that they would slide in front of the entrance to their cove in case of emergency. They demonstrated how it would work to the audience. The sheet of rock could easily be slid to the left to cover the entrance in case those vampire bats, or anything else for that matter, should return again.

Day 3 passed, empty of conflict. All of the surviving careers were now well enough to go out hunting. When they did, they all went to the mountain, reasoning that many a tribute would feel safe there. They returned to the cornucopia that night without making any kills. The next day, they would look in the forest for more prey.

But, they need not look for prey. Prey was brought to them when a warewolf muttation awoke from its slumber in the forest. It could smell blood nearby. It could also smell smoke. It eventually found Magnus hiding in a ditch. Several trees had fallen around the ditch. Magnus was rather safe and snug inside of his wooden fortress, warming himself by a fire. Magnus yelped with panic when he saw the warewolf's eyes gazing down at him. Magnus grabbed his sword, got to his feet, and ran. The warewolf chased him toward the cornucopia, where the careers were about to receive a nasty surprise.

The careers woke up and grabbed for their weapons as Magnus bowled into the clearing, the warewolf right behind him. Not spotting the warewolf at first, Molly flung one of her throwing knives toward Magnus. In her sleep-addled state, Molly's aim wasn't the best, but the knife still found its target. Magnus slumped like a stone, the warewolf slurping his blood and then throwing him aside like an empty juice box.

 _Magnus Dupioni, District 5 Male: 11th, Killed by Molly and Warewolf Muttation, Day 4_

The warewolf's perpetual hunger could not be sated by Magnus; the warewolf went for the careers next. In recent games, the gamemakers had given the careers many more trials and tribulations that just having them go out hunting. Mutts had attacked the careers galore, a trend that Yarrow intended to continue for as many years as he might remain head gamemaker. The wolf barreled into the clearing and grabbed the first career that it saw: Hydra of District 4. Hydra couldn't see the creature because of how black its fur was. The warewolf grabbed Hydra and slammed it into the ground, crushing his insides to a pulp and then goring on his blood.

 _Hydra Agrawal, District 4 Male: 10th, Killed by Warewolf Muttation, Day 4_

With the warewolf engrossed in feasting upon Hydra, the other careers ran towards the monster and slew it with ease. They tore off its fur and hung it outside of the cornucopia. They hoped that this would give anybody who wanted to raid the cornucopia second thoughts.

The rest of Day 4 passed, void of conflict. Only one more death to go until the final eight, Yarrow tried to pull away from the gory muttation killing for a few days. Day 4 inched by. The only movement outside of the hunting careers was in Baron, who was walking when he tumbled into one of the dark pools of the arena.

One moment, Baron was walking around, looking for food. The next moment, he was struggling to stay asurface in the freezing water. Suddenly, images began racing in Baron's mind. It was like how they show a character having a vision in a film. Images flashed. Distorted sound rushed into his mind. Sounds of screams and death and blood. Visions of monsters and demons and selfishness. Greed and poverty. Gore and hatred. Miserable Baron dragged himself out of the lake, coughing up the cold water and heaving himself dry. Angry mist was steaming up from the pool. It was as if the pool had been feasting on him and was mad that he had escaped it.

The water itself was invented mere months prior, but had not been fully unveiled until that moment. The sensation of the water stimulated particular synapses in the brain responsible for negative emotion. Baron had swallowed a bit too much of the dark water, but not enough to kill him. He dragged himself into a corpse of bushes and tried to quiet his labored breathing as he willed the filthy, horrible water out of his system.

Days 5, 6, and 7 crept by. They were the slowest that the thirty-third Hunger Games had seen yet. Progress had slowed to a crawl. In that time, Jethro, who had previously staked inhabitance in the forest, left and instead travelled over to the graveyard. Atop the mountain, Aetheria and Meadowlark stayed in their little cove. While Meadowlark was teetering on the line of being viewed as a weakling, Aetheria had already tumbled far over it. Her encounter with the vampire bats had traumatized her so much that she refused to leave the cave.

On Day 8, the mountain's top blew. Out came not lava but an evil black liquid. The highly acidic solution worked similar methods to the evil water that Baron had fallen into. This black liquid, however, would kill without moments of exposure.

Five tributes were on the mountainside when the black liquid emerged: Triguer and Ralts from 2, Aetheria from 3, Meadowlark from 7, and Milford from 10.

Meadowlark and Aetheria were closest to the top of the mountain when the flow began. A huge plume of the stuff crashed down mere feet from where they were scavenging. They yelped and ran from the black liquid as fast as their legs could carry them, a few precious strides ahead of the terrible stuff. Milford was at the base of the mountain when the black liquid (a substance nicknamed "Aether" by its inventor) came pouring down toward him. In a panic, Milford shinnied up one of the skeletal trees. The aether rushed under him and weakened the bark of the tree. Milford screamed in panic as the tree toppled right into the torrent of aether.

 _Milford Motley, District 10 Male: 9th, Killed by Aether Eruption, Day 8_

That left the final eight: Vuitton from 1, Triguer and Ralts from 2, Jethro and Aetheria from 3, Molly from 4, Meadowlark from 7, and Baron from 11.

Back atop the cornucopia, Aetheria and Meadowlark ran away from the flow of evil liquid that was following them. Soon, Meadowlark stumbled. She fell to the ground, pushing Aetheria down like a domino with her. The two watched with terror as the aether consumed their bodies and dissolved them until not a single trace of their lives remained.

 _Meadowlark Tread, District 7 Female: 8th, Killed by Aether Eruption, Day 8_

 _Aetheria Mitten, District 3 Female: 7th, Killed by Aether Eruption, Day 8_

Back on the mountain, Triguer and Ralts ran down the mountain face, side-by-side, with roughly fifteen yards between them. Racing down the slick stone, it was difficult to keep from sliding. Unfortunately for her, Ralts slipped on the slick metal and slid right into a plume of the aether.

 _Ralts Peacekeeper, District 2 Female: 6th, Killed by Aether Eruption, Day 8_

A lightbulb went off in Triguer's head. He got down onto his stomach and gave himself a little push. He started off slow, but ended up sliding down the mountainside at a fast rate. It was painful, for if ever a pebble got stuck under his torso it would stay there until he reached down and pulled it away. By the time he reached the foot of the mountain, Triguer's stomach was so scratched and bleeding that it was painful for him to run. He did so nevertheless, making it back to the cornucopia and to Vuitton and Molly, the only surviving careers other than himself.

Four lives had been claimed by the aether eruption. The eruption was the highlight of these games. After that exciting event, Yarrow was able to get away with one, two, even three days passing by without any deaths. Days 9 thru 11 had no movement, even among the careers. The others both needed to stay behind and nurse Triguer's cuts and scrapes, a few of which had become infected.

Day 12 would prove to be the last day in the arena.

Jethro had been working on a little project of his for the last couple of days. Every day he asked the sponsors for very specific supplies. Puzzled and intrigued, he almost always got them. He had actually taken advantage of the eruption by collecting some of the aether in a jar and screwing on the lid. He used the aether in his project.

Noon on Day 12, Molly and Triguer were out hunting, whereas Vuitton stood guard at the cornucopia. In a leap of faith that would either make or break his odds of survival, Jethro tossed the bomb that he had fashioned straight into the cornucopia. After roughly ten seconds, the bomb exploded. The entire cornucopia was blown to pieces, along with Vuitton.

 _Vuitton Trillick, District 1 Male: 5th, Killed by Jethro's Bomb, Day 12_

The cornucopia exploded into a million pieces of debris. One of the pieces of debris smacked into Jethro, killing him.

 _Jethro Zubiaga, District 3 Male: 4th, Killed by His own Bomb, Day 12_

The three remaining tributes (Triguer, Molly, and Baron) all diverted their gaze to the cornucopia, which had shot up in a fireball so big that it lit the haunted forest on fire. Baron was in the forest at the time. He tried to escape, but he was not fast enough. The fire was catching up on him. Soon, he was trapped. He was completely surrounded by fire. All he could do was sob and bite his nails and accept his fate as the fire approached him and burned him to death.

 _Baron Gardini, District 11 Male: 3rd, Killed by Fire, Day 12_

That left Triguer Hammock of District 2 and Molly Soltan of District 4 to vie for the crown. The gamemakers forced those tributes toward the cornucopia via fireballs. The entire world was ablaze around the two tributes as they realized that they were the only two tributes remaining. Triguer brandished his whip, while Molly pulled out her crowbar and her belt of throwing knives.

Molly ran forth, lifting her crowbar high into the air and ready to bring it down upon Triguer's head. Triguer sidestepped and ran around the girl. Triguer cracked his whip and smashed it into Molly's hand. Molly screamed as her entire hand was torn off, her crowbar with it. Triguer ripped off Molly's belt of knives. Now, Molly was defenseless. Triguer prowled toward her.

Molly's only weapon was her left hand: her non-dominant hand. Abandoning all caution, Molly realized that she needed either throw all caution to the wind or die right there. Molly lunged forth. Triguer was surprised by her sudden burst of passion; he couldn't sidestep fast enough before Molly slammed his whip away, watching as it flew over its path before disappearing into the inferno. Molly wrapped her elbow around Triguer's neck and squeezed for her entire worth. Her grasp was strong, bolstered further by adrenaline. At first, Triguer thrashed and tried to escape. That just made him use up oxygen faster. Within two minutes, Triguer's cannon shot boomed across the arena.

 _Triguer Hammock, District 2 Male: 2nd, Killed by Molly, Day 12_

"Molly Soltan of District 4, you are the victor of the thirty-third annual Hunger Games!" Yarrow proclaimed, his voice accompanied by a symphony of trumpets.

Molly let go of the once-mighty Triguer Hammock, watching with satisfaction as he crumpled to the ground like a torn paper doll. Molly cheered and threw her hands into the air in celebration of her victory.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

Upon Molly's victory, there became another pair of victors with the same first name. Molly Soltan shared the same first name as Molly Toliday. Molly and Molly met up and became the best of companions. Soon, the two Mollys were like two sisters, or more fittingly a mother and a daughter because of their huge age differences. The Capitol loved Molly's bloodthirstiness. District 4 was elated to receive their fifth victor. They were now tied with District 1 in terms of amount of victors. District 1 was absolutely infuriated at how few victors they were getting. They would be sure to make a real splash next year.

Molly moved into the victor's village of District 4, the fifth victor to do so.

Her victory tour went rather well in most of the districts. During her stop in District 2, she was ignored and degraded for the entirety of her stay. District 11 was also cold about her victory, for it had been many years since a District 11 tribute had come as close to victory as Baron had.

Molly would live to the spectacular age of ninety, falling down the stairs of her Victor's Village home around the time of the one-hundred fifteenth annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would marry. However, she could not have children of her own so she adopted a baby boy.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Molly moves into Victor's Village of District 4, the fifth victor to do so.

Isaac Crandall marries a woman named Lucille.

Gold Carson's second child, Glitter, is born.

Magnet Lisagor has her first child with her spouse, a healthy baby boy named Kit.

Barley Chisolm bears a baby boy named Sickle.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Molly, our newest victor!**

 **Here's a trend that I've noticed with my writing: during the weekdays, I have virtually no time to write. On the weekends, I'm a writing machine. I've typed up about two and a half chapters in two days. That's why I've been able to update daily for a few days.**

 **I'm about to ask for some ideas, readers. I need some good names for tributes from Districts 1, 2, 4, and 7. I have plenty of name ideas for the other districts, but I'm super short on names for tributes from these four. If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them :D**

 **I'll see you next time with the thirty-fourth games. Until next time :D**


	35. The 34th Hunger Games

**The 34th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

In sharp contrast to the year prior, the thirty-fourth year after the dark days passed with minimal rebellion. The mini rebellion of the previous year had been stomped out by the Capitol. The districts did not attempt to rebel again, having seen the sheer scale of the Capitol's power. President Coriolanus Snow, returning for his tenth year as president, was immensely pleased about how much the districts feared him. He had them right where he wanted them. Now that he did, he squeezed down his grasp and held it firm. Labor quotas in the districts that had rebelled skyrocketed. Snow would also make sure to rig some of their reapings to ensure that a few rebel's children were forced to enter the games.

The thirty-third Hunger Games had been a massive success in the Capitol. With the success of those games, the Capitol was now wrapped up in a full Hunger Game frenzy. Betting was on overdrive. Spendings on ceremonies, parties, and festivities were some of the highest in history. Head Gamemaker Yarrow Dawnbloom returned for his second year as head gamemaker, having successfully executed one of the most coveted games yet. The arena for the thirty-fourth Hunger Games was a tropical rainforest. The cornucopia stood nestled in a lush valley in the very center of the arena. Masterfully crafted from the leaves and sticks of the jungle was the cornucopia. Among the cornucopia's weapons were spears, swords, chakrams, maces, pitchforks, tridents, and knives. But, by far, knives were the most plentiful. The cornucopia burst at the seams with knives of all shapes and sizes. They would be paramount for the tributes to be able to cut through the thickets and to get around. Beyond the cornucopia, the jungle stood in all of its majesty. The sound of birds singing their songs was nearly always present. A huge river, swift and cool, meandered through the arena. Waterfalls also cascaded from higher levels to lower levels of the arena.

The careers this year were some of the best that the academy had ever seen. There was a rather monumental stumble in District 1, however. Their male, who preferred the sword, loved all of the attention from the Capitol. When not in front of the nation, he was more laid back and unconventional. A girl named Brilliance was selected as District 1's female volunteer. However, a girl named Luster volunteered as well. Since Luster cried out "I volunteer" before Brilliance, she was officially a tribute. Brilliance was absolutely furious because she was eighteen and would never be able to volunteer again. District 2 certainly produced a much stronger batch than their counterparts from 1 and 4. Their male scored a ten. He had a sort of mysticism floating around him that sent a shiver down the spines of the outliers. He was a spear and scythe user. The District 2 female also scored a ten, with four-to-one odds of taking home the crown. She was skilled with the knife, able to work magic with that weapon. The District 4 male was noticeably the most powerful of the careers. Tidewater Ousley, the son of District 4's head academy trainer, stole the show with his beauty and his mastery of weaponry, particularly with tridents and axes. The District 4 female, a beautifully dark-haired girl, had sea-green eyes that she often received compliments on. She was short for her age, but she did insist that she was dangerous. Her training score supported that: a nine.

Outside of the careers, a strong alliance formed. It consisted of: Summer Erumphant, District 5's lively and bubbly girl; Grover Handa, the District 7 boy who managed an astounding ten via his looks and his mastery of the bow and axe; Wilda Comanor, District 7's golden-blonde, axe-brandishing girl; and Harvest Corum, the District 11 boy who had mastered the scythe. The quartet of Summer, Grover, Wilda, and Harvest became quickly known as the anti-careers because of their game plan. Their alliance formed with the goal of killing, primarily the killing of the careers. An alliance of this strength had perhaps never been seen before outside of the careers. The careers, seeing competition, would be sure to try to eliminate them early. In general, the training scores were slightly higher than average. Tens were scored by District 2's tributes, Tidewater (District 4's boy), and Grover. The boy from District 1 and the girl from District 4 both earned nines. Eights were managed by Luster from 1 and Wilda from 7. The only sevens scored were Summer from 5, Ardath from 9, and Harvest and Silk from 11. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: twelve year-old Zoe Jia from District 7, who was terminally ill and knew that her only hope of treatment was to win the Hunger Games. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Onyx Rieder, 17, (9) 7-1 and Luster Lemessurier, 17, (8) 9-1

District 2: Dante Dalgarno, 17, (10) 4-1 and Ceceillia Daynard, 16, (10) 4-1

District 3: Hephaestus Giles, 16, (5) 24-1 and Sirena Kline, 17, (5) 23-1

District 4: Tidewater Ousley, 18, (10) 3-1 and Quay Nietzsche, 17, (9) 5-1

District 5: Apollo Drinker, 15, (3) 50-1 and Summer Erumphant, 17, (7) 14-1

District 6: Cosmo Symonds, 18, (6) 16-1 and Lainey Decanio, 15, (4) 37-1

District 7: Grover Handa, 18, (10) 4-1 and Wilda Comanor, 16, (8) 8-1

District 8: Brian Silberstein, 13, (3) 75-1 and Elannia Ceaderbaume, 13, (3) 75-1

District 9: Ardath Fielder, 18, (7) 13-1 and Sondra Palacios, 14, (5) 29-1

District 10: Emmanuel Broadway, 16, (4) 32-1 and Zoe Jia, 12, (2) 90-1

District 11: Harvest Corum, 16, (7) 14-1 and Silk Urbanski, 16, (7) 14-1

District 12: Landreth Sunbird, 14, (4) 37-1 and Sorcha Whikkam, 13, (5) 51-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

The tribute's mouths hung wide open as they rose up into the arena atop their pedestals. All around them were cascading waterfalls, colorful birds, and brightly colored jungle. It was warm: a slightly disagreeable seventy-two degrees Farenheit. The air felt damp and thick to the tributes. The arena itself was a wonder, masterfully created under Yarrow's supervision. It would prove to be one of the highlights of his career.

The bounty of the jungle was enticing to many a tribute. As such, when the gong pealed across the arena, four tributes fled immediately. They were Cosmo from 6, Brian from 8, Silk from 11, and Sorcha from 12.

Tidewater sprinted at the head of the onrush, his heavy footsteps thundering across the ground as he raced toward an axe that sat in a thicket of tall grass twenty yards from his pedestal. Tidewater swept up the axe and brought it down upon the nearest tribute: a nearby boy who was scrambling toward the cornucopia, zigzagging to avoid attacks. The blade of the axe buried itself into the tender flesh between his shoulder blades. The boy screamed as he collapsed to the ground. Tidewater cackled maniacally as he ripped his axe out of the boy's back and hacked open his torso.

 _Emmanuel Broadway, District 10 Male: 24th, Killed by Tidewater, Bloodbath_

Dante, another fast runner, picked up a whimsically curved sword that lay on the ground. It rested in one of the few beams of sunlight filtering through the heavy canopy of the jungle trees. Dante quickly went in for the kill upon the twelve year-old Zoe from 10, who was trying to off him with a blade of her own with hopes of eliminating competition early on. Zoe had no such luck; her eyes widened with terror as Dante whirled around and slashed his blade across her chest. Zoe screeched as she slumped to the ground. She sobbed as Dante made quick work of her, reveling in his first kill. District 10's chances of victory were extinguished upon her death.

 _Zoe Jia, District 10 Female: 23rd, Killed by Dante, Bloodbath_

Ceceillia picked up one of the smaller boys and lifted him a few feet into the air. The career threw her onto the ground with all of her might, watching with satisfaction as she crumpled to the lush grass like a torn paper doll. Ceceillia grabbed her by either side of the neck and did the deed. The snap was sickening to hear, and it gave many little girls and boys nightmares for years to come. A later victor would say that this was the most traumatizing death that they saw in the games as a child.

 _Apollo Drinker, District 5 Male: 22nd, Killed by Ceceillia, Bloodbath_

Tidewater wrenched his axe out of Emmanuel's blood-lathered form and threw himself toward a nearby girl, who was crouched down on the ground, busy taking inventory of the contents of a slender black suitcase. The girl tried to scramble away, but the moment she got to her feet she tripped back over the suitcase. Realizing that trying to escape was hopeless, the girl closed her eyes as Tidewater's axe disemboweled her skeletal form.

 _Elannia Ceaderbaume, District 8 Female: 21st, Killed by Tidewater, Bloodbath_

The anti-careers (Summer, Grover, Wilda, and Harvest) were not trained careers. Although they didn't want to go killing, they knew that flexing their combatant might to the audience would greatly increase their chances of survival. Wilda swept up a serrated dagger that sat on a sleek, wooden countertop inside of the cornucopia. She tossed the dagger toward a nearby boy. He screamed as the blade dug into his chest. The boy slumped like a stone as Wilda ran over to his side to rip her dagger out of his body. Wilda's face seemed to be completely void of expression, as if all of the emotions of the spectrum were cancelling out like the sides of a math equation.

 _Landreth Sunbird, District 12 Male: 20th, Killed by Wilda, Bloodbath_

Quay may not have been the strongest career in the world, but she certainly was a fast and agile runner. Being a career, it was dangerous for her to be disarmed because of the shield that was painted onto her back. Quay zigzagged to avoid scattered attacks as she stormed toward a trident that leaned against the cornucopia. Quay picked up the trident and planted its three bronze prongs into the chest of a nearby girl who was trying to escape the cornucopia with a spile and a package of water bottles. Her form went limp as Quay's trident entered her chest; she promptly fell to the ground at Quay's feet.

 _Sirena Kline, District 3 Female: 19th, Killed by Quay, Bloodbath_

Tidewater's axe swiftly and aerodynamically cut through the air as he stormed toward a girl who had embarrassed him during training by hiding his favorite weapon while he left for a bathroom break. Tidewater kicked her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. She fell to the ground, exposing her neck and upper torso. Tidewater mercilessly hacked away at these areas with his weapon, wiping off his bloodstained axe in the grass after he was done.

 _Lainey Decanio, District 6 Female: 18th, Killed by Tidewater, Bloodbath_

Grover, the strongest tribute outside of the careers, certainly had a lot of expectations to meet up to. He locked his fingers around a throwing axe that he found in a cluster of yellow blossoms at his feet. Grover got within a reasonable distance of one of the careers—Tidewater—and threw. The throwing axe missed Tidewater, instead sabotaging a boy who was mere seconds from escaping the bloodbath into the thicket of the jungle. The axe buried itself into the back of his neck. He fell, blood gushing from his wound. Grover darted toward him, arcing around Tidewater, to rip his axe out of the boy's side.

 _Hephaestus Giles, District 3 Male: 17th, Killed by Grover, Bloodbath_

Onyx hadn't managed to make a kill yet, but he was determined to do so before the bloodbath reached its conclusion. Onyx picked up a shogei that leaned against a crate inside of the cornucopia. Onyx hurled the knife, watching as its string trailed away. Onyx's face sported a triumphant expression as he watched the shogei arc along its path before landing squarely in Harvest's head. Onyx had eliminated one member of the anti-careers, something that made him very proud indeed.

 _Harvest Corum, District 11 Male: 16th, Killed by Onyx, Bloodbath_

Tidewater made the final kill. The anti-careers, down to three members, had managed to scamper away from the cornucopia mere seconds prior. All of the careers stood around the cornucopia in silence and set their gaze upon the only non-career remaining at the cornucopia: little Sondra from 9. Sondra tried to duck behind a crate to shield herself from the sight of the careers, but they had already seen her. Tidewater did the honors, swinging his axe through the air and burying it perfectly into her skull. The crunching sound was quickly accompanied by ten cannon shots.

 _Sondra Palacios, District 9 Female: 15th, Killed by Tidewater, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the tributes spread out across the entire arena. The careers immediately began hunting, hoping to catch a few tributes off-guard, disoriented from the chaos of the bloodbath. Seconds after the final bloodbath cannon faded away, the careers grabbed their weapons and made for the brightly colored jungle.

The anti-careers were now down to three members: Summer from 5 and Grover and Wilda from 7. They were the fastest runners besides the careers. They also recognized the fact that they were the biggest threat to the careers' victory and so they basically had targets painted onto their backs. They mostly kept to the thick areas of the jungle, where they used the sharp edges of their weapons to cut through whatever thick vines lay in their way. The wildlife of the jungle was bountiful; by the end of the day, the three caballeros had cut down several parrots and several brightly-colored newts and squirrels. Grover, the nature survivalist expert, made sure that they were safe to eat. Then, the anti-careers started a fire on the bank of the river, where they could extinguish their fire in mere seconds if need-be. The meat was delicious, and after the fact they all dipped their feet into the rushing river to cool off. District 11's Silk was certainly a beautiful girl, and it showed. She got a rather handsome number of sponsor gifts before the first day grew old. Her main downfall was the fact that she had ran away from the cornucopia immediately after the gong rang. Many people saw this as a display of "cowardice" or "unwillingness to kill". Silk eventually started gathering fruit to eat. Being from District 11, she recognized several edible fruits in the forest. Cosmo from 6, being the son of a recreationally fishing father, was a talented fisher. He filed a rock into a curved hook and then fashioned thin twine out of the fibers of the jungle trees. He threw his fishhook into the water and waited. It was nearly fifteen minutes later, and Cosmo was just about to give up when he felt a tug on the hook. He pulled. Flying toward him was a beautiful fish, of a silvery sheen and sparkling with every color of the rainbow. The fish hit him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. He now knew one thing: the rivers had fish. He spent the rest of the day fishing, having filled up an entire buckets worth with them. With some salt from a sponsor, the fish were delicious. Sorcha from 12 had also run away from the bloodbath. She was virtually knowledgeless of how to find food or water in an environment like this. She didn't trust the brightly-colored wildlife, reasoning that bright colors were usually nature's way of telling you to stay away. Eventually, an idea popped into her head. She had seen a tribute holding something at the cornucopia: a spile. She had seen them back in District 12. She had seen how thirsty miners would shove a spile into a tree and watch as crystal clear water flowed into a bucket that they had placed below. Sorcha fashioned a spile with a piece of wood. She took down a parrot and used its claw as a carving tool. However crude, Sorcha held a spile in her hands. Quivering with anticipation and uncertainty, she treaded over to a nearby tree and cut a little dent into it using her rock. Then, with all of her might, Sorcha shoved the spile deep into the tree. Minutes passed in anticipation. Then, a slow drizzle of liquid began pouring from the tree. Sorcha cupped her hands under the drizzle and waited about three minutes for her hands to fill. Then, she shoved the clean water into her mouth. Ardath from District 9 was the strongest tribute outside of the careers and the anti-careers. He wielded a sickle that he had collected from the cornucopia. He ventured away from the horn, starting out fast and then gradually slowing down as fatigue took over. He had grabbed quite a bit from the bloodbath, and he was off to a good start.

Brian from 8 was young. He was weak, and didn't fully comprehend the importance of getting the heck away from the careers. He jogged all of the way away from the cornucopia, and in that time he made no effort to silence his footsteps. Of course, it was only a matter of time until the careers stumbled upon the clumsy boy. Brian was trying to dig a hole in the dirt, noticing that whenever he did so water pooled up in the bottom of the hole. He was rather loud and clumsy in his work. This quickly attracted the attention of the careers. Tidewater and Quay heard his loud sounds from the cornucopia and dismissed themselves to go on and hunt him down. They quietly prowled through the arena with hopes of remaining hidden from his sense of hearing. They found him quickly. Tidewater did the honors, burying his axe into his torso. The blade of the axe lodged itself between two of his ribs and dislocated several other bones. He fell, heaving, where Quay finished him off by plunging her dagger deep into the side of his head.

 _Brian Silberstein, District 8 Male: 14th, Killed by Tidewater and Quay, Day 1_

After Brian's death, Day 1 trickled by, virtually empty of conflict among the thirteen remaining tributes. Yarrow was rather pleased with how fast-paced these games were going. He wanted to get the ball rolling, which he would do on Days 2 and 3 with several different mutts. The tributes spread out and stuck to their hiding places. Sorcha had her spile, and so she could get water without having to make the long trek to the river. All of the other tributes had to lumber over to the river whenever they needed water. This would expose them greatly, as the bank of the river was virtually void of plant life except for some weeds.

When the careers went hunting on Day 2, they instantaneously went to the river, reasoning that the tributes would probably be clustered around it in seek of its water and abundant supply of fish. The river was long and coiled across the arena like some kind of intestine. It would be nearly impossible for the careers to traverse its entire length travelling in one group, and so they split up into three groups of two. Onyx and Dante, two rather close friends, requested to be put in a group together. Quay and Ceceillia, companions as well, walked toward each other. That left Tidewater with the most pathetic career: Luster from 1. Tidewater scowled. The rest of the day for Tidewater was spent dragging her around everywhere. Multiple times Tidewater tried to abandon her, but each time he failed. The duo settled down on the riverside at noon, where they gathered food to eat. Quay and Ceceillia were fast and elegant in their movements, and they traversed about a third of the way across the river's shore when they settled down onto the bank for food. Quay fastened a fishhook, and the two feasted on delicious fish for a few minutes. Onyx and Dante were the wanderers of the pack. They used the river as a general guide for their movements, but they did not stick perfectly to its meandering course. They regularly ventured away from the river, only to return several minutes later and keep walking down its shore. Onyx and Dante were growing hungry around noon. As such, they travelled a few yards into the rainforest to gather berries to eat. Dante collected them in a basket. They walked around the jungle to collect the most flamboyant and flavorful fruit that they could find. Then, they wandered back to the river.

Onyx and Dante cackled with glee when they spotted weaponless Cosmo greedily gulping down the river's cool water. The two careers ran toward him, trying to silence their footsteps and their laughter. Cosmo spotted his pursuers. He immediately dropped his fishhook and made a beeline for the jungle, where he hoped to remain hidden in the thick. The two careers pursued him. Cosmo was a fast runner, but he was not nearly as fast as the careers. Cosmo screamed as Dante's curved sword slashed across his back. He tumbled to the ground, where the careers used jungle vines to bind him. They were in need of some really nice food, having grown fed up with the jungle's fruits and berries. Drawing outtheur kills would get them more sponsor gifts, they reasoned. They spent a good hour circling the boy, occasionally lunging forward just to make him jump. Cosmo screamed all the way, slowly dying from the slash wound he had sustained. Eventually the careers grew bored of him. When they did, Onyx did the honors, burying his shogei into Cosmo's chest.

 _Cosmo Symonds, District 6 Male: 13th, Killed by Dante and Onyx, Day 2_

On Day 2, there was little action among the anti-careers. They knew that the careers would be out for them, and so when they woke up on the morning of Day 2 they switched camps. First, they poured cool river water over their fire's cooling coals, watching as they sizzled with fury. Then, they packed up their things and went. The jungle was thick; they had to regularly use their blades to cut through whatever was in their way. By the midafternoon of Day 2, the temperature had risen to a hot ninety degrees Farenheit. This was not so hot as to be a survival problem for the anti-careers, but it was extremely uncomfortable. The napes of their necks were damp with sweat. Very late that night, when they knew that the careers had probably gone to sleep, the trio ventured back to the river. The roaring of its current was audible from virtually everywhere in the arena, so they could easily find it. They splashed themselves in the river water and savored the sensation of the cool water sliding across their tongues. Although they had stocked up on water before leaving that morning, that water was the most refreshing yet.

Much like the anti-careers, Day 2 didn't mean much for the other tributes. Sorcha lost her spile around noon and needed to fashion a new one. She found the perfect piece of wood, but couldn't catch any birds. Last time, she had used one of their claws to file the wood into the perfect shape. Now, the parrots were never caught in her grasp. Perhaps the notes that the bird had squawked out while it was dying was a message to the others to stay high. Eventually, Sorcha gave up and tried a rock. It worked, but inefficiently. The spile she was left with had a crude frame. Throughout Day 2, Silk amused herself by trying to teach herself how to climb a tree. It was a risky business, as if she sustained any sort of injury she couldn't get any professional medical care. But, perhaps anything was better than doing nothing. The sun was at its zenith when Silk had finally reached the top of a twenty foot-high tree. She had stumbled multiple times and was now covered with scrapes. None of them were deep enough to become infected, but they still made her paranoid, so much so that she stopped climbing and milled around the jungle instead.

After Cosmo's death, Day 2 slithered by without any interaction between the tributes. On Day 3, the anti-careers went with a new strategy. It stemmed from the realization that they would easy prey if they slept in one long period at night. It was Grover who had the idea at first after seeing the alarm clock that Summer had salvaged from the cornucopia. They took two-hour-long power naps throughout the day. This would let them avoid ten hours of defenselessness each night. He was perhaps inspired by Discordia Komine, the victor of the twenty-ninth games, who also sprinkled small naps throughout the day. This strategy would pay off in the long run. They would see.

Ardath from 9 was the tribute that the gamemakers had seen the least of over the course of the games thus far. He had had no interaction with the other tributes, much less had any kills under his belt. The gamemakers summoned up a muttation to pursue him: a toucan nearly four feet tall. Ardath awoke on the morning of Day 3 to the feeling of a smooth, flat surface rubbing against his chin. Ardath, in his sleep-addled state, was groggily unable to identify the surface. He picked the sleep out of his eyes and looked up. He yelped, panicked, when he saw the toucan's mouth widening around his head. Ardath leapt to his feet and fled. The toucan squawked behind him in fury, zipping after him. Ardath eventually lost the creature when he reached a drop-off. He got to the ground and rolled down the steep hill, breaking through vines and cracking sticks along the way. He came to a gradual stop at the bottom of the valley. From there, Ardath decided to walk to the river, hearing its familiar trickle in the distance.

He emerged right into the area where the anti-careers were packing up their supplies, ready to go hunting. Ardath tried to scramble, but the three tributes were on him like bloodhounds. They ran over the sandy ground toward him and threw him to the ground. Summer questioned how they should kill him, whereas Wilda suggested that they use him to their help. Grover blocked out their suggestions as he reached his axe into the air and plunged it deep into Ardath's chest, seducing him. Ardath slid off of his axe. The two others gaped at Grover with their eyes wide open. They had not known that they were dealing with a killer as savage as the killer that Grover had just displayed. "Come on, guys," Grover said to his allies after kicking Ardath's remains into a corner. The others quickly obeyed, scrambling after him. They began to have second thoughts about being allied with the merciless killer.

 _Ardath Fielder, District 9 Male: 12th, Killed by Grover, Day 3_

The careers hunted feverishly for the remainder of Day 3, displeased with the fact that they found no kills that day. Silk and Sorcha, now the only two remaining tributes besides the careers and the anti-careers, were on the path toward each other. They would meet on Day 4. The Capitol, and indeed, the whole nation, was curious to see how they would react to each other. Would Silk and Sorcha ally? Would they act hostile to each other? Time would tell.

Day 4, surprisingly, passed without any deaths. Around noon, Silk had a close call with the duo of Ceceillia and Quay. Silk heard the thump of their footsteps and beelined for her hiding place. She could see the two figures less than ten yards away, now. Silk hurriedly ducked down behind a tree, hoping and praying that they would not see or hear her. Then, Silk stepped on a stick. Her entire body stiffened. The careers whipped their heads toward her and stood still for several seconds. Then, Quay watched as a squirrel wiggled out from under Silk's body and scampered away. "It's just that squirrel," was Quay's remark. Then the two career girls were off. Silk had never felt more grateful for an animal in her entire lifetime. This encounter taught Silk that the place she was in wasn't safe. She strayed from her course, and the nation was disappointed. The much-anticipated encounter of Silk and Sorcha was not to be. Sorcha kept going straight along her path and walked straight past the area where Silk had nearly been slaughtered by the careers. Sorcha's new spile began to chip, and so she spent several hours fashioning a third one out of wood. After nearly five hours of hard work making the spile, the feeling of cool water sloshing against her throat was almost heavenly.

The anti-careers, who had been returning to the river each night after their hunt, continued this trend. Six o'clock at night came, and Summer, Wilda, and Grover decided to split up. Grover did this to cover more ground. Summer and Wilda agreed just so that they could get away from Grover. They returned to camp that night, reasoning that Grover's fury if they abandoned the alliance would not be something they wanted to be added to their list of problems.

Day 5 was similarly deathless. The anti-careers went about their routine, as did the careers. Out of the three groups of careers, two remained content whereas one (Tidewater and Luster) remained unhappy. It was kind of a dictatorship at that point; Luster obeyed Tidewater's commands without question. She knew that disobeying him might present her with his wrath, which, with a career, was never, ever, ever a good thing. Silk and Sorcha went along their paths, not doing much. Sorcha's new spile was faring well. Silk milled around the jungle all day, not doing much. She settled down that night with her back against a tall tree.

On the morning of Day 6, Yarrow decided to listen to the popular public opinion. It was ridiculous to be this far into the games and to have all six careers remaining, many people and press said. Yarrow hoped to thin out the crowd of careers. He did so by showering them with a hoard of tracker jackers. The specially-engineered muttations chased after them as the barreled blindly through the jungle. Quay was the first to fall, having tripped on a root. Her ankle was lodged under the root, and she could not escape no matter how hard she thrashed. Quay reached for her trident, the sharp edge of which she used to saw away at the root. She finally escaped, but when she did the wasps had caught up to her. Quay screeched with pain as the tracker jackers stung her and then left her to look for more prey. She stumbled through the arena, hallucinations controlling her vision. She finally succumbed to the poison five minutes later, the first career to perish in the thirty-fourth Hunger Games.

 _Quay Nietszche, District 4 Female: 11th, Killed by Tracker Jacker Muttations, Day 6_

The tracker jackers only made one more career kill before they were recalled by the gamemakers. They made the kill in Onyx, who had tripped on a vine and fell to the ground. His eyes widened with terror as the tracker jackers hooked onto his body and stung him, injecting their venom into his bloodstream. He wasn't sure what to do except pray that his death would quick as, one-by-one, his bodily functions began to cease.

 _Onyx Rieder, District 1 Male: 10th, Killed by Tracker Jacker Muttations, Day 6_

The anti-careers were alarmed at the tracker jacker attack; even though they had not been attacked themselves, the screams coming from the cornucopia were filled with too much pain for any of them, even Grover, to be at ease. Perhaps out of paranoia, they slept extra close to the river's bank that night. If need-be, they could roll into the river at a moment's notice and be completely safe from the tracker jackers. They, of course, recognized that they would get swept away in an instant if they went into the river. As such, they slept near a part of the river that was just before a rocky area and so was rather calm, so much so that they could swim in it with ease. They did so that evening to cool off from the broiling heat of the rainforest.

Day 7 crawled by, deathless. The careers were taken aback by the attack of the tracker jackers, and they had barricaded themselves into the cornucopia and not gone out to hunt that day. It made them seem cowardly, and they lost many sponsors. They would stay in their dark cornucopia hideout for the entirety of Day 8, which would also pass deathless.

The sun rose on Day 9, and Yarrow once again decided to listen to the popular request of the public. They were disappointed at how the encounter of Silk and Sorcha and not happened. Yarrow forced the two tributes together via rainbow-colored snakes. The girls ran as fast as they could away from the snakes, and eventually the two girls spotted each other over the horizon. The snakes slithered away, leaving the girls by themselves. Each was entranced by the sight of the other, for it had been a long time since either of them had seen another human that wasn't a bloodthirsty killer. They were so hypnotized that they walked toward each other and just locked gazes. Suddenly, Sorcha pulled her spile out of a fanny pack that she had crafted. "A gift to you?" Sorcha said as she dropped the wooden spile into Silk's hand.

"Allies?" Silk returned the same question, just worded in a different way. Silk made the decision at this point to display her secret. Silk hesitantly reached into her pocket and pulled out a vial of thick, clear liquid. Poison. "I've been saving it for when I really need it," Silk said. "We're the only ones left besides the careers and the other alliance going on in 5-7. I guess we're allies now," Silk said with a tone of finality in her voice.

And so it was. The two girls set up a permanent shelter. It was hard work, but it was very satisfying to complete. Nestled in the bottom of a valley was a house made of felled logs splayed into a circle, where alternating stacks of logs piled up to a spiraled roof. After covering it with mud and leaves, it blended into the rest of the earth rather well. The two girls could fit comfortably inside. Neither Silk nor Sorcha dared to return to the river at this point in the competition, and so they used Sorcha's spile to collect water from the trees.

Chaos occurred in the anti-careers on the morning of Day 10. The sun had just risen above the east horizon when the much-coveted tracker jacker mutts were unleashed to wreak havoc on the anti-careers. They were sleeping on the riverside at the time. They awoke to the sound of the buzzing. They identified their pursuers by sound before they could identify them by sight. Grover and Summer had managed to scramble to their feet and sink into the river, where they were safe. Contrarily, Wilda had fallen asleep with both of her ears folded. She couldn't hear the buzzing of the tracker jackers. Grover and Summer watched from the river as Wilda was stung by the tracker jackers. Then, the wasps were recalled by the gamemakers. They were curious to see how the alliance of Grover and Summer would end; they did not want to kill any more members of the anti-careers.

Summer and Grover rushed to Wilda's side, watching with earnest as she slipped away and died. During training, when the two had shared their interests, Wilda had remarked that she had always loved rivers. She loved their peace and quiet. As such, when Wilda died, Summer decided to give her a sort of dignity. Grover went out hunting, leaving Summer along a the anti-career camp, of which only two members remained. Summer created a raft out of leaves and sticks from the trees and plucked several blossoms that matched Wilda's ocean blue eyes. Summer placed the raft into the river and placed Wilda onto the raft. Then, the raft began to float away. Wilda watched, sobbing, as her friend floated away down the river, at peace.

 _Wilda Comanor, District 7 Female: 9th, Killed by Tracker Jacker Muttations, Day 10_

That left the final eight: Luster Lemessurier from District 1, Dante Dalgarno and Ceceilia Daynard from District 2, Tidewater Ousley from District 4, Summer Erumphant from District 5, Grover Handa from District 7, Silk Urbanski from District 11, and Sorcha Whikkam from District 12.

Grover returned several hours later to find Summer curled up beside a tree, balling her eyes out. Grover demanded to know what she was crying out. She strung out a series of meaningless words. Grover was able to catch words like "river" and "peace" and "death" and "angel". Grover knew what she meant when she saw Wilda floating away from the riverbank, at peace.

"You knew she was going to die somehow. You have to accept that. You can't just cry like a baby whenever some kid dies in these games!" Grover scolded. Grover prepared dinner for himself and Summer. They ate it all down, and then Grover said that it was time to go hunting.

"No!" Summer cried out. Any attempts from Grover to make her move resulted in Summer crying and thrashing around like a little kid.

When Grover's firm grasp wrapped around his axe, Summer's anguish melted away and transformed into fear. She released a string of words that blurred together.

"I was just thinking that maybe it's too late to go hunting. Like, maybe just wait for tomorrow morning. I was just thinking about leav…" she stopped in the middle of her sentence.

"Go on," Grover demanded.

Summer, who had not realized what she was saying, continued. "I was just thinking about splitting up. It's too far into the games anyway. I'll ge…" the last part of her sentence was never heard as Grover lifted his axe into the air and buried it into Summer's skull. Grover spat on Summer's dead body.

"Stupid girl," Grover spat as he marched away smugly.

 _Summer Erumphant, District 5 Female: 8th, Killed by Grover, Day 10_

The two cannons in one day had spooked out Silk and Sorcha enough that they never left their wooden-log home for the entirety of Day 10. Sorcha had stocked herself and Silk up with enough water to last them a week if need-be, and the two girls were secure in their little home made out of logs.

On Day 11, the careers heard talking from a few yards away. The four remaining careers had been hunting in one big pack for the last couple of days. The talking was coming from down in a valley. The careers lumbered down and peeked into the house. Silk and Sorcha, inside, screamed and busted through the back wall. They tried to make a run for it. Sorcha managed to kill one of the careers, hurling her knife into her chest. Ceceillia collapsed to the ground, where her allies kept on running, abandoning her. Ceceillia lay on the ground, blood oozing from her chest as she slowly died from the wound that she had sustained. Ceceillia died with the knowledge that at least Sorcha was now defenseless. She died with her hand locked around the knife that was planted securely into her torso.

 _Ceceillia Daynard, District 2 Female: 7th, Killed by Sorcha, Day 11_

Now that the two girls were both defenseless, it was easy for the careers to kill them. Tidewater was the fastest runner among the careers. He decided to make a splash with hopes of impressing the sponsors. Tidewater lifted up his axe and, in one wide breadth, decapitated both of the girls. Their heads fell to the ground beside each other, the rest of their bodies not far behind. Now, the only tributes remaining were the three careers and Grover from 7.

 _Silk Urbanski, District 11 Female: 6th, Killed by Tidewater, Day 11_

 _Sorcha Whikkam, District 12 Female: 5th, Killed by Tidewater, Day 11_

Grover recognized that his only remaining competition was the careers. He didn't think that he was fully prepared to take on a group of three careers, and so he waited around for a few of them to die off.

There was no doubt that Luster from District 1 was the weakest remaining tribute. The careers all went to sleep in the cornucopia that night. Two o'clock a.m. on Day 12, Tidewater woke up to his buzzing alarm clock that he had found behind a crate in the cornucopia a few days prior. Tidewater wiggled out of his sleeping bag and grabbed his axe. He tiptoed over to Luster's sleeping form and bludgeoned her in the chest with the weapon's sharp blade. Luster sat up with a start and gave out a choked gasp before slipping back to the ground in death. Now, only three tributes remained.

 _Luster Lemessurier, District 1 Male: 4th, Killed by Tidewater, Day 11_

Yarrow began to grow impatient as Day 12 passed, deathless and conflict-less between the three surviving tributes. Grover spent most of the day hunting, not only for tributes but also for much-needed food and water that would help him during the finale.

The two surviving careers, Dante and Tidewater, went to sleep on the night of Day 12 with hesitance. They knew that they might only get in a few hours of sleep before the gamemakers threw a predator their way. They slept like rocks that night, wanting to get in good night's sleep's for the big day coming up.

Only one of the careers would experience that big day. Tidewater was not actually asleep, only pretending. He wiggled out of his sleeping bag once he was absolutely certain that Dante was asleep. Tidewater locked his fingers around his axe. He was about to betray his ally. Although he was a little hesitant, his constitution as a career stated that it was his goal to return home at any cost. Tidewater shoved the blade of the axe deep into sleeping Dante's chest. The axe lodged itself between two of his ribs and sliced through his lungs, and Dante was dead within seconds. Dante had been stupid to fall asleep beside Tidewater. He should have learned a lesson from Luster's death before his.

 _Dante Dalgarno, District 2 Male: 3rd, Killed by Tidewater, Day 13_

The gamemakers had reached their cherished final two, and luckily it consisted of the two most beloved tributes of the year. Tidewater Ousley was one of the finest products of District 4's academy. He was a wizard with the axe. Additionally, he was funny, witty, and clever. He would make a great addition to District 4's readily growing lineup of victors. If he won, he would have an impressive nine kills, the second highest number of kills for any tribute in Hunger Games history at the time, after only Molly Toliday of the third games, with ten kills. He would also mark District 4's third victor in five years if he was able to take home the crown. Grover Handa was the cross of two lumberjack parents. He had managed to score an astounding ten in training, tied with Tidewater. He flexed District 7's might to the audience, and if Grover won the Capitol would be forced to send District 7 more resources, less they stop producing popular tributes like Grover. The thought of parcel day in District 7 made Grover smile. If he won, he would bring the lumber district its first ever victor.

The morning of Day 13, Yarrow lit the world ablaze. The jungle trees had such high water content that it was difficult to get the ball rolling, but once the fire started it quickly grew out of control. Tidewater, at the cornucopia, obviously had the advantage. Grover was in the woods, putting on quite a show as he dodged the roaring inferno.

What happened next is one of the greatest moments in Hunger Games history; nobody can call themselves a games fan who is unable to describe the following events in detail. Grover was running away from the approaching fire when a burning branch fell from above him. Grover was consumed by its shadow, and he saw the falling log just in time to duck down into a ditch, where the branch landed on top of him. As he tried to wiggle out of the narrow gap between the branch and the edge of the ditch, his shirt got caught on the branch. He tried to get out, but was unsuccessful. Suddenly, the branch that he was trapped underneath was lit on fire by a falling twig that was on fire. Grover reached down and ripped off the parts of his shirt that were hooked onto the log. The material that made up the shirt was strong; Grover gritted his teeth and pulled with all of his might to cause the material to rip.

The instant that Grover was free, another log fell from the sky. Panicked, Grover threw himself forward. What happened next is better seen in slow-motion. While flying forward through the air, his backpack, which was strapped to his back, weighed the upper half of his body down, making him parallel to the ground. The falling branch was less than a second from crushing Grover, now. Grover slid perfectly under the falling log. The log crashed into the ground less than a tenth of a second after Grover had finished travelling under it. Then, he was off, ready to face his final opponent: Tidewater.

Back at the cornucopia, Tidewater wasn't really doing much. The gamemakers decided to shake things up a little for him. They unleashed the largest muttation yet after him: a jaguar. The jaguar was huge, and its teeth were sharp, as were its claws. The jaguar was designed not to kill Tidewater, only mildly injure him. Yarrow did not want Tidewater perishing before the cherished final battle.

For nearly an hour Tidewater was able to fend off the thing. But, with every strike from his axe or his trident, the creature just got angrier. Then, out of the corner of his vision, Tidewater saw Grover bowling into the clearing.

Grover faked a severe injury for reasons that would become obvious about twelve seconds later. Grover collapsed to the ground, fake-retching, and holding his hip. He screamed with pain.

At that moment, Tidewater thought, it would have been easy to take out Grover. But, the jaguar mutt was his number one priority now. Suddenly, Tidewater abandoned all caution and lunged forward at the jaguar. He knew that there was no way the gamemakers would let the jaguar kill him, and so Tidewater's risk of death was probably zero. Tidewater planted his axe squarely into the jaguar's head. It roared so loudly that the very earth seemed to shake. Out of the wound drizzled not blood but an evil black liquid. Slowly but surely, the jaguar muttation died.

Smugly, Tidewater strolled over to where Grover lay on the ground. All he saw was grass. Grover was nowhere to be found. Tidewater peeked behind him and all of the sudden Grover was on top of him, knocking him to the ground and beating the side of his head with his fist. Grover stood up and buried his axe into Tidewater's torso once, twice, thrice, four times, five times, six times, seven times, eight times. Tidewater's body quickly succumbed to the grievous wounds, leaving Grover the only remaining tribute.

 _Tidewater Ousley, District 4 Male: 2nd, Killed by Grover, Day 13_

"Grover Handa of District 7, you are the victor of the thirty-fourth annual Hunger Games!" Yarrow sang as a hovercraft descended to collect District 7's first ever victor.

Grover stood and let the hot waves of air from the forest fire blow against his face, the face that had seen too much.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

District 7 was elated to finally receive their first victor, and many would learn to love kind and benevolent Grover Handa. He donated eighty percent of the payouts of his victory to the poor of District 7. Grover's victory left District 10 the only district without any victors. District 10 was now the laughingstock of the nation.

Grover settled into the previously vacant Victor's Village of District 7, this first victor to do so.

His victory tour went terribly. In District 5, he was showered with hatred and ill-will because of how he had murdered their beloved Summer. Several other districts were disgusted by his tactics. Most extremely was District 4, whose people were furious about how Grover had "stolen" their victor.

Grover would live to the age of thirty, dying a terribly early death around the time of the forty-sixth annual Hunger Games, trapped in his Victor's Village home when it caught on fire due to a gas leak. In his lifetime, he would marry, but would divorce a few months later because of how terribly his husband was abusing him. He would adopt one daughter who would unfortunately die in the house fire along with him.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Grover moves into the Victor's Village of District 7, the first victor to do so.

Mags Flanagan adopts her third child, a two-year-old boy named Max.

Dayta Albrand marries her second and final spouse, a man named Kemper. The two would remain married until Kemper's death a great many years later.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)

* * *

 **A/N: And here's District 7's first victor! This is the second longest chapter of this story so far, and I think it might just be my favorite. District 10 is the only district left without a victor now.**

 **Please review this story if you're able, as I value your feedback. I want to make this story as great as it can be :D. Who did you like other than Grover? What did you think of the anti-careers? How about Sorcha and Silk's alliance? How about Summer's heartfelt goodbye to her friend Wilda? And how about the way that Grover reacted to her cowardice? What about the mutts? Who was your favorite career? :D**

 **Bye, guys! This story is rapidly approaching 100 reviews. I'm so thankful for all of your support. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time with the thirty-fifth Hunger Games! :D**


	36. The 35th Hunger Games

**The 35th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

President Coriolanus Snow, now returning for his eleventh year as president of Panem, saw that the nation's economy was beginning to suffer because of how harshly he was treating the districts that had rebelled. President Snow was slowly but surely loosening his iron grip on the districts that had rebelled two years prior: Districts 3, 8, and 9 the most notable among them. The instant that Snow released his clutch completely, talk of revolution began to spring up in the districts once more. Rebellion blossomed around the nation, and soon, for the second time in three years, the districts rebelled against the Capitol. The rebellion was brutally crushed by the Capitol. President Snow was pleased at the display of the Capitol's military might as he watched thousands of rebels be killed by peacekeepers. Soon, the districts were forced to accept that their large-scale riot had failed. Snow would not tolerate rebellion, and so he raised labor quotas higher than they had been ever before. Statistics show that, in the six months following Snow's order, rates of whippings, floggings, execution, murder, and suicide nearly quadrupled. Rising from the ashes of rebellion was an influential Capitol politician: Ronan Salazar by name. Ronan entranced the nation with his promises of lowering labor quotas and taxes, and increasing minimum wage throughout the country. He even promised to imprison the "greedy, treacherous snake that was Coriolanus Snow" when he took over as leader of the nation. Snow was infuriated at how another Capitolite dared to question his position as president, and Ronan was poisoned to death before you could say dictator. Now that Coriolanus had even the strongest quivering with terror, the thirty-fifth Hunger Games came along to put the icing on his ever so dastardly cake.

Yarrow Dawnbloom returned once more as head gamemaker, now in his third year on the job. The two years prior, he had been giving infinite sums of money and unlimited freedom to make whatever arena his heart desired. However, this year, President Coriolanus Snow decided the arena for him, at least in a way. Snow insisted that he reuse a past arena, but not just any arena. Snow made a list of the victors who were the most loyal to the Capitol. Those who obeyed its rule without question. Snow demanded that Yarrow's next arena be a repeat of a past arena that had been won by a loyal victor. Snow hoped that this would drill into the district citizen's hands the lives of luxury that would come to those who obeyed him. From Snow's shortlisted series of victors he deemed loyal, Yarrow selected the fourth Hunger Games' arena, modeled after the four seasons. Those year's games had been won by Amelia Spangler, the first ever District 2 victor. Amelia set a precedent of District 2 victors being the most obedient to the Capitol, and Snow was pleased by Yarrow's choice. The arena was a circle with a radius of about two kilometers. This was smaller than most arenas at the time. The cornucopia stood in the very center of the arena. Made of ivory, its weapons consisted mostly of whips, batons, knives, and swords. The circular arena was split into four slices. To the north was the winter slice. The terrain was cold and snowy. It was, naturally, the coldest section of the arena. A tall, rocky mountain dominated the landscape. The only food was the edible moss that clung to the side of the mountain. To the east was a lovely peach grove. Its peaches were delicious, and their mouth-watering aromas caused the tribute's mouths to flood with saliva. The south, summer, was a rolling green field. It was mostly bare except for the occasional tree. To the west, representing autumn, was an autumn forest with brown and red and orange and gold leaves.

During the riots, academy training had been temporarily cancelled. They were also still reeling from the increasing labor demands of President Snow. As such, this year's careers were more lacking than usual and scored much lower than they typically did. District 1, overall, produced the weakest batch. Their male, the son of a candlemaker mother and glass-blower father, was actually among the lower class of District 1. He only scored an eight in training, showcasing his substantial albeit clunky and clumsy talents with the bow and arrow. District 1's female, a rather attractive girl with golden blonde hair, was funny and childish, but in a cute way. She scored an eight, showcasing her dagger skills. District 2's male was among the strongest tributes this year. Managing an impressive ten, he could work magic with the spear and also with the knife. The District 2 female chose the throwing knives, a steadfast classic for females from the quarry district. District 4 produced, by far, the strongest batch. Their male was tall, a fast runner, and hardier than any other tribute that the academy had seen in a long time. He was strong, too, and he had looks to match. A gamemaker remarked that they even considered giving him an eleven. The District 4 female was strong, swift, and stealthy. She chose the trident along with her male counterpart, like most District 4 tributes.

Outside of the career pack, the training scores were rather average. Two eights were scored by Linden and Autumn from 7, who both chose the throwing axe as their weapon of choice. Sevens were managed by Tiberius from 6, Oxford from 10, Gruber from 11, and Jacinth and Garnet from 12. The rest of the tributes scored between six and one in their private sessions. Tailor Dunan from District 8 was physically handicapped and had been wheelchair-bound most of his life. He was the first tribute to score a one in ten years. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: Tiberius Chevry from District 6. He was on death row for the murder of several individuals, and he volunteered into the games hoping to dodge, or at least postpone, his death. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Vizier Brathwaite, 18, (8) 9-1 and Fabrege Hendenning, 17, (8) 10-1

District 2: Rome Hallowell, 18, (10) 5-1 and Dronninga Hinnon, 15, (9) 10-1

District 3: Caius Lowry, 14, (4) 40-1 and Cosima Chinnici, 15, (4) 35-1

District 4: Troy Stiles, 18, (10) 3-1 and Ceto Odell, 18, (10) 5-1

District 5: Genesis Safire, 13 (2) 79-1 and Aeryn Pagliaro, 18, (5) 20-1

District 6: Tiberius Chevry, 17, (7) 15-1 and Muta Cloes, 16, (6) 17-1

District 7: Linden Casarano, 16, (8) 11-1 and Autumn Melvin, 16, (8) 11-1

District 8: Tailor Dunan, 12, (1) 100-1 and Zina Naddeo, 18, (6) 19-1

District 9: Bari Mcpherson, 16, (6) 16-1 and Greta Vanover, 13, (5) 38-1

District 10: Oxford Chefte, 18, (7) 15-1 and Mina Butcher, 15, (6) 18-1

District 11: Gruber Frohook, 17, (7) 15-1 and Myrtle Talbot, 13, (3) 60-1

District 12: Jacinth Pulley, 18, (7) 15-1 and Garnet Walsh, 18, (7) 15

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

Viewers could practically see the lightbulbs flicking on in each tribute's mind as they realized that the arena was a model of the four seasons. The cold, biting wind from the north and the warm summer zephyrs from the south actually swirled together in the clearing, causing rather strong winds around the cornucopia.

When the gong's familiar note rang across the arena, a sizable number of tributes ran away instantly. They were Genesis from 5, Greta from 9, Gruber from 11, and Jacinth from 12. This large number, coupled with the weaker batch of careers, would make for a rather puny bloodbath. Only eight lives would be claimed in the opening minutes, a rather shoddy number in comparison to the usual twelve or thirteen.

Back at the cornucopia, Troy raced at the head of the chaotic scene. He was the fastest tribute by a wide margin. It showed. The speed at which he thundered across the terrain took many a tribute and many a Capitol viewer by great surprise. He made his first kill before even reaching the cornucopia. Little Tailor from 8 was hobbling away from his pedestal toward a package of plastic sheets that sat twelve yards away. Troy thundered over to him and grabbed him by either side of the neck. The powerful career snapped his neck with ease. He collapsed soundlessly to the earth, the first tribute to die in the thirty-fifth Hunger Games.

 _Tailor Dunan, District 8 Male: 24th, Killed by Troy, Bloodbath_

Fabrege, although not the most powerful career in the world, was undoubtedly a very fast sprinter. She elegantly raced across the terrain with all of the grace of a gazelle, her gaze fixed upon a serrated dagger that leaned humbly against a black crate. Fabrege swept up the blade and fluidly attacked her first prey: a nearby girl who was trying to worm her way past her. The girl couldn't move out of the way fast enough before Fabrege pinned her to the ground. Fabrege's dagger easily carved out the girl's chest.

 _Myrtle Talbot, District 11 Female: 23rd, Killed by Fabrege, Bloodbath_

Dronninga had run all of the way into the cornucopia for a belt of throwing knives. She began throwing the second that they were clipped securely around her waist. She lifted one of the knives into the air and aimed for a nearby boy, who was on the ground taking inventory of the contents of an orange backpack. Dronninga was about to throw when a huge weight knocked her to the ground. It was Tiberius. The District 6 boy had rammed into her back, and even though Dronninga was strong Tiberius was stronger. Tiberius unsheathed his knife and placed it on Dronninga's neck. Tiberius slowly drove the knife inward. The skin broke; blood burbled forward. Dronninga's belt of knives having been ripped off by Tiberius, she was defenseless as the murderer boy speared his knife the rest of the way through her neck.

 _Dronninga Hinnon, District 2 Female: 22nd, Killed by Tiberius, Bloodbath_

Now that three tributes had died, things were beginning to organize within the careers. Groups of careers had clumped up, two or three careers in each miniature pack of sorts. Troy pounced upon a weaker boy. The boy was paralyzed with terror as Troy grabbed either side of his neck and twisted. He fell to the grass, never to rise again, as Troy reveled in his second kill.

 _Caius Lowry, District 3 Male: 21st, Killed by Troy, Bloodbath_

Troy soon realized how inefficient it was for him to keep slaughtering tributes with his bare hands. He swept up two chakrams that sat about sixty yards from his pedestal. The weapons fell snugly into his grasp. He lifted one into the air and hurled it with all of his might toward the nearest girl. The girl screamed as the razor of the chakram buried itself into her hip. Nearby Vizier polished her off with an arrow from his bow.

 _Aeryn Pagliaro, District 5 Female: 20th, Killed by Troy and Vizier, Bloodbath_

After wrenching his arrow out of Aeryn's dead body, Vizier heard shuffling behind him. Vizier whirled around and found himself face-to-face with Tiberius, the volunteer District 6 boy. Tiberius lunged forward. Vizier was so shocked by his burst of energy that he couldn't move out of the way fast enough before Tiberius buried the blade of his knife deep into Vizier's head. It took quite a lot of effort for Tiberius to wrench his knife out of its resting place lodged between two of the plates of Vizier's skull. Tiberius had now killed two of the careers.

 _Vizier Brathwaite, District 1 Male: 19th, Killed by Tiberius, Bloodbath_

Ceto picked up a spear that leaned against the cornucopia. She turned sharply on her heel and planted the tip of the spear into the upper abdomen of a girl who was trying to worm her way past her. Ceto's spear lodged itself in-between two of her ribs. The girl spasmed and collapsed at Ceto's side like a torn paper doll.

 _Zina Naddeo, District 8 Female: 18th, Killed by Ceto, Bloodbath_

Troy made the bloodbath's final kill. Young Mina from 10 had hidden inside of the cornucopia, hoping to wait out the bloodbath and come out once in was all over. Troy was riffling through the cornucopia's bounty of supplies when he spotted a pair of eyes staring back at him from the darkness. They were unmistakable as human. Troy lunged forth, and the defenseless girl was dead within seconds. Troy stepped back to admire his handiwork for a few moments before tearing his bloodstained chakram out of Mina's neck.

 _Mina Butcher, District 10 Female: 17th, Killed by Troy, Bloodbath_

As the careers went about their business, the surviving outliers scattered across the arena. At the cornucopia, four careers remained, slightly lower than average number. After dragging away the corpses, the careers went out hunting immediately with hopes of catching a few tributes off-guard.

At the conclusion of the bloodbath, it became immediately obvious that Tiberius was the most powerful tribute outside of the careers. He had racked up two kills in the bloodbath, earning the attention of a respectable amount of sponsors. From the bloodbath, be had pillaged several serrated knives, a tent, a hand warmer, and even a sleeping bag. He immediately travelled toward the mountain in the distance of the winter sector, reasoning that he would be safe from the careers who would assume that the mountain's inhospitality would avert tributes away from it. He reached the peak around one in the evening, at which point he settled into a crevasse and feasted on a barley cake given to him by a sponsor who liked his bloodthirstiness. The winter sector had two other inhabitants by the end of Day 1: Linden and Autumn from 7, allies. Both earning eights, the two District 7 tributes stayed close together as they walked. Despite being some of the most powerful tributes they had scavenged little from the bloodbath besides their axes. The night of Day 1 for the two largely consisted of huddling together in a crevasse, desperately attempting to keep warm in the cold of the mountain's face.

The spring peach grove was certainly alluring to many a tribute; its peaches were ripe and luscious and the place was chock-full of places to hide. Genesis from 5 headed for the peach grove immediately after the gong rang. Genesis' father and mother were both engineers who worked hard to create new methods of generating electricity. One method involved harnessing the large water content from leaves and moss to create electricity for powering laptops. Genesis was able to identify the leaves of the peach trees and the moss that clung to their bases as edible. Muta from 6, true to her name, was very quiet and graceful in her movements. Muta was the Greek goddess of silence. Muta's family worked as engineers. They worked to come up with methods to reduce the loud sounds emanated by heavy machinery, particularly near schools where the sounds could distract students. Muta ventured into the peach grove and used a basket she had received from a sponsor that liked her elegance to collect the peaches. She feasted on the peaches that night, burying the pile of pits when she was done to eliminate all traces of her presence there. Oxford from 10 had escaped the cornucopia with a spile. As long as he had the spile, he could never go thirsty. Inspired by Sorcha Whikkam of the year prior, Oxford jammed the spile into one of the peach trees and watched with a grin as crystal clear water poured from the spile. He cupped his hands under it and used the water to clear his face of grime. Jacinth from 12 had barely managed to escape into the grove, but with a severe wound on his leg. He had been pursued by Troy during the bloodbath. Troy's chakrams had grazed his leg, but Jacinth had been able to disappear into the grove before Troy could do any further damage. Once in a safe location, Jacinth fell to the ground and tried to quiet his labored breathing. He willed the wound to close. With so few sponsors, he could do nothing but lay in throes of pain with hopes of the wound closing or a swift death. He would not have either. Eight hours passed, and in the end Jacinth's body could not replenish the huge amounts of blood that he was losing. He died in a pool of his own blood. However, the moment before Jacinth died, he uttered a single word. "Nature" is what he said. For a long time nobody knew why the boy had chosen "nature" as his final word. To this day, we have but only theories as to why the boy said it. Even his family had no idea. Perhaps we will never know the answer.

 _Jacinth Pulley, District 12 Male: 16th, Killed by Troy, Day 1_

The rolling summer field to the south seemed rather inhospitable, but for reasons that one might not expect. The place was rich in wildlife, so food would be no problem. However, the land was so flat that nobody could feel secure without any sort of cover. Only one tribute called this place home: Cosima from 3. Cosima had escaped the cornucopia with a coil of wire and a package of water purification tablets. She spent the rest of Day 1 hunting the rabbits and birds that inhabited the rolling field. With no method of cooking the animals, Cosima had no choice but to eat them raw. She chewed and chewed until her jaw was sore.

The autumn forest, while having lots of cover, would throw the largest array of dangers after its inhabitants, from mutts to proximity to other tributes. Every inch of the ground was covered with something crunchy; with every step, a loud crunch emanated from underneath the tribute that took it. Bari and Greta from 9, allies, headed there at the conclusion of the bloodbath. Bari, 16, was the oldest, and so he walked ahead, promising to warn Greta if he saw any dangers ahead. There were none. They had no water, and so they sighed with relief when the quiet sound of a river played in the distance. They shared a look of disbelief and ran toward the river. Its song got louder with proximity. They finally reached it. They were so exhausted from the run that they decided to wade in the river to cool off. They dipped their feet into it. Their feet sank into the mud in the most satisfying way. They tried to walk, but could not. Indeed, the river had a hidden danger that Bari and Greta had been the first to discover. Underneath the mud was a network of fibers that gripped fiercely onto anything that entered it. The two panicked. Their feet were stuck into the riverbed like glue. They pulled with all of their might but could not escape. They made quite a racket. Unfortunately for them, this racket was enough to grab the attention of nearby Fabrege, the District 1 female. The District 9 tributes sobbed and Fabrege smirked when she spotted them stuck inside of the river. Fabrege nocked her first arrow. The two allies were defenseless as Fabrege killed them in rapid succession.

 _Bari Mcpherson, District 9 Male: 15th, Killed by Fabrege, Day 1_

 _Greta Vanover, District 9 Female: 14th, Killed by Fabrege, Day 1_

Fabrege cackled maniacally at the sight of their two limp forms. Fabrege stepped into the river to retrieve her arrows. Her stomach took a violent leap as she realized that he was stuck in the river just like Bari and Greta. She struggled to escape, but soon she tripped on a rock. She tripped face-first into the river, her entire body falling into the network of fibers. She was stuck in place underwater to slowly suffocate to death. Now, only half of the tributes remained.

 _Fabrege Hendenning, District 1 Female: 13th, Drowned, Day 1_

Gruber from 11 and Garnet from 12 were the other two tributes to foray the autumn woods. Gruber from 11 had run away from the cornucopia with absolutely nothing. He had no idea how to find food in the wild, and so he spent that night curled up behind a tree, sobbing with despair. Garnet from 12 had managed to grab a rope, but that was it. She used a sharp rock to cut the rope into several small segments, which she used to fashion snares. She fashioned a remarkably good axe with a sharp stone and a branch, which she used to chop up the trunk of a short and brittle tree. She started a fire with a bow, and she cooked the outputs of his snares over the fire.

With the four post-bloodbath Day 1 deaths, the twelve remaining tributes were rather spooked. The careers began to grow concerned as to why Fabrege wasn't returning to the cornucopia that night, but once the anthem played they realized that she had died. The rest of the tributes mostly stuck to their hiding places for most of Day 1. Several of them didn't even come out to relieve themselves.

Day 2 contained lots of movement but little action. On the icy mountain, Tiberius woke up bright and early. He needed a steady supply of food and water. He was beginning to grow fed up with the mountain's only source of food—the moss—and the method he was currently using to melt ice into liquid water was inefficient. The only way to get those things was to get sponsors. And Tiberius knew that the only way to get sponsors was to get his hands a little dirty. Tiberius trekked away from the mountain and forayed the peach grove with hopes of finding easy prey that had flocked to the peaches as a food source. The two District 7 allies spent the entirety of Day 2 melting the mountain's snow into water. The only way to do this was to hold it to their bodies until it melted into liquid. After melting, it had to be drunk immediately lest it freeze. Just before sunset on the second day, Linden and Autumn concluded that the mountain could not sustain them. They trekked down its steep side and travelled to the spring forest, where they hoped to get a little wider variety of food and a better source of their other necessities.

Not much movement occurred in the peach grove on Day 2. The tributes seemed to be satisfied with the endless supply of delicious food. The tributes that inhabited the grove (Genesis from 5, Muta from 6, and Oxford from 10) spent most of the day doing nothing and occasionally leaving their dens to gather more peaches. The peaches had high water content, and so hydration wasn't a huge concern in the grove. Oxford continued to utilize his spile to gather water. However, he misplaced his bucket around noon and so he needed to cup his hands to gather the lukewarm liquid.

To the south, Cosima from District 3 seemed rather content in the rolling summer field. She buried the bones of her kills to eliminate all traces of her existence before foraying the taller hills, further south.

Autumn's sector saw little excitement as well. When Garnet woke up, she poured dirt over her fire to douse it and then scattered its cooling fuel. She then travelled to the river and scooped up some water with a container she had gotten from a sponsor. She then trekked back to the fire and drizzled the cool liquid over the scene. The last embers smoldered out, Garnet travelled downhill where she thought the plant and animal life would be more lush and more bountiful. Gruber from 11 tried in vain to gather food that he recognized. Everything was foreign to Gruber, and he refused to eat anything he didn't recognize for paranoia of it being poisonous. Once more Day 2 trickled by for Gruber without any food or water. He felt a raging thirst and a raging hunger.

Nothing much happened on Day 2 until very late at night. Tiberius had long prowled through the arena, and he was determined to make a kill before midnight. He struck lucky. He had been combing through the peach grove when he heard a slight sound to his right. Tiberius froze in his tracks. There it was again. Ever so carefully, the boy trekked toward the sound, wielding his serrated knife. Then, he saw them. It was so dark that it was difficult for him to make out the sleeping forms of Linden and Autumn. The two tributes had smeared themselves with mud to help them blend into the earth, which made Tiberius' job harder. Tiberius smirked as he got to work. He crafted rope from the fibers of the plants that scattered the floor of the grove. Once the two tributes were securely tied to the ground, he gave each one a slight smack to the head. They bolted awake immediately. They thrashed and screamed with all of their might, but Tiberius' rope was too strong for them to escape.

Tiberius circled around them, occasionally lunging forward just to make them jump. When he went in for the kill, he made his first prey in Autumn. Tiberius cackled as he plunged his knife into her chest. Tiberius tore the knife through her flesh and ripped the blade back, carving out a huge portion of her torso and exposing several of her organs. Tiberius crept over to nearby Linen. He slowly dug his knife through Linden's torso and then peeled the skin away from the slice. The two tributes screamed so loudly, and Tiberius doubled over and cackled with glee. Slowly but surely, their cries of agony began to fade away until only silence remained. Tiberius hacked apart their blood-lathered forms. When he looked up, the moonlight shining on his face showed an expression that can only be described as insanity. Tiberius marched away smugly, two cannon shots firing in rapid succession. At this point, it was difficult to deny that Tiberius wasn't exactly playing with a full deck of cards.

 _Autumn Melvin, District 7 Female: 12th, Killed by Tiberius, Day 2_

 _Linden Casarano, District 7 Male: 11th, Killed by Tiberius, Day 2_

Day 3 crawled by, deathless. In the Capitol, Tiberius' popularity went through the roof after his encounter with the District 7 tributes. Sponsor gifts rained down upon him. Tiberius didn't travel back to the mountain. Instead, he travelled to the summer hills. He considered sleeping in the peach grove, but then he realized that that would make him an easy target because of his proximity to other tributes. The summer hills would be a habitable place to make camp without him being close to several other tributes. Nothing much happened among the other tributes. There was no movement among them. Now that the District 9 alliance had been eliminated by Fabrege and the District 7 alliance had been eliminated by Tiberius, the only remaining alliance was the careers.

Days 4 and 5 were the most lifeless and boring days that the thirty-fifth Hunger Games had seen yet. The careers hunted feverishly each day. They began to grow immensely impatient with the fact that they were not making any kills, and they returned home each night in fury. Tiberius hunted each day as well.

Finally, on Day 6, the first kill since Day 2 was made. Garnet had fashioned more and more rope from the fibers of the plants of the forest. Although the exact number is unknown, it is estimated that Garnet set up at least fifty snares. The three careers were hunting in the autumn forest when something wrapped around Ceto's ankle. She jumped, thinking that it was some kind of dangerous creature. But, it was not. She had stepped into a snare. She lifted the snare into the air. They had seen all of the outliers during training. There was only one tribute that could have made that snare.

The careers followed the path of snares and burst into the clearing where Garnet sat, waiting for one of her water purification tablets to do its thing. Garnet screeched and leapt to her feet, but she wasn't fast enough. Ceto hurled her trident. She watched with satisfaction as it arced through the air and sank into Garnet's back. She collapsed, painting the leaves around her red.

 _Garnet Walsh, District 12 Female: 10th, Killed by Ceto, Day 6_

Since Day 2, Tiberius had been only hunting at night. A few minutes before midnight, Tiberius was travelling through the summer hills when he heard the chattering of teeth to his left. He spun toward the sound and saw a pair of eyes staring back at him. They were Cosima's eyes. Tiberius was tired at the time and didn't have the motivation to draw out her death. Tiberius stalked forward, and defenseless Cosima slowly backed away. Tiberius threw his knife. It plunged into Cosima's chest. She fell, a dark pool slowly building up around her.

 _Cosima Chinicci, District 3 Female: 9th, Killed by Tiberius, Day 6_

That left the final eight: Rome Hallowell from District 2, Troy Stiles and Ceto Odell from District 4, Genesis Safire from District 5, Tiberius Chevry and Muta Cloes from District 6, Oxford Chefte from District 10, and Gruber Frohook from District 11.

The sun set on Gruber's life as the sun rose on Day 7. He was so weak from dehydration that he could barely move. He had long since given up trying to find water. Gruber felt a raging thirst. At that moment, he would have given anything to feel the cool sensation of water slipping across his tongue. Knowing that his hours and maybe even his minutes were being numbered, Gruber dragged himself into a clearing and watched the sun slowly rise. He closed his eyes and felt the warmth of the sun spreading across his body. Gruber's cannon shot followed soon. The boy's body was void of physical injury, and he looked as if he could be merely asleep, basking in the warmth of the brilliant sun.

 _Gruber Frohook, District 11 Male: 8th, Dehydration, Day 7_

After Gruber's death, little action occurred on Day 7. The careers hunted, as did Tiberius, who had now begun hunting in the autumn forest. There was actually an encounter between Genesis and Muta on Day 7. Around two in the evening, the two tributes spotted each other. They were less than fifty yards away. The two tributes just turned tail and started away from each other. Oxford continued using his spile to gather water from the trees of the spring grove.

Day 8 came, and bloodthirsty Tiberius made another kill. Genesis had left his hiding place in the bough of a strong peach tree to go out hunting for a source of water. He was strolling through the arena when all of the sudden a huge weight hit him in the back and knocked him to the ground. Genesis yelled as he realized that Tiberius was on top of him. The glint of Tiberius' blade made Genesis scream louder. Tiberius drew out Genesis' death just as long as he had all of his other kills.

 _Genesis Safire, District 5 Male: 7th, Killed by Tiberius, Day 8_

On Day 8, not much happened outside of the careers and Tiberius. Oxford stuck to the peach grove, his spile an infinite and unwavering source of the most important commodity of all. Muta, who had spent the whole games in the peach grove, began to realize that she faced the most dangers there. She got up and left shortly after sunrise on Day 8, trekking all of the way to the mountain and beginning to climb its slippery face.

Yarrow was growing frustrated. Every time he saw an opportunity to unleash a muttation, that opportunity quickly vanished. If he didn't release any mutts, millions of dollars' worth of them would go unused. The games would be a flop, and Yarrow would almost certainly lose his job and maybe even his life.

Yarrow came to a conclusion that there was only one way that he could pull this off. The next two days in the arena had to be wrapped up in a muttation frenzy. The weaker mutts would be released first, gradually getting stronger until the victor was crowned. It was a haphazard strategy, and a risky one at that, but it could work if Yarrow pulled it off properly.

The first mutts unleashed after the tributes were borrowed from the twenty-fifth games, the first quarter quell. They were the cute little bunny rabbit mutts. They looked cute, with their big, black eyes and floppy ears. But, they were not cute. Each rabbit had a mouth that donned two rows of sharp teeth. Their bloodthirst could only be quenched by the killing of a tribute.

The rabbits, in varying numbers, were unleashed to pursue the four remaining sets of tributes. The careers, naturally, received the strongest group, with about ten rabbits. Muta had a pack of three. Tiberius had seven or eight muttation pursuers. And Oxford had five.

The careers seemed to be doing a rather good job of fending off the deadly rabbits. Troy swung his chakram through the air, watching with satisfaction as it sliced one of the rabbits in half. Rome's sword could slash, meaning that he could do damage to several rabbits at once. Ceto's trident wasn't the most efficient weapon for fending off the beasts, but it was satisfactory in a way. Muta from 6, weaponless except for a glass bottle, tried to outrun the creatures at first. While running, she smashed the bottle against a tree. It shattered. The pieces rained down. Once they did, Muta was left with a deadly weapon with a dangerously sharp edge. Muta thrust forth the neck of the bottle, batting aside one monster. It tumbled down a hill and disappeared from her sight. Muta was able to kill the other one, goring it through the eye with a sharp piece of glass that had broken out from the bottle as it shattered.

Tiberius, well, Tiberius was kind of a different story. He killed six of his seven pursuers and left one. This one remaining rabbit he grabbed firmly and threw it into a container he had gotten from a sponsor. He bound the container shut with a strong rope. Now that the rabbit was contained, Tiberius began to start a fire. Then, he opened up the container and dropped the rabbit in to the fire. Tiberius cackled with glee as he watched the rabbit die. Tiberius poured dirt over the fire to cool it and then tore out the rabbit from the ashes, burnt to a crisp. Then he discarded the rabbit. It was evident at this point that Tiberius wasn't killing for sponsors. He wasn't killing to make the games end faster. He was killing just to kill. He took joy in killing. Time would tell whether this strategy would help or hurt him as the games progressed.

One more round of the mutts was unleashed on Day 8. The mutts were brightly colored birds, but not just any birds. They were jabberjays, beasts that repeat messages and torment the mind. The flocks of the birds were thrown into the arena along with every tribute. The careers woke up to the sound of screaming as the jabberjays circled them. They grabbed their weapons. They quickly realized that fighting the birds short-range was inefficient, so they quickly switched to throwing weapons like bows and throwing knives. Ceto, who had stubbornly refused to fight with anything but her trident, was doing virtually no damage against the creatures. All of the sudden, one of them swept down and gored its sharp beak through Ceto's eye. She screamed as she collapsed. The other jabberjays, seeing easy prey in the girl, flocked toward her and began tearing her apart. Soon, she was nothing but a clump on the ground. Only five tributes remained.

 _Ceto Odell, District 4 Female: 6th, Killed by Jabberjay Muttations, Day 8_

Tiberius was quickly able to fend off his pursuers by throwing rocks at them. Rocks were plentiful in the forest; he was in no short supply. Soon, he resorted to fighting them off with his knife. He excelled in the usage of the knife. He occasionally threw it. Unscathed by the screams of death and blood from the mutts, he could fight them off with ease.

Muta, well, she was not nearly as lucky. The copying birds began playing the screams of her younger sister, who had died in an accident the year prior. Within moments, Muta collapsed to the ground and clapped her hands over her ears, screaming for them to stop. She sobbed, tortured by the sounds of her friend who had been taken from her far too soon. The birds kept circling her even when she demanded that they either shut up or tear her to a pulp. They went in for the kill eventually, though, spearing their sharp beaks through her body and then tearing it up with their talons.

 _Muta Cloes, District 6 Male: 5th, Killed by Jabberjay Muttations, Day 8_

Having made two kills, the jabberjays were content. They were recalled by the gamemakers. The gamemakers allowed the tributes nearly half a day of peace. The two careers, Rome and Troy, had been taken far away from the cornucopia in fighting the mutts, and so they took rest of the day to get back to the horn. Oxford continued contentedly using his spile to gather water. If he felt scared or shaken up after the jabberjay encounter, he didn't show it at all. Tiberius was just as insane as ever. The night of Day 8, he started around his hiding place, cackling strange phrases, the meanings of which stand un-deciphered to this very day.

It was nearly one in the morning on Day 9 when Troy awoke. He felt for his chakrams, only grabbing one in fear that wielding both would weigh him down and be impractical. Troy was about to betray sleeping Rome, his ally. Careers betraying each other had occurred the year prior, and in the end it ended up getting the careers nowhere. However, Troy was confident that he could pull off the maneuver.

Troy had gone to bed the night before worrying that he wouldn't wake up at the time that he had planned. The second that the bloodbath ended Rome had smashed all of the alarm clocks in the cornucopia out of paranoia, so Troy had no clear-cut way to wake up to go about his plan.

Troy wiggled out of his sleeping bag and prowled toward where Rome lay, snoozing contentedly. With all of the alarm clocks smashed, Rome had no worries about being attacked in his sleep. This false sense of security was shattered when Troy buried the blade of his chakram into Rome's lower abdomen. The boy roared with pain and bolted awake. He tried to grab his weapon, but Troy had all of his limbs pinned down. Troy ripped his chakram out of his chest and lodged it directly into Rome, who was now full-fledged screaming in agony. Abruptly, Rome went completely limp. So much for smashing all of those alarm clocks.

 _Rome Hallowell, District 2 Male: 4th, Killed by Troy, Day 9_

The sound of Rome's cannon shot startled Tiberius and Oxford awake. Tiberius leapt to his feet and grabbed his knife. He peeked outside of his cove to ensure that he didn't have any pursuers, determined to make them regret their decision. There were none, and he nodded off seconds after wiggling back into his warm sleeping bag. Oxford, in the peach grove, couldn't fall back asleep with the knowledge that the tribute count had dwindled to three. This lack of sleep would take its toll on him the next day.

On the morning of Day 10, the asteroid first appeared in the sky. It grew bigger and bigger as it got closer. All of a sudden, the sky flashed with a brilliant light. Then, the meteor crashed into the mountain. The friction of the body with the mountain caused sparks to fly like confetti, lighting both the spring and autumn forests ablaze and starting a brush fire in the summer field.

Yarrow did not yet want the victor to be crowned. He merely wanted at least one death, but not a natural death. He wanted a full-fledged combat death. Oxford being in the peach grove, he got to his feet and ran away from the spreading flame as fast as his legs could carry him. Simultaneously, Tiberius was running toward him in the same direction. All of the sudden, Tiberius spotted Oxford over the horizon and vice versa. Tiberius cracked his knuckles and stormed toward Oxford. Oxford knew that the gamemakers wanted blood. Therefore, he knew that it was either he die in the fire or be killed by Tiberius. Oxford decided that if he had to choose between burning to death and dying from a knife to the heart, the knife would be much quicker. Additionally, Oxford had a secret that could help him in a dire situation.

The two boys stormed toward each other. All of a sudden, Oxford reached into his shirt and pulled out his tribute token, an adorable owl plushie. He held the owl's head in one hand and its abdomen in the other. Then, Oxford ripped the owl in half. Out fell a small black sphere. Oxford held the sphere into the air and pulled out what looked to be a pin. Then, he hurled it. It landed at Tiberius' feet. When it did, he couldn't run away fast enough before the miniature grenade exploded.

 _Tiberius Chevry, District 6 Male: 3rd, Killed by Oxford, Day 10_

Oxford had exploited the token system by sewing a grenade into his owl plush token. From the thirty-sixth games onward, each tribute's token would be investigated by the Capitol before the tribute was allowed to take it into the arena. Despite this, Oxford's strategy would be used many times in the future. Notable examples of this include Marilou Deer, a District 10 female of the fiftieth Hunger Games, who tried to bring a hair pin that unfolded into a razor into the games, and Glimmer Rambin, the District 1 female of the seventy-fourth Hunger Games, who tried to bring a jeweled ring that produced a poisonous spike when twisted into the games.

The gamemakers had reached their cherished final two. Troy Stiles from District 4 was one of the strongest tributes that District 4's academy had ever seen. He was bloodthirsty and hoping to draw out Oxford's death, for he had not made a full-fledged kill in many days. He didn't count his killing of sleeping Rome as a kill, for the boy had been asleep and didn't go down in a real, career fight. If Troy won, he would continue a strange trend of every other Hunger Games being won by a District 4 tribute. Oxford Chefte's controversial move of sneaking a grenade into the games certainly disqualified him from the competition. In any other situation he would have been blown to smithereens by the gamemakers instantly. But, the gamemakers wanted a bloody final battle. That would be impossible if Oxford died. If Oxford won, he would bring District 10 its first ever victor. If Oxford won, every single district of Panem wound have at least one victor. When the final battle came, they would make sure that Troy would win, but only slightly.

On Day 11, several hours after the aftermath of the meteor strike had stopped, Yarrow unleashed a pack of raptors after each remaining tribute. The raptors were fast and agile. Prior to a recent breakthrough in AI technology, having mutts as developed as the raptors was downright near impossible. The raptor mutts would prove to be among the highlights of Yarrow's career.

The raptors were fast, but the tributes were faster. Lest they lose a tribute to the bloodthirsty mutts, Yarrow set the raptors to run at a speed where they would keep the tributes on their toes but not catch up to them and kill them. Naturally, the gamemakers were driving Troy and Oxford toward the clearing that housed the cornucopia. Once the tributes were both in the clearing, the real show began.

The two tributes shinnied up the cornucopia and stood atop it. Final fights atop the cornucopia were largely a figment of the old Hunger Games, particularly the first two decades. The thirty-fifth Hunger Games' final battle was one example of a top-cornucopia battle that would crown the games' victor.

Troy wielded but a single chakram, the other one having been knocked out of his hand by one of the raptors when he was trying to use it as a shield a few minutes prior. The gamemakers sent Oxford a whimsically curved sword and a cleaver. They hoped that, even though Oxford had more weapons than Troy, the District 4 boy could easily overpower that from District 10.

Oxford's first few blows were powerful. The first slash of his sword sliced a shallow gash into Troy's side. Oxford's second slash was even more significant, literally slicing off Troy's left hand. Troy's hand rolled off of the cornucopia into the pack of raptors.

Troy, infuriated, slammed forth his chakram. The force of the impact knocked away Oxford's cleaver, leaving him with only a sword. Now that each tribute had only one weapon, the real fight began.

It seemed neck-and-neck. Many suspected that Oxford would have scored much higher than a seven in training had he not pretended to be mediocre in skill. He proved then and there to be a wizard with the sword. He had gone with the strategy of Velvet Farrow from the tenth Hunger Games, just to a lesser extent.

Nearly five minutes later, each tribute had received several other wounds. Oxford had received a slash to the chest from Troy's chakram, and Troy had received a slash across the leg from the District 10 boy's sword. Finally, Troy triumphed. He slammed his chakram forth, watching with satisfaction as the razor of the circle buried itself into Oxford's head. The blade lodged itself securely between two of the blades of Oxford's skull. Oxford's eyes rolled back into his head as he fell to the floor like a stone.

 _Oxford Chefte, District 10 Male: 2nd, Killed by Troy, Day 11_

"Troy Stiles of District 4, you are the victor of the thirty-fifth annual Hunger Games!" Yarrow cried out, his voice accompanied by a majestic symphony of trumpets.

Troy smiled weakly. He was growing weak due to blood loss, and mere seconds after Yarrow finished his congratulations Troy passed out. The hovercraft whisked down to retrieve the boy whose chakram was still lodged into Oxford's blood-lathered form.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The "Boomerang Era" as it was called was now securely underway. The term Boomerang Era was coined by Head Gamemaker Yarrow Dawnbloom in an interview. The boomerang era had begun when Marlin Coppi won the thirty-first Hunger Games. The thirty-third Hunger Games was won by another District 4 tribute. And, now, the thirty-fifth Hunger Games was won by a District 4 tribute. The games alternated between a District 4 victory and a non-District 4 victory. This trend would continue for a few more years. To this day, nobody is sure whether or not the existence of the Boomerang Era was a coincidence or if something caused it to happen. District 4 welcomed Troy to their steadily growing lineup of victors with open arms. Upon his victory, District 4 had six victors, meaning that they were ahead of District 1 but behind District 2 in terms of amount of victors.

Troy settled into the Victor's Village of District 4, the sixth victor to do so.

His victory tour went rather well, especially in his home district where he was hailed as "The Vanquisher".

Troy would live to the age of eighty-nine, dying from an asthma attack around the time of the one-hundred sixth annual Hunger Games. In his lifetime, he would marry and divorce twice, both times to women. He would have one daughter with his second wife. After his second divorce, Troy began work at District 4's academy. He was employed to train students on usage of the chakram and trident, his two chief weapons during his games. He never had any relationships after that. He always said that the academy was enough for him.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Troy settles into the Victor's Village of District 4, the sixth victor to do so.

Isaac Crandall has his first child with his wife, a baby boy named Surge.

Gold Carson marries is fiancée of two years, a kind woman named Splendor.

Dayta Albrand's son, Makepiece, is born.

Magnet Lisagor bears her second child, an adorable baby boy named Cordin.

Barley Chisolm's final child, Demetria, is born.

Molly Soltan weds her fiance, Julian Tanesha.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: OH MY GOSH WHY DID THIS TAKE SO LOOOOOOOOOONG!?**

 **I'm terribly sorry for the wait. It's just been, ugh, exams. Now that exams are over I'll have much more time to write.**

 **I'm also sorry if this chapter isn't as polished as some of my others. With exams and the like consuming most of my time this story was written in tiny pieces that I then put together. These pieces did a decent job of coordinating with each other, but not perfect. If there are some inconsistencies in this chapter you now know why :/**

 **Anyways, excuse time is over now. What did you think of Troy? How long do you think that the Boomerang Era will last? How about Tiberius being a psychotic murderer? And what about the way that Oxford exploited the token system? If you're able, please review! I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions as I want to make this story as great as it can be.**

 **Thanks for sticking with me for so long! This story has just surpassed 100 reviews, which frankly blows my mind to bits. I'm so thankful for all of your support. Expect the thirty-sixth Hunger Games soon, hopefully much sooner than it took for this chapter to get out XD**


	37. The 36th Hunger Games

**The 36th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

Despite their constant failures every single time that they tried to rebel, talk of revolution sprung up once more as the time for the thirty-sixth Hunger Games rolled around. It was only in two districts, really: District 6 and District 8. The Capitol managed to spook the two districts into jumping off of the bandwagon by cutting down their food rations slightly and eliminating about 0.1 percent of the population of each one. The Capitol tried its best to keep this entire chain of events silent from the rest of the nation, and this worked successfully for a few weeks. The way it eventually spread was through peacekeepers. At that time in Panem's history, peacekeepers almost never stayed in one district for long. They were constantly moving and switching districts wherever they were needed. The peacekeepers ended up leaking information about the riot throughout the nation. President Coriolanus Snow, now in his twelfth year as president, eliminated the possible upcoming rebellion before it started. He increased peacekeeper security in the districts by a factor of nearly two, and he cut food imports to 6 and 8 significantly. This prevented all rebellion completely. Snow was immensely pleased by this, as it was a sure sign that the people of the districts were afraid of him.

Yarrow Dawnbloom returned for his fourth year as head gamemaker, having received thunderous applause from the nation for the success of the games the year prior. Yarrow, unlike last year, had freedom to build whatever arena he wanted once more. His next arena was a subterranean sewer system. The cornucopia stood in a clearing in the center of the arena. The floor, ceiling, and walls of the entire arena were made out of cement. The cornucopia was bioluminescent, the only thing in the arena that gave off light except for the glow-in-the-dark fungus that clung to the damp walls of the sewers and the green slime that clung to the walls in some places. The cornucopia was suspended on pillars above a "hub" of sorts, where all of the water in the sewer siphoned to before being pumped into the earth. Walkways stood on the sides of each hallway, with a canal of water flowing down the middle. There was no human excrement or urine in the sewers because that wouldn't play well on public television. It was just water, admittedly disgusting water, but water nonetheless. The cleanest sources of water were from the cornucopia or from licking the water that had condensed on the cement walls. The cornucopia's weapons largely consisted of bows and sharp, sleek blades. There were a few scattered axes and rapiers here are there as well. Night-vision glasses were plentiful in and around the cornucopia. They would be paramount for the tributes to navigate the arena, as it would be difficult to move in the pitch darkness without any method of night vision.

The careers this year were a rather lacking group of kids, but not nearly to the extent of the year prior. District 1, overall, produced the weakest batch. Their male was very proud and boastful, perhaps more than he should have been given that his score was a meager eight. District 1's female was the weakest career by a wide margin. She had a lack of training compared to the others. She was a lesser in weaponry and combat and more of a Barbie, getting sponsors for her looks alone. She should have scored a seven, but she used her beauty to seduce one of the top gamemakers into giving her a nine. District 2 really produced the cream of the crop. Their male, one of the best hand-to-hand warriors that the academy had ever seen, scored a cool ten. He had looks to match, too. But, towering over all the rest, it was the District 2 girl who really stole the show. This Lana Voltaire was Victor Discordia Komine's half-sister, and she really followed in her sister's footsteps. She had two eyes like ice. She was as hard and tough as a rock and about as human. She showed no mercy for her prey, and she infested the nightmares of little district children around the nation. The District 4 pair was stronger than District 1 but weaker than District 2 in terms of strength. Their male, the youngest career this year at only fifteen, was a popular surfer in his district. He preferred the bow, using it as his chief weapon. District 4's female chose the throwing knives, remarking in her interview that she liked to throw knives at her kitchen wall whenever she was bored. The careers were weaker than average this year, scoring one eight, three nines, and two tens.

Outside of the careers, the training scores were higher than average. There were two tens scored outside of the career pack, however! The first was scored by Crosshatch Oliviero of District 8, who managed to outscore more than half of the careers with his hand-to-hand combat skills as well as his beauty. A ten was also earned by Susan Stark of District 11, who was able to walk home with a double-digit score because of her mastery of the sickle and scythe. Neither of the two ten-scorers minded killing; they even allied before the games began. They would travel day and night, scattering power naps throughout the day to avoid having one long nod in the nighttime. A single nine was managed outside of the careers. Florianna, District 7's girl, was a knockout gorgeous girl. She was funny, cute, and kind, and quickly became a Capitol favorite. Hatchet, the District 7 male, was able to snag an eight in training via his mastery of the axe. Only three sevens were scored, a particularly low number. Wheat and Angella from 9 and Tiffaney from 10 were the only three seven scorers. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There were two volunteers outside of the careers. The first was Draco Transportation from District 6, who had been diagnosed with severe depression a few days prior to the reaping. The second was Hatchet Guston of District 7, who volunteered to save his best friend. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Damask Brackett, 16, (8) 8-1 and Adelaide Tassinari, 16, (9) 8-1

District 2: Romulus Ustinja, 17, (10) 4-1 and Lana Voltaire, 17, (10) 3-1

District 3: Nikola Erbach, 14, (3) 48-1 and Theresa Zacharells, 15, (5) 20-1

District 4: Alexander Cascade, 15, (9) 7-1 and Mandy DeLaFleur, 16, (9) 6-1

District 5: Callum Jupe, 15, (6) 17-1 and Diana Rustic, 12, (2) 75-1

District 6: Draco Transportation, 17, (6) 14-1 and Corry Fish, 17, (6) 14-1

District 7: Hatchet Guston, 16, (8) 10-1 and Florianna Ceasar, 16, (9) 8-1

District 8: Crosshatch Oliviero, 18, (10) 5-1 and Rya Knots, 12, (2) 75-1

District 9: Wheat Sullivan, 14, (7) 20-1 and Angella Autry, 16, (7) 14-1

District 10: Harrison Ferris, 13, (4) 33-1 and Tiffaney Freund, 18, (7) 13-1

District 11: Bosco Curtis, 17, (5) 15-1 and Susan Stark, 16, (10) 6-1

District 12: Atticus Minten, 13, (2) 50-1 and Hatikvah Jesaitis, 16, (4) 27-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

Each tribute's stomach gave a violent leap as they realized that they were inside of a sewer system. The crashing of water underneath the cornucopia threw off mist, which landed on the tribute's bodies and made them shiver with disgust. This year, there wasn't just one reason to get away from the horn alive.

This year's arena was basically empty of natural resources like food. As such, when the gong rang, every single tribute chose to battle it out at the bloodbath. Each tribute's pedestal was connected to the cornucopia by a long shaft of cement. The horn was set up like a bicycle wheel, with the tributes running along the spindles of the wheel to reach the cornucopia.

Lana immediately took charge, elegantly racing across her spindle. Her gaze was locked upon a shogei that humbly leaned against a crate in front of the cornucopia. Lana swept up the shogei and immediately began throwing. She looped the ring around her finger and threw the blade, watching with satisfaction as the sharp knife buried itself into the shoulder of a boy who was about halfway down his spindle. Lana drew back the knife by the chain, and it was mere seconds before the boy lost balance and tumbled into the churning sewage below, his blood the first to be spilt in the thirty-sixth Hunger Games.

 _Bosco Curtis, District 11 Male: 24th, Killed by Lana, Bloodbath_

Romulus, the second fastest runner after Lana, caught a glimpse of a rapier leaning against the cornucopia. Romulus raced forth and locked his fingers around the slender weapon. Romulus turned sharply on his heel and skewered the long sword through the torso of the nearest girl. She didn't have time to scream or struggle before her entire form went limp and she collapsed to the cement ground with a hollow thud.

 _Rya Knots, District 8 Female: 23rd, Killed by Romulus, Bloodbath_

Mandy had run all of the way into the cornucopia to retrieve a package of knives. Although they were not designed for throwing, they were satisfactory for Mandy's purposes. She removed the sharpest and sleekest knife from the belt and tossed it toward the nearest girl, who was on the ground and taking inventory of the contents of an orange crate. She screamed as Mandy's knife dug into her chest and carved out her upper abdomen.

 _Diana Rustic, District 5 Female: 22nd, Killed by Mandy, Bloodbath_

Mandy darted toward Diana's corpse to retrieve her knife. As she did, nearby Susan Stark from District 11 swept up a scythe that sat twelve yards from her pedestal. Susan saw the opportunity to eliminate competition and ran to Mandy's side. Mandy yelped as Susan's scythe dug into her back. Susan could not overpower this career girl alone, and so she called for her ally, Crosshatch. Injured Mandy put up a good fight against the two allies, but in the end her wounds were too severe for her body to keep fighting. Crosshatch delivered the ending blow by throwing his knife into her head.

 _Mandy DeLaFleur, District 4 Female: 21st, Killed by Susan and Crosshatch, Bloodbath_

Crosshatch's knife was lodged so deep into Mandy's head that, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't wrench it out. Eventually, Crosshatch ditched the knife in favor of a bow that sat at his feet. Crosshatch's bow skills were satisfactory, albeit a bit clunky. Crosshatch swept up the bow and nocked one arrow, aiming toward a still target: a four-scoring girl who was having a panic attack, screaming and crying and holding herself on the ground. The District 8 boy loosed his grasp on the arrow. It arced through the air before worming its way through the girl's head, ending her life.

 _Hatikvah Jesaitis, District 12 Female: 20th, Killed by Crosshatch, Bloodbath_

Lana, having completely drawn back the blade of her shogei, fluidly attacked her next victim: a girl who was zigzagging to avoid attacks as she stormed toward the yawning mouth of the horn. Lana unwound part of the shogei's chain and used it as a whip, slamming down the end upon the zigzagging girl. She screamed as the sharp point of the blade raked across her back, and once she was on the ground Lana was able to grab the blade of the shogei and drive it into her back.

 _Theresa Zacharells, District 3 Female: 19th, Killed by Lana, Bloodbath_

After Rya had slid completely off of Romulus' rapier, the career boy whirled around and attacked a boy that was trying to off him with a rapier of his own with hopes of eliminating competition early. The boy had not expected to face Romulus in a duel, and he couldn't sidestep fast enough before the District 2 boy speared the long sword through his torso. It protruded from his back, and his form slid off of the blade as it slowly went limp.

 _Harrison Ferris, District 10 Male: 18th, Killed by Romulus, Bloodbath_

Damask began throwing the second that his grasp was firmly locked around a bow that he found inside of the bioluminescent cornucopia. Damask threw a quiver of arrows over his shoulder and pulled back his bowstring, aiming for the seam boy from District 12. Damask unleashed the arrow, smirking as it whizzed through the air before landing squarely between the boy's shoulder blades. He fell, never to rise again, his blood splattering the cement around him an evil red.

 _Atticus Minten, District 12 Male: 17th, Killed by Damask, Bloodbath_

The duo of Crosshatch and Susan were onto it again, this time making their target the District 4 boy who had yet to make a kill. The two allies watched as he jogged into the cornucopia to refill on his supplies. Crosshatch and Susan trapped him inside of the cornucopia so that he couldn't escape. Crosshatch had a bow, meaning that he could pick off the career from long range. One of his arrows found a home in the career's lower abdomen. When he fell like a stone to the ground, Susan ran forward and finished him off by hacking open his torso with her scythe.

 _Alexander Cascade, District 4 Male: 16th, Killed by Crosshatch and Susan, Bloodbath_

Lana drew back her shogei by its chain and quickly attacked her third bloodbath victim: a young boy who had ducked behind a crate inside of the cornucopia. Lana ran into the horn and grabbed the boy. She threw him against the ground, and he wept as Lana buried her shogei into his head.

 _Nikola Erbach, District 3 Male: 15th, Killed by Lana, Bloodbath_

Lana ripped the blade of her shogei out of Nikola's blood-lathered form and instantly heard rustling behind her. She whipped her head around and found herself mere feet from a boy that was trying to kill her with a serrated dagger. Lana used her shogei as a whip, swinging it by the chain. The knife knocked into the boy's knife, sending it spiraling away. Now defenseless, the boy turned tail and fled. Lana caught up to him in two seconds, throwing the knife of her shogei into the base of his neck. He fell, gurgling as warm blood pooled up in his mouth.

 _Draco Transportation, District 6 Male: 14th, Killed by Lana, Bloodbath_

Damask made the bloodbath's final kill. Realizing how inefficient his bow was given how dark the arena was, he ditched the bow in favor of a belt of throwing knives. Damask clipped the belt of knives around his waist and threw three of them at a nearby outlier girl. She screeched with agony and terror as the knives dug into her chest. The four careers all gathered around to watch her die. Her life force was drained away nearly an hour later, at which point twelve cannon shots boomed across the arena.

 _Tiffaney Freund, District 10 Female: 13th, Killed by Damask, Bloodbath_

After Tiffaney's death, three out of the four careers backed away and grabbed for their weapons. Damask, satisfied after administering the bloodbath's closing kill, smirked as he tore the three knives out of Tiffaney's chest and inserted them back into his belt. Romulus had been holding his rapier the entire time and began practicing with it as the others scrambled to get ready. Lana wiped off her bloodstained shogei blade with her shirt. Adelaide, well, she was a different story. Adelaide, the pretty girly-girl that she was, refused to go hunting before she could get her hair perfect. The sponsors were willing to comply, and the others waited around impatiently as she styled her hair with the products that she had received. Once her hair was perfect (which took nearly half an hour, mind you), she insisted that she put on her makeup. The others, refusing to play along with this girl, snuck away from the horn when she wasn't looking and went hunting. When the District 1 girl turned around and saw them treading away into the sewer system without her, she scowled something about how the others "just didn't realize how hard it is to be perfect". The three careers, Adelaide not among their ranks, did not dare split up for fear of losing each other. Romulus, the mathematical whiz of the group, kept track of the directions that they moved in, less they get lost.

Nobody knew it but them, but the entire time that the careers prepared to go hunting two tributes were hiding around the cornucopia. The two tributes were allies Crosshatch and Susan, from 8 and 11 respectively. They knew that they were outmuscled and outgunned, so to speak, by the careers, and so once the chaos of the bloodbath had begun to die down the two tributes had ducked inside of crates. Once they no longer heard the frantic movements of the careers, Crosshatch and Susan lifted the lids of their hiding places. They nearly jumped out of their skin with fright when they spotted Adelaide trying to clean off her shirt with water, mumbling about how ugly the tribute uniforms were and how she would like to be wearing a beautiful white dress at the time. The two tributes shared a terrified look, but they managed to scamper away from the cornucopia before Adelaide could see them, the District 1 girl now engrossed in combing through her hair with her fingers and sobbing about how many knots her hair had gotten into from running around in the bloodbath. Once the two allies were out of earshot, they began speaking some words about the conceited "career" girl that their grandmothers would most certainly not approve of. Crosshatch and Susan ventured through the sewer system, Crosshatch with his bow and Susan with her scythe. The two settled down in a small niche in a particularly quiet region of the sewer. They fell asleep soon, wanting a good night's sleep. They only had one pair of night vision goggles, which Crosshatch held in his hand for the entire night lest the two allies lose the precious thing. Corry from 6 had received an arrow to the hip from Damask during the bloodbath, but she had managed to rip the arrow out of her flesh and escape the cornucopia without Damask doing her any further harm. Corry crawled across the ground, trying to quiet her labored breathing. In the sewer, every tiny sound was echoed to a million times the volume, and so paranoid Corry placed several layers of cloth over her mouth to make her quiet moans of pain less loud. She collapsed beside a small dip in the cement floor. Water had collected in the bottom of the dip. Corry tasted it and was surprised to find that it didn't taste terrible. She used it to clean her wound. Once that was done, she greedily gulped it down. Soon, the small pool was empty.

Upon the conclusion of the bloodbath, Hatchet and Florianna, both from District 7, began walking down the same hallway away from the cornucopia. They didn't speak a word as they walked parallel to each other on opposite sides of the channel. They affixed their night vision glasses to their faces. Florianna looked jealously at Hatchet's two-liter bottle of water. Meanwhile, Hatchet looked with envy upon Florianna's belt of axes. She had scavenged three axes from the bloodbath. Hatchet was the first to suggest an alliance. "We'd last longer with the two of us," Hatchet said, motioning toward his water and her belt of axes. "Allies?" Hatchet continued. Florianna was taken aback and she was hesitant to accept Hatchet's alliance. Two seconds later, Florianna picked up speed and darted away. She did not trust the boy, as she suspected that he was fine without an ally and the only reason he would need one would be to turn on them and get some bonus sponsors for bloodthirstiness. Hatchet sighed and settled down in an outcove right there. Florianna kept running before eventually settling down against a wall. Callum had been running down his spindle and toward the cornucopia. However, just before he was about to step off of his spindle and onto the cornucopia's platform, he changed his mind, turned tail, and fled. With nothing, it was all that he could do to lick the condensation off of the walls for water. Food would be his main concern very soon.

Wheat from 9 had escaped the bloodbath with a Swiss army knife and a package of jerky, and he walked for the entire day before dropping from exhaustion inside of a long, wide, broad, tall-ceiling hallway. Angella, also from 9, had gotten away from the bloodbath with a bag of chips, nothing more. She sat down that night beside the chips, refusing to eat them and deciding to save them for when she really needed them.

The careers' efforts to go hunting on Day 1 were not fruitless, as a few minutes before midnight the pack of three stumbled upon Corry, who had fallen asleep beside her little pool of water. The three careers shared a look that said, _I can't believe this is going to be this easy,_ and then lunged toward the sleeping girl. Damask recalled being the one who had delivered her her trademark arrow to the leg, and so the careers decided that it was he who should finish her off. Damask finished the job that he had started many hours prior, flinging his sleekest and sharpest arrow into her torso. The careers watched as she bolted awake, retching as blood pooled up into her mouth. She didn't die until a few minutes into Day 2, at which time the careers were content and decided to head back to the cornucopia. Romulus whipped out his paper cataloging every one of their twists and turns. The careers retraced their footsteps toward the cornucopia, where they found Adelaide snoozing away with some kind of deep-treatment conditioner massaged into her golden-blonde hair.

 _Corry Fish, District 6 Female: 12th, Killed by Damask, Day 2_

The morning of Day 2 for the careers was just as chaotic as the day before. They awoke bright (actually, not very bright because it was always dark in the sewer system) and early to go hunting. They played into Adelaide's little whims, waiting for her to style and comb her hair, wash her face, blow her nose, paint her fingernails, lather herself with body lotion, clean the grime off of her face, and so many other things. The second that Adelaide was looking away, the three careers turned around and fled. They weren't sure what to do with the girl. No matter how shallowly dimwitted she was, she was their ally. Then again, friendly devotion doesn't go very far in the Hunger Games. Yet, she was their number one source of sponsors. The others tried to deny it but had to admit it that Adelaide had a near-complete physical perfection and was among the best-looking tributes in history. Every time she asked for this or that, she got it from the sponsors. Every time. Eliminate her, and they would eliminate their number one source of sponsors gifts, which were paramount to any tribute's survival and potentially victory.

The duo of Crosshatch and Susan woke up on the morning of Day 2 to a strange tickling sensation on their faces. They bolted to their senses and grabbed their weapons. Strange arms were rubbing against them. They were wet and slick. Crosshatch had no idea what was going on, but Susan, whose family worked as miners for making minecarts, knew what creature was attacking them. Susan whispered for Crosshatch to run the second that the arms drew away. The arms just came closer. Crosshatch saw that they were pink. All of the sudden, the monster shrieked and lunged toward Crosshatch. He bolted to his feet and raced away, Susan at his side. The muttation was a star-nosed mole rat, nearly the size of a cow. Its pink feelers raced after the two tributes in the most disturbing way, wiggling in a most disgusting manner. The two tributes screamed things at each other until they developed a solid plan. Susan stood in front of the canal where the sewage was being siphoned toward the cornucopia. Once it was about to reach her, Crosshatch shot an arrow into its side. The star-nosed muttation roared with fury as it ran toward Crosshatch. Their plan was falling perfectly into place. Right before the mutt hit Crosshatch, he leapt out the way. It slammed into the wall behind him. The two tributes got to their feet and fled before the mutt could regain its senses. They were too terrified to feel triumph at that point, but the sponsor gifts began pouring in mere minutes later.

The sponsor gifts of these games could not be delivered by parachute; since the arena had a ceiling, there would be no way for the parachute to get into the arena. Instead, the gifts were carried by small drones, zipping through the arena toward the tribute that was their target. These drones were invented by Victor Magnet Lisagor, the very same woman that emerged victorious from the twenty-seventh Hunger Games. Each drone was the size of a flake of glitter but could carry as much as ninety pounds of weight. It also ran on a battery that had a life of nearly three hours. These drones would be utilized in many future Hunger Games that had closed off arenas where access to the sky was nonexistent. Another problem with this arena was the anthem and the death recap. There was no sky to project the faces of the fallen into. So, alternatively to showing the faces in the sky, a little drone would zip down an electronic device to each tribute. The device had one big button, which when pressed would turn on the device. The faces of the fallen would begin playing on loop, and the device could be turned off by pressing the large button again.

Callum from 5 was certainly a small boy by many standards. He was not only of short stature but was also thin and rather sinewy. He began to go with a rather unusual strategy around noon of Day 2. He walked through the arena to get around, and whenever his feet grew tired he would switch gears. Callum would get down onto his hands and knees and crawl across the ground. This was his unique talent, and he was well-known in his school and even in his district for being a great runner on all-fours. This certainly got him lots of sponsors, and soon his fears of hunger were cleared for the next several days.

Angella from 9 was an assumption-maker. Back in District 9, she worked in the animal agriculture industry. This was a rare job since most of the livestock work was done in 10. Working as a farmer is all about assumptions. How after should a farmer feed her animals? How should she know when her animals or thirsty, or when to clean out their, ahem, excrement? Angella made several assumptions on Day 2. She knew that guarding the cornucopia's vast supplies was an easy job, as raids to the cornucopia were rare. She had seen from previous games that the careers often left behind their weakest member to do that job. Angella knew who the weakest remaining career was: Adelaide. Angella walked to the cornucopia. Out of pragmatism, Angella had used a ballpoint pen she had gotten from the cornucopia to track all of her twists and turns away from the cornucopia. Angella retraced her footsteps and stepped into the cornucopia's clearing. She walked down one of the spindles toward the cornucopia, where Adelaide sat applying eyeliner and mascara. Adelaide spotted Angella immediately. Adelaide threw her hairbrush at Angella. The hairbrush knocked Angella in the head, and she rubbed her forehead in discomfort after it bounced off. In comparison, Adelaide may have been a weakling, but she didn't earn a ten in training for nothing. Adelaide swept up a throwing knife and threw it into Angella's shoulder. Angella fell, clutching her shoulder, as Adelaide went forward toward her. The District 1 girl took a nearby spear and drove it into her forehead, killing her.

 _Angella Autry, District 9 Female: 11th, Killed by Adelaide, Day 2_

Blood splattered away from Angella. A single drop of blood flew toward Adelaide and landed on her neck. Adelaide screamed as she ran toward the cornucopia and wiped off the blood with a rag. After wiping it away, a small stain still remained. The career girl wept on the ground, scrubbing at the stain with a sponge. It wouldn't come off, and she smashed all of the water in the cornucopia in her fury. She would face some trouble that night when the careers would discover what she had destroyed.

The careers, out hunting, were startled by the sound of Angella's cannon. They kept hunting. That cannon meant that the tributes must be out and about. They were right, for less than an hour later the trio jogged into a clearing. Lana shined her light into a corner. The flashlight's beam landed on Wheat, who was snoozing contentedly on the damp floor. Lana called the kill, adding that she had seen him first. The others complied, not daring to disobey the strongest among them. Lana hurled her shogei into Wheat's chest. Wheat bolted awake and immediately began heaving as the blade of the shogei wormed its way through his torso. Wheat struggled to cling onto life, and his body put up a good fight. The careers were beginning to grow rather bored of watching him struggle, and Romulus polished him off, spearing his rapier through Wheat's neck.

 _Wheat Sullivan, District 9 Male: 10th, Killed by Lana and Romulus, Day 2_

The tributes were dropping like flies. Only one more death and the final eight would be finalized.

On the morning of Day 3, the careers woke to a sobbing noise. They ran toward it and found Adelaide crying at the mouth of the horn, her hand clapped over her eyes. They demanded to know what was wrong. Adelaide sobbed uproariously, telling them that she messed up her makeup. The others commanded for Adelaide to lift her hand off of her forehead, but she refused. She yelped when Lana reached forward and tore it off. Her mascara had slightly strayed from her eyebrows, a tiny line of the makeup sticking out in an awkward position. "Why don't you clean it off, then, if you're so worried about looking perfect, _princess_?" Damask said mockingly, gritting his teeth with fury. Adelaide screamed, protesting that if she tried to clean it off it might smudge the rest of her makeup. The girl had a full-on panic attack, rolling around on the ground and holding her pretty self and sobbing obnoxiously.

The other careers knew one thing for sure. They would not take this nonsense any longer. Romulus unsheathed his rapier and, in one clean slice, sliced off all of Adelaide's hair. Adelaide gasped with horror as she watched her golden-blonde locks fall to the ground. Adelaide sobbed and cried and yelled and screamed as she grabbed her silky tresses and rubbed them against her face, mourning the loss of her look. The other careers shared a look. Although they said not a single word, their looks said everything. _This girl is pathetic,_ their expressions told it all. Suddenly, Lana began unwinding the chain of her shogei. Adelaide's sobs were silenced as the blade sliced into her back. That living nightmare was done with.

 _Adelaide Tassinari, District 1 Female: 9th, Killed by Lana, Day 3_

That left the final eight: Damask Brackett from District 1, Romulus Ustinja and Lana Voltaire from District 2, Callum Jupe from District 5, Hatchet Guston and Florianna Ceasar from District 7, Crosshatch Oliviero from District 8, and Susan Stark from District 11.

Day 4 arrived. Damask, Romulus, and Lana were much more efficient now that they had bumped off Adelaide, and they were able to cover much more ground. They were also able to get in a solid hour of extra hunting time now that they didn't have to wait for Adelaide to get ready in the mornings. Day 4 saw some movement in the duo of Crosshatch and Susan. These two tributes, wanting to get a foothold in the fast-paced nature of these games, actually went out tribute hunting. The sponsors were willing to comply, delivering a new bow to Crosshatch and a much sleeker and more slender sickle to Susan. The two tributes' efforts were fruitless. They decided to cover more ground around noon by splitting up. However, each one took note of their twists and turns with a ballpoint pen on their arm so that they could keep track of their movements.

The gamemakers knew that it was far too long into the games for an alliance among outliers to continue. As such, around noon on Day 4, a wave of cool water was sent after Crosshatch and Susan. The two tributes were able to outrun the wall of water, but it gradually picked up speed. Susan was the first to give into the gamemaker's plan. Susan, having gotten far ahead of the flow of water that was building up behind her, grabbed onto the wall and held on for all that she was worth. Her grip was firm. Less than a second later, the wave was over. Susan inspected her arm. All of her markings were gone, washed away by the wave. There was no way that she could find her way to Crosshatch now.

On the other side of the arena, Crosshatch ran away from the wall of water. But, the boy tripped on a rock and face-planted onto the rough cement. The wave caught up to him before he could regain his senses. He was swept away by the wave and was plopped down into the flow of sewage that carried him toward the cornucopia. Water crashed around Crosshatch, and there was nothing he could do but yell with agony as the furious, crashing water tore him to a pulp.

 _Crosshatch Oliviero, District 8 Male: 8th, Killed by Wave and Crashing Water, Day 4_

Hatchet had been travelling toward the edge of the arena for the past few days. His supplies of water were running very low, and dehydration would be his concern very soon. Hatchet grabbed the serrated dagger he had gotten from the cornucopia. It was only four days since he had gotten the knife, but to him it felt like a million years. Hatchet got to his feet. If he wanted water and food, he needed sponsors. And there was only one way to get sponsors. He went tribute hunting, only to make no kills that day.

Day 5 passed, deathless. The careers hunted feverishly to no avail. Susan, her ally dead, spent the days waiting in a small cove for whatever threats the gamemakers might bring her. Callum had been prowling through the arena when he heard snoring around a corner. He burst around the corner and found himself mere feet from sleeping Florianna. Callum cringed at the sight of her belt of axes. Callum unlatched her belt and removed it, dragging it a long ways down the hallway. Then, Callum removed one of the axes and got to work. Florianna screamed and thrashed and struggled as Callum bludgeoned her to death, and once her cannon shot fired Callum pillaged her of three axes. He also stole away with her supplies, including lots of water and medicine. Callum got sponsors aplenty after the encounter. This was not considered a Day 5 kill, but a Day 6 kill, for the girl did not die until a few seconds after midnight.

 _Florianna Ceasar, District 7 Female: 7th, Killed by Callum, Day 6_

The rest of Day 6 passed, deathless. The careers hunted feverishly, their efforts futile. Eventually, they just gave up and went back to the cornucopia. There were only three outliers left, and the careers knew that the gamemakers would drive them toward them soon enough. All they had to do was wait. Callum hid for most of the day, as did Susan.

On the morning of Day 7, Hatchet's supplies of water had been exhausted. Licking condensation off of the walls wasn't helping his raging thirst, and he refused to drink the sewage no matter how dire the situation. He knew that his days and maybe even his hours were being numbered, and so he crawled into a corner and began saying heartfelt goodbyes to his friends and family. If only we all got that opportunity.

 _Hatchet Guston, District 7 Male: 6th, Dehydration, Day 7_

With the opening of Day 8 came the first muttation interaction since Day 2. Callum had three axes. Axes were the skill that he had excelled in during his private session. The gamemakers wanted to see what he could do, and so they drove him toward the cornucopia for a bloody battle with the careers. The muttations that chased after Callum were spiders. They were huge and black and ugly, with a legspan of nearly five feet. The spiders chased after him, their long legs scuttling across the ground in the most disturbing way. Callum dared not stop for an instant to catch his breath lest the creatures catch up to him. Within two hours, he burst into the cornucopia's clearing, where all three of the careers were preparing for their daily hunting spree.

One would have expected that the careers would charge toward Callum and take him out immediately. But, the three careers and Callum actually teamed up to take down the three spiders. Romulus' rapier was a great weapon against the spiders, as he could slash and slice off more than one of their most terrifying legs at once. The strategy that they were all going for was to cut off their legs and render them immobile. To their great horror, a spider would grow back a leg within a minute if its leg was cut off. Damask's bow and arrow strategy was virtually useless against the monsters, and he was soon overwhelmed by the creatures. Two spiders, seeing how poorly he was fighting against their companion, scuttled toward him. All three of them were going for Damask, now. The other tributes raced toward him to help him, but the spiders beat him to it. They tore apart his bulky frame, hissing with triumph after they were done.

 _Damask Brackett, District 1 Male: 5th, Killed by Spider Muttations, Day 8_

With the spiders engrossed in Damask's corpse, the other tributes were able to kill them easily. It was Lana who killed the final spider, hurling her shogei into its abdomen. Now that the spiders had been eliminated, it was time for Callum to slaughter as many of the careers as he could.

Callum swung his first axe, letting it whizz quietly toward Romulus. Romulus rebutted his blow, knocking aside the weapon with his rapier. The axe spiraled away, and Callum grabbed his second axe. He aimed for Lana this time. Lana leaned down to try to hurl her shogei into Callum's leg. When she did, Callum leapt over her and landed perfectly on his feet on the other side of her. Lana was disoriented from their complex maneuver. Therefore, for a few seconds, Callum had only one target. Romulus charged toward him, and Callum swung forth his axe. The axe knocked his rapier to the ground, where Callum bent it into a strange shape with his feet. The purpose of a rapier was for stabbing, and that could not be done with a bent blade. His chief weapon now useless, Romulus leapt toward Callum and tried to strangle him with his bare hands. Callum thrust forth his axe. It buried itself perfectly into Romulus' head as he fell to the ground, moaning with pain. Now, Lana was the only remaining career.

 _Romulus Ustinja, District 2 Male: 4th, Killed by Callum, Day 8_

Lana quickly regained her senses. Her next blow was powerful. She threw forth the blade of her shogei. Lana smirked delicately as the travelling knife knocked aside Callum's second axe. Now, he had only one. Lana pounced forward and knocked away Callum's third and final axe with her feet. Lana pinned Callum to the ground but did not kill him. Lana was one to play with her food before she ate it. Using some rope that she had strapped to her back, Lana bound Callum so that he couldn't move.

Lana circled Callum, occasionally lunging forward just to scare him. Callum was terrified, but he did not cry. He did not sob or scream or yelp. He wore on his face a look of defiance. He knew that he was going to die, and he decided to go out with dignity. The careers fed off of fear and blood and death. Lana wanted to see him cry. She wanted to see him break.

Callum stayed silent. He would sooner die than give her that satisfaction. His silence infuriated her, and soon Lana went in for the kill. The urge to scream is irresistible when one's chest is being carved out with a shogei, but even as Lana was doing so Callum held his hands in twin vulgar gestures. Right before his death, Callum spat onto cackling Lana.

 _Callum Jupe, District 5 Male: 3rd, Killed by Lana, Day 8_

The gamemakers had reached their final two and wound be sure to crown their victor the next day. Lana Voltaire was the half-sister of Victor Discordia Komine. If she won, she would be the second ever victor to be related to a past victor, the first being Freya Digard, the niece of Olivia Seager. If Lana won, she would have eight kills under her belt, one of the highest counts of all time. If she won, she would bring District 2's victor count to ten, making them the first ever district to achieve double digits in terms of number of victors. Susan Stark, however, was the true underdog. She was the daughter of a harvester father and a florist mother, and she had five siblings that she was a big sister to. She had been a great fighter, and throughout the games she had showcased her endurance in the face of hardship as well as her loyalty. This trait made her a personal favorite of Coriolanus Snow, who could use some more examples of loyalty to shove into the rebel's faces whenever they should emerge again.

On Day 9, Yarrow unleashed the slime. The slime was green and bioluminescent, and it reeked. The huge globs started around the perimeter of the arena. The slime spread, consuming everything in its path.

Lana had been out gathering water at time. Ever since Adelaide had smashed all of the water bottles several days prior the careers had had to go out for the commodity. She saw the torrent of green slime headed her way and fled from it. She was graceful and agile in her movements. Naturally, the slime was guiding her toward the cornucopia. Susan shook with panic as she ran away from the flow of slime that was racing in from behind her. She bowled into the cornucopia clearing, where Lana was waiting for her. The final battle began.

Susan raced into the clearing with her scythe held high. She swiped it down and tried to drive it into Lana's shoulder. But, the clever 2 girl leapt out of the way and circled around and around her. Lana pounced toward disoriented Susan, who was able to fend her off with a violent strike down from her scythe. Susan held her scythe firmly in her grasp and spun around and around, creating a barrier around her. When Lana crawled to the floor to try to go under the trajectory of the spinning edge, Susan kicked her in the torso with her foot. Lana spiraled away. Once she regained her senses, she charged forward. Susan, surprised by her sudden burst of energy, couldn't move out of the way fast enough before Lana let out the chain of her shogei and hurled it directly into her heart. By the time that Susan collapsed to the ground with a loud thud, she was dead and the trumpets began trilling in their tumultuous melody.

 _Susan Stark, District 11 Female: 2nd, Killed by Lana, Day 9_

"Lana Voltaire of District 2, you are the victor of the thirty-sixth annual Hunger Games!" Yarrow screamed.

Lana held her shogei high into the air for all to see. She had eight kills, the second highest kill count for a victor in history at the time. She had brought District 2 its tenth victor. And, although nobody else knew it at the time, it was Lana's nineteenth birthday. What a truly spectacular birthday present.

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

District 2 welcomed Lana to their lineup of victors with thunderous applause. She was their tenth victor, and District 2 was now the first district to achieve double digits. The Capitol showered the district with spectacular and marvelous things. They decked out Lana's house in the Victor's Village to being one of the finest homes in Panem. The Capitol loved Lana, and she was your typical all-in-it-for-the-honor, loyal career. She actually requested to keep her shogei after her victory. The Capitol complied. Although it was technically illegal for anything in the arena to be removed from it, the Capitol was willing to break that rule for one of the finest and most beloved victors of all time.

Lana moved into the Victor's Village of District 2, the tenth victor to do so.

In District 2, Lana received a hero's welcome during her victory tour. The other districts, particularly 11, were cold toward her and showered her with ill will.

Lana would live to the age of ninty-one, dying from heart disease around the time of the one-hundred ninth annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would marry and have one son.

A point that many Hunger Games enthusiasts noted was that Lana was the second oldest victor of the first Hunger Games century, nineteen years old at the time of her victory. It would be nearly forty years until there was a victor older than her: Annie Cresta, who won at nineteen years and two days of age.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Lana moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, the tenth victor to do so.

Velvet Farrow adopts a baby girl named Nefertiti.

Odius Ruttler marries his fiancée of three years, a woman named Althea.

Molly Soltan adopts a young boy named Dusk.

Grover Handa marries his fiance, James Rally.

Troy Stiles weds his fiancée, Lucy.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Lana, District 2's tenth victor! District 2 has double-digits now :D**

 **If you're able, please review. I'd love to hear your feedback or your thoughts on this story. Thanks for reading, and expect the thirty-seventh games pretty soon! :D**


	38. The 37th Hunger Games

**The 37th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

President Coriolanus Snow, now returning for his thirteenth year as president of Panem, strived off of fear. As long as fear was by his side, he could never fail. The emotion of fear emerges from a natural desire for survival. Humans, by nature, feel safer and more secure in numbers. When we are alone, we are much easier to scare. The power-hungry snake that he was, Snow devised a devious plan to draw line after line between people and to induce as strong a sense of separation and division as possible. He started out by punishing District 12, which had been the first district to lose both of its tributes in the thirty-sixth Hunger Games. Snow sent hoards of peacekeepers to wreak havoc on the district. On that note, Snow proposed his plan to the nation. In the thirty-seventh Hunger Games, the first district to lose both of its tributes would be punished severely by the Capitol. The next district to lose both of its tributes would receive a slightly more mild punishment, and so on. The victor's district would be showered with fame, wealth, and fortune. This would, Coriolanus hoped, draw lines between the districts and embarrass the outliers. Snow's plan worked. The weak and the powerful turned away from each other, as did the poor and the rich. With each person in the districts so cold to anyone different from them, no rebellion happened for the entire year. Riots and rebellions only work when there are loads of people fighting for a shared cause. Rebellion only works if its members hold a sense of unity.

Yarrow Dawnbloom returned for his fifth year as head gamemaker, spurred on by the praise he had received the year prior. The thirty-sixth games had been one of the most thrilling of Yarrow's career. Its main focal point was the high scores outside of the career pack. This year, Yarrow rigged the reapings of several districts to ensure that a few powerful outliers ended up in the games. A popular feature of the arena had been the structure of the cornucopia. Each tribute had to run down their own "spindle" to reach the horn. His next arena would take this into account. The arena for the thirty-seventh Hunger Games was an archipelago of five islands. The largest island stood in the center of the arena. It housed the cornucopia. "Cornucopia Island" as it was called, had a large, circular lake inside of it. The cornucopia was suspended over the lake by stilts. The cornucopia was, once again, set up like a bicycle wheel. Each pedestal was at the end of a spindle. Every tribute had to run down their spindle to reach the cornucopia. On the east side of Cornucopia Island was a luxury resort. To the south was the second largest island, known as the Isle of Death. Everything on the island was poisonous. The water would cause severe stomach cramps if drunk. The luscious fruit was acidic and tingled at the touch. Even the flowers that dotted the island would inflame the respiratory tubes if their pollen was inhaled too directly. To the north was an island known as Watchtower Island. It had, true to its name, a large watchtower that dominated the landscape. To the east was an island called Te Duem. Its name is Latin for monster. A bloodthirsty kraken circled the island, waiting to devour its prey. To the west was a strange and mysterious island known as The Amiss. A thick fog hung over the island. Anything that entered the fog never emerged again.

The careers this year were a great batch of kids, but not outstanding. Snow didn't want an overly powerful career pack that overshadowed the rest of the tributes. District 1 offered up the youngest pair. Their male was your typical arrogant career. He loved the audience's attention, and he attracted many of the sponsors with his confidence. He preferred the sword as his trademark weapon. District 1's female was determined not to follow in the footsteps of Adelaide, the District 1 female of the year prior. In the Capitol, this girl even made a point of not caring at all about her appearance. She outscored her district partner, showcasing her talents with the bow and arrow. The tributes from District 2 really were the stars of the show. They were the twin children of District 2's head academy trainer. The male was a tall and bulky boy who was a fantastic hand-to-hand warrior. The female preferred to put on a bloody show with her kills, centralizing her plan of attack around the whip. District 4 produced a pair whose members were rather laid back and unconventional. The District 4 male was a chill dude. He was funny and acted like a friend with the master of ceremonies during his interview. He preferred the trident, using it to score a cool ten in his private session. The District 4 female was funny and a little bit childish, but in a cute way. Despite being only fifteen, she managed an impressive eight in her private session by displaying her impeccable aim and her keen ear and eye. The careers scored slightly lower than average with three tens, one nine, and two eights.

Outside of the careers, per Snow's request, the training scores were remarkably high. Three non-careers managed to score double digits. Candela Hattersley of District 6 was able to prove that use of a pickaxe could translate rather well into use of an actual axe, the weapon that he used to slice and bludgeon his way to a ten. The other ten was scored by Adara Robelo-Gomes, who excelled in use of the scythe. Adara was really a comedian, and she quickly became a Capitol favorite. A single nine was scored besides the careers. It was earned by Corrine, District 8's bubbly and lively female. She employed a "hit and go" strategy, fighting and then retreating, rinse and repeat. Two tributes scored eights outside of the careers. Willow from 7 was a tall and stocky boy who was true to his long heritage of lumberjacks and excelled with the hatchet. An eight was also scored by Hannah from 10, who was familiar with the crowbar from working with the object on the ranches back in her home district. The rest of the tributes scored between seven and two in their private sessions. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Mink Stallion, 15, (8) 8-1 and Alicia Lace, 16, (9) 6-1

District 2: Octoberius Wisp, 16, (10) 4-1 and Octoberia Wisp, 16, (10) 4-1

District 3: Gadge Corielli, 17, (6) 17-1 and Racheal Montrone, 18, (5) 18-1

District 4: Hudson Morello, 17, (10) 4-1 and Lucy Said, 15, (8) 8-1

District 5: Axton Fukimura, 13, (3) 60-1 and Lexie Brandin, 15, (4) 40-1

District 6: Candela Hattersley, 18, (10) 5-1 and Felicity Thatcher, 18, (6) 16-1

District 7: Willow Cardi, 14, (8) 10-1 and Adara Robelo-Gomes, 17, (10) 5-1

District 8: Karksi Pasta, 12, (2) 82-1 and Corinne Conquest, 16, (9) 9-1

District 9: Odell Tyree, 18, (7) 14-1 and Allyson Rucker, 17, (7) 15-1

District 10: Anthony Covings, 15, (6) 18-1 and Hannah Sinclaire, 18, (8) 10-1

District 11: Saigon Fowl, 18, (7) 14-1 and Katniss Jett, 18, (7) 14-1

District 12: Dale Pennypacker, 17, (5) 15-1 and Olive Renee, 14, (3) 55-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

Cool ocean mist greeted the tributes as they rose up into the arena atop their pedestals. The scenery was varied enough that many a tribute figured that they could survive off of the land if they were wise. This year, District 4 would certainly have the advantage. Those tributes that couldn't swim well would be constrained to Cornucopia Island, where they would swiftly be eliminated by the dominant careers.

When the gong sounded, a sizable number of tributes fled from the get-go. They were Karksi from 8, Allyson from 9, and Olive from 12.

Octoberia sprinted at the head of the onrush, her strawberry-blonde hair rippling behind her as she affixed her gaze to a katana that leaned against a crate in front of the cornucopia. The District 2 girl nimbly swept up the weapon. She turned sharply on her heel and skewered the long blade through the torso of a nearby girl. The girl flailed around wordlessly before going limp. She slid off of Octoberia's katana as she died. The career girl wiped off her bloodstained sword in the grass as she reveled in her first kill.

 _Felicity Thatcher, District 6 Female: 24th, Killed by Octoberia, Bloodbath_

Hudson was quick to realize that there were no tridents at the cornucopia. The gamemakers had begun to grow bored of District 4 tributes always choosing the trident as their weapon. Figuring that the two weapons couldn't be that different, Hudson picked up a spear that leaned against the cornucopia. Hudson flung the spear into the nearest boy. The weapon buried itself into the side of his torso. He collapsed, wheezing, before Octoberius came around to finish him off, spearing his serrated dagger through his lower abdomen.

 _Axton Fukimura, Disrtict 5 Male: 23rd, Killed by Hudson and Octoberius, Bloodbath_

Having securely wrenched his dagger out of Axton's limp form, Octoberius whirled around and shoved the serrated knife into the neck of a girl who was trying to off him with a knife of her own. The girl screamed in terror and agony as Octoberius' dagger cut into her neck. Blood burbled forth as she fell to the earth with a loud noise, never to rise again.

 _Katniss Jett, District 11 Female: 22nd, Killed by Octoberius, Bloodbath_

Alicia smirked when she caught a glimpse of a sleek bow that sat in the grass fifty yards from her pedestal. Alicia picked up the bow and its accompanying quiver of sharp arrows. They fell snugly into her grasp. The District 1 girl nocked a single arrow and pulled back her bowstring, aiming for a boy that had embarrassed her during training. Alicia's arrow buried itself into the side of the boy's abdomen. He crumpled to the grass, dying the earth around him a dark, muddy red.

 _Dale Pennypacker, District 12 Male: 21st, Killed by Alicia, Bloodbath_

With four tributes already dead, things were beginning to organize within the ranks of the careers. Three of the careers (Mink, Alicia, and Lucy) got to the work of bumping off the three outliers that were inside of the cornucopia at the time (Candela from 6, Odell from 9, and Saigon from 11). The three careers trapped the three boys inside of the cornucopia with nothing to do but fight it out or wait for their deaths. Mink got to work dueling with Saigon, whom he deemed a weak and blunt opponent. Mink unsheathed his sword as Saigon picked up a whip that sat on a countertop beside him. Suddenly, Saigon slammed down the whip upon Mink's torso. Mink reeled. Lucy and Alicia were onto Saigon like a hound, Lucy carving out his chest with one of her throwing knives and Alicia lodging one of her arrows between two of his ribs. Saigon fell, knocking his head against a countertop as he did. His moans of pain slowly faded away, stopping completely only after his form went limp. District 11 had become the first district to lose both of its tributes.

 _Saigon Fowl, District 11 Male: 20th, Killed by Lucy and Alicia, Bloodbath_

Alicia didn't have time to tear her arrow out of Saigon's corpse, for Candela was already charging toward her and Lucy, a spear in hand. Alicia lifted her foot into the air and slammed it into Candela's torso, knocking him to the ground. In the midst of the situation, Odell tried to flee. He escaped the cornucopia safely. It was not five seconds before he was spotted by Octoberia, who cut him to ribbons with her katana.

 _Odell Tyree, District 9 Male: 19th, Killed by Octoberia, Bloodbath_

Candela on the ground, he was easy prey for the two career girls. Lucy hurled one of her throwing knives into Candela's chest. Just for good measure, Alicia got in on the action, firing an arrow into the groaning boy's forehead to polish him off.

 _Candela Hattersley, District 6 Male: 18th, Killed by Lucy and Alicia, Bloodbath_

Lucy and Alicia looked upon Mink with earnest. Mink was on the ground, squealing and thrashing with agony from Saigon's whip, its sharp teeth still buried into his back. The two girls tore the whip out of his back and ran away, promising to tend to his wounds the instant that the bloodbath was over. Of course, it was only a matter of time before an outlier spotted Mink. It was Hannah from 10 who went in for the kill, plunging a knife that sat in a cluster of pink blossoms near him into his chest.

 _Mink Stallion, District 1 Male: 17th, Killed by Saigon and Hannah, Bloodbath_

Octoberius clutched his dagger in hand so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Octoberius spun in a circle with the intention of getting a panoramic view of the chaotic scene. He reckoned that the easiest prey would be a nearby girl who was rummaging through a crate just outside of the cornucopia's yawning mouth. The girl was too shocked to scream as Octoberius' dagger dug into her back. The career boy wiggled the blade around, cutting open several organs and bursting several critical arteries. She fell limp onto the crate, splattering its contents with her thick blood.

 _Lexie Brandin, District 5 Female: 16th, Killed by Octoberius, Bloodbath_

Adara from 7 locked her dexterous fingers around a hatchet that she found inside of a crate. She looked up and watched as Octoberius buried his dagger into Lexie's back. Adara got to her feet and started toward Octoberius, who was engrossed in pillaging the girl of her supplies. Octoberius flailed around wordlessly as the blade of Adara's hatchet sank into his back. He fell, his head knocking against the side of the cornucopia and resting there. Now only four careers remained.

 _Octoberius Wisp, District 2 Male: 15th, Killed by Adara, Bloodbath_

Alicia made the bloodbath's final kill. She had long since given up trying to retrieve her arrows from the bodies of her victims. Hence, Alicia ran back into the cornucopia to refill on the sharp projectiles. While inside of the cornucopia, she heard rustling behind her. She whipped her head around and saw a dark-haired girl lifting a whip into the air, ready to slam it down upon Alicia. Alicia fumbled for the nearest weapon—a shogei—and hurled the weapon toward the girl. The girl dropped her whip as the sharp edge of the shogei sliced open her stomach. She fell, wheezing, as the careers gathered around to watch her die. Abruptly, her cries of pain were silenced and eleven cannon shots boomed across the arena.

 _Racheal Montrone, District 3 Female: 14th, Killed by Alicia, Bloodbath_

Eleven death bloodbaths were quickly becoming the norm. Bloodbaths with twelve or thirteen deaths were largely a figment of the older generation. Now that the gamemakers' arenas were more enticing and the outliers were more prepared to fend off the advances of the careers, it was standard to have only ten or eleven bloodbath deaths. The thirty-seventh games' bloodbath had eleven deaths, a number that pleased Yarrow.

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the tributes that could swim were pleased and a little relieved to discover that the ocean was as warm as bath water. With Watchtower Island to the north, Te Duem to the east, the Isle of Death to the south, and The Amiss to the west, the tributes had lots of options to choose from. A sizable number of tributes stayed on Cornucopia Island. These were the outliers that couldn't swim or were too terrified to enter the water that seemed almost deceptively clear. Karksi from 8 travelled to the luxury resort that sat on the island. He swung open the front door and found himself in front of a receptionists' desk. He travelled to one of the hotel rooms in the resort and spread himself out on one of the beds. None of the sinks in the hotel worked, so water would be Karksi's number one priority very soon. Olive from 12 stayed on Cornucopia Island but didn't go to the resort for fear of proximity to other tributes. Instead, Olive travelled westward to where a grove of coconut trees sat. Olive sat down on the coast and began forming a plan. She spent the rest of the day setting up a little water purification device that involved water being evaporated from a cup, condensing on a plastic sheet, and then dripping into another cup once all of the nasties had been killed by the sun's ever-present heat. It wasn't the most efficient thing in the world, but it served Olive's watery needs for the day.

Watchtower Island was the most popular destination for the tributes that survived the bloodbath. One would have thought that the Isle of Death would be a more popular choice, but several of the tributes thought it was too perfect to not be deadly. Of the four tributes that travelled to Watchtower Island, only two actually entered the watchtower. Adara from 7 swam through the warm water to reach the Watchtower, a journey that was difficult because of how much her axe weighed her down. She climbed about halfway up the tower before collapsing in a dark corner from fatigue. Allyson from 9 walked all of the way to the very top of the watchtower and plopped down beside the telescope. She gazed down at the arena: the Isle of Death past the cornucopia, The Amiss to her left, and Te Duem to her right. It was a marvelous view. Suddenly, Allyson spotted a large mass moving under the water near Te Duem. She yelped and dropped the telescope. District 10's Anthony feared that he would be found easily if he hid inside of the watchtower with no cover. Therefore, he stayed outside of the tower and buried himself under a network of thick coconut leaves. It was steaming hot but at least it was better than a career's knife. Anthony's district partner, Hannah, also travelled to watchtower island but trekked around behind the watchtower for her nightly camp. Nobody would have any reason in the world to travel back there, she thought with reassurance.

Te Duem didn't get its name for no reason. Its name means "monster" in Latin. A rickety sign stood welcoming each tribute to the island. The only tributes that might have been able to translate the name of the island were the careers, whose districts were wealthy enough to fund the teaching of foreign languages to schoolchildren. Allies Willow and Corinne travelled to the island after the bloodbath, clueless to the monster that circled the island in pursuit of its prey. Willow and Corinne shared their spoils from the bloodbath. Willow had been snatching weapons whereas Corinne had been grabbing survival supplies whenever possible. The two had gotten to Te Duem via a sandbar that had been exposed during low tide. They refused to eat any of their food, saving it for when they really needed it. They dismissed the rumbles that they heard all throughout the night as rumbles of their hungry stomachs.

Gadge from 3 was the only tribute to head to The Amiss. None of the other tributes went there because they recognized that fog. It had been used two times before in the games: once in the Fourth Games and once in the Thirty-Third Games. He entered the cloud of dark fog and never emerged again. To this very day, nobody is sure how the fog worked. After Gadge's death, the cloud of fog began puffing in and out, as if it was cackling with triumph.

 _Gadge Corielli, District 3 Male: 13th, Killed by The Amiss, Day 1_

After Gadge's death, Day 1 passed without any deaths. The careers split up to hunt, sending one of their members to each one of the five islands, excluding The Amiss. This year's tributes were a batch of good hiders.

On Day 2, the tributes' main priority seemed to be fastening rafts to carry them between the islands. Swimming between the islands was growing to be a painfully laborious task. Karksi was the first tribute to start making a raft. He had spent the entirety of Day 1 on Cornucopia Island because he didn't trust the ocean's water to be empty of dangers. He was wise, in a way, as the ocean had many poisonous creatures waiting for their prey. It really did show that Karksi was from 8; he wowed the audience with the way he looped reed around reed and tied knots with all the elegance of a skilled weaver. By noon he had fashioned a raft large enough to fit on. He placed it in the water and apprehensively stepped into it. It held his weight, but he had to leave some of his supplies behind. He took only the bare necessities with him. That included a canteen of water (he didn't want to drink the ocean's), a knife, and a package of headache pills. He had no way of steering his raft, and his fate was left up to the wind and the ocean's currents.

Olive's water purification system of evaporating the water and leaving it to condense was beginning to fail. The light of the relentless sun was beginning to melt her thin plastic sheet, and because of all of the work that she was doing her body demanded much more water than her little machine could purify. Soon, she took inspiration from her predecessors and asked the sponsors for a spile, adding on that she'd be sure to make a kill or two just to thank them. She had no such luck with the sponsors, so she started making one herself. It was difficult, as the wood of the island's trees was brittle and hard to form into a definite shape. Olive succeeded within a few hours, though, nailing the spile into a tree. She tried in vain to make a raft out of reeds, but failed. Perhaps it was her fate to stay on the Cornucopia Island for as long as she may have lasted.

Over on Watchtower Island, Allyson was beginning to grow rather paranoid. She kept checking the telescope for any other tributes out of paranoia. Whenever she heard a noise she would leap under the nearest desk and unsheathe her weapon in case it was another tribute or heaven forbid another career. It was not very long until her darkest terrors came true. Adara from 7 had spent Day 2's early hours trekking up the watchtower with hopes of reaching the top. When Adara did, she spun open the door just in time to see Allyson's ankle disappear behind a shelf that was filled with maps. Adara wasn't sure if what she had seen was a figment of her imagination or not, so she went around the corner to investigate. Allyson pounced out of her hiding place and leapt toward Adara. Adara pulled her hatchet out its sheath and slammed it forth in self-defense. The blade of the hatchet buried itself into Allyson's neck. Her cries of fear were immediately replaced by a quiet gurgle as blood pooled up in her mouth. Adara was the king of the watchtower now.

 _Allyson Rucker, District 9 Female: 12th, Killed by Adara, Day 2_

In Te Duem to the east, the rumbles of the bloodthirsty kraken began to grow louder. They were still not loud enough to create too much suspicion among the alliance of Willow and Corinne. They dismissed them as tremors of the earth. Willow even remarked that earth tremors were common in oceans because the earth moved under the weight of the heavy water. This wasn't actually true and Willow knew it, but it reassured him and Corinnne. The two allies wasted away the entire day on Te Duem. They were set on supplies and didn't really need to go anywhere or do anything. They spent most of the day just talking.

Hannah and Anthony, both from 10, had an encounter around six in the evening on Day 2. Hannah had her knife and Anthony had his crossbow. They were both on Watchtower Island. Anthony had ventured out of his hiding place in pursuit of food. He walked behind the Watchtower and found himself face-to-face with Hannah, who was gorging herself on a bin of shrimp that she had caught from the ocean. Anthony prepared his crossbow and was about to shoot until he saw a sparkle of gold from Hannah's wrist. She was wearing a golden bracelet with a cross charm. Anthony lowered his crossbow and revealed his own bracelet. The two tributes sat down near each other and spent several hours discussing their similar faiths. They were unspoken allies at that point.

In the careers, there was a lot of movement but little action. The careers were relieved that they didn't have a repeat Adelaide this year. Even though they saw that Alicia's priorities weren't skewered like Adelaide's of the year prior, the other still held a grudge against District 1 females. They excluded Alicia from things that involved dexterity, perhaps feeling that she would be too worried about this or that to actually get things done. This infuriated Alicia, and she had a heated fight with the others that night after realizing that they had been giving her much less food than they had been splitting among themselves. Alicia refused to talk to any of the others that night and ate her food in silence.

On Te Duem, Willow and Corinne woke up to a loud sound. The kraken was roaring and moaning with bloodthirstiness. These sounds were far too loud to be dismissed as tummy problems now. The two tributes emerged from their hiding places. And then, they saw the kraken. Actually, they only saw one tentacle at first. A long and slender blue tentacle shot out from the water and flew toward Corinne. Corinne leapt over it, and the tentacle shot under her. A second tentacle arose from the water. The two tributes shook with panic as they ran away from the monster's tentacles. With hopes of protection, the two allies ran around to the opposite side of a large hill. Then, the creature began rising from the water. Its body was slender and blue. It opened its mouth to reveal row upon row of bloodthirsty fangs. The kraken roared and lunged toward the two allies. A long showdown it would be.

The creature used its tentacles to its advantage, swinging them around and trying to knock away either Willow or Corinne. Willow was the first one to have a close call with death. He was running parallel to the kraken, wielding his axe. Suddenly, the monster shot out a single tentacle and grabbed Willow. Willow screamed as he was lifted into the air. Corinne heard Willow's screams and ran to his side, stabbing her knife into the kraken's tentacle where it was clutching Willow. The monster hissed with anger before dropping Willow and going after Corinne. Willow crumpled to the sand like a torn paper doll and tried to catch up on his labored breathing.

Corinne was agile, and with each step that she was able to escape the kraken just got angrier and angrier. Sponsor gifts were pouring in by the dozens, now. Everybody wanted to see how the two tributes could utilize different weapons against their muttation pursuer. Soon, each ally had a bow and arrow. Corinne nocked an arrow and launched it into the kraken's head, smugly watching as it pierced the monster's skin. Out of the wound poured an evil black liquid that held little resemblance to blood. The kraken cried out with fury as it raced toward Corinne. The monster wrapped one of its slender tentacles around her body and lifted her into the air. Corinne screamed. She was so high into the air that Willow could do nothing but watch with horror. The kraken tightened its grip on the terrified girl and lifted her up to its mouth. The beast's breath stank of bad meat. Suddenly, the kraken threw the District 8 girl into its mouth. It gave a hard swallow. Nothing remained of Corinne's existence except for a bulge that was travelling down the kraken's neck and toward its stomach.

 _Corinne Conquest, District 8 Female: 11th, Killed by Kraken Muttation, Day 3_

With Corinne's death, the monster only had one target: Willow. Willow was lying on the sand, coughing up blood and trying desperately to regain his senses after the kraken's first blow. The kraken laughed as it slammed the end of one of its tentacles into Willow, crushing him to death. The kraken leapt onto Te Duem, revealing its entire body. It munched on Willow's body for about a minute. Then, content, the kraken disappeared into the water amidst a cloud of black ink.

 _Willow Cardi, District 7 Male: 10th, Killed by Kraken Muttation, Day 3_

The infuriated roars of the kraken were loud enough to be heard from every nook and cranny of the arena. The sounds coaxed many of the tributes back into their hiding places. Even the careers were reluctant to hunt for fear that the muttation might target them while they were out and about. As a result of this, the rest of Day 3 passed without any conflict among the remaining tributes. Karksi spent the entire day on his raft, never once touching shore. He simply floated across the ocean wherever the wind may have taken him. He finally gave into temptation and drank the ocean water, purifying it with some sponsored iodine first. He was pleased to discover that the water was not poisonous and was not saltwater. Anthony and Hannah spent the whole day on Watchtower Island. They spent most of the morning milling around outside and discussing their parallel faiths. The roars of the kraken scared them into making a little den in the side of a hill to hide in.

Olive from 12 was beginning to face trouble. Her spile was so brittle that it was beginning to crack whenever she tried to smash it into the side of a tree. The sun had cooled down significantly over the past few days and so she couldn't use her evaporation-condensation anymore. Allured by the sight of the crystal-clear lakes on the Isle of Death to the south, Olive got onto her raft and used her arms to paddle toward the island. She set shore onto the island's coast and found the clearest pool. It sparkled like polished glass. Olive dipped a cup into the lake and began greedily gulping down the clear liquid. Within seconds, she began retching. The poison was beginning to work its way into her system. She leaned away from the lake and heaved herself dry. Then, she collapsed to the ground and moaned with pain as the stomach cramps settled in. She had drunk enough water to kill her, but it would be a long and painful death. Her labored, uneven breathing was a sure sign that she was going to die soon as she dragged herself away from the lake into a corpse of bushes and began yelling with agony. The poison had worked her way into the bloodstream. The violent pain reached its peak about fifteen minutes later. The pain declined until about half an hour later, when her form relaxed and a cannon shot boomed across the arena.

 _Olive Renee, District 12 Female: 9th, Killed by Poisonous Water, Day 3_

That left the final eight: Alicia Lace from District 1, Octoberia Wisp from District 2, Hudson Morello and Lucy Said from District 4, Adara Robelo-Gomes from District 7, Karksi Pasta from District 8, and Anthony Covings and Hannah Sinclaire from District 10.

Head Gamemaker Yarrow Dawnbloom was through with drawing out the games longer than they should have been. These games, he promised to himself, he would not dissuade action, only encourage and spark it. This would lead to a very short games.

The morning of Day 4 saw the end of Karksi. He had been sailing on his little raft for nearly three days straight without touching land. The gamemakers were beginning to grow bored of him and so sent a gust of wind his way. Karksi panicked and tried to grab hold of his raft for stability, but it was no use. He tipped over and plummeted into the warm ocean.

He spiraled downward before regaining his senses and kicking upward. He tried to reach his raft, but it had already blown away in the wind, merely a speck on the horizon. He just swam there, treading water and trying to form a plan in his mind. Suddenly, a swarm of brightly-colored tropical fish appeared below him. Karksi had watched the games enough to know that bright colors are the gamemakers' way of saying "stay away". Karksi panicked and swam away, but the fish caught up to him. One of the fish, a blue swordfish, speared itself into the side of Karksi's abdomen. He screamed and tried to swat the fish away, but a group of flounder grabbed onto his leg and pulled him downward. To put the icing on the fish muttations' cake, a squid came and wrapped a single slender tentacle around Karksi. The squid squeezed tighter and tighter, flattening Karksi's trachea and imploding his lungs. His limp form sank down to the ocean floor, where it came to stop in a cluster of whimsically purple blossoms.

 _Karksi Pasta, District 8 Male: 8th, Killed by Tropical Fish and Squid Muttations, Day 4_

The careers hunted feverishly on Day 4, to no avail. Since the bloodbath, the careers hadn't made a single kill. Anthony and Hannah began expanding their hideout, digging it into the hillside and creating a little den inside. It was a tight fit but would serve as a bunker of sorts if a bloodthirsty career came along. Adara had spent most of the games at the top of the watchtower with the door barricaded shut. She stayed in her little bunker for the entirety of Day 4, thinking that she was safe from every harm. She was wrong.

On the morning of Day 5, the kraken emerged again. The beast didn't just circle around Te Duem anymore. It swam around the entire arena. Suddenly, as the careers were up and preparing for their hunting spree, the monster let out a roar and emerged from the water. The careers beelined for their weapons, ready to team up and take down the kraken. The creature shot out a slender tentacle and crushed the cornucopia like nothing. Debris was sent flying, and the careers ducked to avoid the flying bits of cornucopia. The kraken dragged itself onto the land and slithered across the fuzzy grass in pursuit of the careers. The allies ran. For now, at least, the kraken wasn't interested in killing the careers. It was interested in forcing them toward Watchtower Island, where all of the other tributes were. There, a bloody showdown would occur.

Alicia's bow was able to do significate damage against the monster, for it was a projectile weapon. The same could be said about Lucy's throwing knives, although to a lesser extent. Octoberia's katana was useless against the kraken. All three wanted bows, and eager sponsors shipped them to them pronto.

It was a few minutes before the careers raced over an exposed sandbar and onto Watchtower Island. In its fury, the kraken reached out a slimy tentacle and wrapped it around the watchtower. The beast ripped the watchtower out of the ground and hurled it into the ocean. Adara was inside, and when the kraken threw the tower she was thrown against the wall behind her. The tower sank into the ocean, where Adara was trapped to drown amidst a severe concussion.

 _Adara Robelo-Gomes, District 7 Female: 7th, Killed by Kraken Muttation, Day 5_

Anthony and Hannah ran out of their hiding places to investigate the commotion. The kraken hissed with triumph at the sight of two more tributes to make its prey. The careers charged for the two District 10 allies, knowing that this nightmare wouldn't end until only one of them remained. The fight was certainly a unique one, as the two groups of tributes needed to battle each other while simultaneously swatting away the kraken. If the kraken made a swipe of a mighty tentacle and it smacked into a tribute, that tribute was dead and nothing could save them. The kraken did exactly that. Each career just needed to be faster than the slowest runner. That slowest runner was Hudson, who tripped on a sharp rock and had to start hobbling away from the monster. The kraken reached out a tentacle and strangled the boy. Then, it lifted him into the air and dropped him into its mouth. Only five tributes remained.

 _Hudson Morello, District 4 Male: 6th, Killed by Kraken Muttation, Day 5_

Anthony and Hannah both had bows, the only weapons really effective against the monster. The kraken reached out a slimy tentacle and wrapped it around screaming Alicia. Before the beast could lift Alicia off of the land, Anthony nocked a bow into his arrow and launched it toward the kraken's tentacle. His aim was perfect. The kraken hissed with fury and dropped Alicia. Alicia fell such a short distance that she didn't experience any sort of injury.

The kraken raced toward Anthony, the tribute who had injured it. The demonic creature hissed as it grabbed Anthony by the torso and smashed him into a tree. He sobbed for a few seconds before dying. His last words were a prayer to God.

 _Anthony Covings, District 10 Male: 5th, Killed by Kraken Muttation, Day 5_

Hannah ran to her dead ally's side. There was no doubt about it. Anthony was dead, and his cannon shot confirmed this. Hannah swore and flung an arrow toward the creature. She missed, and the kraken charged toward her. While it was, it was an easy target for the trio of Alicia, Octoberia, and Lucy. Alicia fit an arrow into her bow and launched the projectile into the side of the kraken's mighty tentacle. The creature turned away from Hannah and ran toward Alicia. The monster was about to smash shaking Alicia when Alicia grabbed Octoberia and pulled her in front of her. It was the ultimate act of selfishness. The kraken grabbed Octoberia and dropped her into its great mouth, chomping her with its plaque-coated teeth. Alicia screamed and ran.

 _Octoberia Wisp, District 2 Female: 4th, Killed by Alicia and Kraken Muttation, Day 5_

With Alicia, Lucy, and Hannah the only remaining tributes, things began to intensify. The three tributes all worked in coordination to take down the monster. Alicia would take the monster's left side, and Hannah would take its right. Lucy, well, she had a plan. She whispered it to the others and scampered off to carry it out. Lucy darted toward the nearest tree and shinnied up it like a squirrel. Then, when the kraken came near, she got to her feet and leapt on top of it.

The kraken roared with anger and shook rapidly, trying to bump off Lucy. Lucy was riding the kraken like a jockey, holding onto its slimy skin with a firm grasp. Up there atop the monster's mighty form, she could do more damage. With the kraken distracted trying to knock off Lucy, the other two girls could take down the monster with ease. Alicia fired an arrow. The arrow's shaft gored its way through the kraken's eye. It hissed, its vision ruined, as Hannah went in for the kill. She fit an arrow into her bow and aimed for an area of the creature's torso that was pulsing in and out like clockwork.

Its heart.

Hannah's aim was perfect, and the arrow wormed its way into the monster's heart. It hissed as the evil black liquid began oozing from the wound. The creature let out a roar so loud that the very earth seemed to shake as it slowly but surely fell to the ground. After the monster was dead, Lucy crawled off of it. She was battered severely.

Suddenly, a torrent of the creature's black blood squirted out and splashed into Alicia. Alicia screamed as the highly acidic substance began corroding her skin away. Lucy and Hannah stood by and watched with horror as Alicia's body was dissolved to the point that nothing remained. They now knew to steer clear of the kraken's blood, however.

 _Alicia Lace, District 1 Female: 3rd, Killed by Acidic Kraken Muttation Blood, Day 5_

The gamemakers had reached their final two, and unfortunately they wound not get the bloody final fight that they so cherished each year. The two girls were in no shape to make a bloody fight at all. Lucy just picked up her bow, as did Hannah. The two girls aimed their bows at each other and fired. Hannah's arrow missed, whereas Lucy's arrow buried itself into Hannah's forehead. She gasped as the arrow lodged itself between two of the plates of Hannah's forehead, leaving Lucy the only remaining tribute.

 _Hannah Sinclaire, District 10 Female: 2nd, Killed by Lucy, Day 5_

"Lucy Said of District 4, you are the victor of thirty-seventh Hunger Games!" Yarrow trumpeted.

Lucy couldn't do much more than smile weakly as a hovercraft descended to whisk her away to the fame and fortune that wound soon envelop her life.

 _Lucy Said, District 4 Female: Victor of the Thirty-Seventh Hunger Games, Day 5_

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

The Boomerang Era continued. Lucy had brought District 4 its seventh victor, marking them as securely ahead of District 1 in terms of victor count. Neither of the two districts could surpass mighty District 2, of course. The Capitol had mixed feelings about the nation's newest victor. Lucy was the youngest victor in history at the time, only fifteen years and one-hundred six days old at the time of her victory. Many Hunger Games enthusiasts speculate that if the kraken hadn't killed so many tributes Lucy probably wouldn't have won. In the long run, Lucy turned out to be a fine victor. She was a great public speaker. After her victory, Lucy would live out the rest of her life as a professional chess player, becoming one of the finest players of the game in the nation.

Lucy settled into the Victor's Village of District 4, the seventh victor to do so.

Her victory tour went rather badly, particularly in Districts 1 and 2. They heavily booed her, for she was seen as a "wimpy career" that didn't deserve victory by many.

Lucy would live to the age of eighty-one, succumbing to appendicitis around the time of the one-hundred third annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would not marry nor have children.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Slate Ogston adopts a son with his wife, a young boy named Nero.

Gold Carson adopts triplet sons: Thebes, Luxor, and Cairo.

Magnet Lisagor's daughter, Sylvia, is born.

Grover Handa divorces his husband in an instance of spousal abuse.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: You've probably noticed that, at the very end of the games, I put a little italicized strip announcing the victor. Do you like that? If you do, I'll keep doing it, but if not, I'll stop. Just pm me or review to tell me your thoughts.**

 **That kraken was so fun to write about for some reason! Anyways, here's Lucy, the fourth member of the Boomering Era. I've gotten lots of reviews saying that I've been giving the careers way too many victors lately. I agree, so I'm deciding to take a span of time where I'll reduce the amount of career victors drastically.**

 **What'd you think? Please tell me how I'm doing, and feel free to comment about Lucy's unique last name XD. Anyways, yeah! I'm so thankful for all of your support because your reviews really do boost be toward getting out more updates. Remember that we get another canon victor next chapter: Porter Millicent Tripp!**


	39. The 38th Hunger Games

**The 38th Hunger Games**

* * *

 ** _INTRODUCTION_**

President Coriolanus Snow's promised punishments to the districts that were unable to produce last year's victor were executed the second that Lucy emerged victorious from the thirty-seventh with a smile plastered across her face. District 11 faced the harshest punishment. Having been the first district to lose both of its tributes, it faced nearly twofold increases in peacekeeper security and nearly one-and-a-half fold decrease in food rations. Snow was quick to realize that he wasn't doing himself any favors by clutching his grasp around the poor districts and forcing down unreasonable punishments; the things that kept Capitolites bejeweled, bedazzled, and well-fed didn't come from nowhere, after all. Snow quickly began procrastinating in terms of running down the ordered sequence of districts, and he soon decided that all of the districts that had a tribute make it to the final eight would face no punishments. District 4, having produced last year's victor, received a marvelous reward from Snow, including a speech from the man himself. Parcel Day in District 4 was one of the most splendid events that the nation had seen in terms of post-games traditions.

For several months, year thirty-eight Post Dark Days seemed to be passing by without any rebellion at all. That was, until somebody trespassed into the presidential mansion. The intruder was a Capitol man by the name of Falcon Evergreen. He, for reasons that nobody is still quite sure of, broke into Snow's mansion and stole the box containing the twists for each of the quarter quells to come. He immediately opened the box and read the card for the second quarter quell. He was quickly captured by peacekeeper forces, and the box was returned to its resting place in the basement of the presidential mansion swiftly. This event was the spark for the hype of the second quarter quell. Soon, the public began demanding that President Snow announce the quarter quell twist for the second quarter quell twelve years early. Snow could not and would not do this, for it was written into law that each twist was to be kept a secret until its designated date of revelation. However, Snow had an idea. He proposed his idea to Head Gamemaker Yarrow Dawnbloom, now in his sixth year on the job. Each of the twelve arenas leading up to the second quarter quell would be modeled after one of the nation's twelve districts. The arena of the thirty-eighth games would represent District 1. The arena of the thirty-ninth games would represent District 2. This pattern would continue, ending with the forty-ninth games, whose arena would represent District 12. Yarrow loved the idea, as did the public after he announced the plan to the nation.

The arena for the thirty-eighth Hunger Games represented District 1. The cornucopia stood amidst a luscious green meadow covered with fuzzy green grass. Flowers dotted the landscape, their petals perfectly shaped and their aromas enticing to many a tribute. Puffy white clouds dotted the azure blue sky. Throughout the arena were marble statues. They were modeled after gamemakers, presidents, and tributes (both victors and fallen) from years past. The cornucopia was made out of the same marble that constituted the arena's many statues. The cornucopia contained little water, as the gamemakers expected that the tributes would easily be able to coax water out of the bountiful landscape. Although the meadow was beautiful, the real splendor of the arena sat underneath the ground. A massive jeweled cave system sprawled out beneath the arena, tunnels branching out and weaving around each other in the most intricately stunning manner. The cave was light enough to see, as the jewels that were planted into the walls and on the floors and ceilings gave off enough light for human vision to function. Scattering the cave system were pools of warm water, heating by geothermic energy from deep inside the earth. The entire arena was sculpted to a perfection, not unlike the beautiful and bountiful luxury goods that District 1 manufactures for the nation each passing year.

The careers this year were an average batch. It seemed as if Snow was finished with rigging lacking careers into the games. District 1, overall, produced the strongest duo. Their male, a stellar in hand-to-hand combat, was tall in stature and was broad and muscled. He was actually an orphan, and there were rumors that his birth father was Victor Gold Carson from the twenty-second. These rumors were later disproved. District 1's female had a fitting name: Cherry Montgomery, earning her name for her fiery blonde hair. She excelled in use of the spear and throwing knives, weapons that she had focused on during her time in the combat academy of District 1. District 2's tributes were dark and menacing both in form and demeanor. Their male was a greater with the knife, particularly the dagger. He demonstrated his techniques upon the master of ceremonies with an invisible knife. This made the master of ceremonies feel uncomfortable, but he played along anyways. This kind of tarnished his reputation. His district partner was a girl who was rather masculine in form. She was dark and cold, with eyes like ice and a willpower stronger than stone. District 4 produced a stellar male and a not-so-stellar female. The boy showcased his trident skills, earning him a ten. He was a very laid-back individual, unconventional. The District 4 girl was the weakest career. Scoring only an eight, this Sylvia girl acted childish and sweet in her interview. She was mostly filler and the careers, their leader being the male from 1, were hesitant to accept her into their alliance until she lied to them that her aunt was friends with President Coriolanus Snow. The careers' training scores were quite average this year: in total, three tens, two nines, and a single eight.

Outside of the careers, the training scores were remarkably high. The strongest outlier was the girl from District 5. She knew that Snow looked for loyalty in great tributes. As such, this Porter Tripp girl spent her time in the Capitol thanking the Capitol for its security and remarking how grateful she was for its sacrifices and endurance in both the good times and the bad. Her nine supported the popular rumor that she had been trained prior to the games, but this rumor was disproven. There were two eights scored outside of the careers. Chip Datacable of District 3 fascinated the nation with how she was able to score so high being so young, and she quickly became a Capitol favorite. The boy from District 10 won many popularity contests as well. He was a handsome boy, and he used his beauty as well as his talents with the knife to score a cool eight. Four tributes earned sevens, an average number. They were Ivory from 6, Beech and Heather from 7, and Basil from 11. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. Besides the high scorers, two tributes really made a splash. Cecil from 3 was a fantastic actor. He spent his interview performing one of his favorite scenes from his school play that was scheduled for the week after the reaping, that he would not be able to attend. After seeing Cecil's popularity, Snow requested that the school air the play on live television. There were thousands of live viewers. Millet Stalk from District 9 was openly transgender, and they devoted their interview to preaching acceptance and love for others. In this chapter, the pronoun "they" will be used to refer to Millet, as it was the pronoun that they preferred when they were alive. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: Ivory Hope from District 6. She volunteered into the games to save her twelve year-old sister. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Jaguar Calloway, 17, (10) 4-1 and Cherry Montgomery, 17, (10) 4-1

District 2: Flavius Kerezaki, 18, (9) 5-1 and Magnolia Alicorn, 15, (9) 7-1

District 3: Cecil Legendre, 18, (6) 15-1 and Chip Datacable, 13, (8) 10-1

District 4: Island Isselhardt, 18 (10) 4-1 and Sylvia Prinicpato, 16, (8) 8-1

District 5: Asher Suzette, 14, (5) 22-1 and Porter Tripp, 18, (9) 6-1

District 6: Jayce Dimarche, 15, (6) 18-1 and Ivory Hope, 17, (7) 15-1

District 7: Beech Scarborough, 14, (7) 19-1 and Heather Salisbury, 14, (7) 19-1

District 8: Nylon Manger, 12, (3) 50-1 and Flannelette Seamstress, 18, (6) 17-1

District 9: Millet Stalk, 17, (6) 18-1 and Cobbia Shepherd, 15, (5) 19-1

District 10: Ocelot Lazzara, 18, (8) 9-1 and Raoul Caramel, 14, (4) 36-1

District 11: Basil Capewell, 17, (7) 14-1 and Scythe Kuze, 16, (6) 16-1

District 12: Darkhold Magnuson, 14, (5) 21-1 and Vicky Harlow, 14, (3) 40-1

* * *

 ** _THE GAMES_**

Whilst the nation had long known that the arena of the thirty-eighth Hunger Games would be modeled after District 1, there was much speculation as to what feature of the district Yarrow was aiming to capture. The most popular speculation would be the arena would be a statue garden, which turned out to be "true". The real gem of the arena was the jeweled cave system, though. Scattering the arena were entrances to the system of caverns. Time would tell when and by whom these entrances would be discovered.

When the gong's familiar note rang across the arena, two tributes turned tail and bolted away from the bloodbath as fast as their legs could carry them. They were Jayce from 6 and Raoul from 10.

Flavius sprinted at the head of the onrush, warm summer zephyrs roaring in his ears as he affixed his gaze toward a serrated dagger than sat, tucked away in its black leather sheath, thirty yards from his pedestal. Flavius swept up the dagger and came to a stop. He turned sharply on his heel and grabbed a nearby outlier. Flavius threw the boy to the ground. Disoriented, the coast was clear for Flavius. He swooped down and sawed his serrated dagger into the sobbing boy's chest. He wheezed out choked pleads as Flavius continued to mercilessly hack away at his neck and upper abdomen.

 _Darkhold Magnuson, District 12 Male: 24th, Killed by Flavius, Bloodbath_

Cherry, another fast runner, was quick to grab a belt of throwing knives that lay unrolled in the fuzzy grass about halfway between her pedestal and the cornucopia. Cherry wrapped the heavy belt around her waist and fastened the strap. The instant that she had fit the belt snugly around her muscular form, she grabbed the first knife in the row and threw it at the nearest boy. He screeched as the throwing knife dug into his chest. The boy dropped like a stone with a loud noise. At first, his moans of pain and his spasms of cold fear were loud, but they slowly began to fade away until his body relaxed and went silent, like a candle losing its flame.

 _Beech Scarborough, District 7 Male: 23rd, Killed by Cherry, Bloodbath_

Ivory, being the only volunteer outside of the careers, was determined to make a splash with hopes of attracting the attention of the sponsors. She had seen enough of the games to know that the sponsors liked blood. The District 6 girl zipped toward a girl that had fallen off of her pedestal, broken an arm, and was on the ground, unable to get to her feet with only one arm. Ivory grabbed her and swallowed hard as she slammed the pitiful girl against the base of her pedestal. Two of the girl's teeth were knocked away and landed in a cluster of aquamarine blossoms about a yard away. Though her moral compass screamed for her to stop, Ivory did not. Bits of the girl flew. By the time that Ivory was done, she was caked with crimson droplets, her face displaying a torrent of emotions after making her first kill.

 _Cobbia Shepherd, District 9 Female: 22nd, Killed by Ivory, Bloodbath_

Island's fingers were greeted with a cool sensation as he closed them around a bronze trident that leaned against the cornucopia, sparking in the brilliant light of the overhead sun. Island lifted up the trident, savoring the feeling that reminded him of home. The career boy, the weapon locked firmly in his grasp, ran into the midst of the bloodbath's chaos. His first prey quite literally flew by; mere seconds later, a stocky boy with a remarkable training score ran across his field of vision. Island hurled his trident, watching with satisfaction as it sailed into the neck of the boy. His sticky blood splattered red the fuzzy grass around him. Island pulled his trident out of the boy's limp form and wiped off its bloodstained prongs with a rag that sat humbly in the grass nearby.

 _Basil Capewell, District 11 Male: 21st, Killed by Island, Bloodbath_

Cherry, having successfully wiggled her throwing knife out of Beech's blood-lathered form, quickly began throwing again. She was about to throw her next knife when a huge weight bumped into her and knocked her to the ground. It was an outlier girl who was trying to off her with a spear. Cherry wrestled with the girl and was dismayed to discover that she was actually quite strong. The girl was just about drive her spear into Cherry's chest when she went limp and collapsed on top of Cherry, dead. Cherry looked up and spotted a tribute, Millet from 9, lowering their bow.

 _Scythe Kuze, District 11 Female: 20th, Killed by Millet, Bloodbath_

Cherry got to her feet and leapt toward Millet. She really should have been more thankful given how the boy had saved her life, but the career's constitution stated that a career should slaughter their prey mercilessly. Millet had been expecting Cherry to let them off lightly and be thankful after they had saved her life, but that was not so. Cherry lifted into the air the knife that she had been about to throw before her encounter with Scythe and hurled it toward Millet. They couldn't sidestep fast enough before the serrated blade cut into their neck. They fell, gurgling, as they clawed at their throat. Millet was dying rapidly. Less than a minute passed before Millet's form went slack.

 _Millet Stalk, District 9 Male: 19th, Killed by Cherry, Bloodbath_

Jaguar bit his lip with envy as he watched Cherry make two kills. Jaguar had seen himself as more powerful than his district partner, and Jaguar now felt a raging jealousy. On a whim, Jaguar picked up a bow and quiver of arrows. He threw the quiver over his shoulder and nocked a single arrow, aiming for Cherry's back. Cherry's form stiffened as the arrow sank into her back. She waved back and forth for a few seconds before she lost her balance and fell forward. Jaguar smirked at the sight of the girl's eyes staring blankly somewhere into the distance.

 _Cherry Montgomery, District 1 Female: 18th, Killed by Jaguar, Bloodbath_

"Hey!" shouted Flavius, who had seen Jaguar shoot Cherry and saw that his satisfied grin was a sure sign that it was not an accident. Ever since the twenty-second Hunger Games, the careers had engaged in a no-kill pact during the bloodbath. That meant that if a career betrayed an ally during the bloodbath they would be killed. Flavius didn't hesitate in the slightest to lay down the law. Flavius ran toward Jaguar and, before the District 1 boy could utter a word of protest, slit his throat with his dagger. Jaguar made a small noise before his knees buckled under him and he slid to the ground. Karma's real.

 _Jaguar Calloway, District 1 Male: 17th, Killed by Flavius, Bloodbath_

Magnolia smirked when she spotted the black-haired merchant boy from District 5 stroll into the cornucopia. The boy got to his knees and threw open the nearest crate. Magnolia watched as the boy crawled into the crate and let the lid close on top of him. The career girl ran toward him and threw open the crate. "Surprise!" Magnolia cheered as she reached into her pocket and pulled out the twin shurikens that she had snatched up a few minutes prior. The District 5 boy yelled bloody murder as Magnolia threw the left one into the boy's chest. One of its sharp angles pierced his heart, and it all went downhill from there in terms of the boy's hopes for survival. He leapt to his feet and ran out of the horn. He escaped Magnolia's flailing hands, but in the clearing it wasn't an instant before the aftershocks of the blow began to take their toll on his body. He fell, and no matter how hard he tried to fight it he started to go unconscious. Magnolia followed him out of the horn and buried her other shuriken into his neck, marking her first kill.

 _Asher Suzette, District 5 Male: 16th, Killed by Magnolia, Bloodbath_

Porter's fingers wrapped around the handle of a sleek and metallic crossbow that she had found deep inside of the cornucopia. The audience could practically see the cogs turning in Porter's mind as she began to develop a plan. She quickly grabbed the crossbow and the sheath of arrows and then ran around to the backside of the cornucopia. She nocked an arrow and, for the shortest instant, peeked out from behind the cornucopia's boxy anterior. She pulled the trigger and instantly slunk back to her hiding place behind the horn. The arrow grazed the shoulder of a boy who was trying to run away from the bloodbath with a carton of water and a packet of wires and batteries. He noticed the prick in his arm and looked down. He was so shocked to see blood oozing from his arm that he fell and fainted. At that, he was an easy target. Nearby Island held his bloodstained trident firmly and planted it into the unconscious boy's chest. He never woke up, and the nation lost a fantastic actor at that moment.

 _Cecil Legendre, District 3 Male: 15th, Killed by Porter and Island, Bloodbath_

Porter's shot successful, she peeked back around from behind the cornucopia and tested her luck again. She cocked the weapon and fit an arrow into the empty slot. Porter aimed for a muscular and rather masculine girl that was a perfect target. Porter fired. It was only after her cries of pain were abruptly silenced that Porter realized she had killed a career.

 _Sylvia Prinicpato, District 4 Female: 14th, Killed by Porter, Bloodbath_

Magnolia made the final kill. The only outlier remaining around the cornucopia was a sinewy girl who looked as if she hadn't eaten in her entire lifetime. She was mere seconds from escaping the cornucopia clearing when Magnolia hurled her two bloodstained shurikens into her back. The girl yelped as the sharp weapons dug into her back. She fell and tried to get back to her feet but was unable to as she slowly bled out.

 _Vicky Harlow, District 12 Female: 13th, Killed by Magnolia, Bloodbath_

Twelve bloodbath cannons boomed across the arena, but Porter didn't stay at the cornucopia to listen to them. She knew that it was only a matter of time before the careers began to grow suspicious of the large numbers of crossbow darts in the corpses of the dead and began to realize that there must be an outlier lurking around the cornucopia. Porter watched, hardly daring to breathe, as the careers went around the field talking about their kills and discussing their tactics. Then, when she was sure that none of them were looking, she ran away behind the cornucopia. If any of the careers looked at the right time, they would easily be able to see her running across the grassy meadow and she would be a dead man. Fortunately, a gust of wind picked up that drowned up the sound of her footsteps thumping regularly over the earth. Porter wore terror over her like a second skin, but she miraculously managed to reach a thick area of the meadow without being seen or heard by the careers.

With the twelve piece bloodbath at its conclusion, the surviving tributes swelled out across the arena. The areas to the south were certainly the most popular; the grass was taller and thicker, and the river coiled across the landscape like a snake slithering through the terrain. Ivory had escaped the bloodbath with a bowl and a backpack filled with various supplies, and she kept running as fast as her feet could carry her without looking back. She collapsed with exhaustion beside the sweet-smelling river. She was apprehensive about drinking the water, figuring it could be poisonous. As if in prompt answer to her quarrel, a small mouse came to the riverside and took a sip of water. It eeked merrily and then scampered away. If the water was poisonous, Ivory thought, it would have died given its small body, but it didn't. Ivory dipped her hands into the river and began scraping off the coagulated blood that had stuck to them. She wanted to eliminate the thought of the fact that she had killed a human being, and the thought that she would have to do that again and again in order to win terrified her. Ocelot was also among the first tributes to reach the river. He centered his game plan around the river's trickling waters by setting up permanent camp on the river's bank. He found a hill near the riverside that had a cove carved out into its side and shoved himself inside. To camouflage himself, Ocelot smeared his backpack and his clothing with mud. Chip from 3, though only thirteen, had scored an eight, and she was determined to live up to the hype that had festered the Capitol, spreading throughout the audience in slow succession. Everybody wanted to see what the girl would do, and so when she reached the river she instantly got to work. Chip opened the bag containing the wires and such that she had requested from the gamemakers and began working on a complicated project. Chip had brought her glasses into the arena as her tribute token so that she could see. She ended up fastening a little hook out of a sharp stone to pull the wires through each other. Nobody could tell what Chip was trying to build, but the entire nation held its breath in anticipation as to what the intriguing girl would conjure up with her sharp mind and acute manual dexterity. She was a Capitol favorite, and her name quickly became a household one.

There were some tributes that did not head to the river, however. Perhaps they thought that the careers would flock to its grassy shores because of how many tributes would be there. Or perhaps they just didn't hear the river. The tributes that didn't go to the coiling mass of water were most of the tributes that travelled in the opposite direction, where the arena was thinner and more open. Nylon, only twelve, was paranoid that the careers would be able to see him and stayed to the darker and thicker areas. He spent that night weaving himself a pillow from the fuzzy green grass to amuse himself and distract himself from his inevitable doom. Flannelette, Nylon's district partner, was a pragmatic girl that was comforted by cold, hard facts. She zigzagged back and forth and hopped in the tracks of animals that had trekked through the area, hoping to limit all of the traces of the directions in which she had travelled. She ended up sleeping against a large boulder in a clearing on the night of Day 1 in an area where she had a great view of the surrounding field of grass and could spot danger early while still having time to run away.

Heather from 7 had salvaged an axe from the chaos of the bloodbath and used the sharp blade of the weapon to slice through areas where the grass was tall. She walked throughout the day, taking minute-long breaks every fifteen minutes or so for a swig of cool water. At about two o'clock in the evening, Heather found herself before a gaping hole. Heather was the first to discover the cave system. The District 7 girl, intrigued and mystified, slid down onto a platform suspended above the blackness below. She spotted a glowing jewel implanted into a nearby wall. She fingered the jewel, perfectly formed and faceted to perfection. Suddenly, a hovercraft descended from the sky and out came Head Gamemaker Yarrow Skytide. Heather produced her axe and readied herself to attack, thinking that Yarrow was a mutt. Yarrow reassured Heather that he was the real deal by pointing to the two peacekeepers that were protecting him with guns.

"Congratulations, Ms. Salisbury, on being the first tribute to discover the arena's underground network of caves," Yarrow said.

Heather wasn't sure what to say. "Thank you," was all that she could think of.

"I am sure that you are wondering why I am here. I am here to give you a reward for being the first tribute to discover the cave. Here is your reward."

Heather watched intently as Yarrow set down a case that he was carrying and unlatched it. He opened the case. Inside saw an ornate glass bowl. The bowl was filled with water, and in the water swam a beautiful goldfish. Yarrow set the fishbowl down at Heather's feet. He then closed his suitcase. Heather looked down at the goldfish. It was a beautiful sparkling gold that glimmered in the light of the sun with the brilliance of a thousand diamonds. Heather picked up the bowl and then looked toward Yarrow to ask him what it was for. Yarrow was gone, and if not for the bowl that she held in her hands Heather would have thought that he was only a dream.

Heather had no idea what the goldfish was for, but as she ventured deeper into the cave she kept it with her at all times. When the time came for her evening snack, she fed the fish some of the rice that she had grabbed from the cornucopia. She knew that it would be important sometime.

Jayce from 6 had run away from the cornucopia with nothing but his bare hands to survive the difficult weeks to come. He darted away from the horn and settled down at the base of a series of foothills. His camp that night was less than a hundred yards from one of the cave's entrances, but he didn't know that.

The entirety of Day 2 passed by without any deaths. With only three careers, Island and Flavius hunted whereas Magnolia took camp and began sorting through the supplies. Island and Flavius prowled through the grassy meadow, and they soon realized that the arena was too simple for there not to be a hidden depth to it. Most arenas like this one were poisonous, but nothing in the natural landscape seemed to be harmful. Even the berries were all delicious and nutritious. Soon, the two boys began throwing aside whatever they could find in order to find the layer to the arena that must be somewhere. Eventually they disembarked from the meadow and went north to the foothills. Island and Flavius were strolling through the arena one moment. The next moment, Flavius tripped on a ledge and fell. Panicked, Island grabbed his hand before he could fall. The two boys hadn't noticed that they had found an entrance to the cave and Flavius had fallen into it. Island tugged with all of his might, and he ended up successfully retrieving Flavius from near-death. The two boys, knowing that they needed some way to get back to the cornucopia at the first song of dusk, began searching for some kind of easy path to the bottom. Ancient stone steps were carved into the walls, and the two careers walked down them. Soon, they emerged into the jeweled cave system. They gawked with wonder. Island ripped a gem out of the wall and admired its perfect shape and quality. Flavius wanted to venture into the cave. Island complied, but he made a note of their twists and turns so that they wouldn't get lost. They found their way back to the horn, and Magnolia insisted that she take a trip to the marvelous cave the next day, eager to see the misty caves and glowing jewels that the others had described.

Outside of the careers, there was a lot of movement but little action. Porter was quick to realize that she couldn't sustain herself by just leaning against a hill and hoping for the best. There would be dangers in the games, and she knew it. She woke up bright and early and found an area nestled between two foothills. She travelled to one of the arena's trees and broke off its branches. Trees were scarce in the meadow, so the wood was precious. She lay the wood across the gap between the two hills, leaving an area underneath for Porter to stay. Porter covered the top of the wooden branches with the long and fuzzy grass. With the addition of a few sheets of earth held together by roots, her shelter was actually quite cozy. Shelter building was in fact one of the skills that Porter displayed in her private session. She was clearly a stellar in the area, and sponsors eager to see more from the girl sent her lots of things including an axe, a pocketknife, and even a blanket. Porter thanked every single sponsor gift sincerely, remarking after each one how thankful she was for the Capitol's generosity and forgiveness. Her shelter, nestled between the foothills, was really well-made. It was warm, too. The night of Day 2 the gamemakers sent biting winds after her to see if her shelter would protect against them. It did, and Porter was nice and comfy inside. Heather kept travelling deeper and deeper into the cave system. She clutched the fishbowl by her side. Every few seconds she would hold the fishbowl close to one of the glowing gems to see if it was doing anything. It never was, unless you count swimming around in its bowl. Heather was beginning to grow frustrated because she didn't know what to do to make the fish "work". Ivory's camp by the river was beginning to grow rather uncomfortable; whenever she lay down, her back would sink into the mushy beach. This reminded Ivory of quicksand, something with bad connotations from previous games. She ended up spending the day clearing away the sand underneath her little tent with her shovel (given to her by a sponsor that liked the bloodiness of her bloodbath kill) hit something solid. She cleared away the area and laid out a layer of grass on the floor. It was warm inside, but very muggy and humid. Nylon kept up with his weaving. The fuzzy green grass was great for weaving; it was strong and flexible. He made several more pillows, a stuffed dog plush toy (stuffed with more of the grass), and, around eight o'clock that night, he even began working on a comforter. It really showed that he was a marvelous weaver. A small loom was quickly delivered to him by a sponsor, and Nylon began to wrap the long strands of grass in and out of the wooden frame. He finished his blanket before midnight. Along with his pillow, he slept in a set made entirely of the grass. How resourceful of him. Chip continued working on her electronic machine, occasionally requesting pieces from the audience. It was an intricate job. Every hour or so, Chip would step back to admire her work. Nobody, not even the gamemakers, had any idea what the girl was attempting to build. They looked forward to finding out.

Ocelot, unlike many of the others, had actually found an outcoving in the side of a hill that he could use as naturally formed shelter. Ocelot spent the rest of the day expanding his shelter. In this arena, shelter seemed to be the tributes' number one priority. After all, it was too flat and open for anybody to feel safe without some sort of cover. Raoul had spent the entirety of the first two days aimlessly wandering through the arena. He discovered the winding river around noon and gulped down its sweet-tasting water, satisfying his raging thirst.

With Day 3 came a single death. The careers had been hunting along the river for the past two days, but on Day 3 they decided to disembark from the river's winding shores because of how easy it was to be hidden near them. The weaker tributes, the careers figured, would be in the foothills to the west and to the south. The rolling landscape made it difficult for the careers to see everywhere, and travelling required intense physical effort. With Flavius at the cornucopia, Magnolia and Island travelling through the cool landscape. Finally, around two o'clock in the evening, Magnolia turned around the jutting edge of one of the foothills and spotted Jayce quivering behind it. Jayce, who had run away from the cornucopia, had resorted to sucking the dew off of the morning grass. He was pale with dehydration and hunger. His stomach growled with a hunger that he was unable to quench, but Magnolia wasn't worrying about giving him food. When Magnolia called for her ally Flavius, Jayce leapt to his feet and tried to flee.

The trained careers were quick to catch up to the running boy, and Flavius knocked him to the ground with a slam to the side of the head. Panicked, Jayce leapt to his feet and kicked Magnolia in the stomach. Magnolia let out a little gasp as Jayce, a karate expert in his district, spun around and smacked her in the chin. Magnolia fell, and Flavius ran toward Jayce, wielding his serrated dagger. Jayce screeched at the sight of its metallic blade sparkling in the sun, but before he knew it Flavius had caught up to him and knocked him to the ground. Flavius sawed out his torso, and Magnolia, who had regained her senses after the attack from the martial arts expert, stood by and watched smugly.

 _Jayce Dimarche, District 6 Male: 12th, Killed by Flavius, Day 3_

The outliers, frightened by Jayce's cannon, retreated back into their hiding places for the most part. Chip continued to work on her electrical project as intricately as before, fitting in pieces with all of the skill of a professional. She really was clever, testing her machine for flaws and then fixing them to see what new problems would arise from the solution. After the cannon shot she travelled back into her little hillside den and worked in there. Porter continued to expand her shelter, camouflaging it with several layers of mud and even giving it two rooms. She really was a phenomenal shelter builder. Ivory was sleeping in her den when suddenly the rocks gave way beneath her and she plopped into the cave system. Ivory sobbed with pain as she smacked into the stone ground, and it was only after she had regained her senses that she realized she was in the cave. As far as Ivory could see, there was nowhere to escape to, and so she set to work learning how to live off of the land.

Heather, also in the cave system, began trying some rather ridiculous tactics to make the goldfish "work". After trying every trick in the book and more, she tore a shimmering green emerald out of the wall and plopped it into the fishbowl. She reasoned, after all, that since Yarrow gave her the fish for reaching the cave first, the fish must be linked to the cave and putting something inside that reminded it of home might help. To Heather's fright, the moment that she dropped the jewel into the fishbowl it began dissolving. Soon, it was nothing but a thin layer of green power that covered the surface of the water. Heather cried as the green particles of emerald began to sink to the bottom of the bowl. Suddenly, the fish swam around the bowl and began eating the emerald. Soon it had eaten the entire thing and it retreated back to the bottom of the bowl to rest. Although Heather's knowledge set about fish was minimal, she knew that fish did not eat jewels naturally. This couldn't be a coincidence.

Nylon continued weaving his splendid creations from the arena's sturdy grass. Every human alive has had a "click" moment of sorts, where an ingenious idea flutters by seemingly from nowhere. Nylon had since travelled to the riverside and had found a little hole carved into the side of a hill. He crouched up inside and was pleased to find that he fit. An idea popped into his head. He grabbed his hook and began picking bundles of the fuzzy lime-colored grass to begin working on his project. He was making a tapestry of sorts. When he was finished, it looked as if he had torn a sheet of grass out of the earth and was carrying it with his own hands. Nylon walked toward his hillside home and draped the sheet of grass over the entrance, concealing it completely. Nylon nearly burst out of his skin with thrill. He was starting to use his creations for survival means instead of just to amuse himself in his last moments. Maybe he did have a chance of winning after all, the twelve year-old boy thought.

A few minutes after noon on Day 3, Ocelot became the third tribute to discover the cave system. He had been milling around the arena, hoping that it would be harder for him to be pinned down if he was always moving. He eventually spotted a hole punched into the ground as if some huge rock had fallen from the heavens and plunged through the ground. Ocelot peered over its edge. At the bottom of the hole he spotted a cluster of aquamarine jewels glowing brilliantly. Ocelot stepped onto the slippery wooden stairwell downward and went to the bottom of the cave. There, he ripped one of the jewels out of the ground and examined it. He decided to keep it as a flashlight. This later turned out to be pointless, for mere seconds later he realized that the entire area around him was covered with the gems. Ocelot took out his fanny pack and began collecting all of the colors that he could find. He then settled down in a relatively dark area of the cave near a pool of water. Flannelette was also fast to discover the cave. She was bathing in the sweet-smelling river to cleanse herself of the grime that caked her body when she spotted a hole in the riverbed. Curious, she held her breath and swam under. She needed not more than put a single toe into the hole that she was sucked down into the hole. She screamed, her lungs demanding air, as she was zoomed through a fast-flowing passageway of water. It looped around and around. Finally, nearly a minute later, Flannelette was plopped down into the cave. She was cold and wet and naked except for her undergarments. She buried her head in her hands. She had nothing. She left all of her things on the riverside when she went bathing, and now she was left to survive with only her wits.

The careers had been putting off Magnolia's request to go see the cave system, as they didn't trust the cave's darkness and the way that their reflections could be seen in every facet of every jewel in the place. It just seemed… creepy. Finally, on Day 4, they gave in, but not entirely by choice. The two awoke with knives at their throats. Magnolia was not actually going to kill them, but she mortified them all the same. Perhaps Flavius and Island were thinking of Dante Dalgarno or Luster Lemussurier, careers from past Hunger Games that were killed in their sleep by their stronger allies. "Listen carefully. Take me to that cave right now. I don't care that the sun isn't up," she said. The others obeyed, and Magnolia watched them with her knife as they quickly got ready. Magnolia gawked at the sight of the cave system that sprawled out before them once they reached its entrance. She spent the rest of the day in the cave. The others had been too distracted by the cave that they had forgotten to leave a guard at the cornucopia. For that, they would pay the ultimate price.

On the ground at that very moment, Chip finished her electronic project that she had been working on since Day 1. Chip found her way to the cornucopia by the sun. She set up a sundial and waited for it to read noon, and once it did she travelled toward the sun. The simple laws of astronomy and mathematics led her to the cornucopia. There, her job was simple. At least, it should have been. Chip was so precautious about keeping her creation in pristine condition that she waited for nearly an hour, when conditions were just right. She had just one chance to get this right. The minerals to build the grenade had taken nearly as long to gather as the wires and bits that made the technological part work; the thought of breaking the explosive prematurely terrified her.

Standing a good twenty yards away from the cornucopia, Chip lifted her hand into the air and pulled the pin. She tried to throw, but the "V" shape between the underside of the pin and the rest of the grenade got caught in the webbed area between her thumb and pointed finger. Chip panicked and tried to slide the thing off, but the fuse reached the explosive center of the weapon before she could do that. Chip was blown sky high, and there wasn't even anything to put in the tribute vaults.

 _Chip Datacable, District 3 Female: 11th, Accidentally Killed by Herself, Day 4_

The boom shocked the careers, and it dawned upon each one of them in turn that the boom could only mean one thing. They began throwing ideas at each other. Who could have made the cornucopia explode? Most likely was the District 3 female. Island swore his vengeance on the girl. Within a few seconds, Magnolia pointed out that the boom had been followed by a cannon shot.

The careers were actually near the cornucopia when the explosion happened. Soon, the aftershocks occurred. Small bits of rock began to fall from the ceiling, and one landed in Magnolia's arm. She hissed and clenched her teeth as the sharp rock raked across the limb. Magnolia had been cataloging their twists and turns on her arm with a ballpoint pen. The rake from the stone had smudged many of the little letters that she had scrawled out on her arm. Within a few hours, the skin around the scrape began to inflame and the writing was lost forever. The careers were trapped in the cave.

"It was your idea to go into this cave," Island spat. "It's your fault this all happened."

"Hey, you told me about it. If you didn't want me coming with you back here why did you tell me?" Magnolia barked in rebuttal.

"It's still your fault!" Island yelled. Island surged forth. Flavius tried to stop the fight that was ensuing, but it was impossible. When Flavius tried to pull his allies apart Island threw a punch at him. He reeled as Magnolia and Island continued to smack each other with their fists. When Island grabbed his trident, it was all over. As quickly as the fight had begun, it ended. Island skewered the prongs of the trident into Magnolia's neck. She choked and tried to tear the weapon out of herself, struggling for breath. It was useless. Island kicked her away. "Stupid girl," he spat.

 _Magnolia Alicorn, District 2 Female: 10th, Killed by Island, Day 4_

Ocelot continued to trek through the cave, seemingly unfazed by the two cannon shots that had fired that day. He never really stopped moving and developed the strategy of a nomad. Flannelette miraculously found a red child's hoodie in the cave. Where it came from she didn't know, but she put the coat on her body. It was a tight fit but was better than nothing. Heather continued to feed her goldfish the cave's jewels. The fish was only accepting one gem a day. Each day it was growing larger and larger. What this meant Heather had no idea. All she knew was that this fish was important. She fed it and cleaned out its waste dutifully each day.

After that, the rest of Day 4 crawled past without any deaths. It was rather lifeless for the rest of the day. The nation watched Nylon spin more of his beautiful creations from the arena's grass. Around three in the evening, a small parachute was delivered to Nylon. He ran to it, thinking that it was a sponsor gift. All that the parachute carried was a single piece of paper, folded three times in half. He unfolded it once, then twice, then three times, and read the note.

 _Nylon,_

 _The nation loves your talent. They're raving over your creations. I made a deal with Snow. Keep up the great work, and whenever you're finished with a project set it on the ground beside you. A hovercraft'll appear to collect it, that can later sell it in the Capitol for thousands of dollars. And you'll get sponsors galore, too. In this arena, you don't need to be the most powerful. You just need to be the most logical. And, Nylon, you've proven that. You have such talent. Use it._

 _~W_

Nylon read the note over at least ten times. There was no way. This was a miracle in his eyes. He zoomed toward his den and lifted the sheet of grass to get inside. He picked out all of his things: his bowl, a spare pillow, the teddy bear, several bowls, a few orbs (held in their shape by sticky tree resin that had hardened onto the grass), a basket, and many, many more things, all woven from the green grass. Nylon carried them out and dumped them into the clearing. He walked away so that the hovercraft could descend. When Nylon returned a minute later, the creations were gone. In their place was: an entire cake, coated with white frosting; a bowl of salad, containing lettuce, tomatoes, and onions, and drizzled over with sweet-smelling dressing; two entire changes of clothes; and, the star of the show, a trident. The trident glistened in the light of the overhead sun. Nylon grasped the weapon with disbelief. At that point in time, the trident was the most expensive sponsor gift ever given. Nylon didn't know it at the time, but his creations were being auctioned off in the Capitol at that very moment. The products sold for a total of nearly half a million dollars. He received another note from his mentor Woof instructing him to make more. He got to work on a little doll right away.

In the cave, Flannelette was beginning to get extremely cold. She found that the glowing jewels of the cave pulsated with heat, and so she stayed in areas with lots of them in order to keep up her body temperature. Pneumonia and hypothermia weren't nonexistent risks in the arena, and Flannelette knew it. She did have a close call around six, however. She heard voices around the corner and threw herself in a dark corner. "No kills yet. The gamies won't be happy ("gamies" is what the careers called the gamemakers back in those days). Flannelette spotted that the voice's owner had a flashlight. _Please don't shine on me, please, please, please, please, please don't,_ she begged.

What happened next is rather silly, but she began to whisper a prayer. The exact meaning of the prayer has never been fully discovered, but future games enthusiasts would look at recordings and try to read her lips. Today, our best guess as to what Flannelette said is, "Dear gods of flashlights, please do not make them shine there's on me." Suddenly, as if in answer to Flannelette's plea, the careers' flashlight flickered and died. Flannelette couldn't believe it. After the careers walked away, she spent about an hour praying to the flashlight gods, which she had been convinced existed after the incident.

Ivory and Heather didn't do much on Day 4. Heather kept feeding her fish the jewels. At this point, its scales were beginning to grow tough and metallic. It was morphing from less of a golden yellow to more of a fiery crimson. Ivory kept milling through the cave, having done absolutely nothing of note throughout the games after the bloodbath.

On the morning of Day 5, the nation was beginning to grow bored of watching Porter expand her shelter (which now included four rooms and a functioning door). Porter received a note from her sponsor, Dina Wilmarth, that if she didn't pull something off the gamemakers might have to bump her off. Porter picked up her crossbow and exited her shelter, ready to do what she knew she had to do.

She tribute hunted all day. She used the sun as her guide, and when the sun began to set she used the moon and the stars. She excelled in astronomy, able to name each and every star in the sky. She used to go outside with her father and spend hours looking at the stars before he died in the power plant accident. Porter was ten then. Eight years later, she still woke up screaming for him to run.

It was a few minutes before midnight when Porter stumbled across Ivory on the riverside. She was snoozing away contentedly in her riverside home, having escaped the cave and set up a house beside the rushing river. When Porter shot her flashlight beam upon Ivory's body, she boomed awake and beelined for her knife. Porter pulled the trigger of her crossbow and watched as the dart buried itself into Ivory's hand. She hissed and dropped her knife. She tried to reach the knife with her other hand but failed. Ivory resorted to throwing rocks at Porter. Ivory managed to land one into the side of Porter's head, and when her knees wobbled with pain Ivory tried to make a run for it. Porter threw herself atop the volunteer girl before she could scramble away, and she was dead, one of Porter's crossbow darts buried into the back of her head, before she had time to scream.

 _Ivory Hope, District 6 Female: 9th, Killed by Porter, Day 5_

That left the final eight: Flavius Kerezaki from District 2, Island Isselhardt from District 4, Porter Tripp from District 5, Heather Salisbury from District 7, Nylon Manger and Flannelette Seamstress from District 8, and Ocelot Lazzara and Raoul Caramel from District 10.

Apart from Ivory's kill, Day 5 mostly consisted of a rush between the tributes to discover the cave system. Flavius and Island, the careers, were trapped inside. Heather was inside the cave, dutifully tending to her goldfish, which now made the glass bowl look miniature. Nylon continued to weave his creations. Around two in the evening on Day 5, Nylon strayed away from his hillside home to find an area where the grass was more cordy and less yarny. This led him to discover the cave, which he climbed down into, intrigued. Flannelette became the first tribute to discover the pools of warm water in the cave. She had discovered a pool filled with water that was nearly ninety degrees, warm enough for her to bathe in. She took a bath and then set up camp near the pool, where the hot rising steam would keep her warm. Raoul discovered the cave around six o'clock after stumbling into it when he tripped on some slippery riverside grass. He was plopped down into the cave and made camp there. Now, every tribute but Porter was in the cave.

Days 6 and 7 passed, deathless and without much movement. The careers hunted feverishly but were unable to track down any of the remaining outliers. In the cave, Nylon couldn't do weaving; there was no grass down there! Nylon ripped a jewel out of the wall in frustration and tried to form it with his hands. He was pleased to discover that the gem bent. He quickly rushed toward one of the hot pools that he had discovered a few hours prior and dipped the gem into it. It didn't dissolve. The gem only dissolved in Heather's water, which was treated with a chemical that would break down gems into powder. Once the gem was steaming hot, Nylon took it out and found that he was able to mold it like butter. He formed it into a little model of a horse and then set it off to the side to cool down. Once it did, it auctioned off for nearly one hundred thousand dollars in the Capitol. Flannelette didn't have much to do since she could just drink water from the pools, so she milled around. She didn't have many sponsors for food so she caught and ate the rats that were in the cave. She hated it, and she nearly retched every time she felt a rat's squirming form, but she did it anyways. Ocelot stayed near the warm pools, which he had recently discovered along with Flannelette and Nylon.

Raoul was wandering through the cave when he came to a long, wide hallway. This was not naturally made. The walls and ceiling were brick. At the far end of the hallway was a foggy glass sheet that he couldn't see through. A single door stood in the middle of the sheet. Above the door hung a banner. The banner read, in loopy cursive handwriting: _Welcome one and all to the grand opening of Jewel Cave!_

Raoul was confused. What did the sign mean by grand opening? Suddenly, the door burst open and a crowd of people poured in. They were holding cameras. They were taking pictures with their flashy polaroids and were talking and ooing and aahing at the sight of the cave. They were talking to each other about parts of the cave that they wanted to see. They burst through the hallway, and Raoul was too shocked to run as the tourists knocked him to the ground. He tried to get up, but people kept stepping on him. The tourists crushed his trachea and his ribcage as they trampled him to death and continued on in their violent rampage.

 _Raoul Caramel, District 10 Female: 8th, Killed by Tourist Muttations, Day 8_

The tourists spread through the arena and filled up every nook and cranny of the cave. Flannelette spotted the onslaught of the mutts that was headed her way and threw herself into a corner, hoping that it would be impossible for her to be trampled if she stayed in a sharp corner. The tourists quickly filled the hallway, and Flannelette quickly realized that she had to fight. She ripped a jewel out of the wall behind her that had a sharp edge. She gored it through the eye of the nearest mutt, knocking it backwards. Now that it was gone, Flannelette was able to kick them away with her feet. Ocelot had a sword from a sponsor and was able to kill the creatures in the masses. He tried to run at first but was cornered into a dead end and needed to fight it out. He swung his sword, and the mighty breadth slashed across the chests of the three nearest mutts. Muttation blood—evil black and beady—oozed from their wounds as Ocelot bopped them in the heads with his spare hand. The next rush of the mutts was bigger. Ocelot used his sword as a rapier, spearing it through the chest of the nearest tourist and tearing it out. Its camera clattered to the stone floor at Ocelot's feet. The next tourist, Ocelot was able to kill by skewering his blade through its neck, choking it. The careers (Flavius with his serrated dagger and Island with his trident) were able to easily fend off their pursuers. Island was doing more stabbing and Flavius was doing more slashing. With Island's trident he was able to knock out several essential organs at one time, and with Island's dagger he was able to cut through the air with remarkable precision. The mutts were quickly gaining on them. One of the tourists was walking directly toward Flavius. Island ran in front of Flavius and stabbed his dagger into the torso of the muttation. The tourist's knees buckled and it fell to the ground. A trio of the tourists was now approaching the boys. Island killed one with his trident while Flavius polished one of them off by goring his dagger into its forehead. Suddenly, a large and pudgy tourist slammed into Flavius. He fell and was trampled by the onslaught of people. Flavius yelped as he was crushed to death. Island rushed off, cutting through the crowds of people that were continuing on in their mad rush.

 _Flavius Kerezaki, District 2 Male: 7th, Killed by Tourist Muttations, Day 8_

Heather had barricaded herself into the operator's office and moved furniture over the door. She had her fish, and she had a few jewels that she had managed to tear from the walls of the cave. She dropped the first one, a blue sapphire, into the bowl. The fish ate it and grew slightly bigger. It was growing… legs. They were small at first. Heather hastily fed the fish another jewel. The fish's legs got bigger, thicker too. And it began to sprout wings. She gave the growing creature a third jewel and it was too big for the bowl. She fed the fish a fourth gem and suddenly the creature morphed into a beautiful, elegant crimson dragon.

Heather was shocked. The creature was nearly as tall as her. Its head was elegant. It had whiskers and rows of sharp teeth. Its reptilian body sported two curved wings. The dragon's feet were decorated with brilliant ivory talons. The dragon motioned to its master to get on. Heather got on. Abruptly, the dragon burst out of the room and began racing through the onrush of the tourists. The creature scorched them with its fiery breath. Suddenly, the dragon landed in a clearing. The dragon looked around and spotted Flannelette at the end of a hallway, trying desperately to fight against the onslaught of the tourists. The dragon let out its fiery breath upon Flannelette and scorched her to death immediately. Her remains were rather unsightly, and the gamemakers cleaned them up quickly.

 _Flannelette Seamstress, District 8 Female: 6th, Killed by Heather's Dragon, Day 8_

Heather's dragon zoomed through the cave, slashing away at all that stood in its way with its mighty talons. The dragon flushed all of the tourists to the exit, where, with a single fiery breath, scorched the entire group of tourists from left to right. The cave was left in silence. Heather got off of her dragon. It became apparent that it fed off of the jewels, so Heather fed it one. The dragon's eyes held an expression of pride. Heather patted it on the head. For the first time in so long, she had a companion and she wasn't so lonely.

After that, Days 9, 10, and 11 passed, deathless. Heather zoomed through the cave with her dragon but found nobody. Island was reluctant to go hunting after the event, fearing some aftershock of sorts. There were none, but it wasn't until Day 12 that he resumed his normal hunting schedule. As the lone remaining career, he couldn't show his weakness any further. Heather zipped through the arena with her dragon sidekick, regularly feeding it gems to keep it strong and motivated. It really was a friend to her. She had a firm hand and she praised effort. Nylon was a bit shaken up after the tourist incident and stayed in his cove for Days 9 and 10. It wasn't until Day 11 that he resumed his usual schedule of forming the cave's jewels into little figurines. Ocelot milled through the cave, not wanting to attract attention to himself but also not wanting to completely fade into the background. On Day 11 he disembarked from that strategy and kept "hopping" by staying in one area for about two hours then moving onto another.

Up on the surface, the audience was beginning to grow rather tired of Porter once more. The gamemakers had seen her potential and protected her for this long, but now that the number of tributes was so low they wouldn't help her now. On Day 12, the gamemakers sent a large group of muttations after her. These muttations were butterflies. Every color of the rainbow and more, they fluttered through the air in a huge group. Their wings were coated with poison that would eat into the skin of any tribute that touched it.

Porter was working on adding a bathroom to her house when the huge swarm of insects came in through the propped-open door. Porter laughed and admired the butterflies as they filled up her home. Suddenly, two butterflies came forth and landed on her arm. Porter's smile quickly turned to an expression of fright as searing pain shot up her arm. The District 5 girl ran for the exit. Outside, the butterflies followed her. They got faster and faster with time. They were herding Porter toward the cave system. She was the only tribute aboveground at that point and the gamemakers wanted everybody to be downstairs so that whatever horrors they held in store would affect all of the tributes.

Porter sprinted at the head of the onslaught of butterflies, shaking and breathing heavily with panic. Her crossbow was useless against the creatures and so it was all she could do to swat them away with her arms. A long lineup of the fellows landed on Porter's arm a few minutes later. Porter crushed them all with her other hand and hissed as the searing pain exploded through her body. Finally, Porter reached the river. She dove into the river, and the swarm of beautiful but deadly insects flew away.

Porter peeked up above the water. Once she was sure that they were gone, she began to take note of her surroundings. She was in a rather calm area of the river. On the right side of the river was a stone wall. Behind that stone wall was a gaping hole that wormed its way down into the earth.

Porter had an idea. The only thing stopping the river water from pouring into the cave was that stone wall. If she could break through that stone wall… ideas fluttered into Porter's mind just like the butterflies that had attacked her mere minutes prior. Porter quickly asked the sponsors for a pickaxe. The sponsors, intrigued by this girl's streak of what they saw as inspiration, delivered it to her. Porter got to work breaking the stone wall that separated the river from the cave.

It was hard, labor-intensive work; the stone was so tough that after nearly fifteen minutes of hard work the girl had made progress of about an inch. Suddenly, she struck lucky. With one mighty stroke of her pickaxe, she drilled into the stone wall. Water began seeping through and drizzling into the cave. Slowly but surely, that crack began to widen. Porter laughed with satisfaction as the entire stone wall collapsed and the river began pouring into the cave, filling it up.

It was several minutes before any of the underground folks realized that the cave was flooding. The area of the cave that was directly by where the wall had once stood filled up immediately. Ocelot was the first to notice the onslaught of the sweet-smelling water. He was sitting against a wall when he noticed a light flow of liquid beginning to crawl into the room that he was in. Intrigued, he got to his feet and looked into the hallway nearest to him. Water was sloshing around the corridor. The room he was in was filling up at a rate of about an inch a minute. He shook with panic and treaded through the soupy area, trying to get to higher ground. Nylon was working on a little project of his when a splash of water came into the room that he was in and washed away his work in progress. He wept as he realized that the room he was inside of was filling up. He picked up his things and ran toward the nearest exit. Island, the only remaining career, was in a dead-ended room when a huge wave of the river water sloshed into the room. The room was filling up so quickly that he couldn't escape. The strong current was pressing him against the back of the room. He tried not to panic, knowing that it would only make him use up oxygen faster. Once he had to have his mouth pressed to the ceiling to breathe, he began to thrash about violently with terror. He promptly drowned. He was the last career in the thirty-eighth Hunger Games to die; upon his death, it was set into stone that an outlier would win these games.

 _Island Isselhardt, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Porter, Day 12_

When a huge wave of dark water ran into the cove that she was hiding in, Heather leapt atop her dragon and ordered for it to help her escape the cave, which would soon be filled with water. The dragon refused to step foot into the water. Heather yelled at the creature to move into the water, and it obeyed the orders of its mistress. The crimson dragon stepped into the water and suddenly groaned with pain as its foot began to emanate a sizzle. The skin that had touched the water had been scalded severely. The dragon was a creature of fire; it would rapidly dissolve upon contact with water. Heather urged her friend away from the flow and fly in the opposite direction, where they were met with a clash of water that combined with the other one beneath them. The dragon groaned with agony and leapt into the air, only to fall back into the water mere seconds later. A splash of the liquid had scalded the dragon's left wing, and it could no longer fly. Heather gasped with terror as she watched the dragon dissolve into the water like Styrofoam in acetone until only ashes remained. Heather quickly picked up speed and ran through a hallway jutting out from where her companion had died. Nylon had picked up all of his supplies and, fortunately for him, was very close to one of the cave's exits. He was able to emerge from the cave unscathed. In the cave, Ocelot yelped. He found himself in a clearing from with five corridors sprouted. Four of the corridors had great walls of water flowing down them. Ocelot darted down the fifth corridor and found himself at a dead end. Ocelot had no chance of escape. He pulled out his knife and drew a heavy line down his left wrist, going all of the way down his arm. He repeated for his other arm. Blood poured from the sliced-open skin, dying the water around him red. His vision was beginning to become foggy. He saw black spots. Suddenly, he went unconscious. The water had completely covered him, and he never woke up.

 _Ocelot Lazzara, District 10 Male: 4th, Suicide, Day 12_

Heather had managed to get to an area of high ground. The area was dry. It was dark because of the absence of the bioluminescent jewels that so brightly illuminated the rest of the cave. Heather, without her dragon comrade, could only survive using her flashlight and her wits. She quickly found herself in a hallway that was inclining upwards towards the surface. Heather laughed with relief and started up the slanted hallway. Suddenly, a torrent of water rushed in from the top of the hallway. It zoomed down the slope with great speed. The wave of water rushed over Heather. She screamed and scrambled for air, but the corridor had already been filled with the cool liquid. She thrashed around, hoping that losing oxygen faster would make her death swifter. After her cannon shot, her limp form sank to the bottom of the cave.

 _Heather Salisbury, District 7 Female: 3rd, Killed by Porter, Day 12_

With the cave filled to the brim with water, only two tributes remained in the arena. Porter Tripp scored a nine, one of the highest scores that the power district had ever seen. Throughout her time in the Capitol and throughout the games, she had displayed traits such as loyalty, passion, devotion, and thankfulness. Loyalty was the foremost of these virtues, as the nation valued loyal victors especially given the rebellion that had cropped up in plentiful numbers in recent years. Nylon Manger was the true underdog. In his games, he had displayed his incredible talent and his incredible resourcefulness. His creations had sold for a total of nearly one million dollars. If he won, he could set up a crafting business. It would be impossible for any of his businesses not to boom! Who wouldn't want to buy a genuine creation of the nation's newest victor? However, he was only twelve, and whether or not he could outlive an eighteen year-old in a fight was a question that seemed to have an obvious answer. But, throughout the nation's history, there have been many surprises. Time would tell which of these two great tributes would emerge victorious from the thirty-eighth Hunger Games.

After the flood that had claimed three lives, the gamemakers were happy to let one, even two days pass without any deaths. Porter spent this time not only hunting for Nylon but also gathering much-needed food and water for the final battle. Nylon, having seen the strengths and weaknesses of his final opponent during training, spent Days 13 and 14 practicing how to block blows from the crossbow and the sword, the weapons that Porter had excelled in during training.

On Day 15, Yarrow lit the world ablaze. He created a brush fire by lighting the fuzzy green grass on fire. The fire spread quickly across the flammable material, forcing Porter and Nylon toward the cornucopia. Porter had her crossbow and Nylon had his trident, and so it was that the final battle occurred.

Nylon had only a three in training, and so Porter was surprised to find that he worked surprisingly well with the trident. Nylon's first few blows were powerful. His first nicked Porter's shoulder. She hissed as blood crept from the wound. Porter spun sharply and, in one graceful movement, pulled the trigger of her crossbow down savagely. The dart fired, and Nylon dodged it at just the right moment. The dart actually seared off a few of Nylon's stray curls.

Abruptly, Nylon lunged toward Porter. Porter was so surprised by this that she couldn't move out of the way fast enough before he delivered his blow. Porter had turned on her side when Nylon slammed his trident into her back. Porter yelped with agony and turned sharply on her heel, burying two of her darts into Nylon's upper chest. Nylon's wounds were far more severe than Porter's. Nylon crumpled to the grass at Porter's side, and the symphony of trumpets blared their tumultuous melody the second that his cannon shot faded away fully.

 _Nylon Manger, District 8 Male: 2nd, Killed by Porter, Day 15_

"Porter Tripp of District 5, you are the victor of the thirty-eighth annual Hunger Games!" Yarrow cheered as a hovercraft descended to collect the nation's newest victor.

Porter just gritted her teeth and tried not to cry out from the pain that was exploding through her spine.

 _Porter Tripp, District 5 Female: Victor of the Thirty-Eighth Hunger Games, Day 15_

* * *

 ** _AFTERMATH_**

Porter had sustained a severe injury to her spinal cord during her final duel with Nylon. The damage was too severe to be fixed by the Capitol doctors. Porter was fit into a head brace that she would be forced to wear for the next thirty years. District 5 was elated upon Porter's victory; it had been twenty-three years since their last victor with Dina. She was liked by the nation, and many would learn to love the third victor from District 5. Snow, however, was very displeased about Porter's move of flooding the cave system; he had never intended for the river to be used in that manner. As punishment, Snow forced Porter to watch as her boyfriend was beaten terribly in front of her.

Porter moved into the Victor's Village of District 5, the third victor to do so.

Her victory tour was a work of art, as Porter turned out to be a wonderful public speaker.

Porter would live to the age of ninety-two, dying from a tumor that had developed in her spinal cord around the time of the one-hundred twelfth annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would marry and adopt triplet daughters.

* * *

 ** _NEWS_**

Porter moves into the Victor's Village of District 5, the third victor to do so.

Velvet Farrow has her fourth and final child, a boy named Glowing.

Mags Flanagan adopts her fourth child, a young boy named Urchin.

Magnet Lisagor bears a baby girl named Cyndala.

Troy Stiles and his fiancée, Anemone Davis, wed.

* * *

 ** _LIST OF VICTORS_**

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Porter, our first cannon victor since Barley all the way back in the thirtieth. This is the longest chapter of this story to date, at nearly 13,000 words long! Holy cow! This chapter was extra action-packed, and I got really into writing it.**

 **If you can, please leave a review. What did you think of Porter flooding the cave? How about Snow's plan of having the 12 games leading up the quarter quell be modeled after the 12 districts? What about Porter's punishment? Was it too harsh? Just right? Not harsh enough? What do you think about a 12 year-old making it to the final two?**

 **This story has broken 100 reviews and is quickly approaching 120 reviews, and all I can think to say is thank you so much for all of your support. I'm so thankful that so many people are enjoying my work as it's what I want to entertain and grow as a writer. There'll be another canon victor soon: Beetee from the fortieth. Until then, I'll see you next time with the thirty-ninth! :D**


	40. The 39th Hunger Games

**The 39th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

When the Capitol discovered an inhumane and very much illegal practice occurring in District 12, they tried to keep the information from leaking out to the entire nation. All of the peacekeepers on duty in the mining district were sworn to secrecy, and the population of the district was strictly forbidden to leave within a mile's radius of their place of residence without a government pass. What had happened was that a woman named Brooklyn Carterde had twin children: one boy and one girl. Brooklyn abused her children to the point that their sanities were broken and they wound _want_ to volunteer into the Hunger Games. In this way, Brooklyn could ensure that District 12's residents could take tesserae to their heart's content without fear of entering the Hunger Games, for her children would volunteer in their place out of desperation. Although her intentions could be construed as noble, this was a sick and twisted act, but President Coriolanus Snow did not execute the woman. Instead, Snow started a tradition that would continue for many, many years. Snow rounded up Brooklyn and a few hundred of the nation's most dastardly criminals and turned them into slaves, cutting out their tongues and tearing them from their families to work in the Capitol. He called these slaves avoxes, meaning "without voice" in Latin. This practice would continue until the two-hundred eighteenth Hunger Games, when the act of cutting out someone's tongue and forcing them into slavery was considered inhumane and unconstitutional.

Yarrow Dawnbloom returned for his seventh year as Head Gamemaker. Continuing down the ordered sequence of districts, the arena for the thirty-ninth Hunger Games would be modeled after District 2. Yarrow struggled with this, as the terrain of the quarry district was harsh and an arena that accurately depicted it would host a boring games with lots of deaths from natural cause. The arena consisted of two different parts. The cornucopia stood in the center of a coniferous pine forest. The trees were tall, their sap was edible, and pine needles littered the ground. The scent of sweet sap and fresh pine needles was always fresh in the air. The cornucopia was made of logs stacked in alternating directions like a child's crayon tower. The cornucopia only housed a few types of weapons this year: knives, axes, bows, maces, ropes, and a few others. Yarrow hoped that the small variety of weapons would promote creativity among the tributes, but time would tell if this would work out. Crunchy snow covered the ground, and snow would fall sporadically throughout the games. The coniferous forest stretched on for miles. Far off into the distance, looming over the rest of the arena, was a mountain. Its rocky slopes provided little of sustenance and virtually nothing of comfort, but the tributes could learn to live off of it if they were wise. The moss that clung to the rocky slopes of the feature was edible, and the snow was edible if melted. About halfway up the mountain, there were trees. Their roots were firmly planted into the ground so that they could stay up on the mountainside. But, above a certain point, there was nothing but bare landscape. Nothing but crunchy snow and scattered boulders. The oxygen was much sparser up there; any human would need to breathe more heavily to supply their bodies with enough oxygen to function properly. A series of foothills lied at the base of the mountain. Sheep roamed these foothills.

The career pack this year was slightly weaker than average. Overall, District 1 produced the weakest pair. Their male was calm and calculated and rather level-headed, preferring to go behind the scenes to work things out. He was more of a logical thinker than a brute force attacker. He loved the mace and centralized his plan-of-attack around it. The female would have gotten a higher score, but she tripped and sprained her ankle during the reaping because she was so excited. She was bloodthirsty and vicious, but her sprained ankle still held her back and could not recover by the time that the games started. District 2 produced a pair that were astoundingly skilled. Their male was vicious and deadly in every aspect of him. He radiated strength and fear both in appearance and demeanor, seemingly cloaked in darkness within every aspect of himself. The knife was his weapon-of-choice, its versatility and elegance catching his eye. His district partner was not unlike him. This girl was tall and muscular, preferring the knives as well. She was actually close friends with her district partner. Their resemblance was striking. District 4 produced a pair that was rather unconventional. District 4's male, a famous surfer in his district, was your typical vicious career but also displayed kindness and thankfulness as some of his personality traits. He used the trident with skill that bespoke years of practice. District 4's female, the daughter of an influential District 4 politician, was similar to the District 1 male in that she preferred to use the logical aspects of battle over the physical ones. When she had to fight with guns, germs, and steel, however, she chose the spear. The training scores of the careers spoke for themselves that this year's batch was a lacking group. Two tens, two nines, one eight, and one seven were scored among their ranks.

Outside of the careers, it was District 12, of all places, that stole the show. Their male and female both scored eights, the highest scores outside of the career pack. Their male was a rich merchant boy whose muscle strength from lugging around carts and the like proved to help him with brute force weapons like the mace. District 12's female was a miner's daughter. Ever since her father had died in a mine accident eleven years prior, the girl had volunteered as much of her time to the mines as possible to build a good tribute just in case she was reaped, which happened. Much of the audience thought that the two stellars would ally, but they didn't. There was, however, an alliance outside of the careers. It was between Quark Dowler of District 5 and Diesel Nobility of District 6. They both managed to score impressive sevens, Quark with his knife skills and Diesel with his axe skills. The only sevens besides the allies were Leo from 10 and Almond from 11. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There were three volunteers outside of the careers. Pascal Horace from District 3 had been diagnosed with severe depression prior to the reaping and volunteered in lieu of suicide. Satin Danatello from District 8 stepped forward in place of her cousin, and Leo Tharamel from District 10 volunteered to escape the angry hands of his abusive parents. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Chiaroscuro Sylvester, 16, (8) 8-1 and Bijou Eloe, 16, (7) 13-1

District 2: Scorpio Barnsetti, 18, (10) 3-1 and Thama Violette, 18, (10) 3-1

District 3: Pascal Horace, 16, (4) 26-1 and Dell Haviaras, 14, (4) 35-1

District 4: Keaton Lunar, 18, (9) 6-1 and Penelope Turek, 18, (9) 4-1

District 5: Quark Dowler, 17, (7) 12-1 and Inertia Maniatis, 14, (4) 33-1

District 6: Diesel Nobility, 17, (7) 12-1 and Morgan Skelisky, 18, (5) 19-1

District 7: Cedar Berridge, 13, (6) 28-1 and Juniper Kendricks, 13, (5) 30-1

District 8: Linen Arduino, 18, (6) 18-1 and Satin Danatello, 18, (6) 18-1

District 9: Flynt Geyser, 14, (3) 40-1 and Talia Macintyre, 15, (3) 37-1

District 10: Leo Tharamel, 16, (7) 15-1 and Raven Lanzoretta, 16, (6) 17-1

District 11: Almond Quayle, 18, (7) 13-1 and Daffodil Masten, 17, (3) 30-1

District 12: Valerian Douglas, 16, (8) 11-1 and Pickaxe Ishikawa, 15, (8) 12-1

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

District 2 would certainly have the edge this year. Not only were they the most powerful of the bunch, the games would take place in an arena that they were comfortable with. It was a very real possibility that each district themed arena would give an advantage to the tributes of that district, but Yarrow hoped that since every district had a turn it would be fair for everybody. Of course, advantages and disadvantages are still a very real thing in the games. Perhaps this year's games would be won by an unassuming outlier who was able to hide in areas where the careers wouldn't think anyone could survive. The harsh and varied terrain was incredible to look at. The crowning feature of the horizon, the mountain, cast a long shadow across the arena. This gave the arena a rather creepy effect. Of course, the games are naturally creepy. Twenty-four enter, twenty-three leave in coffins.

When the loud peal of the gong rang through the arena, two tributes turned around and fled. They were Quark from 5 and Diesel from 6. After entering the coniferous forest they met up and began looking for food.

At the cornucopia, Scorpio led the onrush, letting out battle cries as he leapt toward a serrated knife that sat humbly in a cluster of pinecones twelve yards from his pedestal. Scorpio picked up the knife, and, holding it firmly by its hilt, shoved it into the abdomen of a boy who had sprained an ankle mere seconds prior and was hobbling toward the cornucopia. The boy screeched as the knife sawed into his chest. Scorpio ripped the knife out of the boy and cackled with glee as sticky droplets splattered everywhere. The boy fell, wheezing, his hot blood melting the virgin snow around him.

 _Pascal Horace, District 3 Male: 24th, Killed by Scorpio, Bloodbath_

Thama was practically at Scorpio's heels. She rarely left her friend's side and was loyal to him at all moments. Thama took a knife of her own that lay down in a patch of crumbling rocks near Pascal's blood-lathered form. Thama heard shuffling behind her. She turned sharply on her heel and swiftly thrust her serrated knife forward. It landed in the torso of a girl that was trying to off her with a knife of her own. The girl screamed and crumpled to the grass. Scorpio quickly polished off the sobbing girl, throwing the serrated edge of his knife into her forehead and watching with satisfaction as blood drizzled from the wound.

 _Inertia Maniatis, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Thama and Scorpio, Bloodbath_

The second that the gong rang, Valerian had darted over to the girl whose pedestal was adjacent to his. Strong Valerian grabbed the frail girl and threw her to the ground. Valerian crouched down beside her and, holding her firmly by either shoulder, bashed her head against her pedestal. She was knocked unconscious, but even then Valerian did not stop. The muscular District 12 boy lifted the limp girl into the air and hurled her onto the pedestal. Several cracking sounds were emitted by her body. Valerian walked away, a torrent of emotions overwhelming him after making his first kill.

 _Talia Macintyre, District 9 Female: 22nd, Killed by Valerian, Bloodbath_

Penelope had run all of the way into the cornucopia to grab a spear. She closed her dexterous fingers around the weapon's metal shaft and darted out of the darkness, her footsteps echoing around inside of the metallic horn of plenty. In the clearing, Penelope spotted a glimpse of a sinewy boy falling to his knees beside a black backpack. Penelope ran toward him. He was too shocked to scream as the District 4 girl drove the sharp point of her spear into his neck. He gurgled and spasmed violently as blood began flowing from his nose and mouth, having leaked into his lungs and filled up his respiratory tract. He fell backward and sank into the white snow.

 _Flynt Geyser, District 9 Male: 21st, Killed by Penelope, Bloodbath_

Having swept up a spiked mace that leaned against the side of the cornucopia, Chiaroscuro swung the weapon around with a sort of elegance that bespoke years of practice. The District 1 boy smirked as he whirled around and slammed the weapon into the head of a nearby girl that was zigzagging to avoid attacks as she raced toward the cornucopia. She yelped, but her cry of pain and fear was abruptly cut short as her skull was bashed in. A loud crunch was all that it took before the girl fell forward into the snow, her brain and skull having been beaten to a pulp.

 _Juniper Kendricks, District 10 Female: 20th, Killed by Chiaroscuro, Bloodbath_

Mere seconds later, Scorpio spotted Juniper's district partner leaping over crates and trying to escape the bloodbath with a lighter and a loaf of bread. Scorpio called for his own district partner, and the two worked efficiently together. Scorpio leapt forward and sank the tip of his serrated knife into the District 7 boy's skull. Unconscious, he was easy work for Thama, who lodged her knife between two of the boy's ribs. She wiggled the blade around a bit before pulling it out and washing it in the snow to clean off the stringy blood that had clung to it.

 _Cedar Berridge, District 7 Male: 19th, Killed by Scorpio and Thama, Bloodbath_

Keaton saw a redheaded girl on the ground, crawling away from the cornucopia. She was wheezing. Blood poured plentifully from a gap between her fingertips, which were clapped to her side. She had sustained a dire injury from Chiaroscuro mere seconds prior. Keaton snatched up the nearest weapon—a bow—and went in for the kill. The still target was easy for Keaton to strike, and the pitiful girl actually appreciated it when Keaton ended her suffering. Keaton ran to her side to tear his arrow out of her head before returning to the horn.

 _Raven Lanzoretta, District 10 Female: 18th, Killed by Chiaroscuro and Keaton, Bloodbath_

Penelope needed only to walk three steps before a high-scoring boy ran across her field of vision. Penelope instinctively held out her foot. The running boy tripped on the outstretched limb and fell. He tried to scuttle to his feet and escape, but by the time he could even process what was happening Penelope was thrusting her spear into his head. He yelped as the sharp tip drove through one side of his head and protruded from the other. Two kills under her belt, Penelope smirked with satisfaction.

 _Leo Tharamel, District 10 Male: 17th, Killed by Penelope, Bloodbath_

Bijou hadn't managed to land a kill yet, and this was understandable given that her right ankle was sprained during the reaping. She had managed to pick up an axe in one graceful swipe and plant it into the head of a nearby boy the very next second. This was impressive, and it was the action that first displayed her elegance, even in injury, to the audience. The boy cried out as he crumbled to the snow and splattered Bijou with heavy scarlet beads.

 _Linen Arduino, District 8 Male: 16th, Killed by Bijou, Bloodbath_

Chiaroscuro noticed a weak girl run into the cornucopia and crunch herself into a dark corner. The District 1 boy brandished his mace and ran toward where the girl shook with terror, trapped against the horn's interior wall. She cried out choked pleas as Chiaroscuro lifted his mace into the air and slammed it into her head, bashing in her skull. Chiaroscuro's kills were holding little to no bloodshed, but he still chose the mace thinking that it would be as impressive to swing the heavy tool as it would be to slash a knife or stab a sword. His kills were swift, so he wasn't exactly a favorite in the Capitol.

 _Daffodil Masten, District 11 Female: 15th, Killed by Chiaroscuro, Bloodbath_

Thama made the final kill. She had spotted Morgan, the District 6 girl, running into the coniferous forest with a backpack hastily slung over her shoulder. Thama chased after the girl with her knife. Morgan had a headstart, and she was nimble enough to outrun the career for a few minutes. In the end, however, she just wasn't a match for the trained career. She yelped with terror as Thama's knife dug into her back and she collapsed to the ground beside her. Thama took a quick moment to pillage the girl of her supplies before returning to the horn. Thama lined up each of her footsteps with each of the eleven cannon shots that fired across the arena.

 _Morgan Skelisky, District 6 Female: 14th, Killed by Thama, Bloodbath_

The careers were waiting for Thama by the time that she got back to the cornucopia. They didn't even take a minute to organize their supplies before they immediately went hunting. They foraged the coniferous forest for prey, knowing that its darkness would be alluring to the weaker tributes. It began to grow rather chilly around noon. It was Thama who suggested that they split up, and the groupings weren't random. Bijou and Chiaroscuro were left at the cornucopia to guard and sort through the supplies. Scorpio, Thama, Penelope, and Keaton were paired into groups of two. Scorpio and Keaton were in one group; Thama and Penelope were in the other. Scorpio and Keaton headed for the mountain, hoping that lots of tributes would be there. Thama and Penelope combed through the coniferous forest for prey.

The allies of Quark and Diesel certainly had a head start. After running away from the bloodbath, they met up behind a thick tree with a wide trunk. After a quick moment of deliberation, they headed for the mountain. Although the forest was dark and cozy, the mountain was the dominating feature on the horizon, and it was a natural focal point from virtually anywhere. The allies went toward the mountain, Diesel in the front. He had gotten a hatchet from a sponsor that was intrigued by his alliance with Quark, and so he travelled in front and was on the lookout for any predators, or, to a lesser extent, prey. At the foot of the mountain, the two allies set up camp for the night. It was a humble abode, consisting of two beds of leaves shoved behind one of the foothills, but it was better than nothing. Food and water would be the top priorities for the two allies in the morning. Satin from 8 headed for the mountain as well. She was a weak but nimble girl. She reasoned that the mountain, with its dark shadows and icy slopes, would force tributes away from it like identical ends of a magnet. On the icy slope, Satin's survival skills were rather tested. She had to cling on to the rocky side and try not to slip on the ice. More than once she nearly fell to her death. But, miraculously, she reached a flat area on the mountainside. The oxygen was noticeably thinner, but not to an extent that Satin could notice it. She slept in a corpse of bushes that night, with no method of protection against the cold and no method of protection against the others besides her axe. Dell stayed in the coniferous forest. She wasn't a very strong girl, and her frail body couldn't reach the mountain in one day. She had about twelve hours after the bloodbath before the first songs of sunset began, and she was determined to be in a good place when that happened. When the sun dipped below the horizon and Dell still hadn't found a place to call home, she just dug out an area of snow, revealing the dead, crumbly glass below. She slept wrapped in a cloth that she had retrieved from the bloodbath, but could never sleep for more than fifteen minutes at a time because of nightmares. Satin headed for the mountain by walking. Soon, she began to grow dreadfully cold, and she began running to increase her body temperature. This made her lose energy and fluid faster. She felt a raging thirst and hunger. She eventually plopped some snow into a small cup and melted it with her body heat before drinking it. An amateur survivalist might just eat snow, but this is a bad idea for anybody as it will reduce the temperature of the drinker significantly. Satin had a steady supply of water. She was hungry and decided to try some of the sap from the nearest tree. The thick liquid drizzled into her mouth, and she instantly gagged. She leaned to the side and heaved herself dry from the disgusting taste of the sap. She was hungrier than ever, and she cried herself to sleep in a ditch that night with nothing but a package of wires (useless to her) and a coil of rope.

After the bloodbath, Pickaxe had been combing through the coniferous forest, firmly grasping the weapon after which she was named. Pickaxe's feet left trails in the snow. She had been hunting for a few hours when she realized that another tribute could easily track her down by her footsteps, so she settled down against a tree, not sure what to do. As if in answer to her plea, a snowstorm began. The snow covered up her footsteps and she could begin hunting again. The snow shooting through the air landed in Pickaxe's face and made her squint her eyes; it was difficult to see clearly. Suddenly, once the storm had stopped, the District 12 girl spotted a figure on the horizon. It was Valerian, her very own district partner. The boy had had a hand chopped off by Scorpio during the bloodbath, and he had been prowling through the arena hoping that it would increase his body temperature. Pickaxe ran forward, realizing that the boy was in no state to fight back and was in fact weaponless. Valerian uttered a choked, but certain, _please,_ and Pickaxe went in for the kill. She lifted the sharp point of her pickaxe into the air and slammed it into Valerian's head. He went unconscious instantly, ending his suffering. Pickaxe wandered away back to her hiding place against the tree. Valerian was left to die from hypothermia on the ground.

 _Valerian Douglas, District 12 Male: 13th, Killed by Scorpio, Pickaxe, and Hypothermia, Day 1_

Almond from 11 had been wandering through the coniferous forest with a bow and its accompanying quiver. Suddenly, Valerian's cannon shot boomed through the arena. Almond leapt ten feet into the air and whirled around. He fired an arrow out of paranoia. The arrow disappeared without hitting the target that was never there. Almond was still not shaken out of his state of panic. He picked up his things and he ran. He tripped and fell. He hissed with pain and clapped his hands toward his ankle, sticking out at an awkward angle; sprained. Almond panicked. He had no idea what to do. Did he wash it with water? Did he try to correct the crooked bone? Almond reached down and tried to twist it back He yelped as the stretched skin broke and blood oozed forth. He had gotten to his feet within five minutes, but within five steps he fell back down and landed directly on the already sprained, now bloody, ankle. Almond cursed and crawled toward the nearest hiding place, burying his face into his hands with despair.

The careers did not return to their camp on the night of Day 1. Instead, they remained away, leaving Bijou and Chiaroscuro at the cornucopia. Thama and Penelope had been searching the coniferous forest for prey. After realizing just how unrealistic it was for anyone to be there, they travelled toward the mountain. They actually ran into the other duo of careers, and all four decided to unite as one pack.

On the mountain, food was the main priority of Quark and Diesel. Quark was the more intellectual of the group. At first he scraped the edible moss off of the mountainside for food, but he and his partner quickly became fed up with the stuff. They actually caught a squirrel around noon. With no method of cooking the meat, they had to chew and chew until their jaws were sore. While he was doing that, Diesel travelled down the mountainside a bit to where there were bushes. He picked off some of the berries that he recognized as edible and gathered them in a basket. Warmth wasn't an issue for them as a sponsor had delivered them a blanket that they shared. Dell, in the forest, had an episode around three o'clock in the afternoon. A snowstorm had started. Not just any snowstorm, but a windy one. Before she could lift a finger to grab it, the wind blew away her backpack. She sprang to her feet and ran after it, but it was a goner. She had run so far that she was unable to find her way back to where she had been. She was lost with nothing. Tears burned the back of her eyes. She collapsed into the snow and cried for her family. "Mommy!" she cried. "Daddy!". _Please, please, please, sponsors, please send me something! Anything! Or better yet, let me die right here in the snow,_ she cried out before she just gave up yelling for her family that could not come to her. Soon, she decided that she wasn't doing herself any favors by laying around and wallowing in her misery. She got up and ran a few laps around a nearby tree to warm herself up. Then, she shinnied up it. Her skills were graceful albeit a little clunky. She reached the top and plopped down. She spent the next few hours amusing herself by catching an ant and watching it crawl over the back of her hand. Satin had been travelling through the forest looking for food when she spotted a fleck of pink peeking out from behind a rock. In this land of white and grey, she was shoked by the sight. She ran forth to investigate and saw a beautiful pink flower. Although it was just a flower, it meant so much more to Satin than that. It was a symbol of hope. She delicately picked the pretty flower and put it in her hair, which was braided into a ponytail. When she got bored later, she removed the flower from her braid and fingered it in her hands. Pickaxe spent the day hunting for other tributes. She received a sponsor gift around six in the evening. It was a hand warmer that would produce heat when folded and kneaded. She was so thankful for the gift that she bowed and gave a heartfelt thank you to the Capitol and its generosity and forgiveness. She was perhaps inspired by Porter Tripp of the year prior, who had behaved loyally so that Snow, who needed loyal victors, would keep her around. She swore to make a kill before the day finished, but was unsuccessful. When that failed, she shed her own blood. This was a crazy decision, but she wasn't exactly in her right mind given the circumstances. She grabbed a rock and raked it across her arm, watching as blood dripped forth. She received an urgent message from her sponsor Misty demanding that she stop, which she did after realizing how insane she had just made herself look. Pickaxe shook with fear when the circumstances dawned upon her. Who in their right mind, after all, would sponsor a maniac? Almond spent the day tending to his sprained ankle. He had received a note from his sponsor, Seeder, along with a small plastic baggie. The note instructed him how to care for his wound. Almond broke icicles off of the trees and filled the bag with them. He tore off part of his clothing and placed it over his ankle. Then, he applied the ice bag his ankle. It was so cold even with the cloth that he bit his lip, but he eventually got used to it. This, Almond hoped, would prevent swelling or clotting of the wound. Time would tell if this would go as planned.

The sun rose on Day 3, and the careers changed strategies once more. They were beginning to grow cold on the mountainside, colder than they had been on the ground. Less they all freeze to death, they spent the better half of the day travelling downhill. They eventually reached the horn, where they spent about an hour warming themselves up with hot drinks and a fire that Bijou had crafted. Proving their endurance, they immediately got to work hunting through the snowy forest.

In the forest, Dell's ant had been long dead from the cold. The only way that she could occupy herself was to sing. Her voice was absolutely beautiful. It was said that even the chickadees and the robins of the forest stopped to listen to her. She sang folk songs that had been passed down in District 3. Knowing that her death was immediately inevitable, she found a sort of peace in dying in the mindset of home. The careers heard her singing and ran to her. Keaton nocked an arrow into his bow and aimed for the girl, but hesitated. Her voice was beautiful, and Keaton couldn't resist to destroy such talent. He lowered his bow, unable to do the deed. _I'll do it myself,_ Scorpio spat as he marched toward the girl. By the time she noticed the crowd of kids standing beneath her, Scorpio's knife had already lodged itself into her head with perfect precision. She tumbled out of the tree, allowing Scorpio to retrieve his knife. The careers went back to the cornucopia to warm back up. They ended up staying at the horn for the night, planning to go hunting in the morning.

 _Dell Haviaras, District 3 Female: 12th, Killed by Scorpio, Day 3_

Satin's flower had begun to die and wither in the bitter cold of the arena, and she was about to throw it away when she spotted the same pink glint coming out from behind a pile of snow. Satin smiled and picked the pink flower, perfectly shaped. A few feet further, she spotted another pink flower. And another one after that. She spent Day 3 collecting the flowers, and she arranged them once she was finished. It wasn't in an effort to survive or anything, just to occupy herself. Quark and Diesel had been walking up the icy side of the mountain for days, and they finally reached the top a bit after noon on Day 3. Up there, they had a fantastic view of the entire arena, but they didn't stop to admire it. They got quickly to work. Quark, the intellectual of the duo, made their shelter. Diesel, the more creative and artistic boy, made an intruder alarm system. He found the only place where anyone could directly reach the plateu that they were on and covered it with a wall of rocks. Then, surrounding this wall, were stones precariously perched on top of each other. Any intruder would have to carefully walk over the wall of rocks, during which there was a high probability that they would knock it over by accident. If they did manage to get past, they would step on a path of squishy, damp moss that Diesel had layed out. This would bring the moisture to the surface, where it would knock down some of the rocks and make a squelching sound that would hopefully awaken the duo. It was a very clever build, and it earned him many sponsors. No tribute had ever made an alarm system before. Pickaxe had long foraged the coniferous forest for foot to eat, but found none. As her last resort, she travelled to the foothills at the base of the looming mountain. There, she found a flock of sheep grazing. Pickaxe produced her pickaxe and attacked one of them. The sharp edge of the weapons slammed into the side of the sheep. It _baad_ with pain and kicked the girl in the stomach. She was sent reeling, the wind knocked out of her, before she slammed into the ground. She took a few seconds to reach her senses, at which point the animal was charging toward her. She leapt to her feet and slammed the weapon forward, abandoning all caution. She drove the pickaxe into the sheep's head as it crumpled into a limp form. It was dead within a few minutes, and Pickaxe was able to slice out sheets of its meat for food. She dared to start a fire, but she started it nestled between two of the foothills, where she hoped to remain hidden from the sights of the watchful careers.

On Day 3, the unthinkable happened. Almond's sprained ankle became infected. Red streaks surrounded his ankle, and strange bulges occurred. Yellowish foamy powder began to fall from the wound. Almond panicked. What did he do? He had no idea, so he urgently asked his sponsor Seeder for guidance. Quickly, Almond received a strange medley of objects. He received a bottle. Almond opened the bottle and found a single blue tablet inside. He also received a cup. Thirdly and most strangely of all, he received a piece of paper that was folded in half. Almond unfolded the piece of paper and found a rather strange message. Making up the phrases and sentences were not letters but strange, blocky symbols. What did it say? The District 11 boy spent a few hours puzzling over the message, before finally decoding it. The message was in fact written in pigpen cipher, a very old coding language that is nowadays only used by schoolchildren for writing secret messages to each other. The message read:

 _Step 1. Place blue tablet into cup.  
Step 2. Find a small stone.  
Step 3. Crush up tablet into fine powder with stone.  
Step 4. Fill cup with snow  
Step 5. Hold cup to body, heat will melt snow. Cup should be filled with thin purple liquid.  
Step 6. Apply purple liquid to wound. Expect results within minutes._

Though puzzled by the instructions, Almond followed them carefully. He dropped the blue tablet into the cup with a clatter. He found a small stone and crushed the tablet until his hands were sore. Almond gathered a heap of snow and plopped it into the cup. Then, he held it to his body. The wait for the snow to melt was torturous, but Almond would not give into temptation. Once the tablet's powder had dissolved into the liquid water, he held a translucent purple liquid. Almond tipped the cup of liquid and drizzled it over his wound.

Almond hissed at the stinging sensation that followed. He clenched his teeth and grabbed onto a nearby sapling to withstand the pain. He looked down and saw that the injury had gotten significantly better. He smiled, hoping he did have a chance of recovery after all.

The careers got up bright and early on the morning of Day 4. Chiaroscuro, Scorpio, Thama, and Penelope went hunting this time, whereas Bijou and Keaton stayed at the cornucopia. The others were disgusted at how Keaton had hesitated to kill the District 3 girl the day prior, and they figured he would be of no help during their hunting spree. Bijou, well, she just wasn't up to doing the intense physical work that came with hunting with her sprained ankle. She desperately wanted to go hunt but the others insisted that she had better stay at the cornucopia. Out in the arena, Chiaroscuro and Scorpio headed for the foothills and the mountain, whereas Thama and Penelope embarked on an adventure through the forest to look for prey.

The careers didn't have to look for long. Chiaroscuro and Scorpio had been walking through the foothills for less than an hour when they heard a crackle from behind one of the hills. The two careers climbed up the hill and looked down upon Pickaxe, roasting some tender mutton over her blazing bonfire. Pickaxe didn't even notice that the careers were mere feet from her, and by the time she did notice it was too late. Chiaroscuro was the first to pounce down. He bashed stunned Pickaxe in the skull, and she died so quickly that there was no time for Scorpio to have any part of the action.

 _Pickaxe Ishikawa, District 12 Female: 11th, Killed by Chiaroscuro, Day 4_

Satin quickly realized that she couldn't continue to survive in the harsh environment that the forest held. She travelled to the foothills on Day 4, seeking its warmth and plenty of food. It was, of course, much warmer there, and she got to work on a shelter immediately. Almond needed more care for his wound. He decided to go tribute hunting to get sponsors. He showed signs of pain from all of the movement, and within hours he began to form painful clots of blood around his infected, sprained ankle. It was painful to even watch as he lay down, tears burning the backs of his eyes as he gritted his teeth and hissed with the throbbing pain of his grievous injury.

Up on the mountaintop, Quark and Diesel decided to disembark from their home. It was cozy up there, but it was just to cold and food was in too short of a supply for two boys to sustain themselves. They travelled down the mountainside and toward the foothills on Day 5, where they began crafting a shelter in a ditch surrounded by several corpses of bushes.

Almond's ankle was beginning to grow inflamed. The sponsors knew he was a goner and didn't even bother to send him anything worthwhile. Satin was heading toward him, and, coincidentally, the two tributes stumbled across each other at nine o'clock in the morning. Satin, seeing that Almond was in no shape to fight well against her healthy self, went in for a fight. Satin smacked hobbling Almond across the mouth. He reeled and spiraled backwards. He quickly ran forward with his hand balled into a fist and slammed it into Satin's shoulder. Fights of pure hand-to-hand combat were rare in the games. Satin rebutted Almond's blow, spinning around and kicking him in the groin. He fell backwards into the snow. Satin kicked him once in the ribs and then walked away, leaving him to die. He quickly succumbed to hypothermia, reducing the tribute count to nine.

 _Almond Quayle, District 11 Male: 10th, Killed by Satin and Hypothermia, Day 5_

After Almond's death, little of consequence happened for the rest of Day 5. With a kill under her belt, Satin received sponsor gifts galore. She eventually travelled to the foothills, where she set up camp in an area heavily populated by the peaceful sheep that grazed the area. The careers continued to hunt, but they made no kills. Back at the horn, Bijou and Keaton sorted through the supplies. Bijou was beginning to grow restless on Day 5, and she wanted to venture away from the cornucopia just for some adventure to brighten up the boring day. Keaton refused.

But, she wouldn't take no for an answer. Bijou woke up bright and early on Day 6 and travelled to the foothills. Her sprained ankle had gotten significantly better over the days, and she was able to warm normally enough. She eventually found herself in a cloud of fireflies. She admired their beauty before travelling on. Suddenly, she stepped on a—wall of rocks. The wall crumbled down, awaking the two boys that had built it. Quark and Diesel grabbed their weapons and ran toward the career girl. She had taken an axe with her, but she had mindlessly set it down when she was in the firefly field. Defenseless and unable to see where the boys were coming from, she picked a direction and ran. The boys caught up to the disoriented career quickly. It was Diesel who did the deed, slashing his knife across Bijou's throat. She fell, gurgling and crying out choked pleas, to the ground. She was the first career to perish in the thirty-ninth Hunger Games.

 _Bijou Eloe, District 1 Female: 9th, Killed by Diesel, Day 6_

That left the final eight: Chiaroscuro Sylvester from District 1, Scorpio Barnsetti and Thama Violette from District 2, Keaton Lunar and Penelope Turek from District 4, Quark Dowler from District 5, Diesel Nobility from District 6, and Satin Danatello from District 8.

After the incident, Quark and Diesel couldn't get back to sleep. After several hours of tossing and turning, they decided to go tribute hunting. They got up and grabbed their weapons. They travelled in one big lap around the mountain. In all actuality, this wasn't for hunting purposes, just to get their blood flowing. They were in for a nasty surprise when they returned home to their camp.

Yes, they were in for a big surprise, because Satin had been waiting merely a hundred yards away from their camp. Satin knew that they were the most well-stocked tributes outside of the careers. The instant that the glow of their flashlights disappeared around the curvature of the mountain, Satin got to her feet and darted toward their camp. She pillaged a loaf of bread first and stuffed it into her shirt. Satin managed to grab a knife, but dropped it. The clattering alerted the duo to her presence. They instantly ran back around and caught Satin red-handed. Picking the knife back up and clutching it for dear life, she ran. Satin was nimble, and she lost her pursuers in the darkness and thick of the mountain.

Day 7 came about with lots of movement among the careers. The four that were away travelled back to the cornucopia on the morning of seventh day. They wanted to restock on supplies. After seeing her face in the sky, the others had abandoned Chiaroscuro for reasons that nobody is still quite sure of to this day. He travelled back to the cornucopia and met up with Keaton.

The other careers travelled back to the cornucopia. Scorpio was in a raging mood. He had not make a kill in several days, and he was eager to bump off a few of his weaker allies. When he got back to the horn, Scorpio grabbed Chiaroscuro and threw him to the ground, yelling about how he killed Bijou and how he was traitor and that he deserved to be killed. This was nonsense, as Chiaroscuro had been with the careers when Bijou's face had appeared in the sky, but Scorpio just wanted to kill him. The others, not daring to dabble into the fiery antics of the District 2 boy, watched as Scorpio reached down and grabbed Chiaroscuro by either side of the neck. He twisted to the right so savagely that the boy's neck snapped. He collapsed back to the ground, dead. When he began barking orders to his allies, they obeyed without question. They know knew the sheer bloodthirstiness of the boy that they were dealing with.

 _Chiaroscuro Sylvester, District 1 Male: 8th, Killed by Scorpio, Day 7_

After having raided the camp of the two allies, Satin ran away from the mountain as fast as her legs could carry her. However, on Day 7, she turned around and ran back toward the mountain. That was where the careers would be hunting, she assumed, but it would also be the place with the most protection. She settled into the mountain's rocky side. She was at first stunned by the bitter cold but got used to it in due time.

The little alliance of Diesel and Quark couldn't last forever. In the games, you don't get to be the second person to betray your ally. Around eleven o'clock at night on Day 7, Quark awoke, his ally gently snoring beside him. Quark grabbed his knife. He did the killing quickly. He couldn't bear to watch and had closed his eyes, but what was certain were the screams of agony and terror that Diesel let out as the knife dug into his head. The knife had pierced a vital artery. Blood poured plentifully from the wound, painting the ex-allies' blanket an evil crimson. His screams faded away to silence, immediately followed by an earsplitting cannon shot.

 _Diesel Nobility, District 6 Male: 7th, Killed by Quark, Day 7_

The morning of Day 8, the four remaining careers headed for the mountain. Their four members (Scorpio, Thama, Keaton, and Penelope) all stayed together as they trooped toward the figure, but then split apart at its base. Keaton and Scorpio actually travelled together, whereas Thama and Penelope travelled alone and separate from the others. Thama went down the eastward face of the mountain and mostly stayed in the lower altitudes. Penelope ventured to the higher altitudes and made wide sweeps across the face of the great natural wonder. Scorpio and Keaton sprawled across the whole mountain with hopes of finding prey more efficiently.

With every tribute on the mountain, the gamemakers had them right where they wanted them. The gamemakers had long been bottling down the fact that the mountain was in fact a volcano waiting to blow. They had silenced the tremors to the point that the tributes could dismiss them as tummy problems. They had taken every precaution possible, and it had worked. On Day 8, finally, the gamemakers could unleash the full-fledged power of the volcano.

At the top of the mountain, a huge chunk of rock fell into the bubbling pit contained in the volcano's core. The lava rose and rose. It drizzled out of the top of the mountain and travelled downward, creeping up upon the last remaining tributes in the thirty-ninth Hunger Games.

Penelope faced the most immediate danger, as she was closest to the top of the volcano when the eruption occurred. She heard the loud rumbles immediately preceding the eruption and had time to run down. Soon, she was barreling down the mountain's rocky face with no sense of direction or time. She suddenly slammed into a tree and fell. Penelope started rolling down the hill at a fast rate, with no control over her actions. She came to a stop on a small shelf of rock. Penelope climbed down the mountainside from there and reached the bottom. She was untouched by the lava, but was severely battered and bruised from the long ride down.

Thama was about halfway up the mountain when a torrent of lava burst through a nearby boulder and engulfed her right arm. She screamed as the skin was melted away. She raced down the mountainside but slipped and began making the rocky roll down the side of the deadly volcano. She came to a rest and was too tired and confused to get up and run. A torrent of lava swooshed down and swallowed Thama, killing her in due time.

 _Thama Violette, District 2 Female: 6th, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 8_

The duo of Keaton and Scorpio had abandoned all caution and were now racing down the mountainside away from a huge rush of lava that was closing in from behind them. Suddenly, in some sort of archaic sacrifice to the gamemaker gods, Keaton reached over and shoved Scorpio into a bit of hot lava that was pooling up beside him, as if it would somehow slow its flow. Scorpio died immediately, leaving only four tributes remaining.

 _Scorpio Barnsetti, District 2 Male: 5th, Killed by Keaton, Day 8_

No other tributes died for the rest of Day 8. Penelope and Keaton, the only remaining tributes, trekked back to the horn, both battered severely from the run. They tended to their more urgent wounds for the rest of the day. Satin was so traumatized from the eruption that she hid in her hiding place all day, refusing to leave the place lodged between two foothills even to go to the bathroom. Quark went out hunting for Satin, his knife his chief weapon. These actions continued into Day 9. The careers didn't go hunting on Day 9. Satin hid, and Quark hunted.

Day 10 promptly arrived, and Yarrow saw the perfect opportunity to unleash chaos upon the tributes. Thus far, the games had been empty of muttations. The careers went hunting on Day 10 for the first time in a while. Quark was out not only hunting but also gathering natural resources that would help in his last few fights. Satin ventured out for food, which she got from a patch of berries that sat near her humble abode.

Each tribute received a wolf muttation. They had silvery fur that shined in the sunlight, and their nails were as sharp as daggers. They had teeth to match, too. The careers could fend them off with ease. Penelope took a trident from the cornucopia, and Keaton took a spear. Keaton managed to gore the creature through the eye, whereas Penelope stabbed it with her trident. The careers' second wolf arrived. This one was bigger, stronger, and more bloodthirsty than the last. The creature roared and leapt toward the two tributes. Penelope held out her trident and swung around the three-pronged weapon in an attempt to slash the creature. Meanwhile, Keaton got in close-range and tried to stab with his spear. Keaton managed to lodge his trident into the creature's flesh. Enraged, it let out a mighty paw and slammed Keaton to the ground. Engrossed in toying with his body, the wolf muttation was easy work for Penelope. She planted her trident firmly into its back. It howled with fury as black blood burbled forth. The mutt withered and died, and Penelope ran to help her ally.

Quark couldn't get in any close-range blows with his knife, so he decided to run away from it. He eventually shinnied up a tree to escape. He began sawing away at the branch that was directly above the wolf. The branch fell and crushed the wolf to death. Quark climbed down the tree and ripped out one of the wolf's fangs. It could be useful later on.

All Satin had to fend off her pursuer was the knife that she had scavenged from the allies' camp while they were away. She tried to give the wolf muttation a quick slash, but the creature had already knocked her to the ground. It raked its chorus of talons across her torso, and Satin could only lay and scream as the wolf tore her to a pulp. District 8's chances of victory were now extinguished entirely.

 _Satin Danatello, District 8 Female: 4th, Killed by Wolf Muttation, Day 10_

Day 11 came about with little of consequence. When Keaton and Penelope went out to hunt, they split up to find Quark. Keaton travelled through the coniferous forest. Penelope went to the mountain. The lava had already hardened into stone, and it wasn't unlikely that Quark could have flocked there seeking its protection.

Quark had been wandering through the carnivorous forest looking for food. The frequency of his sponsor gifts was beginning to drop drastically; gifts were getting more expensive with time, and Quark was increasingly dependent on his wits to survive in the wilderness.

Another snowstorm began at noon on Day 11. This one was the toughest yet, and it stretched out across the entire arena. The snow cut into the tribute's faces like daggers and obscured their vision almost completely. Quark, for the first time in the games, reached into his shirt and pulled out his tribute token. The token was a photograph printed out on cardstock. In the photograph, Quark is a baby. He is being held by a tall, dark haired woman (his mother) who is looking down at him with a smile as wide as the moon. Quark's father isn't looking at him, but instead looking at his beautiful wife and smiling. Looking at that picture you would think that the Dowler family was the happiest in the world. Thinking about them made Quark smile.

About thirty minutes later, Quark spotted a figure forming about twenty yards away. He hurriedly ran into a corpse of bushes, knowing that it had to be a career. He was correct. Keaton's form came into view. Keaton travelled down Quark's footsteps and found him quivering behind the bush, too terrified to move.

Keaton raised his spear into the air for the kill. When Keaton spotted the photograph that sat in Quark's lap, he lowered his spear. Thoughts raced through Keaton's mind. It was his duty as a career to kill the boy. He raised the spear. Quark was a human being! He lowered the spear. At long last, Keaton uttered "run". Quark was off before Keaton could change his mind.

The sun rose on Day 12. The second the sun rose up from the east horizon, a group of wolves was unleashed after every tribute. Quark had his knife and could fend them off. These wolves, unlike the wolves from two days prior, could climb trees. Quark would be no safer cooped up in a tree than on the ground like a slice of meat. He quickly ran around the trio of Wolves and stabbed his knife into one's heat. It roared and instructed its comrades to chase Quark along with him. Quark eventually resorted to running through rough terrain. He was running up the side of the mountain within half an hour. In the rocky terrain, he lost the wolves one by one. One wolf tripped on a crevasse and was sent rolling down the mountainside. Quark tricked one of the wolves into a patch of cooling lava. With only one pursuer left, he could afford to play the offensive game that the other tributes were playing. He dove forward and planted his knife into the mutt's long and slender snout. It whimpered and scampered away down the side of the mountain.

Back at the cornucopia, the careers seemed to be having varying degrees of success in fending off their bloodthirsty wolf pursuers. These wolves were bigger, faster, and stronger; their old strategies for killing them were now obscelete. Before the careers could do anything to harm the creature, it lifted up a mighty paw and raked its long nails across Keaton's torso. He collapsed, pain exploding through his body, as the wolf sank its sharp teeth into his torso and tore them out, piercing his heart.

 _Keaton Lunar, District 4 Male: 3rd, Killed by Wolf Muttation, Day 12_

Day 13 largely consisted of the final remaining tributes preparing for the final fight. Penelope spent the day at the cornucopia picking out the array of weapons that she would have with her for the final battle. Quark spent all of his time wandering through the arena and practicing his knife skills. The cards were stacked against Quark, but the games are filled with surprises and it was impossible to know for sure which of the final two would emerge victorious.

On the morning of Day 14, the gamemakers concluded that it was that time again. Time for the final battle. With Penelope at the cornucopia, all they had to do was drive Quark toward her. Those same silvery wolves emerged again. Quark was strolling through the woods and practicing his knife skills when he spotted a glint of silver from around a tree. His heart leapt into his throat as he turned sharply on his heel and ran. The wolf, discovered, leapt out from behind the tree and raced after Quark. Quark breathed a mile a minute as the creature chased after him. Less than a minute later, Quark tripped on a rock. He flailed around his arms and flew forward before plopping onto the ground with a hollow noise. The wolf lunged toward him. Yarrow grabbed the controls and tried to draw the wolf away from Quark. He wanted a final battle, and that couldn't happen if Quark died. Panicked, Yarrow's shaking hands couldn't find the right controls fast enough. Quark gasped with horror as the beast smashed a mighty paw into his chest, knocking the wind out of him. The wolf raked one of its sets of sharp nails across his torso, opening five long gashes from which blood burbled. When he died, the wolf prowled away, satisfied. A symphony of trumpets pealed across the arena.

 _Quark Dowler, District 5 Male: 2nd, Killed by Wolf Muttation, Day 14_

"Penelope Turek of District 4, you are the victor of the thirty-ninth annual Hunger Games!" Yarrow cried out as a hovercraft descended to collect the nation's newest victor.

Penelope wrinkled her eyebrows and looked around in confusion for her final competitor that she hadn't even killed.

 _Penelope Turek, District 4 Female: Victor of the Thirty-Ninth Hunger Games, Day 14_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

The final battle of the thirty-ninth Hunger Games had been one of the most anticipated in history. With Quark dying prematurely, the fight could not happen. This marked the first time in history that no final battle occurred, and it made President Coriolanus Snow furious. In most instances, Yarrow would be executed. However, Snow was not about to kill one of the most beloved head gamemakers of the first Hunger Games century. Snow gave Yarrow exactly one chance to redeem himself. If next year's games were a success, he would be forgiven. If not, well, he would meet an ucky-mucky end. Penelope was heavily booed by the nation. She had spent the games fading into the background, not being powerful to the point that she was a target but not acting weak to the point that she would be seen as fodder. There was nothing really about Penelope that made her special, and the fandoms for Quark and Keaton's victory had been much greater than hers. Penelope was largely degraded by the nation, and she would turn to alcohol later in life to quiet her demons.

She settled into the Victor's Village of District 4, the eighth victor to do so.

Her victory tour was a mess; the districts heavily ignored and degraded her. Even her own district found a way to sprinkle in some ill-will.

Penelope would live to the age of sixty, dying from liver disease around the time of the eighty-first annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would never have children. For most of her life she would struggle with alcohol abuse. However, in her late forties, she attempted to make a recovery and succeeded, doing so for the man of her dreams.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Penelope moves into the Victor's Village of District 4, the eighth victor to do so.

Amelia Bankston decides not to marry her fiance, Kelan, as it will cause legal issues. Instead, she opts to remain in a romantic and committed relationship with Kelan, just sans marriage.

Troy Stiles has his first and only child with his wife, a girl named Sunflower.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12)  
6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: And, with that, the Boomerang Era is over. This eight year-long span has now reached its end, and I can resume to regular distribution of victors among the districts.**

 **Thanks for reading! I know that every victor can't be awesome, and Penelope is an example of a victor that falls short of the expectations set by the others. And I can't blame her for her alcoholism. The games are something that I would like to forget if I was a victor.**

 **Next chapter should be out super-duper soon, probably tomorrow at the latest. It's Beetee's games, and the games are only going to be two days long, so it'll be quick to write. I hope you've enjoyed, and please review if you can. Until next time :D**


	41. The 40th Hunger Games

**The 40th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The avox industry was securely underway. In the Capitol, as more and more people realized the convenience of having a servant, the demand for avoxes increased. It increased, as a matter-of-fact, so high that the nation's supply of criminals couldn't keep up. Lest the industry die, President Coriolanus Snow sent out spies to capture wrongdoers in the districts to be turned into avoxes. He told his spies to bribe people into turning over any criminals that they might know of. Snow offered rewards to anybody that turned in a criminal. Once there were no criminals left to turn in, Snow requested that his spies accuse random people of terrible crimes and turn them into slaves for no reason at all. This was a twisted thing to do, and by the end of the fortieth year Post Dark Days it is estimated that less than half of avoxes were actually legal wrongdoers. The districts demanded that he stopped enslaving innocents, but he did not. The clatter of coin was the only language that he understood.

Yarrow Dawnbloom returned for his eighth year as Head Gamemaker. After the failure of the games the year prior, Yarrow was determined to make the fortieth Hunger Games one to remember. The nation had long anticipated these games, as it marked the end of the fourth Hunger Games decade. It also meant that the coveted second quarter quell was only ten years away. District 3 was Yarrow's prompt for the arena. The arena was sort of a mashup between a technology center and a maze. The cornucopia stood in a clearing in the center of the arena. It was made of iron. Its weapons were sleek, sharp, and metallic. Even the ground was made of solid metal. Surrounding the circular clearing was a maze that wound across the whole arena. Countertops and shelves filled with mechanical parts were placed sporadically throughout. The mutts were entirely mechanical. Everything in the arena, apart from its human inhabitants, seemed to be artificial. Yarrow was rather proud of his creation; he thought that it had potential to host a great games. Yarrow went through and rigged the reapings of every district to ensure that the cast of tributes this year met his very specific requirements. He would take no chances. He would ensure that these games would be the most spectacular yet. If they weren't, well, there were many examples set by past head gamemakers for him to look at.

The careers this year were average in terms of strength. District 1 produced a pair that was as beautiful as always. Their male was a beauty. A popular model for television commercials in his district, he made the sponsors swoon with his beauty and his mastery of the axe and hatchet. While sweet, he did have a dark side that he promised he would show in the arena. District 1's female was a rather small-sized girl, which could be a blessing in disguise because it would be a hiding advantage. Despite this, she scored a nine with her bow skills, something that intrigued the audience. District 2 produced the cream of the crop. Their male was the most powerful tribute this year. He was tall and muscular and dark and radiated fear both in appearance and demeanor. He infested the nightmares of district children and wormed his way toward the deepest fears and insecurities of his prey. His district partner, though not as gifted as him, was still a fantastic fighter. She scored a ten as well, wowing the gamemakers and the audience with her beauty and her mastery of weaponry, particularly with the knife and bow. District 4, overall, produced the most split duo. The boy managed an astounding ten, showcasing his talents with the spear and trident to the audience. The girl was the youngest career this year, at only fifteen years old. She scored an eight, the lowest score, by showing off her shogei and chakram skills. Despite this, she still managed to charm the audience via her amazing sense of humor and her witty personality. The training scores of the careers were rather average. In total, three tens, two nines, and one eight were scored.

Outside of the careers, the scored were slightly lower than average. Two tributes scored eights. Sienna Organza from Dsitrict 7 wowed the sponsors by showcasing her impeccable talents with the axe. She intrigued the nation with how she scored so high, and she quickly became a Capitol favorite. Sunflower Osborne from District 11 had mastered the scythe. The muscular boy used the scythe to swipe and slash his way toward a cool eight in training. Only four sevens were scored. They were earned by Azul from 7, Monroe from 9, Fox from 10, and Rosemary from 11. Other than that, the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Zion Solace, 17, (9) 7-1 and Venus Cornering, 17, (9) 8-1

District 2: Irving Gaskill, 18, (10) 4-1 and Domitia Figaro, 18, (10) 4-1

District 3: Beetee Latier, 15, (5) 25-1 and Jillian Pier, 18, (6) 20-1

District 4: Riptide Alagesia, 17, (10) 5-1 and Meena Tempest, 16, (8) 9-1

District 5: Atlas Diaconis, 14, (6) 23-1 and Prompt Temple, 12, (3) 50-1

District 6: Malcom Argon, 16, (4) 30-1 and Dixie Spiers, 17, (5) 22-1

District 7: Azul Clementine, 15, (7) 15-1 and Sienna Organza, 18, (8) 9-1

District 8: Burlap Lyngley, 13, (4) 40-1 and Demity Pellegrini, 18, (6) 20-1

District 9: Monroe Shifflett, 18, (7) 11-1 and Charlette Waterloo, 18, (6) 19-1

District 10: Fox Kort, 14, (7) 15-1 and Ursula Demolles, 16, (5) 24-1

District 11: Sunflower Osborne, 18, (8) 9-1 and Rosemary Valliance, 17, (7) 12-1

District 12: Adam Runnalls, 16, (6) 23-1 and Pearl Van Stossel, 16, (6) 23-1

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

A sense of claustrophobia was what the tributes felt as they rose up into the arena atop their pedestals. Apart from the cornucopia, the clearing was mostly bare. The tall metal walls that surrounded the clearing loomed over the horn and gave the the tributes a sense that they were being imprisoned somewhere. In a way, the arena was their prison. And only one out of twenty-four would emerge alive.

When the gong rang, every single tribute ran toward the cornucopia. The arena looked empty of natural resources, so the tributes concluded that in order to survive the cornucopia's bountiful supplies would be paramount.

Zion was ahead of the others by several strides; even though he lacked in some areas, he was an incredibly fast sprinter. The career boy nimbly swept up an axe that lied on the ground twenty yards from his pedestal. Zion firmly grasped the hilt of the axe and swirled it around his body before throwing it into the head of a nearby girl. The girl yelped as the axe buried itself perfectly into her skull. Her screams were cut short by a bloodcurdling crunch. The girl slid to the ground as Zion raced over to her side to retrieve his weapon.

 _Prompt Temple, District 5 Female: 24th, Killed by Zion, Bloodbath_

Irving, another fast runner, swept up a knife that leaned against a black crate about halfway between his pedestal and the cornucopia's yawning mouth. Holding the knife, Irving whirled around sharply on his heel and planted it into the nearest girl. The girl flailed around wordlessly as the knife dug into her upper abdomen and pierced a vital artery. Irving ripped his knife out of the girl. She collapsed, blood spouting plentifully from the grievous wound that she had sustained.

 _Pearl Van Stossel, District 12 Female: 23rd, Killed by Irving, Bloodbath_

Meena had run all of the way into the cornucopia to retrieve a bronze trident. She ran back out into the clearing and admired the way that the three metallic prongs glittered and sparkled in the light of the overhead sun. Meena quickly got to work, cornering a young boy against the cornucopia and spearing the weapon through his neck. The boy gurgled and slid to the ground. Meena tore her trident out of his neck once he was sure that she was dead. When she did, stringy blood flew messily from the boy's limp form.

 _Burlap Lyngly, District 8 Male: 22nd, Killed by Meena, Bloodbath_

At the cornucopia, Venus wielded two weapons. In her left hand, she held a spear; in her right hand, she wielded a knife. When the District 1 girl spotted an outlier boy running out of the horn, she was on him like a hound. The boy didn't even have time to scream before Venus skewered her spear through his chest and planted her knife into his head, in that order. Venus ripped her two weapons out of his body and strolled away, leaving him to die from his wounds all in due time.

 _Fox Kort, District 10 Male: 21st, Killed by Venus, Bloodbath_

Having wrenched his axe out of Prompt's skull, Zion fluidly attacked his next victims. Less than ten yards away, two girls sat of the ground and grappled over a crate containing loaves of bread. Zion pounced toward the taller of the two girls and cleaved her head in half with her axe. Zion tore his axe out of her head and turned his attention toward the other girl.

 _Rosemary Valliance, District 11 Female: 20th, Killed by Zion, Bloodbath_

The other girl was petrified, frozen in place with terror and quivering in Zion's wake. Zion ran toward her, and his axe was buried between her shoulder blades before she could even lift a finger. Zion waited for a few seconds for her to die before tearing the blade of his weapon out of her head, reveling in his third kill.

 _Ursula Demolles, District 10 Female: 19th, Killed by Zion, Bloodbath_

Riptide had managed to pull a whimsically curved sword out of a pile of sleek and metallic weapons that sat inside of the cornucopia. Riptide ran out of the cornucopia and speared the weapon through the torso of the nearest boy. The boy flailed around his limbs before falling to the ground. The career tore his sword out of his slack body and then slashed it across his torso to put the icing on his cake.

 _Atlas Diaconis, District 5 Male: 18th, Killed by Riptide, Bloodbath_

Venus smirked when she heard shuffling behind her. She whipped her body around and found herself face-to-face with a girl that was on the ground, taking inventory of the contents of a crate. Venus lunged toward the girl. She screamed with panic, scrambled to her feet, and tried to run. The girl knocked over another girl, and the two outliers collapsed to the ground in a heap. Both girls were easy work for Venus, who skewered her spear through both of their necks in turn.

 _Dixie Spiers, District 6 Female: 17th, Killed by Venus, Bloodbath_

 _Charlette Waterloo, District 9 Female: 16th, Killed by Venus, Bloodbath_

Domitia had been unable to land a kill yet, but was determined to do so before the bloodbath reached its conclusion. She grinned stupidly when she caught a glimpse of a chakram, her favorite weapon, sitting against a crate in the cornucopia. Domitia ran to retrieve it when a huge weight landed on top of her and knocked her to the ground. Sienna from 7 grabbed her neck and squeezed it tightly with the bend of her elbow. Domitia fumbled for the chakram. She rolled around and planted the razor of the handheld weapon into Sienna's torso. Her grip on the District 2 girl clenched abruptly and then loosed as Sienna collapsed at her side.

 _Sienna Organza, District 7 Female: 15th, Killed by Domitia, Bloodbath_

When Meena saw a boy sprawled out on the grass, slowly dying from a spear wound administered by Venus, her job was too easy. Meena threw her trident. She watched with satisfaction as the trident arced through the air and sailed into the boy's neck, polishing him off and marking Meena's second kill.

 _Adam Runnalls, District 12 Male: 14th, Killed by Venus and Meena, Bloodbath_

Irving grinned when he saw two boys, allies, running into the cornucopia to stock up on supplies. Irving ran over the cornucopia, trapping the two boys inside. The taller and older of the two boys, Sunflower from 11, picked up a sickle from a nearby countertop, ready to fight. The other boy, Malcolm from 6, shakily tried to form a truce with Irving. The District 2 boy would have none of it, and his knife found a home in Malcolm's torso before he could speak another word. Malcom fell, his head banging against a countertop as he did. Blood burbled from the wound that Irving had dealt him, and he died from blood loss in due time.

 _Malcolm Argon, District 6 Male: 13th, Killed by Irving, Bloodbath_

Sunflower lifted his sickle into the air, ready to battle it out with the District 2 boy. Sunflower lunged forward and tried to slash the sharp blade across Irving's chest, but he leapt out of the way before he could do so. Spinning sharply, Irving attempted to bury his knife into a tender spot between the reeling boy's shoulder blades. He failed, for Sunflower knocked aside his knife with his sickle. Irving's knife spiraled away. Sunflower pinned defenseless Irving to the ground. All seemed hopeless for the career until Irving's district partner, Domitia, noticed the commotion. She ran into the cornucopia and slammed the razor of her chakram into Sunflower's back. Irving slid out from under Sunflower's muscular form and thanked his district partner that had saved his life.

 _Sunflower Osborne, District 11 Male: 12th, Killed by Domitia, Bloodbath_

It was Monroe from 9 of all people that made the final bloodbath kill. Before scampering away from the cornucopia, Monroe had picked up a shogei with a thirty yard-long chain. Monroe was darting through the maze trying to get away from the cornucopia when he bumped into another boy. The two boys fell to the ground. Monroe, knowing that he had to do some intentional killing to boost his chances of survival, picked up his tangled shogei and tossed it into the other boy's head. The blade wormed its way into his forehead. His eyes swiftly rolled back into his head, inciting fourteen cannon shots.

 _Azul Clementine, District 7 Male: 11th, Killed by Monroe, Bloodbath_

The bloodbath of the fortieth Hunger Games had been among the largest in the first Hunger Games century. With only ten tributes remaining, Yarrow's game plan was drastically changed. He had originally planned to force the bloodbath's survivors as far away from each other as possible and then drive them together in pairs until only one remained. This plan would only work with about half careers and half outliers surviving the bloodbath. In reality, however, the tributes consisted of: all of the tributes from Districts 1-4, Demity from 8, and Monroe from 9. Yarrow would have to drive Demity and Monroe apart, as well as the two District 3 tributes (Beetee and Jillian).

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the careers didn't even bother to hunt. They had counted the fourteen bloodbath cannons. That meant that ten tributes remained, which meant that only four outliers remained. The careers figured that they could pick off the remaining outliers at a later date and that most of them had gotten wounds during the bloodbath that needed tending anyways. The games were nothing without the careers, and the group of six kids reasoned that their prey would come to them, even if not by choice. An arena like this would have muttations galore.

Demity had escaped the cornucopia with nothing but a bowl, a coil of rope, and a package of freezer-dried raspberries. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. Demity was a pragmatic girl and stuck to the cave's right wall. By hugging one wall, she could ensure that she would get to the entire maze in due time and would also be able to retrace her footsteps to get back to anywhere she wanted. It was a trick that Demity had learned back in District 8, where there was a corn maze near her house that she and her family visited every year on her birthday. On the night of Day 1, Demity ate three of her raspberries and spent about an hour looking for water. When she failed, she fell into a dark corner with despair. What if the arena had no water? How would she survive? Questions raced through her mind, and she fell asleep with her head between her knees. After killing Azul, Monroe raced off. He wanted to wipe the thought that he had killed somebody from his mind. He abandoned all of his supplies that were stained with blood. He spent several hours meticulously scraping all traces of blood off of his body.

Monroe was strolling through the maze when he heard a strange sound coming from around the corner. The sound was a combination of a whizzing and a whirling sound, like the sound of a drill. Monroe walked around the corner to investigate. In front of him was a very strange muttation. The mutt was set up like a spider, with eight legs that shot out from its body and each contained several joints. The creature's body was entirely mechanical, consisting of cogs and gears working harmoniously with each other to keep the creature's mechanical life under way. Monroe was frozen in place for a few seconds, both fascinated and terrified by the creature. He slowly backed away. One of his footsteps was a bit too heavy. The mechanical creature turned around and made a whirling sound as if cackling with glee at the sight of fresh prey. The monster pounced toward Monroe. Monroe's feet were zooming away before his brain could catch up. He began mumbling to himself, trying to throw together a sense of the circumstances. _Some crazy thing is chasing me. It wants to kill me,_ he mumbled. Monroe's fingers closed around the shogei that he had strapped to his waist. The District 9 boy whirled around and, in a leap of faith that would either make or break his chances of survival, hurled the weapon toward the monster. There was a moment of anxious tension as the knife whistled through the air. The knife landed straight in the creature's torso and clanged against one of its gears before bouncing off. The shogei clattered the floor. Monroe, now defenseless, fled for his life. He was so panicked that she slammed into a wall and fell. The muttation caught up to him and speared one of its legs through his torso. Monroe wept as it tore apart his body. Once his cannon shot sounded, the monster scuttled away, leaving Monroe's blood-lathered form sitting on the arena's floor.

 _Monroe Shifflett, District 9 Male: 10th, Killed by Unidentified Mechanical Muttation, Day 1_

Jillian had escaped the cornucopia with a knife and a package filled with gears and wires. Although she had no interest in using the mechanical parts to her advantage, she had stolen them from the bloodbath at the last second on a whim. Fingering the gears in hand calmed her and reminded her of home. She had no means of creating shelter, and so she fell asleep in a far-off corner of the arena with her knife in hand.

Beetee had spent the entirety of the bloodbath racing around and gathering all of the mechanical parts that he could find. He had escaped the cornucopia with several packages of wire, a strong magnet, a motor, several batteries, and tons and tons of cogs and gears. Beetee spent the first few hours immediately following the bloodbath collecting more mechanical parts from the countertops placed sporadically throughout the arena. With everything he needed, Beetee picked a location and began assembling his creation. His mentor Wyatt had sent him a small kit containing a few screwdrivers and the like, but even that was seldom used by Beetee. The boy was a natural with the wires. The nation was entranced as Beetee's hands flew across his supplies and assembled them into things that the nation's greatest inventors could not think up in their wildest dreams. Soon, it became apparent that Beetee was working on a sort of electrified wire trap. Although the physics was difficult, the basic principle went something like this: a metal cylinder stood in the center of the contraption. Beetee used one of his batteries to power a magnet to spin around the metal core. This created an electromagnetic charge in the iron core. The iron core was attached to an output wire. The output wire was about a hundred feet long. Beetee had found an area of the arena covered by walls on three sides. He stretched the output wire around this enclosed area. The silvery spiderweb of wire blended into the metallic landscape of the maze and was nearby invisible to a casual observer. But here's the catch. The part of the input wire immediately connected the iron core was coiled around five times. This meant that the output would be five times as strong as the input. The input was a twelve volt battery. Therefore, since the output was five times as strong, it would be sixty volts. That wasn't enough to be lethal. If Beetee could coil the output wire fifty times, the output would be fifty times the input. Six-hundred volts. Way more than enough to kill a person. Beetee used trial and error to test his trap. The sponsors, intrigued by his project, sent him whatever parts or tools he asked for. He worked for nearly fifteen hours straight. He only let himself sleep when the sun was in the sky on Day 2.

On Day 2, the careers all went out hunting. They hunted in one huge pack of six. They ended up travelling to the far-off corners of the arena to try to search for prey, reasoning that that would be where most of the tributes were. Demity was out and about trying to search for water or food when she heard the footsteps of the six careers from nearby. Demity let out a scream of panic before clapping her hand over her mouth. She cursed herself for her stupidity. She dared not run. The careers would just find her eventually, and then they would be more angry and give her a more painful death. Demity just slid behind a nearby wall and stood as still as a stone as the careers ran toward her. She was dead, Zion's axe buried into her skull with a crunch, before she could scream.

 _Demity Pellegrini, District 8 Female: 9th, Killed by Zion, Day 2_

That left the final eight: Zion Solace and Venus Cornering from District 1, Irving Gaskill and Domitia Figaro from District 2, Beetee Latier and Jillian Pier from District 3, and Riptide Alagesia and Meena Tempest from District 4.

It was around noon on Day 2 when Yarrow was forced to listen to the demands of the public. The Capitol was intrigued by Beetee's electrified wire trap, and they demanded that Yarrow drive one of the tributes toward it to see if it actually worked. Lest his reputation for always listening to the popular public opinion be tarnished, Yarrow obeyed. Jillian was the only remaining outlier apart from Beetee himself, and so Yarrow drove her toward the District 3 boy's waiting trap. The mutts that pursued her were unicorns. The unicorns were made of gears just like the strange spidery creatures that had killed Monroe the day prior, and their horns were sharp. There were two of them. They raced after Jillian. The only weapon that she had was her knife. She was beginning to grow tired from the chase. Reasoning that she should either go big or go home, Jillian spun around sharply and hurled her knife toward the larger of the unicorns. She missed completely. Weaponless, Jillian lost all hope for survival. It was all she could do to barrel away from the unicorns as fast as her legs could carry her. After several hours of running, Jillian finally reached Beetee's trap. Not seeing the silvery spiderweb of wires, she ran straight into it. Jillian began twitching and contorting into strange positions for a few seconds before collapsing with a thump, dead. Beetee's trap had worked just as he had planned. Beetee unplugged his input wire from the battery and waited for a few minutes for the machine to shut off. Then, he pulled Jillian's corpse, burnt by contact with the live wires, and plopped her down far away. Now, only Beetee and the six careers remained.

 _Jillian Pier, District 3 Female: 8th, Killed by Beetee, Day 2_

Beetee began work re-attaching and re-coiling some of the wires that had been broken by the impact of Jillian's body. As soon as the machine was fixed up and ready to go, Beetee began screaming and crying, attempting to draw the careers toward him. The careers were nearby. Riptide was the one that first heard Beetee's cries of pain and suggested that they go finish him off. The others, not ones to deny the opportunity to rack up another kill, agreed. They followed Beetee's cries and found him curled up of the ground, screaming, pretending to be in throes of pain. They all stumbled together into Beetee's electrified wire trap. Beetee stopped faking and got to his feet. He watched as the six careers spasmed and contorted violently. One by one, they all died from the powerful electric current, and then Beetee was the only remaining tribute.

 _Meena Tempest, District 4 Female: 7th, Killed by Beetee, Day 2_

 _Venus Cornering, District 1 Female: 6th, Killed by Beetee, Day 2_

 _Domitia Figaro, District 2 Female: 5th, Killed by Beetee, Day 2_

 _Riptide Alagesia, District 4 Male: 4th, Killed by Beetee, Day 2_

 _Zion Solace, District 1 Male: 3rd, Killed by Beetee, Day 2_

 _Irving Gaskill, District 2 Male: 2nd, Killed by Beetee, Day 2_

"Beetee Latier of District 3, you are the victor of the fortieth annual Hunger Games!" Yarrow cried out, his voice laced with fear. His plan for the games had backfired horribly, and he knew that terrible repercussions were on the horizon.

Beetee sighed with relief, thankful that his games were already over.

 _Beetee Latier, District 3 Male: Victor of the Fortieth Hunger Games, Day 2_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

The fortieth annual Hunger Games had beaten the seventeenth's record for shortest games. At only two days long, the games were a massive failure. Millions of dollars' worth of muttations and other gamemaker tricks went completely unused. With the games only two days long, there was virtually no time at all for character development, and the fortieth games would soon grow infamous for being among the blandest of the first Hunger Games century. Beetee was a huge source of jealousy among the other victors. The other victors, particularly outliers, felt bitterly envious toward how short of a time he had to spend in the arena. Some of them had spent days, weeks, or even months in the arena, but Beetee had only paid two days' time! Beetee would grow to become sort of a social outcast among victors and quickly faded from the public eye.

Beetee settled into the Victor's Village of District 3, the sixth victor to do so.

His victory tour was one of the better ones, as many of the outliers liked his tactics in the arena.

Beetee would live to the miraculous age of one-hundred ten, dying from heart disease around the time of the one-hundred thirty-fifth annual Hunger Games. In his lifetime, he would marry another District 3 victor named Wiress. The couple would adopt a baby boy.

Beetee broke two records during his time in the arena. Firstly, he broke the record for youngest victor. Beetee was fifteen years, twenty days old at the time of his victory. The previous record holder was Lucy Said, who was fifteen years, eighty days old at the time of her victory. The other record he broke was the record for outlier with the most career kills. In his games, Beetee killed all six careers.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Beetee moves into District 3's Victor's Village, the sixth victor to do so.

Amelia Bankston adopts a son named Lucius.

Magnet Lisagor has her fifth and final child with her husband, a boy named Ferrian.

Lana Voltaire marries her fiance of five years, a nice man named Apollo.

Misty Sablone, the victor of the fifth annual Hunger Games, dies from a heart attack. She is the first victor to ever die. A public funeral is held in her memory.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Beetee! I know that I promised I'd get this chapter out yesterday, but my computer started having problems and I had to get it looked at. Once I did get it fixed I wrote the chapter super-fast because this is the record shortest games.**

 **Four decades down! The second Quarter Quell looms on the horizon…**


	42. The 41st Hunger Games

**The 41st Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

One of Yarrow Dawnbloom's closest friends, a man named Thwaites Alsberg, had been employed as a peacekeeper for several years. A few months before the forty-first Hunger Games were set to occur, Thwaites was employed to act as a bodyguard in President Coriolanus Snow's mansion. There, he overheard a conversation between the president and a man with a voice that seemed to be filled with venom and fire. Thwaites would know that voice anywhere. It was Snow's most loyal executioner that he always called up whenever he needed someone to "disappear". He listened further. They were discussing a list of horrible ruses that they would use to punish Yarrow, who had let the games of the year prior fail miserably under his watch. Thwaites, knowing that his friend was in danger, ran to Yarrow's apartment at the conclusion of his shift and described the barbaric and horrible methods of torture that he had overheard. Yarrow was shocked. When Snow and the executioner arrived at his apartment a few hours later to kill him, they found him dead on his couch, holding a gun in his right hand, with a bullet in his head. Perhaps Yarrow had been wise to commit suicide. Better to die swiftly from a gunshot than slowly and painfully from the dastardly techniques that Snow had in store. When Snow discovered what Thwaites had done, he publically executed him. With Yarrow's death, the position of head gamemaker was vacant. After what had happened to Yarrow, there weren't exactly many people eager to take over the position. As such, Snow decided to elevate someone that held the title of simply gamemaker. The man he chose was named Wisp Glasgow. Wisp had been a gamemaker since the first ever Hunger Games and was one of the most loyal and gifted of the gamemaker team. He was the one that had planned the volcanic eruption of the thirty-ninth, the yarn maze arena of the thirtieth, the dinosaur muttations of the eighteenth, the earthquake of the second, and many other feats that no other gamemakers were skilled enough to accomplish. Now head gamemaker, Wisp quickly got to the job of designing the arena for the thirty-first Hunger Games.

Wisp was tasked with the job of modeling an arena after District 4, the district of fishing. The arena would, of course, be modeled after the ocean, but Wisp actually struggled with forming a coherent idea. He didn't want to go with a cliché arena, like an archipelago or an underwater temple. Eventually, Wisp settled on a sort of half-beach half-underwater arena. The place was mostly underwater, but the water stood at varying levels. Around the tribute pedestals the water level was lower. The cornucopia was completely submerged underwater. Its supplies primarily consisted of oxygen packs. Each tribute started in the arena with a sort of apparatus strapped to their back. The cornucopia was stocked with packages that could be secured into one of these apparatuses and would provide twenty-four hours of oxygen. Around the arena, water levels varied. Due to the simple laws of science, the areas of the water nearest to the surface were warmer, whereas the deeper areas were colder. In areas where the water level was very high, the sandy ground actually protruded from the surface of the water in a series of swirling islands. The coral in the arena was edible, as were most of the brightly-colored fish that swam merrily through the water. Hidden behind a mass of vines at the northern tip of the arena was a luxury home. Its working refrigerator was stocked with food, and the luxury home had a working sink. All of the moss in the arena pointed toward it. Most strangely of all, the arena was littered with boulders. If a tribute leapt atop a boulder, it would zoom around and even leap across the water. It could travel for miles at a time before stopping.

Out of this year's batch of careers, it was District 1 that produced the strongest duo. Their male was the strongest tribute in the games. One of Victor Gold Carson's twin sons, this Radiance Clinton boy was the star of the show. He wowed the sponsors with his beauty and his mastery of weaponry, particularly with hand-to-hand combat weapons like the sword and knife. His district partner was nearly as strong if not as strong as him. She was a knockout gorgeous girl. This earned her many sponsors, but it wasn't just her looks that drew the sponsors to her like honey draws flies. She was impeccably skilled with the throwing knives and used them with skill that bespoke years of practice. District 2 offered up a pair that were substantially weaker than their counterparts from the luxury district. The boy, a strong and muscular individual, excelled in use of the spear. The girl fancied whips and even requested one from the gamemakers in her interview. She was tall and strong and rather masculine both in form, appearance, and demeanor. District 4 produced a lacking pair, as was quickly becoming the norm. The male was a stellar with the trident, using it to score a cool eight. What held him back was that he wasn't really good with any weapon other than the trident. The female managed a nine with her looks and her talents with the sais. The training scores of the careers were average. In total, two tens, three nines, and one eight were scored.

Outside of the careers, there was a single tribute that excelled above all of the others. Avil Lomontagne from District 11 was a giant, standing at seven feet tall and weighing nearly one-hundred eighty pounds. He could lift fifty pound sacks of fruit in each hand, run ten kilometers in under twenty minutes, and could lift nearly four-hundred pounds on a bench press. He made the sponsors swoon, as he was gorgeous and was a stellar in use of the sickle. He scored a marvelous ten in his private session. His district partner scored a nine, showcasing not only her trap-building skills but also her ability to identify edible plants in a heartbeat and start a fire within the span of minutes. Two eights were also scored, and their earners allied. Alder from 7 was an amazing user of the axe, as he worked as a lumberjack with his two parents and his siblings. His district partner, Viveca (pronounced viv-EE-suh, she informed the others) also scored an eight, for the same reasons. Halliton from 3, Spool from 8, Harvest from 7, and Chalk from 12 all earned sevens. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. Although there were no volunteers besides the six careers, there was a standout in the crowd. Marci Bookbinder from District 5 was engaged to be married. Her one request upon being reaped was that she and her love would be able to marry before she entered the games. The Capitol complied, and during the hour that Marci was given to say goodbye to her loved ones a judge came along and wed the two young lovers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Radiance Clinton, 18, (10) 4-1 and Mascara Perdita, 18, (10) 4-1

District 2: Tanaquil Ciacci, 18, (9) 5-1 and Cybele Montilio, 16, (9) 7-1

District 3: Halliton Kipling, 17, (7) 15-1 and Cordelia Masters, 14, (4) 30-1

District 4: Lagoon Vilachansky, 17, (8) 9-1 and Aqua Sankale, 18, (9) 5-1

District 5: Sirius Pane, 13, (3) 50-1 and Marci Bookbinder, 18, (6) 17-1

District 6: Yul Sikes, 16, (5) 24-1 and Thepio Neers, 12, (3) 60-1

District 7: Alder Chadwick, 18, (8) 10-1 and Viveca Dryad, 17, (8) 11-1

District 8: Spool Forsyth, 16, (7) 13-1 and Cashmere St. Thomas, 15, (5) 26-1

District 9: Harvest Overboe, 18, (7) 14-1 and Bundle Khoury, 15, (4) 32-1

District 10: Marshall Reynolds, 14, (4) 33-1 and Vanessa Stone, 17, (6) 20-1

District 11: Avil Lomontagne, 18, (10) 5-1 and Julia D'arcangelo, 17, (9) 8-1

District 12: Chalk Alvaro, 16, (7) 17-1 and Quarry Venables, 12, (2) 80-1

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Nobody was surprised when cool water crashed over the tributes' feet. It had long been presumed that the arena representing District 4 would involve water, but nobody knew for sure how it would be incorporated. Wisp was well aware that he hadn't created the most spectacular arena in the world. However, he hoped, this fact would take away from the thrill of the arena and add to the thrill of the battle and carnage that would take place inside of it. Time would tell if this would go as planned.

When the gong rang, the tributes all leapt off of their pedestals into the water and swam in their directions of choice with varying degrees of success. The fact that the cornucopia was submerged would make for a puny bloodbath. Only seven souls would be silenced in the opening minutes of the games.

Lagoon was ahead of all of the others by several precious feet. He had elegantly dived off of his pedestal and was now shooting through the water like a torpedo. Lagoon picked up a trident that leaned against the side of the cornucopia and glistened in the light of the overhead sun. Lagoon whirled around and spotted a nearby girl that had picked up an oxygen pack and was trying to figure out how to strap it onto her back. The career boy hurled the trident through the water, watching with satisfaction as it sailed into the girl's neck. She yelped and tried to swim for the surface, but was weighed down by the trident that was wedged into her neck. Lagoon swam over to tear his trident out of her neck once he was sure that she was dead. A red cloud began spreading out from her limp form.

 _Cashmere St. Thomas, District 8 Female: 24th, Killed by Lagoon, Bloodbath_

Radiance had swum all of the way into the back of the cornucopia, where there was an air pocket. He was not the first to discover it; two boys were already hiding inside of it when he got there. Radiance picked up a nearby sword and got to work killing the two boys. The taller and more muscular of the duo picked up a knife off of a nearby countertop and was ready to fight back. Radiance dove toward him, but he sidestepped and tried to plant his knife into the back of the career boy's neck. Radiance managed to reach up and grab the boy's head. He quickly whirled around and threw the outlier against the interior wall of the horn, where he was easy work for him and his sword. The boy was in ribbons by the time that Radiance was done. Radiance had been so engrossed in killing the boy that the other boy had swum away and escaped.

 _Spool Forsyth, District 8 Male: 23rd, Killed by Radiance, Bloodbath_

When the gong rang, Vanessa from 10 had fallen off of her pedestal into the water. She could not swim and resorted to thrashing around to try to make her way to the surface. This failed miserably, and all she did was make her body lose oxygen faster. She began to panic and whirled wildly in circles in search of a nearby oxygen pack. She didn't find any. In fear, she took a sharp and involuntary inhale, filling her lungs with water. Vanessa's world began to fade to black as she briskly drowned to death.

 _Vanessa Stone, District 10 Female: 22nd, Killed by Drowning, Bloodbath_

Avil had attached a large oxygen pack to his back and, after picking up a sickle that sat atop a black crate inside of the horn, went in for the kill upon the nearest boy. Avil pumped his feet behind him and swam toward him. The young boy thought that the water would be poisonous and had closed his eyes in fear of it entering his body. With his eyes closed, the boy was easy prey for the District 11 boy. Avil slashed his sickle across the boy's chest. He retched into the water and opened his eyes. The boy was greeted by the sting of his own vomit in his eyes. He tried to make a break for the surface, but Avil was a faster swimmer than him and cut him off, burying the edge of his sickle into the side of the boy's neck and polishing him off.

 _Sirius Pane, District 5 Male: 21st, Killed by Avil, Bloodbath_

Mascara was in business when she caught a glimpse of a harpoon sitting humbly in a dark corner of the cornucopia. Mascara's favorite weapon, throwing knives, weren't in sight, but they would be useless underwater anyway. A harpoon was next best, and Mascara smirked as her chorus of eager fingers closed around the body of the weapon. Aiming for the first sign of movement, she fired. The harpoon glided through the water and lodged itself between the shoulder blades of a girl who was swimming away from Tanaquil, who had a knife. The girl sank to the bottom of the ocean, where Tanaquil buried her knife into his forehead to finish off the job that his ally had started.

 _Quarry Venables, District 12 Female: 20th, Killed by Mascara and Tanaquil, Bloodbath_

After wrenching his sickle out of Sirius' neck, Avil looked around for his next kill. He spotted Cybele, the District 2 girl, inside of the cornucopia and looking over an array of weapons. Avil swam toward the career girl and used his sickle as a stabbing utensil. Avil skewered the sharp tip of his sickle through Cybele's torso. By the time her body sank to the sandy sea floor with a thud, she was dead.

 _Cybele Montilio, District 2 Female: 19th, Killed by Avil, Bloodbath_

Radiance made the final kill. He saw a rather young boy swimming away from the cornucopia with an air package strapped to his back. Radiance hurled his knife through the water. He watched as the knife sank into the boy's packet and popped it. The air all floated to the surface in a chorus of bubbles. The boy hadn't realized that his package had filled with water. When he took an inhale, he was shocked and panicked. He had swallowed lots of water. He involuntarily coughed it up, but after the cough he inhaled a ton of liquid. He struggled for a few minutes before reaching peace and floating slowly to the sandy sea floor.

 _Marshall Reynolds, District 10 Male: 18th, Killed by Radiance, Bloodbath_

The careers began preparing for their hunt the second that the seventh and final cannon shot faded away fully. Radiance practiced with his knife while he waited for the others to get ready. Mascara traded out her harpoon for a belt of throwing knives after she finally found one. Lagoon held onto his trident. Tanaquil took a rapier. The quartet began swimming away from the underwater horn. Aqua tried to follow them, but they all swatted her aside. They saw her as weak, as she had made no kills in the bloodbath. They left her to guard the supplies at the cornucopia. Alder and Viveca swam alongside each other away from the cornucopia. Viveca had gotten two oxygen packets from the cornucopia, one of which she kept for herself and one of which she handed over to Alder. Both District 7 tributes were great swimmers, and they were able to swim for nearly thirty minutes before they needed to take a break. They swam for the next few hours. In fatigue, they swam toward the nearest blot on the horizon, which happened to be a small island sporting a single tree. The two tired allies dragged themselves onto the island and shared their spoils with each other. Alder had managed to snatch a hatchet, a bowl, and a harpoon from the bloodbath; Viveca, a case of crackers and a packet of small bandages. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. Alder and Viveca held parallel faiths, and after getting their things together they prayed for the seven souls that had been silenced in the opening minutes of the games. Alder suggested that they eat one of the luscious fruits that hung from the island's single tree. Viveca agreed, but added that they should test it slowly at first. They did just that, and once they were sure it was safe to eat they dug in. The corners of their mouths quickly began building up the sticky juice of the fruit. Yul had managed to grab an oxygen pack and a canteen of fresh water from the cornucopia. Given the saltiness of the water that made up the arena, it was paramount that Yul make sure none of the water leaked into his canteen. Yul ended up on an island that sported a boulder covered with coral that fed off of the ocean's salty spray. His only source of food, Yul ripped the coral off of the boulder and set it into his jaw. He squinted his eyes with disgust as the coral crunched in his mouth. He had to chew until his jaw was sore before swallowing the tough material. Avil, having made two kills during the bloodbath, had no plans to stop. Having retrieved a sickle from the cornucopia, he began hunting immediately after finding a place to call home. He had found a plot of land that had extended high above the rest of the sea floor but just wasn't high enough to poke up from the surface. Avil set up camp, grabbed his sickle, and went. He swam to the nearby islands in search of prey, but returned to his camp a few hours later with no blood on his weapon. Chalk was one of the few tributes that hadn't gotten any air packages from the cornucopia. As such, he had to swim on the surface and could only go a few feet down. Chalk ended up on an island that housed a field of thick reeds. He began crafting a raft out of the reeds. Albeit clunky, his skills in creating the raft were substantial. The raft could support Chalk's weight but not much else. He sailed away into the ocean with naught but the bare necessities, at the mercy of the wind and the currents of the water. He eventually found a much nicer island that housed a tree bursting with lush pink fruit and stayed there for the night. Similar to Chalk, Julia hadn't gotten any oxygen supplies from the cornucopia. She had to swim on the surface. She eventually found an island and settled onto it. She panicked when she saw that the island was littered with supplies. This was the place that Chalk had been before sailing off. Julia checked every nook and cranny and could ensure that she was the only human resident of the place. She picked up the scattered materials left by Chalk and began creating a raft of her own. Her skills were much more elegant than Chalk's, but even after she finished the raft she did not use it. Instead, she stayed on the island for the night. No need wasting her energy paddling around the ocean when she could be saving it for a later date. She knew that a time would come when her energy could be put to better use.

Marci fingered her wedding ring, her tribute token, in her hand as she swam through the arena. Her clutch on the metal band was hard, for she couldn't bear it if she let it slip and it fell to the sea floor, gone for all eternity. Marci paddled with her arms. She found an island that had several fruitful trees and stood there for the night. Marci had gotten a roll of duct tape from the horn and spent the next few hours making a container out of the strong adhesive material. She set it out beside her camp to catch any rain water, if it should come. Thepio had gotten a waterproof sleeping bag from the cornucopia. She had to devote one hand to holding the sleeping bag, so she only had one hand with which to paddle through the water. When she needed to rest, Thepio laid out her sleeping bag and was pleased to find that it floated on the surface of the water. She went into the sleeping bag, and it remained just as buoyant. Thepio took a rest and ended up falling asleep. She awoke to the sound of waves lapping against a shore. She was on the coast of a rather large island. She rubbed the sleep from her ocean blue eyes and dragged herself onto shore along with her sleeping bag. She spent the rest of the day in a bend in the side of a hill, staring off into the distance and thinking of home. Harvest swam toward a blot in the distance and found himself ashore on a long and narrow island, where he gathered berries from the several bushes that were scattered across the banana-shaped body. Halliton had reached an island around noon. After warming himself up for a bit, Halliton began setting up traps. He had gotten a shovel from the cornucopia. Halliton dug a square hole in the ground and covered it with leaves, disguising it. Cordelia, Halliton's district partner, landed on the same island mere hours later. She began setting up traps in the same exact manner as Halliton. The two District 3 tributes didn't even know that they were on the same island. Then, there was Bundle. Bundle had virtually no swimming experience, and he hadn't gotten any oxygen from the bloodbath. All he could do was tread water and hope for some miracle that would get him out of his sticky situation.

The golden light of the sun was thrown over the water in a stunningly beautiful way as it rose into the sky on the morning of Day 2 like a magnificent gem. The hunting careers (Radiance, Mascara, Tanaquil, and Lagoon among them) all travelled back to the cornucopia to restock on supplies. When the sun rose, they went hunting immediately. Tanaquil had been swimming when his backpack slid off of his back and sank to the bottom of the ocean, where he and his allies could not find it no matter how hard they searched. Tanaquil had had some of the careers' most important supplies on him at the time. Lagoon, of course, swam ahead of the others, and he reached the cornucopia several hours before everybody else. With all five surviving careers at the cornucopia, they set up a plan. Aqua, who they decided to leave at the horn once more, had found a firework in the air pocket in the back of the horn of plenty. She also had some matches that were sealed in a waterproof case. On the night of Day 2, when it was time for the careers to return, Aqua would light the firework. This would alert the careers, who had noted their difficulty in finding their way back to the center of the arena, to the position of the cornucopia. Yul remained on his boulder island. The disgusting coral was his only food. It was difficult to eat and was agonizingly painful passing through his body and coming out of the other end. In a testimony to his tenacity, Yul dutifully fed himself three meals on Day 2. Alder and Viveca decided that they wound save the four fruits remaining on their fruit tree for later. However, looking at the sun on the waves had begun to make Alder sick, and he vomited. Viveca, who had been splashed with some of the bile, promptly threw up with disgust. Their stomachs had been drained by a substantial amount, and they couldn't resist the sight of the bright orange fruit that hung from the tree. Avil went tribute hunting again. He was swimming through the water when a bright yellow fish suddenly came up from behind him and bit into the side of his torso. Avil smacked the fish away, but it had clung to his body too tightly. Avil treaded water with his feet as he reached down and tried to peel the fish off of him. His muscles tightened and he gritted his teeth as the fish's razor-sharp teeth were picked out of his body one by one. This displayed his strength to the audience. It wasn't a minute later before a much sleeker sickle that fell much more smoothly into Avil's grasp came down in a parachute. Chalk, who had been out on his raft for the whole night, came ashore on a different island. This one had reeds just like the one from which his raft had originated, and he took the opportunity to repair the battered and damaged flotation device. Julia spent the day basking in the sun on her island. She had a steady supply of water from a spile that a sponsor had delivered to her, and food was no problem with the fish that swam around the island. She lay on the beach and let the heat of the sun warm her back. If she was going to die, she reasoned, she might as well fill her last moments with pleasure. Bundle had been treading water for Day 1, and on Day 2 his body began to give in. He slowly but surely was crucified by the water. It became increasingly painful for him to stay afloat. It was either he use up his energy to tread water or he sink to the bottom and drown. Every movement for Bundle was filled with agony, and soon his body gave in. His heart suddenly couldn't handle the work and began malfunctioning. He died from cardiac arrest, and his few supplies floated away from him after his entire limp form had bobbed to the surface.

 _Bundle Khoury, District 9 Male: 17th, Killed by Cardiac Arrest, Day 2_

Harvest was on his little island when he spotted a single black eye staring at him from a few yards away. He pounced toward the sign of life and found his hands wrapping around a furry body. It was a rabbit. Harvest started a fire by chipping wood off of the only tree he had in his immediate vicinity and crafting a bow from some sturdy twigs. The cooked rabbit was surprisingly delicious, and his stomach was thankful for the fresh meat. Marci had begun to grow bored of waiting for it to rain and so decided to tell the audience a story. Marci had been writing a novel back in District 5 prior to being reaped, and her manuscript would go unfinished if she died in the games. With hopes of giving the book she had worked on for so long a sort of existence in publication, she told the story to the audience from start to end. Marci lay against a bed of moss and started at the very beginning. Over the course of the entire day, Marci unraveled her fantastic story about a young boy who discovers that he has magical powers and must stop an evil wizard who is intent in using all of the magic in the world for his own purposes. The entire nation was entranced. Marci acted out every detail, gave every character a voice, and even used a stick to display the certain wand movements that each spell required. She needed to rest after a while, and when she did she was sure to end on a cliffhanger just to keep the nation on its toes.

On the island that both Halliton and Cordelia were on, it was only a matter of due time before the two District 3 tributes met. When that happened, it was in the worst possible way. Cordelia circled her island in search of more materials to strengthen her trap. Simultaneously, Halliton was out hunting for material to make rope. Suddenly, the ground gave out under Halliton and he fell straight into Cordelia's trap, landing squarely on his bum. He hissed as bolts of pain shot through his body before he regained himself. He tried to get out of the hole, but the walls were too steep and high for him to get anywhere. Cordelia returned about an hour later and was a little shocked to see a panicked Halliton inside of the whole that she dug. Cordelia took out a tube of gasoline that she had gotten from the cornucopia that she had originally intended to use as lubricant for any machines that she might build during her time in the arena. Cordelia began sprinkling the gasoline into the hole that Halliton was inside of. Halliton had no idea what was going on. He screamed with terror when Cordelia produced a single match, swiped it across the inside lid of its container to light it, and then tossed it into the hole. Halliton screeched and wept as he burned to death, dying from the raging embers in due time.

 _Halliton Kipling, District 3 Male: 16th, Killed by Cordelia, Day 2_

Mere minutes later, Cordelia was peering over the hole when she tripped and fell into it. She was immediately scorched to death by the fire, killed by her own trap.

 _Cordelia Masters, District 3 Female: 15th, Killed by Herself, Day 2_

Thepio had begun to grow bored around Day 2. After finding a solid way to get food and water she had begun to get bored and longed for something to fill the empty days to come. Her interest was piqued when she decided to bathe in the sea for a few minutes to cleanse herself of the grime that her body had accumulated. She noticed that underwater, on all of the rocks, the algae all pointed in the same direction. Thepio grabbed her supplies and swam in the direction that the algae was all pointing, knowing that it wasn't a coincidence and they must be lining up with something.

Day 3 would offer lots of excitement in the arena, as two tributes would die. Avil's confidence and sureness-of-self was boosted significantly after he had gotten the sponsored sickle. Knowing that only one career would probably be at the cornucopia, Avil began the trek an hour or so before the first songs of dawn began. Avil swam toward the cornucopia, his sickle in hand, and spotted Aqua inside of the horn, sorting through a box containing several different bottles of pills. Avil swam forward as fast as he could and slammed the butt of the scythe into Aqua's back. Aqua whirled around and grabbed her trident, and their fight began. Even though Aqua had a nine in training, Avil had a cool ten, and it at first seemed that Avil had a head over the District 4 female. Aqua charged forward with her trident. She was at an advantage because of the hydrodynamy of her weapon. Avil ran backward and swung his scythe around him with elegance and flair. The fight lasted for a few minutes, with the tributes delivering each other cuts and scratches but nothing major. Suddenly, Avil managed to corner Aqua against the inside wall of the cornucopia. Aqua made a break for the surface, but Avil swam on top of her, trapping her under the water. Avil thrust down his scythe and drove its sharp tip into the top of the career girl's head. Her last breath took the form of a gurgle as she died. Avil grabbed a few things from the cornucopia before swimming away, eager to not be at the horn when the others returned and knew that he was the only suspect for Aqua's death.

 _Aqua Sankale, District 4 Female: 14th, Killed by Avil, Day 3_

Aqua's cannon shot was the starting point of Day 3 for many a tribute, as its hollow booming sound was able to wake up the deepest sleeper. Alder and Viveca awoke and began setting up a shelter, centering it on the fruit tree. They swore to never give into temptation again like they had the day prior, and they picked off all of the tree's remaining fruit and stored it in their shelter. It was set up like sort of a grassy hut. They used the leaves of the tree to cover the roof and keep out potential rain or other precipitation. Julia ended up creating a paddleboard of sorts. It all started when she was bored and was throwing stones into the ocean for fun. She had picked up a rather light and airy rock and was surprised to find that it floated gracefully atop the water. Julia grabbed two of these stones, one in each hand, and dipped into the water. She was held up by the stones. With only her eyes above the water, she could float through the currents. She ended up drifting a bit too far away for comfort, though, and paddled back to shore. After getting a sip of water and a bit of food, Marci continued unravelling her tale for the audience to hear. She did not actually finish, though. She had divided the story evenly into three parts, one of which she would tell each day. The careers hunted, and at this point in the competition their different personalities began to emerge. Radiance was the most durable of the lot. He trekked through thick and thin and never uttered a word of discomfort. Mascara seemed not to be as hardy as Radiance but was elegant and graceful in her movements. With a single swipe of one of her knives she could send a shiver down the spines of the audience. Tanaquil seemed to be taking up a hit-and-go kind of tactic, spastically alternating between sedentariness and activity. Lagoon seemed to be the jokester of the batch, and he regularly got on his allies nerves just for the fun of it. They had heard Aqua's cannon shot, but since it wasn't night yet they didn't think that it was her who had met her end. They hunted regularly, combing through the arena in neat rows.

Chalk's supplies were beginning to dwindle dangerously low. His supply of water was nearly depleted. His only other method of getting water was evaporating it and allowing it to condense onto a plastic sheet. This method was highly inefficient and provided less than a third of his daily watery needs. There was only one way to get sponsors, and that was to kill. Chalk had gotten a knife from the cornucopia, three days had he had it, and three days he had refused to use it. Something clicked in Chalk's mind at that moment that made him think that the games were an every man for himself kind of thing. If he wanted to win the others would have to die anyways. Chalk, knife in hand, searched the arena but found nobody and felt a mixture of relief and disappointment when he was forced to settle for the night on a cold barren stony island with nothing but his own wits for comfort and company.

Harvest had eaten his rabbit all of the way down to the bone. Long discarded, he needed to search for more prey. Harvest quickly discovered that the island on which he was housed held a large population of rabbits. It was a long time, strangely, before he found one, and an even longer time before he caught one. He cooked it just as he had before. The first time he lit a fire, he had done it in a closed-off area by the water so that it could be doused at a moment's notice and the smoke would remain relatively hidden. Harvest had begun to grow reckless with time, and this time he started the fire out in the center of the island. The nearby careers saw the trail of smoke rising from his fire and began travelling toward him. He was on a rather isolated island and it took a while for Harvest to realize that he was being pursued. When he spotted the familiar forms of the careers coming toward him, Harvest panicked. He couldn't hide. They knew he was there, and when they did find him they would just make his death extra-long. He had used up all of his oxygen packets. Harvest didn't bother to leave anything tidy behind him as he leapt into the water. His foot banged against a sharp rock. He screeched with agony as blood drizzled from the scrape and clouded the water around him bright red. Harvest tried to continue on, but his next footstep was met with the same results. Every step over the rocky ground was immensely painful. Suddenly, he heard footsteps behind him. The careers had arrived. Harvest abandoned all caution and leapt forward. He tried to coherently swim away, but he was so scared that he couldn't coordinate his limbs and couldn't form full thoughts. He was about twenty feet from the island when Mascara did the honors. Mascara's allies cheered her on as she lifted one of her knives into the air and hurled it toward Harvest. The knife glided through air and then through water before skewering itself through Harvest's torso. His cannon shot closely followed. When Mascara pulled her rapier out of Harvest's torso, clumps of stringy blood flew messily.

 _Harvest Overboe, District 9 Male: 13th, Killed by Mascara, Day 3_

The final point of excitement on Day 3 occurred around eight o'clock in the evening. The audience was intrigued by Yul. Yul seemed like a boy with capability of making it far into the games, but they just hadn't seen enough of him to say anything for sure. In answer to the country's curiosity, the gamemakers unleashed a muttation after him. The muttation was a monkey. Slightly more than half the height of an average human, this monkey was swift, nimble, elegant, and most importantly, bloodthirsty. Yul was venturing away from his hiding place to gather driftwood for a fire when he saw a long string unfurling behind him. This was the monkey's tail, which its owner was trying to wrap around Yul and pull him toward it. Yul, intrigued, touched the furry tail. The muttation shrieked and charged at Yul. The boy unsheathed his dagger, and a fight began. The monkey's first few blows were powerful. With a single swipe of its tail, it managed to smack Yul's leg hard enough to inflict pain and a rather nasty-looking bruise. It had also managed to rake one of its claws across Yul's forearm. Yul hissed as he ran forward and planted his knife into the monkey's chin region. It screamed as black muttation blood burbled forth. As one final hoorah from the muttation, it reached out a single paw and smashed Yul in the torso. Yul keened in pain, winded, and emptily gasped for air. At that point, the monkey was dead, and he had sufficient medicine to care for his wounds from sponsors that had liked his skill in slaying the monkey mutt.

Later on Day 3, Thepio discovered that following the algae hadn't led her nowhere. All of the algae in the arena was pointing toward a very nice, expensive-looking, luxury house on the north tip of the arena. Thepio threw open the door of the house and walked inside. Inside was a living room with a couch and ottoman as well as several countertops, bookcases, and potted plants. There was a working bathroom, kitchen, and more. Thepio set up camp in a closet off of the living room. He was able to see because of the sunlight filtering through the bottom and top of the elegantly crafted wooden door.

Day 4 held a mixture of excitement and boredom in the arena. The careers finally returned to the horn after seeing Aqua's face in the sky the night before. After seeing Aqua's fate, none of the careers were eager to take her place as watchman of the supplies. The stronger ones (Radiance and Mascara) ended up just picking the weakest one (Lagoon) and instructing him to stay at the horn. He obeyed, and the other three continued to hunt. They actually split up, with Radiance and Mascara in one group and Lagoon in the other. Lagoon was able to cover much more ground than the others because of how fast of a swimmer he was. He mostly stayed in the water, whereas District 1's tributes hopped between islands.

Chalk finally gave up tribute hunting on Day 4. After finding no prey for two consecutive days he was growing greatly discouraged. He ended up setting up camp on an island that was home to a single willow tree and a boulder. Over at the luxury home, Thepio figured out that the house had a burglar alarm system. She activated it and felt very comfortable in her place of residence. But, she wasn't the only one with ideas about the place. Avil had also noticed that all of the algae was pointing toward something, and he was intent on finding out. Avil spent hours on a raft that was heavy enough to support his bulky form, and he couldn't make it to the house in a single day, stopping for the night on a small island that was completely bare except for a single squirrel, held prisoner by the splashing water surrounding. Marci finally finished her story, and she ended it with an unspeakable plot twist that made everyone's jaws hit the floor. Marci had proved to be an amazing storyteller. The Capitol requested that Marci's family hand over her unfinished manuscript, which they did. Snow read the manuscript and immediately fell in love with the story, and he requested that it be published the second that the games were over. Once the process of querying and revising was over, the (unfinished) story was ready for publication. Julia didn't have much to do and so she spent most of the day on the shore of her little island admiring the colorful fish that swam by. The peak of excitement on Day 4 occurred around six o'clock in the afternoon. Dark clouds began to roll in. The birds stopped singing overhead. Everything went quiet. The world waited for the storm. With the first crack of lightning and roar of thunder, the storm began. Thepio was safe and sound in her home, but the other tributes were not so lucky. Those that were at sea at the time needed to get back to their islands immediately lest they be killed by the ocean's roaring waves. For many, the storm didn't mean an obstacle into victory. It meant water. The tributes rushed to fill whatever container they had with the clear rainwater and greedily gulped it down. Yul, whose island housed a plant with curved leaves, was able to tip the end of a leaf into his mouth. The water all slid off and into his waiting mouth. The storm died down around midnight and peace returned to the arena.

The fifth day similarly offered an argosy of excitement for the audience. The careers hunted, as they had been. They once again left Tanaquil at the horn. When they left to hunt, they let Lagoon go away from them and shoot through the arena with his usual grace and elegance. The careers needed a break around noon. They had been taking turns carrying their backpack of snacks, and Mascara threw off her backpack, opening it to reveal its edible contents. Radiance didn't eat much, though, as he was beginning to grow a bit nauseous from watching the endless waves of the ocean reflecting the light of the brilliant sun. Mascara couldn't blame him as she easily got sick, and she catered to Radiance's request that they hunt lightly until he was feeling well. Over in the luxury home, Thepio began to grow hungry. She threw open the pantry and found it stocked with delicious snacks. Bored, Thepio decided to bake herself something. Back in her district, her sister was a baker, and she decided to do something that reminded her of home. It showed that a bit of Thepio's sister's talent had rubbed off onto her, and the audience was fascinated with the way she perfectly measured the flour and sugar and butter and used a plastic baggie to spread the cupcakes with candy floss pink frosting once they were finished baking. She feasted on the cupcakes rather messily. On the morning of Day 5, Avil immediately began the long trek toward the thing that all of the algae in the arena was pointing at. His eyebrows rose with intrigue when he spotted the home coming into view on the horizon. Avil crawled off of his raft onto the land, grabbed his two scythes (his new, sleek one for actual use and the older one to be strapped to his back just in case), and threw open the front door.

The burglar alarm immediately sounded. Thepio, who was stuffing her face with one of the cupcakes on the kitchen table, looked up and immediately scrambled for the closet. Avil had already seen her. Thepio leapt out of the closet, wielding her menacingly sharp knife. Avil hadn't expected Thepio to have a weapon, and he was a bit taken aback. Their fight mostly consisted of Avil trying to deliver blows to Thepio's vital arteries, whereas Thepio seemed to be playing an offensive game of getting as far away from the District 11 boy as possible and hitting him while he was charging. Their duel lasted for several minutes before Thepio managed to make her way to the front door. Avil saw that she was about to make a break for it and reached out to slam it shut. Thepio managed to squirm into the outside world the instant before the door slammed closed with a bang. Avil fumbled with the handle and tried to open the door back up, and by the time he did Thepio had already ran behind the house and dropped down into a lake surrounded by heavenly reeds. Avil couldn't find her and staked a claim to the house. Thepio had nowhere to go and nothing on her but her knife. Thepio just swam away from the island as fast as she could and hoped for the best.

Another peak of excitement occurred mere minutes later in the arena. On his bare island, Chalk began making use of what he had. He ripped the bark off of the single willow tree and used it to form a sort of blanket. After working for a while, he managed to weave a pillow from the lush reeds that were sprinkled along the water line. Meanwhile, Marci, having finished her story, left her island with her few supplies, picked a direction, and swam. She knew that moving around would introduce a sort of excitement into her story and make the gamemakers leave her alone.

After swimming for a bit, Marci spotted an island. She briskly swam toward it and found Chalk on it. Marci pulled out her knife, as did Chalk, and a battle began. Marci's blows were fast, and she seemed to be a bit of a speed demon at first. Her first blows were powerful, one of which even grazed Chalk's chest and incited a respectably quick flow of red blood. Chalk seemed to be playing a defensive game as well but was much more calculating in his movements. When Marci had drove Chalk against the island's single boulder with nowhere to run, Chalk had only one option. He turned around and climbed up the rock. Marci was close behind him. The instant that they were both on the big rock, it began moving. The two were absolutely shocked and had no idea what on earth was happening. The thing began to pick up speed before flinging itself off of the island and flying over the water, leaping up and down and skidding across the sea like a thrown stone. The two panicked and fell to their feet, gripping the rock with all of their might. When the rock slammed into another island and stopped, the two tributes got to their feet. Chalk had been severely battered, Marci not so much. After taking a quick second to get back to her own senses, Marci didn't wait around for Chalk to do the same. She thrust forward her knife, looked away, and crinkled her face with disgust as she drove the blade straight into Chalk's heart. His cannon shot was immediate.

 _Chalk Alvaro, District 10 Male: 12th, Killed by Marci, Day 5_

Allies Alder and Viveca had begun to grow a bit fed up of swimming in the water whenever they needed transportation. As such, they began work on a raft after Chalk's cannon shot. The sound of the death had spooked Alder and Viveca out of going anywhere, and they needed a raft anyway. The reeds of the island on which they resided were sturdy, and they made progress fast. After his encounter with the monkeys, Yul stayed in his hiding spot for the entire day. He ended up spending the hours fashioning a container out of reeds with which to gather water. He spent a long time meticulously ensuring that there wasn't a single area from which water could leak.

The gamemakers had begun to grow rather tired of Julia. She had done virtually nothing, and at this point in the games she wasn't contributing at all to the competition. When Julia began wading in the water and savoring the feeling of sand in-between her toes, the gamemakers saw a perfect opportunity. A swarm of colorful fish swarmed around Julia's feet. She shook with shock and fear as a swordfish skewered its long sword through her leg. Julia fell, a dark cloud spreading out around her like a squid's ink, as a very spiky purple fish shot out three spines and let them bury themselves into her other ankle. The fish kept delivering her rather horrific wounds. Julia finally managed to drag herself back to shore and began the long process of tearing the muttations' various weapons out of her body. Her wounds weren't that bad unless they got infected, she reassured herself.

Day 6 started off with a bang. Over the course of the night, Julia's wounds had begun to grow worse. Her mentor Seeder had sent her a few bandages, but they did little to prevent the infection that was taking root in the grievous wounds that she had sustained. On the morning of the sixth day, Julia was in extreme pain. Several of her wounds were severely infected and drizzled pus whenever she moved too suddenly. Julia was practically begging for death when Mascara and Radiance spotted her island. They found the girl screaming out in throes of pain on the beach and weren't about to resist the opportunity to rack up another kill. Radiance's sword cleaved through her torso cleanly, and just for good measure Gold Carson's son chopped apart her body. He enlisted the help of Mascara with this duty, and by the time that Julia was just a heap of bits on the ground they marched away smugly. In the records, the kill was considered to be Radiance's alone; Mascara had not laid a finger on the girl until after her demise.

 _Julia D'arcangelo, District 11 Female: 11th, Killed by Radiance, Day 6_

Yul had been fascinated with water for the past few days. After perfecting his water collection basket, he set out on a creative way to gather water. He had gotten a bucket from a sponsor had used it to collect the rain that had happened on Day 2, but that was running low. Yul asked his mentor Barley for a plastic sheet, which he used to condense gaseous water onto to be clumped together and dropped down into a cup. This would efficiently separate the sea water and the salt that it contained. This method was sufficient in providing Yul's water needs, at least for now. Marci had begun residence on the island that the boulder that she and Chalk were on had ended up on, and she spent the day crafting jewelry from the colorful stones she found on the rocky shore. Avil didn't hunt and lounged around on the couch of the house, even flicking on the television when he was bored. Later on Day 6, allies Alder and Viveca received a strange eel muttation. It was nearly ten feet long and was electric yellow. They didn't know what made the eel dangerous until it bumped into a mouse that was munching contentedly nearby. The mouse's hair stood up on end and it quickly died from electrocution. This was an electric eel. Viveca got to work with her axe, trying to chop the creature in half like parsley, while Alder began throwing rocks (his and Viveca's island, like Marci's, had a rocky coast) at the eel. One particularly large rock landed on the back of the eel and pounded it to the ground, where it was easy work for the sharp blade of Viveca's axe. Thepio didn't do anything. She literally sat against a sandy hill on a sand bar that she had discovered, stared into the distance, and only got up to use the bathroom for nearly fifteen hours.

Day 7 passed, deathless. It was the most lifeless that the forty-first Hunger Games had seen yet. Thepio did exactly the same thing that she did the day before, sitting and doing absolutely nothing. Avil decided to go tribute hunting once more. He found an inflatable raft in the closet of the house and blew it up with his mouth. He exited the house and went into the raft, steering it by kicking his feet. Marci continued working on her rock jewelry. She was hoping to turn out as a repeat Nylon Manger, getting sponsors by selling her artwork. This didn't happen, as her jeweling skills weren't the best by any means. Yul just lolled around on his island, waiting for his creation to purify more water. The only exciting part of the day was late at night. Alder and Viveca had started a campfire with driftwood. Always the good storytellers, they began telling ghost stories to each other. Alder was the first to begin. "My old house was totally haunted. There was this one corner that was always so cold. Even with a heater we couldn't heat it up. The ghost kept stealing things from us. Whenever my mom lost her keys or something, she'd just say 'ghost, give it back', and she'd find it in the next three seconds. It was the creepiest thing."

Unfortunately for them, they left the campfire going for a little too long. When it was time to sleep they spread out the logs and waited for the embers to peter out and die. However, this didn't happen, as this just gave the fire more oxygen. Mascara, Radiance, and Lagoon were on an island nearby when they spotted the light of the fire and the trial of smoke that trained out from it. They grinned as they hopped in their rafts and sailed for their next prey. On the island, the two allies were sleeping. Lagoon was ahead of the others by several strides once on land. He skewered his trident through sleeping Alder's torso before he woke up, and he was dead after a short and quiet moan of pain.

 _Alder Chadwick, District 7 Male: 10th, Killed by Lagoon, Day 8_

They didn't see Viveca, as she had fallen asleep on guard and was outside of their camp. The careers scampered into their raft and left immediately after Alder's cannon shot. Lagoon didn't get in the raft and instead swam back toward their home island as he always did.

It was mere minutes later when the second and final death of the day occurred. Avil was out at sea on his raft, asleep, when a gust of wind came and blew the raft over. Avil plunged into the water, which was icy cold in the night. He screeched and tried to make it to the surface, but he had been so shocked by the whole situation that he took in a huge gulp of water. He choked and screamed for air, but he was already several yards below the surface and in no shape to get back to the top. Loss of oxygen slowly sedated him, and as he slowly sank to the sea's sandy bottom a cannon shot boomed across the arena.

 _Avil Lomontange, District 11 Male: 9th, Killed by Drowning, Day 8_

That left the final eight: Radiance Clinton and Mascara Perdita from District 1, Tanaquil Ciacci from District 2, Lagoon Vilachansky from District 4, Marci Bookbinder from District 5, Yul Sikes and Thepio Neers from District 6, and Viveca Dryad from District 7.

The rest of Day 8 was deathless. Thepio didn't have much to do and so she spent much of the day reciting nursery rhymes that she remembered from her childhood to herself. Yul had exhausted his island of its resources and swam to the nearest one. On it, there was a tree with a single fruit. Yul promptly ate the fruit, but it was poisonous. He fell to the ground and convulsed with pain, trying to quiet his labored breathing as he willed the burning poison to work its way out of his body.

Marci was having a great day on Day 8, for at precisely five in the evening on Day 8 a parachute containing a single piece of paper drifted lazily into her eager fingers. Marci snatched the paper and read it.

 _Snow wants to publish your story. He thinks it has potential to be great. But he can't publish it only half-finished. So I'm going to get you some pen and paper in a second. Just write down your story and then place it on the ground. Then walk a few feet away so the hovercraft can collect it. You'll be paid with food and the like._

 _~P_

At first, Marci just laughed. She knew her mentor Porter well, and the casual tone of the note really drove home the personality of the woman. She paced around impatiently for the pen and paper, and when it finally drifted down into her fingers she began writing. Soon, Marci had filled nearly one hundred sheets of paper with her spidery handwriting. Her hand cramping from the pain, she placed the stack of papers neatly on the ground and turned around. For a few seconds she heard the faint whirring sound of the hovercraft. When she turned around, her story was gone and in its place was a loaf of District 5 bread (nutty and cinnamon glazed), a spear, and a canteen of water. She grinned and ran for the supplies, grateful for the feeling of the bread in her mouth and the feeling of cool water sliding across her tongue.

The last exciting event of Day 8 didn't happen until late at night. It was nearly nine o'clock when the three careers were returning to the horn for the first time in several days. The water level was so low in the arena that they were in that they could just wade, and they took turns carrying the raft behind them. Suddenly, a huge swarm of fish closed in around the careers' feet. As soon as the fish began slashing and biting and stabbing, the careers began fighting back. Lagoon's trident was incredibly effective against the fish, as the weapon was aerodynamic by purpose. Mascara's throwing knives meant that she was only able to target one of the fish at once. The fish weren't really pursuing her anyways, so she mostly dug her knives into large fish that looked to be a threat to her allies. Radiance's sword shot through the water with stunning elegance and precision. He stabbed and slashed fish after fish, and after the encounter he was the only career completely unscathed. Mascara and Lagoon looked at Radiance (and the pile of dead fish that surrounded him) with dumbfound and maybe a little envy.

The instant that the first part of the sun rose above the east horizon, the familiar voice of Head Gamemaker Wisp Glasgow.

"Congratulations to the final eight tributes of the forty-first Hunger Games. At noon tomorrow, a feast will occur at the cornucopia. I am well aware that many of you will not know where the cornucopia is. That issue will be solved now." Wisp snapped his fingers. Suddenly, the cornucopia shot out a beam of light that shot into the sky and illuminated the arena. "I am also aware that you will not know when it is noon. That problem will be solved now." Wisp snapped his fingers once more. In the sky, a countdown appeared, counting down to the feast that would occur the next day. "May the odds be ever in your favor."

With that, each tribute began forming decisions on whether or not to attend the feast. Thepio decided to go to the feast. Her supplies were running very low, and there could well be something at the feast that could save her life. Marci decided not to go to the feast and instead continued to work on her novel. Her pen ran out of ink at one point, and it was promptly replaced by the hovercraft. Viveca was originally deciding not to go to the feast.

"I am not going to the feast," she said out loud as if the words were a magical incantation or would give her some kind of superpower. Mere seconds later, Viveca tripped on a rock in her walk. She face planted into the ground. For several seconds she felt nothing at all. Then, a searing pain began to bolt out from her ankle. She hissed and bit her lip as she crawled to her feet and saw her foot, lopsided, its ankle twisted awkwardly in its socket. Viveca's eyes widened with fear when she remembered seeing Almond sprain his ankle during the thirty-ninth games. Viveca had to go to the feast. She would rather risk her life than end up like Almond from the thirty-ninth games.

The careers hunted once more on Day 9, once again leaving Tanaquil to guard the cornucopia and its supplies. Radiance, Mascara, and Lagoon all had features that made them unique. Tanaquil, however, was just boring. There was nothing special about him. They didn't want him in their hunting party and he knew not to test his luck by arguing with them.

Yul had decided to go to the feast. Additionally, he would go to the feast… early. He picked up his knife and was on the prowl toward the horn. The careers always left their weakest member at the cornucopia, Yul knew, and the weakest remaining career was Tanaquil. When Yul reached the cornucopia and spotted Tanaquil in the cornucopia's air pocket sorting through a few supplies, he took a deep breath. He was ready. It was now or never. Yul leapt into the water and swam toward the horn. He didn't ever stop to rest; the audience was impressed by his tenacity. Yul reached the cornucopia and, ensuring to always stay out of Tanaquil's sight, swam on top of the cornucopia. Then, he found the area of the ceiling directly above the air pocket and began sawing a hole into it with his knife. It was a tough job. Inside of the cornucopia, Tanaquil heard the scraping and thought that it was some mutt scraping against the side of the horn of plenty. He stayed in the air pocket, safe from the "mutt". When a circle of the ceiling fell through, water began pouring in quickly. It instantly splashed into Tanaquil's lap. He struggled for his oxygen pack, but it had been washed away by the current of the initial splash of water. Not having much time to form wise decisions, Tanaquil tried to swim out of the horn and into the outside world. Yul was waiting for him, of course, and by the time that Tanaquil saw him Yul had already buried his knife deep into his chest with expertise and perfection. Tanaquil fell, blood burbling from his wound. The second that his cannon shot sounded Yul ripped his knife out of Tanaquil and swam away. He wouldn't want to be at the scene of the crime.

 _Tanaquil Ciacci, District 2 Male: 8th, Killed by Yul, Day 9_

That was all that happened on Day 9. On Day 10, the day of the feast, there was lots of commotion in the arena. Marci finished her novel and handed the final few chapters to the hovercraft. She was the only tribute that didn't show up to the feast.

The countdown in the sky read 00:00:49. The feast would start in forty-nine seconds. Radiance, Mascara, Lagoon, Thepio, Yul, and Viveca stood crowded around the horn as a vocal countdown began at forty-five seconds. This was it. The timer in the sky hit zero. The gong rang. The six feasters surged forward and began scooping up supplies.

Radiance and Mascara were both playing an offensive game, swimming around and trying to kill without a coherent strategy. Lagoon was more of a hider, ducking behind crates and such and waiting to pounce out whenever an outlier came near. Viveca was just racing toward the horn without looking back. Nearby Radiance had been arcing back and forth in front of the cornucopia's yawning mouth. When Radiance spotted Viveca hurdling through the water, he charged toward her. Radiance stabbed her sword toward Viveca, but she whirled around and cut through the water with her axe. The fight wasn't very long. In her whirl, Viveca had knocked her foot on a rock and quietly cursed with pain. Radiance took advantage of her instant of disorientation and charged toward her, abandoning all caution. Viveca, shocked and overwhelmed by his sudden burst of energy, couldn't sidestep fast enough before Radiance speared his sword squarely through her torso. Her eyes rolled back into her head as Radiance reveled in his kill.

 _Viveca Dryad, District 7 Female: 7th, Killed by Radiance, Day 10_

Meanwhile, Thepio was zigzagging through the crystal-clear water to avoid attacks and disorient her predators. Suddenly, Mascara ran up behind her. Thepio had no idea that the career was behind her, and by the time that Mascara's sharpest throwing knife wormed its way into the back of her head she only had time to open her mouth slightly in shock before dying.

 _Thepio Neers, District 6 Female: 6th, Killed by Mascara, Day 10_

Yul made the final kill. He was leaning over to pick up a crate when he felt a sharp prick in the back of his neck. Yul whipped around and instinctively thrust forth his knife. The knife buried itself into the neck of Yul's attacker, Lagoon. Lagoon had been trying to drive one of the prongs of his trident into the back of Yul's neck, but Yul had managed to turn around before the weapon could travel deep enough to do any real damage. Lagoon clawed at his throat and tried to tear the knife out of his neck. Just for good measure, Yul grabbed a nearby hatchet and popped Lagoon's air packet in one swift slice. Yul swam away with the axe, his knife, and the other things that he had gathered from the feast, leaving Lagoon to die.

 _Lagoon Vilachansky, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Yul, Day 10_

No other deaths occurred that day. Radiance and Mascara, the only remaining careers, stayed at the horn and tended to the scrapes and such that they had gotten during the feast. They didn't hunt as they weren't in the condition and the day had already had enough death anyway. Yul had escaped the feast with a package of granola bars, an axe, a sword, and the knife that he had had since Day 1. He rationed his granola bars carefully and only ate one for the rest of Day 10. Having finished her manuscript, Marci began telling the audience a new story that had just popped into her head as she was finishing her old one. She didn't get any requests to write this one down, as within hours of the previous one being published it had been queried, bound, and sold in stores all through the Capitol. With only four tributes remaining, the games would probably be a short one. However, Wisp didn't want a short games. He decided to draw out the rest of the games only slightly, such that there would be an ideal blend of action and calm.

Day 11 passed completely deathless. Radiance and Mascara hunted. Marci was running low on food, and she had gotten a spear from a sponsor that had loved her story. She managed to spear a colorful fish that was swimming by her island, and she roasted it over a fire that she started in a hidden location. The climax of Day 11, however, was much more sinister than expected. Yul had once more exhausted the island that he was on and so moved to a different island that held a single tree. Yul shinnied up the tree and began making camp atop a strong branch. Mere minutes later, he tumbled off of the branch and fell to the ground with a loud noise. Yul hissed as a sharp pain began exploding through his neck and spinal cord. He had broken his neck. All of his food and water was left in the tree. The nation watched with earnest as he slowly but surely died from dehydration.

Day 12 was similarly deathless. The careers hunted, and Marci continued telling the audience her vivid and imaginative stories. Yul was once again on the ground, completely helpless to do anything and just waiting in suspense for his death.

The morning of Day 13 came in the form of a cannon shot. Yul had gone unconscious from his broken neck a few hours before his body finally succumbed to dehydration. With only three tributes left, the games would surely begin to crescendo.

 _Yul Sikes, District 6 Male: 4th, Killed by Dehydration, Day 13_

The rest of Day 13 passed with little conflict and no death among the three remaining tributes. Marci didn't have anything to do with her second story finished and so she just swam between islands so that the gamemakers would leave her alone. The careers didn't hunt, as they wanted to draw out the games and they knew that Marci would come to them one way or another.

Day 14 was similarly deathless. Marci kept swimming between the scattered spits of sand in the ocean to shake up her story and keep herself safe from gamemaker threats. The careers hunted and returned to the horn at the end of the day.

On Day 15, Wisp knew that he needed to induce some action. Radiance and Mascara went hunting once more. They returned to a rather picturesque scene at the cornucopia. To the left of the cornucopia was an island with fuzzy green grass and several trees that burst with beautiful pink blossoms. Rows and rows of chairs were set up, each one occupied by a formally dressed person. Everybody was facing the front of the island, where a woman in a long white dress and a man in a sharp looking suit were being wed by a judge that stood between them. It was a wedding. The bride and groom, and in fact the entire audience, were muttations that would flip to bloodthirstiness at the sight of a tribute.

When the careers returned, they had no idea why a wedding would be going on in the arena. When Radiance and Mascara went forward to investigate, the groom suddenly ran toward them and opened his mouth, displaying two rows of fangs. After tearing off the train of her dress, the bride was soon to follow. The judge and the first couple of rows began throwing their chairs and books at the two careers, who were slashing away at them with their weapons. Radiance tried to back away from the onslaught of wedding guests, but soon he was trapped against the side of the gazebo in which the ceremony had been taking place. Radiance slashed his sword across the chest of his closest pursuer, a woman with a red dress and a flower woven into her hair. She fell and knocked a fellow guest down like a domino. With them on the ground, Radiance tried to escape. He ran around the gazebo and saw his ally Mascara trying desperately to fend off her pursuers with her throwing knives. Radiance dove forth to help her, stabbing and slashing away at the wedding guest muttations. Abruptly, the crowd all parted and the bride and groom became visible. The two mutts ran toward the careers. The groom twisted the wedding ring on his finger and out popped a long and poisonous spike. The bride did the same. With the two newlyweds running toward the careers, they began to fight. Radiance tried to slash away at the side of the bride's torso, but she batted away his sword with her spike. Suddenly, the bride turned her attention toward Mascara, who was fending off the groom. Both of the newlyweds began running toward Mascara, and they got to her before Radiance could come and help her. The bride slammed forth her spike. It drove into Mascara's upper abdomen. Her blood splattered the bride's pristine white dress. Mascara tried to turn tail and flee, but the bride had already grabbed her by her shirt. Mascara reached around and tried to tear off her shirt, but the bride had already buried her spike into the back of her body. The poison immediately entered her bloodstream, seducing her. She fell to the ground, dead, reducing the tribute count to two.

 _Mascara Perdita, District 1 Female: 3rd, Killed by Newlywed Bride Muttation, Day 15_

The instant that Mascara's cannon shot faded away fully, the entire party (the bride, groom, judge, and guests) all turned to dust and were blown away by the wind.

With only two tributes left, Wisp was eager to crown the victor. Day 16 passed deathless as the tributes prepared for the fight. Radiance stayed at the horn and began practicing for the final fight. Marci, with her knife, practiced as well, raking it across rocks and such to sharpen it.

Day 17 would prove to be the final day in the arena. Marci woke up to a strange sound. It was the sound of suction cups being ripped off of a flat surface. She got up from her little sleeping bag and saw a huge pink starfish with a legspan of nearly ten feet scuttling toward her. Marci panicked and grabbed her weapon and then she went. She scurried into the water and swam anywhere to get away from the starfish. The starfish followed her into the water. It was, of course, driving her toward the cornucopia, where she would face off with Radiance.

Marci dragged herself onto the shore of the wedding island and found Radiance there waiting for her. Their final fight began.

This year's final two contained the two most beloved tributes of the year. Radiance Clinton, the son of Gold Carson, was one of the finest products of District 1's academy in years. If Radiance won, he would bring District 1 its sixth victor. This would not place them ahead of District 4, but it would be a step toward surpassing it. Marci Bookbinder was a daughter, a sister, and a wife back in her district. She was also a fantastic author, and if she won she would no doubt begin pumping out story after story for the eager Capitolites to read.

Marci's knife seemed to be doing a great job of fending off Radiance. She could slash away with it and couldn't do a great amount of damage but could keep her adversary from getting too close. Meanwhile, Radiance, always the good career, swung around his sword with ferocity, flair, and exact precision. Their battle was relatively short, only fifty seconds long. About twenty seconds in, Radiance thrust forth his sword and gored it through Marci's eye. Marci screamed as her eyeball tumbled out of her head. She wept with agony and clutched her empty eye socket, hoping to staunch the flow of blood that was oozing from it. In this state of distress, it was easy for Radiance to deliver the blow that would end Marci's life. He threw his sword forward and watching with satisfaction as it wormed its way through Marci's torso and protruded from her back. That was the straw that broke the camel's back, and she had lost just enough blood and had had just enough organs destroyed to be pronounced dead. Her cannon shot promptly fired, and the tumultuous voice of Wisp Glasglow trumpeted into the arena.

 _Marci Bookbinder, District 5 Female: 2nd, Killed by Radiance, Day 17_

"Radiance Clinton of District 1, you are the victor of the forty-first annual Hunger Games!" Wisp proclaimed.

Radiance set down his sword and held up five fingers, proudly announcing his number of kills for all to see.

 _Radiance Clinton, District 1 Male: Victor of the Forty-First Hunger Games, Day 17_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 1 welcomed its sixth victor with open arms. Radiance was the second ever legacy victor (the first being Freya), and his father Gold was overjoyed when he returned home as a victor. Gold's tears of joy as he watched his son be crowned victor marked the only time that he was ever seen crying. The Capitol loved Radiance, and he would develop into a great example of a victor. He would make debating a hobby and would frequent debate clubs.

He settled into District 1's Victor's Village, the sixth victor to do so.

His victory tour was rather ordinary and nothing unusual happened during it.

Radiance would live to the spectacular age of one-hundred, dying from lung disease around the time of the one-hundred twenty-third annual Hunger Games. In his lifetime, he would marry and have quadruplet sons.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Radiance settles into District 1's Victor's Village, the sixth victor to do so.

Flux Stafford marries his fiancée Silicon.

Brandi Coyne and her husband adopt twin sons named Gleam and Wonder.

Odius Ruttler has his first and only child, a baby boy named Cato.

Grover Handa, a single father, adopts a baby girl, Eve.

Velvet Farrow, the victor of the tenth annual Hunger Games, dies from a seizure. A public funeral is held in her memory.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: 13,000 words. That's how long this chapter is. Holy cow! I remember when I was writing 3,000 word long chapters with no description at all. Thanks for sticking with this story for so long, I'm so thankful for all of you! :D**

 **How many Spongebob references could you find in this chapter? If you can find them all, pm them to me and I might give you a shout out in the next chapter XD**

 **Anyways, Radiance! In the long run, who do you think will have more victors, District 1 or District 4? If you've got any speculations I'd love to hear them. Thank you all so much for reading, and expect the forty-second games soon! :D**


	43. The 42nd Hunger Games

**The 42nd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

President Coriolanus Snow was certainly not your average president of Panem by any stretch of the imagination. With the horrible and dastardly things that Snow was doing on an almost hourly basis, he would grow notorious as one of Panem's most abusive presidents. Despite this, however, there are things that all humans have in common; things that even the most heartless and inhumane as Snow are not free from. While Snow had never been super interested in girls, it was now that the entire nation was in control that he didn't have much to do and began feeling the pangs of love and lust. President Snow had never been ashamed of his singularity, but now that the admiration from the adoring Capitol was growing, he saw the perfect opportunity to land himself a match. Snow announced to the Capitol that, over the course of the next year, any woman interesting in taking Snow's hand in marriage should audition to compete in a difficult and intense competition, the winner of which would be Snow's wife. Snow sifted through the hundreds of auditions and narrowed the playing field down to four women that really caught his eye. Magnolia Asher, a gorgeous women who was respectful and kind and forgiving; Suzanne Diesel, an accepting lady whose empathy and support for friends in times of need was remarkable; Liosa Lycharge, exactly Coriolanus' age, sweet, beautiful, and loving of nurturing healthy relationships; and Athena Clawse, one who captured Snow's heart with her love of the entire country and her patriotism. Neither Magnolia nor Suzanne nor Liosa nor Athena knew, however, that this competition wasn't among the type they were used to. It was a fight to the death. The four women were placed in a circular room with a white ceiling, floor, and walls. Each was given a knife to battle with and to fend off the other competitors. There were no rules other than the last man (or should it be said woman) standing wins. Magnolia immediately went for Athena, the weakest of her competitors. Athena couldn't bear the thought of injuring another human for no reason other than getting the attention of a man, and she forfeited to Magnolia. Liosa charged toward Magnolia and tried to stab her in the shoulder, but Magnolia whirled around and kicked Liosa in the chest, knocking her to the ground. She was easy work for Magnolia. Magnolia looked up at her final competitor: Suzanne. Suzanne was terrified and had crouched down into a dark area of the circular room as if she could somehow hide from her fate. She didn't even notice charging Magnolia, and she was dead, Magnolia's knife wedged into the back of her head, before she even looked up. Magnolia, the victor who had killed all three of her opponents, was the victor. Ms. Asher became Mrs. Snow and Mr. Snow became a very happy man indeed.

Magnolia's first act in her new position of power was to establish the Hunger Games Betting Organization, or HGBO. From then on forth, all legal betting was to be done through the HGBO. Before, there were hundreds of different betting companies throughout the Capitol and it was impossible to tell which ones were legitimate for sure. However, with the HGBO as the Capitol's sole way to bet for their favorite tributes, it became possible to know exactly what percent of bets went toward each tribute, which tributes received the most total amount of money, and other statistics that were impossible to know before. From now on, at the end of the introduction section of each chapter of this compendium will be a list of what percent of bets were on each tribute.

Wisp Glasgow returned as head gamemaker for the second consecutive year. Wisp was actually the perfect candidate for head gamemaker; he was the son of an electrician father, and since this year's arena would represent District 5 he was perfect for the job. Wisp's arena was clearly inspired by the Halloween arena of the thirty-third. Spanning the arena was a forest, although the term is used loosely. The trees were completely bare, and they stuck out of the ground like the hands of skeletons. The ground was not the grass of a forest but a rough black stone that gave off strange films of mist in which strange visions could be seen. To the north, east, and west, the forest was rather hilly. To the south, the forest flattened out and became a flat land with only trees every once and a while. What sold the District 5 look, however, was the lightning. A thunderstorm perpetually ravaged the arena. Great arms of lightning shot from the sky. The tips of the tree branches conducted electricity, and so the lightning was attracted to them and the trees acted as lightning rods. Whenever a bolt of lightning struck a tree, the lightning would jump between the branches and between the trees and for several moments the entire arena would appear to be ablaze with light and the air would be filled with the crackle of electricity, and heaven help any tribute that was near one of the trees when that happened. The deep black sky held not stars nor clouds nor the moon nor any sort of feature identifying it as the sky. It was as if somebody had laid out a black sheet and one was staring into it, their eyes struggling to find someplace to rest. The sky wasn't just your usual everyday darkness. It was advanced darkness. The black seemed to have layers and layers of darkness that wound away and spiraled into oblivion. The only times that the sky was illuminated, the angry growl of thunder was sure to follow.

The career pack this year was a rather strong batch of kids. District 1 produced a pair that were as beautiful as always. The male, Glowing, was the twin brother of Radiance Clinton, the victor of last year's Hunger Games. He, along with his twin Radiance, were the sons of Victor Gold Carson, and this Glowing boy was confident that he could be the third boy from the family to take home the victor's crown. The female was weaker from a lack of training compared to the others; she was less of a warrior and more of a Barbie doll: pretty and ditzy and a little naïve. District 2 produced a pair that was impeccably skilled. The male was a natural with the machete, whereas the female chose throwing knives. The guy also wowed the audience with his ability to recite two-thousand digits of the mathematical constant pi. This wouldn't help him in the arena but proved his intelligence to the audience. The girl was an individual who was rather graceful and elegant in form and in the way that she moved. District 4 offered up a strong pair. The male was a popular model in his district and got lots of sponsors for his looks, whereas the female wasn't attractive per se but was dangerously sharp and vicious in personality and even in appearance, in a way. The careers' training scores were high this year, with four tens, one nine, and one eight among their ranks.

Outside of the careers the training scores were slightly higher than average. The highest score outside of the career districts was earned by a certain Miss Isaku Suzuki from District 5. Isaku was a martial arts master that had earned a third-degree black belt in her art, and her fluidity and grace made her name a household one. Elastane from 8 earned an eight, the only non-career to do so. She was a natural with crossbows. Five sevens were scored. They were earned by Mercedes from 6, Rowan from 7, Bagel from 9, Ivy from 11, and Diamond from 12. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: thirteen year-old Sequoia O'Rourke from District 7. Sequoia had been bullied for her entire life because of her pansexuality and her facial deformity. When the time for the reaping came, her "friends" bullied her into volunteering. There was another standout: the boy from 10. He was a fantastic comedian who often put on shows in his district and even in the Capitol. At his birth, he was given the name Buck Sousa, but at age sixteen he changed his name to Xzayvian Xanthopoulos for publicity. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Glowing Clinton, 18, (10) 3-1 and Polish Schultz, 16, (8) 6-1

District 2: Arbiter Asesino, 18, (10) 4-1 and Aquila Curvanith, 17, (10) 5-1

District 3: Technik Hartline, 16, (6) 20-1 and Socket Rhodes, 16, (5) 22-1

District 4: Swell Mckenzie, 17, (10) 6-1 and Whelk Swanson, 16, (9) 6-1

District 5: Vincent Srinivasan, 13, (2) 60-1 and Isaku Suzuki, 18, (9) 5-1

District 6: Johnson Metallurgist, 14, (6) 23-1 and Mercedes Rodanthe, 12, (7) 30-1

District 7: Rowan Anderson, 15, (7) 17-1 and Sequoia O'Rourke, 13, (3) 80-1

District 8: Boucle Avenell, 18, (4) 31-1 and Elastane Kazera, 16, (8) 10-1

District 9: Teff Rumor, 13, (4) 40-1 and Bagel Vinson, 18, (7) 15-1

District 10: Xzayvian Xanthopoulos, 17, (6) 19-1 and Terenzia Sample, 16, (5) 21-1

District 11: Ivy Baum, 18, (7) 14-1 and Demeter Zane, 12, (3) 75-1

District 12: Ron Wentworth, 16, (6) 18-1 and Diamond Alix, 16, (7) 16-1

HGBO Bets: 8% on Glowing, 7% on Arbiter, Aquila, Swell, and Isaku, 6% on Polish, Whelk, and Elastane, 4% on Technik, Mercedes, Rowan, Bagel, Xzayvian, Ivy, Diamond, and Socket, 3% on Ron and Terenzia, 2% on Johnson, Boucle, and Teff, 1% or less on Vincent, Sequoia, and Demeter.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

This year's games was an electrifying one… quite literally, because of District 5's industry. As the tributes rose up into the arena, all was calm except for the ghostly howl of the wind. Suddenly, the world was illuminating by a shot of lightning, closely followed by a roar of thunder. Frigid rain began shooting toward the earth in sheets, making the tributes shiver. Another bolt shook the earth. The spookiest part of the arena, though, was the cornucopia. Shrouded in darkness, it was if the horn was a mouth that was waiting to devour its prey. Because of this, five tributes turned tail and fled at the sound of the gong. They were Socket from 3, Johnson and Mercedes from 6, and Teff and Bagel from 9. This, coupled with the fact that the supplies this year were placed closer to the tributes and further away from the cornucopia, would make for a rather small bloodbath, with only eight deaths.

The gong's note echoed eerily around the arena, but it was soon blocked out by the noise of crashing feet thundering over the stone ground. Those feet were Glowing's. Glowing surged ahead of all of the others at an unfathomable speed, and he reached the dark mouth of the cornucopia before any of the other tributes. When Glowing spotted the willowy comedian from District 10 darting toward him holding a mace, he picked up a machete off of a countertop behind him and got to fighting. Glowing surged toward his challenger; his blade nicked the boy's shoulder. He hissed with pain as warm blood drizzled forth, and by the time he got back to his senses Glowing had already sawed his machete into his forehead. He was knocked unconscious almost instantaneously, and Glowing savored the sound of his body smacking into the ground with a thud. Glowing had spilled the first blood in the games, an honor that could not compare to the honor of being victor but pleased him nonetheless.

 _Xzayvian Xanthopoulos, District 10 Male: 24th, Killed by Glowing, Bloodbath_

Swell, another fast runner, scooped up a black metal trident that lay on the ground twenty yards from his pedestal. Swell's sense of vision was keen, and he charged sideways when he spotted a blurry shape running parallel to him. Swell dove toward the movement and crashed into a body. Swell wrestled the tribute to the ground, and his cries of fear stopped abruptly when Swell flung his trident into his neck.

 _Ron Wentworth, District 12 Male: 23rd, Killed by Swell, Bloodbath_

Polish and Aquila had developed a sort of friendship during training. The two career girls decided to stay close to each other and kill as a duo during the bloodbath. Aquila grabbed a belt of throwing knives; Polish a sword. Formidable Aquila heard a thud beside her and looked to the right. She saw a girl that had tripped and had fallen to the ground. Aquila called for her ally Polish, who was at her side within two seconds. The two careers made easy work of the disoriented girl.

 _Sequoia O'Rourke, District 7 Female: 22nd, Killed by Aquila and Polish, Bloodbath_

The instant that Arbiter closed his eager fingers around a bow that leaned against a crate amidst the cornucopia's scattered supplies was the same instant that he leapt to his feet and began firing like mad every which way. His first few arrows missed, but his fourth struck home, burying itself into the head of the nearest girl. She let out a short mewl of pain before tumbling to the ground in a heap. Arbiter ran to her side to tear his arrow out of her head as he celebrated his first kill.

 _Demeter Zane, District 11 Female: 21st, Killed by Arbiter, Bloodbath_

Little Vincent from 5, who was young and foolish and naïve, picked up a sword and ran toward Glowing, thinking that he could somehow take town the boy that was twice his size. He, of course, could not. Glowing picked him up and then threw his thrashing form to the ground. His head smacked onto the ground, and he became concussed. Perhaps this was a good thing for Vincent; his lack of comprehension of the situation made it less painful for him as Glowing hacked mercilessly at his head and neck with his machete.

 _Vincent Srinivasan, District 5 Male: 20th, Killed by Vincent, Bloodbath_

Now that five tributes had died, things were starting to organize in the career pack. Glowing, Arbiter, and Swell were running around the clearing and trying to catch any tributes off guard. Glowing with his machete, Arbiter his bow, and Swell his trident, they covered lots of ground efficiently. Comrades Polish and Aquila stayed in front of the cornucopia behind the ranks of the three boys to cut down any charging outliers. Frail Boucle from 8 didn't see Polish and Aquila at the yawning mouth of the horn, and by the time that he noticed them it was too late. Polish grabbed him and held him to the ground. He was paralyzed from fear and was easy work for Aquila, who threw one of her throwing knives fluidly into his forehead. This seduced him, and so Polish could lift herself off of him. Boucle faced a swift death as Polish finished him off by skewering her sword through his torso.

 _Boucle Avenell, District 8 Male: 19th, Killed by Aquila and Polish, Bloodbath_

Isaku was in business when she spotted fellow nine-scorer, Whelk from District 4, milling around the clearing nearby. Whelk was the only career that hadn't made a kill yet, and the others had abandoned her thinking that she was useless. Isaku ran toward her and kicked her in the side of the torso. She reeled but quickly returned to her senses. Whelk had a spear that she had picked up a few minutes prior, but her skills could not compare to Isaku's karate skills. Isaku shot her foot into the air and slammed Whelk in the side of the face. When she collapsed to the ground, Isaku lifted up her own spear and thrust it into Whelk's torso. Isaku couldn't watch as her eyes rolled back into her head, and she looked away.

 _Whelk Swanson, District 4 Female: 18th, Killed by Isaku, Bloodbath_

Arbiter made the final kill. He had been holding his bow in grasp and running back and forth across the clearing. However, now that the chaos was beginning to thin out, Arbiter began circling the cornucopia hoping to catch a tribute or two that was running away from the bloodbath. Arbiter saw a rather muscular girl running toward him. He launched an arrow and watched with satisfaction as it arced along its path. It disappeared into the darkness, but the yelp that followed as it crashed into the girl's head was evidence enough to Arbiter that his aim had struck home. The girl promptly died. The eight cannon shots that followed were eerily similar to the thunder that regularly rolled around the arena.

 _Diamond Alix, District 12 Female: 17th, Killed by Arbiter, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the majority of the tributes began to take up a never-stop-moving tactic. It wasn't just the fact that sixteen of them remained that was terrifying. It was that the arena was just so creepy. Every step made the hair on the back of one's neck stand up and made one feel like they were being watched, observed. The careers went hunting immediately. The careers, minus Polish, who was guarding the horn, ventured through the forest. Still, they stayed close together and never ventured far apart. Even the mighty careers couldn't helped but be spooked by the dark arena. Technik had his bag of wire and mechanical parts, and he spent much of the day travelling away from the horn, reciting mathematical formulas to himself to keep alive the memory of home. He sat down underneath a wide-based tree and began forming an electrical wire trap reminiscent of Beetee's trap from the fortieth games. Isaku alternated between walking and jogging and spent the night at the base of a huge boulder that was covered with a strange black slime. Nimble Mercedes just ran and ran away from the horn. She didn't stop when she was exhausted. She didn't stop when every ounce of her being screamed for her to rest. She eventually collapsed beside a small black pool. Mercedes peeked over the edge of the black pool. She recoiled after feeling the acidic mist stinging her face. Mercedes backed away and slept a few feet away from the pool, feeling a little unnerved by the strange visions and sounds that were emanating from its mysterious waters. Terenzia had escaped the bloodbath with a blanket. As she ran, she wrapped the blanket around her like a poncho. She fell beside a thick area of the dead trees and was tempted to eat the bark, which looked edible enough to her. Terenzia was mere seconds from breaking off a piece when a little squirrel, fur black as the night, came along and began licking at the tree's coagulated sap. The rat eeked with pain and died. Terenzia now knew to stay away from the trees. Elastane leapt between the trees, always paranoid that there was somebody watching her that was going to attack her. Elastane figured out immediately after the bloodbath that the trees became electrically charged whenever lightning struck, so she tried to stay away from them. However, around eight o'clock at night, Elastane was beginning to grow crazy. She walked in circles, completely overwhelmed and unable to handle the circumstances of the dark forest. Everywhere looked the same. When lightning lit up the world, Elastane fell forward in shock. She fell right onto one of the trees. Her hair stood on end as the electric current coursed through her body. It was hours before she regained consciousness, and when she did she was a nervous wreck, mumbling about how the trees were metal angels from mars and how the cat was coming to kill her. This was nonsense, and at this point it was hard to argue that Elastane wasn't playing with a full deck of cards. For Socket, water was the main concern. Socket found a tree that looked as if it had died rather recently and tore off a piece of bark. She had a knife with which she tried to whittle away at the wood and form a spile. All was going well until she sliced into the wood a little too far and it cracked in half. This exposed the acidic sap inside. Socket screamed as the sap burned away at her skin. The sight of her hands literally dissolving into the acid before her eyes made her scream louder. She dropped the log and ran in circles. The poison had crawled down her entire hand, and now she had but a stump for her right hand. Her screams attracted the attention of the career pack, who reasoned that she must be injured already. The four tributes surged toward her, but even at the sight of them her screams were not silenced. The pain incinerated all reason, all feeling but itself. Socket was almost glad when Swell did the honors, throwing his trident and letting it sail gracefully into her neck. Socket's screams were silenced as she fell forward onto the ground. At the sound of her cannon shot, the careers fled. They thought that Socket's previous injury must have been from another tribute, and they inferred that the killer couldn't be far.

 _Socket Rhodes, District 3 Female: 16th, Killed by Swell, Day 1_

Johnson had run away from the bloodbath and darted toward the outer edges of the arena. At one point, Johnson reached a cliff face where the arena dropped off. This was the edge of the arena, and a couple of feet beyond the edge of the cliff sat the force field. Johnson reached out a hand and pulled away as the forcefield sizzled his fingertips. Johnson's hand flew to his mouth instinctively, and he asked for some burn cream from sponsors that he knew didn't even exist anyways. Nothing was delivered, so he was forced to build something himself. Making a splint out of wood, especially dead wood, especially crumbly dead wood, is quite a feat, but Johnson was finally able to support his burned finger with the splint. Rowan had managed to grab a knife from the horn. While Rowan might not have been the fastest runner in the world, he sure was a trouper. He ran for twenty minutes at a time without brakes, and he soon reached the force field. Rowan had hoped to find something spectacular at the edge of the arena, but he was disappointed when he found that the land dropped off into oblivion. Maybe there's something I can use here, Rowan thought optimistically. Rowan set down his knife beside him and crouched down, investigating the curving pattern of the edge. When Rowan got to his feet, his foot knocked into his knife. The knife was bumped over the edge of the cliff. Rowan cried out as he watched the blade disappear down the cliff face. Rowan began walking away with disappointed when the knife that he had kicked over the cliff just moments before hit the force field, bounced off, and came shooting back. Rowan heard a whistling behind him, and by the time he could turn around the knife buried itself perfectly into his head. Rowan slid to the ground, dead. His cannon shot was the second post-bloodbath of the day.

 _Rowan Anderson, District 7 Male: 15th, Killed by Himself, Day 1_

Teff ventured away from the horn and began foraging the woods for supplies. Although the arena offered little at face value, Teff was able to use his limited resources to his advantage. Teff created a fire out of wood. He made glue by crushing up the caterpillars that roamed the place and using the resulting paste to attatch things together. His natural survival skills perked the attention of many a sponsor, and soon he promptly received a Swiss army knife in a parachute. Bagel, Teff's district partner, took a similar strategy. The two District 9 tributes met around ten. Teff was about to kill Bagel with his knife before realizing that she was his district partner. Teff said "just this once", turned around, and walked away. Ivy stuck to the trees as he moved. After the bloodbath cannons, Ivy shinnied up the nearest tree like a squirrel. He found a sturdy branch and crawled down it. He leapt off of that branch onto a nearby tree, and the pattern continued, leaping between trees like some kind of lemur or jumping spider.

Day 2 saw very little of conflict among the fourteen remaining tributes. The careers returned to the horn in the morning. The only way for the tributes to tell whether it was morning or night was by the temperature of the arena. Nights were a good ten degrees cooler than days, and the tinge of heat on the careers' skin was a sure sign that it was time to venture back to the horn. They left Swell to guard the horn and ventured away into the wild. Ivy continued on his monkey-like expedition around the arena, leaping between the trees like some kind of wild animal. Around noon, he fell out of a tree. He was relatively low to the ground, and he landed in a copse of bushes. This made his damage minimal, but it still hurt like the devil and he couldn't move for about half an hour after the fall. Terenzia couldn't really find anything to eat, but she got a cheese stick from a sponsor a few hours into the day and she savagely munched it down. Johnson's burn was coming along well. He got a cup of water from a sympathetic sponsor, which he used about half of to clean his burn before fashioning a new splint for himself. He discarded the old one, which was now beginning to fall apart. The coming about of Day 2 just made Elastane even crazier. Elastane prowled the arena, trying to "kill" sticks and twigs and dead bugs that she found. Elastane had scored high in training, and Wisp wasn't about to kill off her best chance at a successful underdog story. If she got too crazy to be let be victor, Wisp reassured himself, he could always kill her off later. Isaku began hunting. A sponsor that liked her talent had delivered her a sharp piece of metal, which she used to cut through the air with natural talent. Isaku practiced her martial arts skills throughout the day as well, but her efforts to find the other tributes and rat them out were fruitless. She actually lost the piece of metal within a few hours. Technik continued working on his electric wire trap. Head Gamemaker Wisp Glasgow knew that he didn't want a games that ended like the fortieth games did, and so Wisp planned to destroy Technik's trap before it could do any real damage to the others. Wisp let Technik have one more day of hands flying over his pieces and assembling his machines as if by magic. Mercedes spent the day exploring the edge of the dark cliff that surrounded the arena. At one point she tried to step down it, but her first footstep down the steep slope slid as if a film of water covered the side of the slope, so she pulled her foot away. Teff and Bagel didn't really do much. They just milled around the arena. Ever since their encounter the day prior, both tributes seemed rather paranoid, constantly looking behind them as if expecting to see somebody there.

Day 3 saw a single death. Technik finished his electrical wire trap. It followed exactly the same format as his mentor Beetee's from his games, complete with the spinning magnet, the electric core, the input and output wires; even the silvery spiderweb of wires was woven around the region in the same patterns as Beetee's trap. Teff spent the majority of the day milling aimlessly around the arena. He was starting to get a little kooky from dehydration. When Technik heard Teff's footsteps from nearby, he ducked into a shadowy ditch and waited for his plan to fall into place. Teff walked straight into the maze of silvery wires. The sizzling sound coming from around the corner was evidence enough to Technik that his contraption had worked. Technik walked toward the trap once the sizzling stopped and was presented with the bruised, battered, fried-up corpse of Teff. The District 3 boy turned off the trap, grabbed Teff, and dragged him into a dark area where nobody would be turned off from travelling toward him at the sight of Teff's dead body

 _Teff Rumor, District 9 Male: 14th, Killed by Technik, Day 3_

The careers stayed away from the horn for the day. On their return the day prior, they had gathered enough resources to sustain themselves for two or three whole days. Glowing hunted ahead of the others, while the others stayed a bit behind him. This was to be expected, as Glowing was the strongest. Eventually, the three tributes in back broke away. Polish and Aquila went off in their little group to hunt, and Arbiter was left trailing behind his stronger counterpart, firing his bow at sights of movement. Mercedes continued to investigate the cliff face. In fact, she spent most of the day running her fingers across the jagged, rocky edge. Perhaps this reminded her of home somehow. Or perhaps the rough sensation just calmed her for whatever reason. Although a slow method of hydration, she got her liquid by licking the condensation off of the side of the cliff. Ivy had fully recovered from his fall, and he was back at jumping through the canopies of the trees. Eventually, he dropped to the ground and set up camp in a ditch that seemed dark enough to conceal him from sight. Elastane continued on being cuckoo crazy. Dehydration wasn't helping, and the phrases she was cackling gleefully were becoming more and more cryptic. Terenzia was obsessed with finding water, and she searched for it for the entire day. Finally, she gave into temptation and gulped down the water from one of the dark pools. She instantly screamed as the poisonous water ate away at her throat and scalded the inside of her mouth. She hadn't drunk enough to die, but she was in intense pain nonetheless. She dragged herself into a copse of bushes and tried to quiet her labored breathing amidst her throes of pain. Bagel's body was beginning to grow weak from dehydration. Since learning the hard way that the rainwater was poisonous, her only option was to lick condensation off of whatever flat surfaces she could find. The energy it took to do this was greater than the energy replenished whenever she drank the water, and she would quickly die from dehydration.

The morning of Day 4 came in the form of a cannon shot. Poor Bagel had gone loopy, walking in circles. She was so off-kilter from dehydration that she couldn't get to an area of the arena that had a water supply, and her death was the first of three that the fourth day would hold. Now, only half of the tributes remained.

 _Bagel Vinson, District 9 Female: 13th, Killed by Dehydration, Day 4_

Little Mercedes had spent so long investigating the cliff that she had been forgotten by basically the entire crowd and by the master of ceremonies, Caligula Flickerman. The gamemakers needed to get rid of her to crescendo the games into a bang, but they didn't want to just kill her off. They wanted to make her death thrilling. She had been a Capitol favorite before the start of the games, and the gamemakers didn't want her to have an average death.

Mercedes was peering over the cliff side when a deep rumbling began sounding from the bottom of the cliff. The roaring continued. A shape began to come into view, zooming up the side of the cliff and toward the girl. Mercedes was both entranced and terrified, but she eventually got to her feet and scrambled away. She had made it about fifty feet from the cliff when a massive red beast shot up from behind the cliff and began racing toward Mercedes.

"Dragon!" Mercedes screamed with panic. The dragon's first breath of fire was mere yards from her face. Mercedes felt a burning sensation in the tender skin that had been worn away by the intense heat, but she kept running. The next plume of fire and smoke caught one of her locks of hair on fire. Mercedes fumbled for her knife, reached up, and chopped off the tress of hair that was on fire. Mercedes kept on running, but eventually she just got too tired to keep going. She had to slow down, and when she did the dragon caught up to her. It reached out one of its feet, sporting five sharp talons, and raked it across Mercedes' chest. She fell, sobbing, as the dragon let out a breath of fire. The inferno scorched Mercedes to a crisp, and as the dragon prowled away back to its home at the bottom of the cliff the pile of remains that once was the twelve year-old girl and her supplies began slowly cooling.

 _Mercedes Rodanthe, District 6 Female: 12th, Killed by Dragon Muttation, Day 4_

The formidable duo of Glowing and Arbiter was doing a great job in hunting for prey. They covered ground quickly and efficiently, but soon after noon they trespassed onto another tribute's land. Isaku had been practicing a difficult karate move when she heard the footsteps of the two boys. She ducked behind a thick-based tree and watched the careers. Suddenly, Isaku burst out from behind the tree and darted toward the shocked careers. Arbiter fired an arrow, but it only grazed Isaku's shoulder before burying itself into the tree. When Glowing darted toward her, Isaku kicked him in the head. He reeled, and Isaku spun around to face diving Arbiter. Isaku grabbed Arbiter by the neck and threw him to the ground. There, Isaku picked up Arbiter's bow and nocked an arrow, swiftly shooting it into his heart. His cannon shot was instantaneous, and the second it sounded Isaku turned tail to flee.

 _Arbiter Asesino, District 2 Male: 11th, Killed by Isaku, Day 4_

Isaku ran. Glowing was so disoriented from his punch to the face that he couldn't figure out which direction she was going. Glowing roared at the realization that he had lost his prey, and he stormed angrily in the direction of the cornucopia to restock on the supplies that the clever District 5 girl stole from him. Ivy started trying to start a fire, and he was in the process of creating the first spark when he realized the stupidity of lighting a fire in a place as dry as the arena. He quickly stopped and instead huddled in a tight ball to maintain warmth. Johnson was so terrified from the three cannon shots within the span of two hours that he beelined for his hiding place and stayed there, not moving an inch. Terenzia continued to suffer from the poisonous water that she had ingested, and she tried to not scream too loudly as she willed the poison to work its way out of her body.

While crazy Elastane was sleeping during the wee morning hours of Day 5, a branch fell from the tree that she was sleeping under and landed on her stomach. Elastane woke up immediately and vomited. In her sleep-addled state, she didn't really know what was going on, and when she took an inhale she sucked in a lot of bile. Elastane panicked, but as she continued to choke on her own bile there was progressively less and less that she could do. She ended up reaching into her mouth as if she could pull out the vomit that was lodged in her throat and choking her, but this failed, of course. Elastane moaned with fear as she stumbled around, trying to dislodge the vomit. She promptly choked to death. Wisp was relieved. That insane girl didn't have a chance of being Victor anymore.

 _Elastane Kazera, District 8 Female: 10th, Killed by Choking on her own Bile, Day 5_

The rest of Day 5 passed without any deaths. There was only one more death to go until the final eight, and Wisp was hoping to postpone the next death a little. Reaching the final eight before the sixth or seventh day was largely considered a figment of the swift and uneventful games, and Wisp did not want to be seen as either of those things so he made sure that peace reigned supreme for the entire day.

Days 5 and 6 passed, deathless. The careers returned to the cornucopia to restock on supplies. They left Swell behind to guard the horn and then walked in circles around the arena, creating a sort of spiral shape. It was Glowing that suggested this, and Polish and Aquila agreed that it was a good idea. Ivy tried to find food in the desolate wasteland but couldn't. He got back to his tree-leaping maneuver to remind the sponsors of his grace, and he quickly got a little package of mashed potatoes. The poison finally worked its way out of Terenzia's body, and she could get to creating a shelter. Johnson's burn had healed rather well, and a sponsor that liked his tenacity sent him a bit of burn cream and a bandage to help his singed finger. Isaku was rather paranoid after killing one of the careers, and she took a break from hunting to nurse the wounds that had been dealt to her during her fight. She had the wrath of the others, now, she knew that. The star moment of this span occurred on Day 5. Wisp finally got around to destroying Technik's wire trap. Wisp sent a huge swarm of strange, metal, locust-like insects after the boy. Technik ran, but the locusts weren't interest in him. They were interested in his contraption. The insects munched away at the trap, and no matter how much Technik tried to swat them away they kept on feasting. Soon, the entire trap was gone, and Technik was left with his bare hands and his knife to do his killing.

On Day 7, Wisp hoped to thin the crowd of four careers. When the careers all returned to the cornucopia to restock on supplies, they heard an eeking sound from the darkness beyond. They grabbed their weapons and waited in anticipation for whatever creature should come to them. Racing toward them out of the darkness was a massive, black scorpion. Its barbed stinger hung above it, and as it hissed with fury and bloodlust the careers charged forth. Glowing was at the head of the onrush. He made a slash for the scorpion's body, but his weapon just bounced off with a clang. "It has armor!" Glowing shouted to his allies. Swell raced forward with his trident and went for the scorpion's face. It roared as Swell buried his trident into its face. "Go for its face!" Swell instructed his allies. The scorpion struggled around from its wound, and in its pain it dove toward the career pack with unprecedented speed. Swell and Glowing, who were in front, dove out of the way. The two tributes that were in the back, Polish and Aquila, didn't see the scorpion coming until it was too late. The scorpion mutt shot out its stinger and buried the sharp point into the space between Aquila's eyes. Aquila's vision went blurry as she began waving back and forth. She was dead from the poison within ten seconds of the stinger puncturing her skin.

 _Aquila Curvanith, District 2 Female: 9th, Killed by Scorpion Muttation, Day 7_

That left the final eight: Glowing Clinton and Polish Schultz from District 1, Technik Hartline from District 3, Swell Mckenzie from District 4, Isaku Suzuki from District 5, Johnson Metallurgist from District 6, Terenzia Sample from District 10, and Ivy Baum from District 11.

At the sound of Aquila's cannon shot, the scorpion mutt whipped its head around and set its beady eyes upon Polish, who was shaking and paralyzed with fear in its wake. The monster shot out its stinger and set it into Polish's torso. The poison reached her heart within a few seconds, and she was dead within five as her bodily functions were shut down by the venom. After Polish's death, the scorpion scuttled away, content.

 _Polish Schultz, District 1 Female: 8th, Killed by Scorpion Muttation, Day 7_

One more death occurred that day. Isaku, having expanded her shelter, started hunting again. She had no weapon but her karate skills, but Isaku was confident she could take down the toughest of opponents with these skills. Ivy tried to purify some water, so he took a single water purification tablet, scooped up some of the black water into his cup, and dropped the tablet in. Ivy imagined that the tablet would somehow dissolve the evil in the water and make it safe, but that was not what happened. The water dissolved the small tablet instantly. Ivy, hoping that the pill had done its job, drank down the entire cup of water. The water began burning away at his stomach and scalding his throat, and as Ivy's world began to fade away he started uttering choked goodbyes to his loved ones. The poisoned water killed him in due time, leaving only six tributes remaining.

 _Ivy Baum, District 11 Male: 7th, Killed by Poisonous Water, Day 7_

After Ivy's cannon shot, the remaining tributes were spooked back into their hiding places. Johnson was so startled by the cannon shot that he nearly fainted, but he crawled back into his hiding place wedged between two trees and stayed there, motionless. The careers were rather shocked from the attack of the huge scorpion, but they still went hunting. Glowing and Swell, the two remaining careers, still went hunting, as they hadn't received any life-threatening or –altering injuries. Terenzia seemed to be doing well until she tumbled into a ditch and skidded down its steep slope. She came to a stop, battered, at the bottom of the hill, and she was in so much pain and shock that she couldn't move for a few seconds. She eventually got up and wiped the crumbly dirt off of her clothes in chunks. Johnson was so terrified by the cannon shots that he scuttled into a dark area under a tree branch and hugged himself tightly, refusing to move for any reason. Technik was quite frightened, but when a sponsor delivered him a yard-long metal rod, he stuck it into the ground like a pole. Technik ripped pieces of bark off of the trees and splayed them out around the metal pole to make a teepee-like shelter.

Days 8 and 9 passed by without any deaths. They were the most slow and lifeless days that the forty-second Hunger Games had seen yet. Glowing and Swell hunted for only short periods of time throughout the period of two days, paranoid that some mutt like the scorpion would attack them off-guard. Johnson stayed huddled up under his tree, only moving to take little sips of water from a little canteen that he had filled with a thin layer of condensation from off of the various rocks sporadically placed throughout the arena. Technik quickly realized that his shelter wouldn't work. The metal pole was sturdy and hardy enough, but the bark surrounding it blew away whenever a strong gust of wind came along. He eventually resorted to finding a ditch and laying the bark over top, trapping him inside. The wind blew over the rough bark, making it so that the bark wouldn't blow away. Technik held his metal rod firmly, reasoning that it could be used as a weapon if need-be. Isaku practiced her karate skills.

On Day 10, Terenzia had gotten out of her dark hiding place and was finally wandering around the arena, looking for some form of food. Terenzia was walking down a hill, hoping to find life at the bottom of it, when she heard a rumbling sound behind her. She whipped her head around and saw a boulder nearly ten feet in diameter racing down toward her. Terenzia was so stupefied and dumbfounded that she couldn't sidestep fast enough before the boulder knocked her over and rolled over her like a rolling pin. Terenzia was crushed to death by the boulder. Her remains were unsightly; Wisp cleaned them up quickly.

 _Terenzia Sample, District 10 Female: 6th, Killed by Rolling Boulder, Day 10_

Terenzia's boulder wasn't the only boulder of the day. Glowing and Swell had split up in their hunting. Glowing was trekking down a steep hill when he heard rustling behind him and saw a huge boulder racing down toward him. Nimble Glowing was able to dive to the left fast enough that the boulder only crushed his foot. Glowing swore in pain and grabbed his foot. It had been crushed flat by the weight of the boulder, and you had better believe that it hurt like hell. Over the next few hours, Glowing was unable to stop the wound from getting infected. The arena was filled with disease. The broken and mashed up skin was the perfect entry point for who-knows-what to enter his body. Within twelve hours, Glowing's ankle was severely infected. Glowing howled with pain nearly perpetually. Red and pink streaks spread out from his crushed foot, and the wound dripped pus whenever he moved too suddenly. Finally, after nearly twenty hours, the infection became too severe for his body to keep fighting. Gold Carson's son gave into the infection, and as his eyes rolled back into his head only four tributes remained.

 _Glowing Clinton, District 1 Male: 5th, Killed by Infection, Day 10_

Little else of note happened on Day 10, or on Days 11 and 12 for that matter. Technik received a hatchet from a sponsor, which he used to topple three trees around a small ditch. Inside of his fort with wooden walls, Technik felt safe and secure. Swell, the sole remaining career, gave up on hunting and instead decided to just stay at the horn. It would only be a matter of time before the other tributes were driven toward him, Swell reasoned, and he might as well be prepared when that happened. On Day 11, Isaku got a pocketknife from a sponsor. She went hunting on Day 12 but found nothing. She actually got lost and couldn't find her base camp, but this could have been a blessing in disguise because she had exhausted her living space of its natural resources anyways and needed a fresh start. Johnson was as paranoid as ever. He refused to leave his hiding spot, and when food was short he resorted to catching the rats and spiders that scuttled into his hiding place and eating them.

The constant sound of the rain was shattered when a cannon shot boomed on Day 13's morning. Johnson had been hiding underneath the strong tree forever, and his supplies of water from the horn and sparse sponsor gifts just couldn't keep up with his raging thirst. Johnson's death was the second of dehydration in these games. In the older generation of games, it was common for four or five dehydration deaths to occur in one games. In more recent games, however, it was notably rare to have one or two dehydration deaths. The games continued onward, and Johnson's emaciated corpse was left to rot away on the stony floor of the prison that he was finally free from.

 _Johnson Metallurgist, District 6 Male: 4th, Killed by Dehydration, Day 13_

That was really all for Day 13. The final three milled about without much to do. Swell was the exception, of course. With so few tributes left, he hunted feverishly, seemingly having changed his mind from his previous attitude of waiting for prey to come to him on a silver platter. Isaku practiced her karate, knowing that it would be more important than ever in the final fight. Technik paced around nervously. His hatchet was a weapon that he could use with substantial accuracy, but he didn't know if he could beat out Isaku or Swell in the final battle. Like the second half of Day 13, Day 14 was deathless. Isaku continued practicing her art. Swell continued hunting. Technik started practicing with his hatchet and began throwing together some skills and tactics for the final battle.

Day 15 saw a single death. The gamemakers had noticed for a few hours that Isaku and Swell were headed toward each other, but they weren't sure when they would meet, or if they would meet at all. Isaku began to stray from the course, but the two tributes rendezvoused in a clearing around eleven in the morning on Day 15. As the blob that each tribute saw formed into a person, the tributes both charged. Swell tackled Isaku, but she managed to jump out of the way and smack him in the neck. He stumbled, taken aback, as Isaku whirled in a circle. She kicked out a foot, and disoriented Swell tripped over it and landed face-first onto the ground like an idiot. Isaku reached down with her pocketknife and drew a heavy line down Swell's wrist. Swell stumbled to his feet just as Isaku slashed the knife across his other wrist. Blood poured from the gashes, and the speed and accuracy with which Swell swung his trident depleted in due time. Swell was growing weak from blood loss, and soon his body just wasn't replenishing the stuff fast enough. Swell's death didn't happen all at once. He collapsed. Everything but the absence of his cannon shot suggested that he was dead, but Isaku still saw him breathing painfully. He slowly looked more and more dead. It is often suggested that dead people look asleep. But, to Isaku, Swell just looked… dead. Like a candle with its flame blown out. Isaku marched off with the slightest spring in her step. She had only one opponent remaining, and she was confident that she could take down Technik.

 _Swell Mckenzie, District 4 Male: 3rd, Killed by Isaku, Day 15_

On Day 16, Wisp lit the world ablaze. The fire started on the perimeter of the arena, forcing the two remaining tributes toward the horn as it spread. Isaku heard the fire before she saw it. She felt pulsating warmth and a rushing sound behind her. Isaku whipped around and yelped when she saw the fire that was spreading through the forest, burning the black trees like paper. The rain didn't put the fire out, and no matter how hard Isaku tried she couldn't make herself move. She was frozen in place as if paralyzed. When a burning branch fell mere feet from her and a shower of hot sparks sprayed her leg, she was shocked back to her senses. Isaku picked up her pocketknife and she ran. Meanwhile, Technik was camping out in a tree when he saw that the tree was on fire beneath him. Technik dropped out of the tree and bent his knees in landing. He had lots of things on him and decided to only take his hatchet. He was about to leave when his eyes landed on the metal pole he had gotten a few days ago. For reasons nobody is really sure of, he took the pole with him to his last showdown with Isaku.

The two tributes met up at the cornucopia, and the instant that they did Isaku charged toward the District 3 boy. She reached out a hand to punch Technik, but he sidestepped and slammed his hatchet into her shoulder. He hadn't slammed down without enough force to deal her any severe injuries, but Isaku hissed and threw her hand onto her shoulder as if she could absorb the pain.

Technik saw a flash of lightning, and inspiration hit. He ran toward the nearest shogei and then ran on top of the metal cornucopia. Isaku followed him. Technik tied the end of the shogei's chain onto his metal bar. Then, he waited. This was a high-risk, high-reward situation, and Technik wasn't sure if it would even work out.

A flash of lightning lit up the sky, and the rest is history, one of the greatest ever kills in the great story of the Hunger Games. Technik hurled the shogei into the air. In the clearing, it acted as a lightning rod. Technik dove off of the horn just as Isaku threw herself on top of it. The bolt of electricity travelled through the knife, down the chain, into the metal bar, and throughout the metal cornucopia. Technik landed on the ground with a thud as the electric current shot through Isaku's body and scorched black every part of her that was touching the horn, which was live with energy. The jolt of electricity killed her instantaneously.

 _Isaku Suzuki, District 5 Female: 2nd, Killed by Technik, Day 16_

"Technik Hartline of District 3, you are the victor of the forty-second annual Hunger Games!" Wisp applauded.

Technik got to his feet and wiped the grime off of his clothes, waiting for the hovercraft to come down and whisk him away from the arena and back to the technological district that he loved.

 _Technik Hartline, District 3 Male: Victor of the Forty-Second Hunger Games, Day 16_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 3 was elated to receive their seventh victor. This placed them ahead of District 1 in terms of number of victors, and District 1 was infuriated, even throwing rotten fruit at Technik during his victory tour and tossing rude comments his way. District 5 was cold at the loss of Isaku, for it had been many years since a tribute as powerful had made it as far as she had in the games. District 6 also was mad at her, as their Johnson hadn't returned home. The Capitol adored Technik for his ingenuity and talent, and he quickly became a Capitol favorite.

Technik moved into the Victor's Village of District 3, the seventh victor to do so.

His victory tour was quite a mess, as Districts 1, 5, and 6 hated him. In each of those districts, he was degraded and showered with ill will for the entirety of his stay.

Technik would not turn to any sort of intoxicant to quiet the rampant memories of his time during the games, but he would turn to sex to quiet his demons. He would spend the rest of his life frequenting strip clubs and brothels to keep the memories of his games from flooding back to him. He would turn out as a rather poor example of a victor, and he was so involved with his sex life that he didn't pay much attention to anything else. He wouldn't marry but would adopt a son. However, the son was neglected and ignored by Technik because he was so engrossed in other things, so he would be forced to give him up. Technik would live to the age of seventy-four, dying from an STD around the time of the one-hundredth Hunger Games. Technik was one of the few victors to not be prostituted by Snow, as he wasn't attractive my most means and nobody liked him enough to pay the heavy victor's cost that Snow imposed.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Technik moves into the Victor's Village of District 3, the seventh victor to do so.

Dayta Albrand has her second child with her spouse, a boy named Router.

Diamond Griego, the victor of the twenty-fifth annual Hunger Games, the first Quarter Quell, dies from liver cancer. A public funeral is held in her memory.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's the newest chapter! I know that it's super late, and I'm sorry about that. I had about eight-thousand words of this chapter typed up, but those computer problems I mentioned two chapters ago came back and I tried to restore my computer, but in doing so this entire chapter was deleted! I was so frustrated and couldn't even bring myself to start rewriting it, so I let it sit for a day or so and when I went back to writing it I couldn't remember most of the things I had written so the chapter was almost completely different. Sorry for the tangent XD**

 **Anyway, excuse time is over. I hope you enjoyed Technik! I certainly did. I've gotten a couple of reviews saying that it's obvious who the victor is going to be based on who gets focused on most, so I tried to keep any one tribute from stealing the spotlight this year. Please tell me how I did, and review about anything else you liked or disliked. I love getting your reviews, and they really do motivate me to get out more updates. Thanks for reading!**


	44. The 43rd Hunger Games

**The 43rd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTIO**_ _ **N**_

All eyes turned toward the honeymoon of newlyweds Coriolanus and Magnolia Snow. The couple spent a month on an extravagant trip to the sandy beaches of District 4. At first they had their hearts set on District 11, but Snow's advisors pointed out to him that since District 11 was a rebellious district it probably wouldn't be safe for him to visit. Even though District 4 was one of the most loyal districts, Snow still had to have security on guard, protecting him and his wife twenty-four/seven. All of the guests at the celebrations needed to be checked by the Capitol to ensure that they weren't carrying anything meant to hurt Snow, and even the food was carefully inspected for anything intended to poison either of the two. Despite the intense security measures in place, there were three attempted assassinations during his honeymoon. Snow and Magnolia emerged unscathed from all three, and the administrators of all three were issued public hangings for their crimes.

It was an obvious choice for who would be head gamemaker this year. Mr. Wisp Glasgow had fascinated the nation with the games of the year prior, and Technik's final kill was considered one of the greatest of its time. Back at the task of singlehandedly crafting an arena, Wisp was prompted by District 6. Wisp's newest arena was a whole new take on District 6 that nobody would have thought of. The clever man focused on the stars. Throughout history, travelers have always used the stars and sought their definite positions in relation to the planet for guidance. As such, the arena represented the night sky. The entire arena was a palace marvelously crafted out of obsidian. The throne room served as the clearing in which the cornucopia would sit. Everything from the ground to the countertops to the towering walls to the arching ceiling were carved out of stone as black as the night. The tributes all represented the stars. They were all sharply dressed. The girls wore dresses jeweled with yellow gems that seemed to glow in the dark so that they were nearly impossible to look at. The folds of their garments twisted up into bodices that dulled out into a goldenrod yellow. The boys wore golden-colored suits with brilliant yellow bow ties. These were the stars in the cavernous black palace that was the night sky. The entire place was ill-lit. The only sources of light from the palace itself were the candles that were mounted into the walls sporadically throughout the hallways and in the rooms. The palace had hundreds of rooms, each of which served a purpose. Apart from the throne room, there were game rooms, nearly a dozen bedrooms, three ballrooms, ten music practice rooms, a huge and magnificent study, a kitchen whose cupboards were loaded with delicious food, several icehouses, three different churches, a bowling alley, an indoor swimming pool, and way more than could fit in this book that you hold in your hands. The entire place was magnificent, surpassing the excellence of even those in which real mediaeval royalty dwelled.

The career districts were once again up to the challenge of each offering up a strong boy and girl to compete. District 1's tributes were as gorgeous as always. The boy was a hit with the audience, as he was handsome and had a way with words that made the sponsors swoon. He was actually a published poet, and his writing was an immediate success. The girl was the weakest of the bunch this year. She scored a meager eight in her private session. Her interview was a failure, as she spent the entire three minutes telling the audience corny jokes. She was largely seen as a hopeless girl desperately attempting to live up to her stronger allies, and she quickly faded into the background. District 2, as was becoming the norm, produced the strongest pair. The male was as nimble as a gazelle, and in his spare time he was a recreational ballet dancer who scored high in many competitions. His impressive ten spoke for his bloodthirsty side, though, and the huge scar that traversed his face from an injury he had sustained a few months prior to the reaping professed to all that he was not to be messed with. The girl was a brute-force attacker, preferring weapons like the mace and baton to do her dirty work. She was tall and slender, a willowy form. District 4 produced the strongest tribute in these games. The male was a giant, muscular, strong, and taller than any tribute that the fishing district had seen in a long time. He even surpassed the physical might of Avil Lomontange, who was formerly considered one of the strongest tribute outside of Districts 1 and 2. This fellow, Dylan, wowed the audience with his sheer strength and prowess, and he quickly became a Capitol favorite. The girl only had four fingers on her left hand. She had accidentally cut one of them off while she was practicing as a fifteen year-old, and two years later she was able to use her hand with almost perfect dexterity as if she still had that missing finger. The careers scored averagely this year, with three tens, two nines, and one eight.

Outside of the careers, the training scores were average. However, there were two standouts. They were the tributes from District 6. The Chevy boy was impressively muscular from working as a car manufacturer for most of his life; his tenacity, power, and radiance of control earned him many a sponsor. His district partner, a girl named Acadia, had eyes as cold as stone. She didn't seem to give the slightest crap about the pre-games festivities, and she promptly allied with Chevy. In an arena modeled after their home district, these two tributes were expected to go far. The highest score other than the careers and the "sixers" as they were called was Aprilus Kramer, District 11's burly male. He managed to walk home with an impressive eight, tying with one of the careers in terms of training score. The three sevens were earned by Elwood from 7 and Bear and Leona from 10. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Gleamton Tarantola, 16, (9) 6-1 and Sequin Storlazzi, 16, (8) 8-1

District 2: Illius Paget, 18, (10) 4-1 and Peridot Wielder, 17, (10) 4-1

District 3: Python Spalding, 13, (4) 36-1 and Rama Mathews, 18, (6) 18-1

District 4: Dylan Levitt, 18, (10) 3-1 and Aft Bigelow, 17, (9) 5-1

District 5: Nebula Kligiene, 13, (4) 40-1 and Dorothea Vonsolis, 15, (4) 33-1

District 6: Chevy Cohen, 16, (10) 5-1 and Acadia Rosemary, 16, (10) 5-1

District 7: Elwood Yandell, 17, (7) 15-1 and Hazel Trench, 18, (6) 18-1

District 8: Jute Scrivens, 14, (5) 25-1 and Sisal Matu, 17, (6) 23-1

District 9: Mostaccioli Lowsteam, 15, (3) 50-1 and Atasia Vigil, 18, (6) 17-1

District 10: Bear Cantu, 17, (7) 15-1 and Leona Massey, 17, (7) 15-1

District 11: Aprilus Kramer, 16, (8) 9-1 and Cornflower Meadows, 15 (5) 24-1

District 12: Pickan Maple, 15, (5) 23-1 and Dahlia Mosier, 13, (4) 54-1

HGBO Bets: 9% on Dylan, 8% on Illius and Peridot, 7% on Gleamton, Aft, Chevy, and Acadia, 5% on Sequin and Aprilus, 4% on Elwood, Bear, and Leona, 3% on Rama, Hazel, Jute, Sisal, Atasia, and Cornflower, 2% on Pickan, 1% or less on Python, Nebula, Dorothea, Mostaccioli, and Dahlia.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Everything from the arena to the tribute outfits screamed that this wouldn't be your usual Hunger Games. Indoor arenas were seldom used, and when they were it was largely considered a figment of lack of creativity on the gamemakers' part. Wisp was anxious to see how his reputation would be bolstered or tarnished by his newest arena, and to his pleasure the arena was actually a big hit. For years many had speculated that District 6's arena would be the toughest to create, and the way that Wisp focused on the star aspect of travel intrigued many. Time would tell how the games would play out in such a peculiar arena.

When the gong rang, a single tribute turned around and fled: Dorothea from 5. The other twenty-three tributes decided to battle it out at the obsidian horn, which stood in the dead center of the throne room. This year's bloodbath hosted thirteen deaths.

Dylan thundered forward at the head of the onrush, leaving all of the other tributes in the dust. The strong and speedy boy's coffee colored skin blended into the darkness of the arena, and he used the element of surprise to turn the tide of battle in his favor. Dylan scooped up a katana that sat on the ground twenty yards from his pedestal and stayed completely still as a girl whose golden dress and platinum blonde hair stood out in the dimly lit room raced toward him. She ran straight into Dylan's katana. The girl blubbered and flailed around her limbs for a moment before sliding off of the District 4 boy's long and slender sword. Her marvelous golden dress was stained crimson by her thick blood.

 _Dahlia Mosier, District 12 Female: 24th, Killed by Dylan, Bloodbath_

Dylan's district partner, nimble Aft, got to work tearing off the dress that restricted her movement a bit too much the second that the gong's note filled the air. Aft had just finished tearing off the last bit of fabric when a young boy from District 9 raced past her faster than she could have expected possible from an outlier. Aft picked up the bundle of cloth that she had built up on the ground around her and tossed it toward the boy. He screamed in shock and tried to swat away the golden cloth, but this just made him more and more entangled in it. He was defenseless as Aft picked up a spear that sat nearby, approached him, and speared it through his head. His cries abruptly ceased, and it was few seconds before him and the pile of woven gold that cocooned him fell to the ground with a bloodcurdling thud.

 _Mostaccioli Lowsteam, District 9 Male: 23rd, Killed by Aft, Bloodbath_

Burly Aprilus from 11 ran over to the boy whose pedestal was stationed to the right of his and threw him to the ground like nothing. Aprilus smashed the boy against his pedestal. He let out a mewl of distress before going unconscious, and as Aprilus continued to bang his head against the block of shimmering metal strings of blood began flying from him. Aprilus gagged but continued the deed. The boy was dead from head trauma within a few minutes.

 _Python Spalding, District 3 Male: 22nd, Killed by Aprilus, Bloodbath_

Illius picked up a sword that sat in a cluster of other weapons about halfway between his pedestal and the horn. Little Nebula from 5, who was young and foolish and thought he could take down the trained career, picked up a sword of his own and charged toward Illius, shouting out battle cries as if a warrior marching into a fight. Of course, Illius disarmed him within seconds. Illius slammed his sword into Nebula's. The blade flew out of his hands and clattered to the floor a few yards back. Nebula hadn't even processed the circumstances before Illius thrust forward his sword and it wormed its way through his torso, piercing his heart. He fell to the ground, and Illius smirked at the boy's stupidity as he wrenched his sword out of his limp form.

 _Nebula Kligiene, District 5 Male: 21st, Killed by Illius, Bloodbath_

Seconds before, Gleamton from District 1 had picked up a bow and arrows and began firing. Gleamton unleashed a volley of four arrows after a girl that had grabbed a backpack and was now high tailing it away from the horn and the chaos that was ensuing. The girl screamed as one of the arrows sawed into the base of her neck. She tried to keep running, but when another arrow lodged itself into her calf it was all over. Gleamton approached, grabbed the injured girl by the neck, and twisted it savagely to the left. The crack and crunch of bone under Gleamton's hands stood as a testamony to the girl's death.

 _Atasia Vigil, District 9 Female: 20th, Killed by Gleamton, Bloodbath_

Dylan, having pulled his katana out of Dahlia's bloodstained form, fluidly attacked his next victim: a boy that was on the ground and riffling through a crate containing several baked goods. Dylan pounced toward the boy and threw a fist at the side of his head. The boy scuttled to his feet and tried to scamper away, but strong Dylan was pinning him to the ground. Dylan deftly skewered the katana through his neck, and a few seconds of choked gasping later he fell dead onto the crate.

 _Pickan Maple, District 12 Male: 19th, Killed by Dylan, Bloodbath_

Gleamton retrieved his arrows from the body of his prey before returning to the horn. There, he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. Gleamton whipped his head around and saw a girl who had obtained a knife and had sliced open the District 1 boy's shoulder. Gleamton saw blood dribble forth from the wound that he had been dealt. Furious, Gleamton rushed toward the stupefied girl and kicked her to the ground. Her eyes widened and she tried to stumble to her feet but couldn't before Gleamton smashed his foot into her head. She tried to beg for mercy from the career, but Gleamton had already opened fire. His arrow elegantly sailed into the girl's upper abdomen.

 _Cornflower Meadows, District 11 Female: 18th, Killed by Gleamton, Bloodbath_

Seconds before, the strong duo of Chevy and Acadia from 6 had cornered the lithe girl from District 7 against the cornucopia. The girl screamed when Chevy produced his dagger. Acadia picked up a knife of her own that sat nearby, and it was all over. The girl reached into the bodice of her dress and pulled out a black lace fan. She wasn't interested in fanning herself, but was instead using it as a last resort against her attackers. She held out the fan as if it could somehow shield her from the duo, but Acadia threw her knife and it cut through the lace like nothing. The girl dropped the fan and ran, but in the sharp turn that it took to change direction after noticing that she was being followed by one of the careers she tripped and fell. The girl hissed as the duet caught up to her. Chevy flung his dagger into the girl's back, and Acadia followed suit. Chevy and Acadia fled the scene. The career that the girl was being chased by, Sequin from 1, finished her off by shoving her spear into her chest.

 _Hazel Trench, District 7 Female: 17th, Killed by Chevy, Acadia, and Sequin, Bloodbath_

Having wrenched her spear out of Hazel's slack body, Sequin turned sharply on her heel and planted it into the torso of a girl that was trying to off her with a spear of her own. The girl hadn't expected Sequin to notice her and was too shocked to react before she did the deed. The girl gasped and gurgled in a rather grotesque manner as she swiftly died, ninth on the list of the newly dead.

 _Leona Massey, District 10 Female: 16th, Killed by Sequin, Bloodbath_

Dylan noticed that the chaos around the horn was beginning to die down. The career had resorted to combing through the hallways and rooms near the throne room for any tributes off-guard after running away from the bloodbath. This strategy proved worthwhile. Dylan threw open the heavy wooden door of a pantry and found a boy hiding inside, gritting his teeth from the pain of having to force himself into such a small space. That was the least of his problems as Dylan speared his katana through his shoulder. A little laugh of pleasure tumbled from Dylan's lips as he toyed with the boy's thrashing and struggling form for a few moments before abandoning him. The boy quickly died from blood loss, and Dylan was back at the horn and ready to get back in on the real action.

 _Jute Scrivens, District 8 Male: 15th, Killed by Dylan, Bloodbath_

Dylan stormed into the throne room and found himself gazing upon a rather peculiar scene. All of the outliers had scrambled away except for the two District 6 tributes, allies Chevy and Acadia from District 6. Dylan's allies were all scrambling to kill the two nimble sixers. Sequin was thundering around throwing punches in arbitrary directions. Gleamton was madly chasing Acadia around the throne room, firing arrows like mad. Illius and Peridot had cornered Chevy against one of the thrones and were now throwing random weapons at him. Chevy and Acadia were doing a respectable job of fending off the careers, but they were quickly being overrun. In an act that took the nation by surprise, Dylan grabbed a crossbow that stood nearby and aimed it at the magnificent chandelier that hung from the ceiling. Dylan shouted for his allies to move out of the way and then he fired. The projectile shot through the air and shattered the chain from which the huge glass creation hung. The mass of sparkling gems began falling toward the ground and toward the two District 6 tributes. They were immediately crushed by the hundreds of pounds of chandelier. Dylan had eliminated the two strongest outlier threats.

 _Acadia Rosemary, District 6 Female: 14th, Killed by Dylan, Bloodbath_

 _Chevy Cohen, District 6 Male: 13th, Killed by Dylan, Bloodbath_

As the outliers scattered, the careers stayed at the horn to nurse the wounds that they had been dealt during the bloodbath. Sequin was the most beaten up of the bunch. She was the slowest career and had been the closest to the site of the falling chandelier. One shard of metal had buried itself into the back of her leg. It was a sizable piece, enough to cause infection or further injury if not removed properly. Aft, the self-proclaimed medical whiz of the group (her father was a doctor, she added), got to work removing the piece of rough metal from Sequin's leg. Blood poured from the gash after it was fully removed, but with a single bandage she was well enough to go hunting. Illius had also been injured during the feast of death. He had gotten into a fight with Rama from 3. Rama had managed to inflict a sizable gash upon Illius' arm before fleeing, and he spent a few minutes applying cream to the sliced-open skin to help it close up and to prevent infection. The others were relatively unscathed, and they went hunting. The most exciting part of their odyssey through the sprawling palace occurred around noon. They were all in one of the kitchens. The gamemakers rigged one of the cupboards to fall open. Unlucky Peridot was standing underneath it, and the entire rack of kitchen knives that was inside fell onto her head. Luckily for her, they all missed, and the empty rack knocked into her head, leaving her without so much as a scratch in testimony to the scenario that could have turned out much worse. Aprilus had grabbed the supplies he wanted from the bloodbath but was so transfixed by the scene that he had stayed just outside the throne room and peeked around the corner for the remaining minutes of the bloodbath. Aprilus fled the scene the second that the bloodbath cannons began firing off in rapid succession. He had seen Chevy and Acadia die, and he knew that he was now the strongest remaining outlier. Aprilus strolled through the palace and found himself in a billiard room. He ducked into a closet and turned his shirt inside-out. The inside of the sparkling yellow shirt was duller than the outside, and he hoped that this would make him less visible to anyone who might be interested in killing him. Later, Aprilus crawled under the pool table and amused himself by rolling around the pool balls on the floor. Bear had snatched an entire package of knives from the horn and ran away without looking back. After racing up a few stairwells Bear found himself in a guest bedroom. The tidily pulled-back silky sheets seemed to beckon Bear forth. How he longed to sleep in a comfy, cozy, warm bead! He resisted the urge, instead crawling underneath the bed and sleeping with his backpack as a pillow. Heaven hope that the backpack didn't break, or else his head would be impaled by its sharp contents. Fortunately, the strong fabric held. Little Dorothea from 5 had run away from the bloodbath the second the gong rang and ended up in a kitchenette. Dorothea threw open the pantry and stuffed herself on crackers and cookies. She found a bowl of hot tomato soup fresh off of the stove, and she was so entranced by the delectable aroma that she didn't bother to check whether it was poisonous or not. Dorothea slurped down the soup, and within minutes she began gagging and moaning out from the pain of the poison. There wasn't enough poison in the soup to kill her, but there was enough to take her on a journey through a world of hurt. Rama, always the good District 3'er, had grabbed a bag of wire on a whim during the bloodbath. Rama assembled a sort of electric mouse trap and placed it in a dark and dusty corner filled with crumbs, hoping for some critter to come along and get stuck inside. This didn't happen. Rama fed on a little pack of nuts that she had snatched from the horn of plenty for supper.

Sisal had been wandering through the palace when she found a door carved beautifully from dark wood. It was a shock for the senses to feel something other than obsidian in the black palace. Sisal held out a tentative yet curious hand. She turned the ornate wooden knob. A burst of light engulfed her. A staircase spiraled down into the earth. Roaring torches were placed every few feet or so down the staircase. Not bothering to close the door behind her, Sisal walked down the staircase, her hand balled into a fist, at the ready in the instance of an attack. The staircase deposited her in a huge stone room. Nearly fifty yards across, stone cells lined the place with iron bars. Skeletons lied around the place, and Sisal almost lost her lunch when she stepped on one and heard the crunch of bone underfoot. Sisal explored the dungeon. She froze in her tracks when she heard a shuffling sound nearby. The sound of smelling. Sisal held her breath in anticipation. The whatever-it-was stood still. All was silent. Suddenly, bursting around the corner came a massive rat the size of a car. Its matte black fur was hard to make out, but there was a fury in its eyes, bloodlust in the way it hissed, that told Sisal that it was a muttation. Sisal screamed with terror and raced away from the creature. She tried to find the staircase, but she had gotten lost in the dungeon. Sisal accepted that she had only one choice. She found a cell whose door was ajar and ran inside, slamming the metal door behind her. She hoped that the steel bars could keep out the oversized rat. She was wrong. The monster hissed as it broke through the iron bars like nothing and stormed toward Sisal, who cowered in the dark corner of the cell. The mutt made quick work of her, and the infrared cameras conveniently stopped working once it began feasting on her remains.

 _Sisal Matu, District 8 Female: 12th, Killed by Rat Muttation, Day 1_

The last notable event of Day 1 happened when Elwood was wandering through the black palace with a pocketknife in hand. He found himself at the yawning mouth of a doorway, the door of which was wide open. He ventured inside. Dimly lit by candlelight, the room was a bowling alley. Out of curiosity and perhaps the mood for a bit of fun, Elwood picked up a ball off of the nearest rack and rolled it down the lane. It barreled toward the ten waiting pins and knocked eight of them over at first. A ninth pin was left wobbling back and forth before eventually falling down.

Day 2 trickled past without any deaths. Dorothea had finally recovered from eating the poisonous soup and began building a shelter of sorts. In the kitchenette, she found a cupboard large enough to fit her and cleared it all out before crawling inside. It was a tight fit, and she shared the dark home with a few spiders, but it was better than being out in the open. After the soup incident she was always careful what she ate from the cupboards and pantries. Aprilus anxiously paced around the billiard room. It had been a long night; the carpet under the pool table was scratchy and uncomfortable but he had been too scared to move after settling in. Aprilus searched the room and ended up finding a door. The door didn't stand out from the wall at all. It was flush. Aprilus turned the knob and found himself looking into a room about the size of a closet. There was a ladder in the back. Leaving his supplies behind and taking only his knife with him. Aprilus climbed the ladder. At the top was a dusty old attic with a single rocking chair and an ornate obsidian table. The boy climbed back down the ladder, grabbed his supplies, and carried them all up to the attic, where he rocked around in the chair to keep himself from getting bored. Bear was soon to realize that he was far too big to keep sleeping underneath the bed, and he finally gave into temptation and threw himself onto the bed's silky covers. The feeling was almost heavenly after the rough night of sleeping on the coarse carpet. Elwood kept bowling, but it became rather tedious because he had to walk down the aisle and set the pins back up after each round. After spending an entire day in the arena, Rama became so overwhelmed with the circumstances that she retched into one of the sinks. After that, she found a dining room where she crawled under the table and whispered stories to herself. The careers didn't need to return to the horn. The six careers minus Peridot spiraled through the palace's mysterious corridors and looked for prey.

The early morning of Day 3, Rama grew fed up of sitting on her bum underneath the dining room table, so she got up and started venturing about. She ended up travelling down and down and down. As she went downward, it progressively grew darker, and the fact that her golden dress practically glowed in the dark wasn't really a problem anymore. Rama travelled down a staircase and opened up an oval-shaped door. She gazed upon a garden area. It was indoors, but it was still as garden-ly as any garden. Grass as black as the night sprung from the rough dirt ground. Flowers filled the area. In the very center of the room stood a pond. Its water was crystal clear, and Rama greedily slurped it down. Two swans, as white as snow, swam elegantly through the water. It was relieving and uplifting to see something other than black in the seemingly endless palace. The water was just so enticing, and she needed to bathe anyways. Rama took off her clothes except for her underclothes for the sake of decency and sank into the pond. There were a few seconds of calm as the cool water absorbed her. Suddenly, one of the swans zoomed toward her and closed its beak around her neck. Rama screamed and thrashed her way to the surface, where the other swan skewered its beak through her abdomen, splattering blood across its pristine white feathers. The two swans dragged her to the center of the pond, where they swam around her and waited for her to weaken before mauling her to a pulp.

 _Rama Mathews, District 3 Female: 11th, Killed by Swan Muttations, Day 3_

Dorothea was doing well in her closet home, and she was barely fazed by Rama's cannon shot. She knew that nothing could hurt her in her little den, right? The careers had grown tired and just couldn't be bothered to do much, but Rama's cannon rekindled their flame and they got moving toward the horn. They arrived within a few hours, where they restocked on supplies and took a few hours to rest. One of the careers (Aft) began dragging away the huge wreck of the chandelier. After moving the mess of shattered whatever into a corner, she saw the torn, beaten, battered bodies of the two District 6 tributes, their blood mixing together on the floor of the arena that had been fashioned in their favor. Bear slept in for a super long time, unable to get out of the bed that was just so comfortable.

Day 4 came about with little of conflict. The careers, minus Aft who was guarding the horn, went hunting. Gleamton and Sequin, district partners, both travelled to the highest floors of the palace, whereas Illius, Peridot, and Dylan scavenged the lower levels for prey. Dorothea needed to stretch after scrunching up in her little cabinet for several days. It felt almost heavenly to finally be free from the confined space, so much so that Dorothea spent several hours relaxing against the kitchen counter. Aprilus was content in his little attic and remained in it for the entire day. Bear finally coaxed himself out of the bed and set up camp in the bathroom. He crouched down into the bathtub and laid bathroom towels over it to conceal him from sight. The door didn't lock, so he dragged the trash can against it. This wouldn't do much to prevent people from entering, but the sound of the can falling over would give Bear a second or so to get situated to fend off his attacker. Elwood grew bored of the bowling alley and so left the room. He ended up finding the indoor swimming pool. Elwood was about to sink into it when he noticed the pile of pulp that had once been Rama in the middle of the pond, being munched on by the swans. Elwood yelped with fear and swiftly egressed. A few hours later, Elwood heard shuffling feet from nearby and ducked into a little niche. Elwood clapped his hand over his mouth to keep from screaming as Illius, Peridot, and Dylan walked past him. A single sneeze, Elwood thought with terror, a single movement, and he would be dead. He dared not even breathe as the careers strolled right past him.

Elwood sighed with relief. Suddenly, a black worm of dread began crawling in his stomach. Elwood felt a tingling sensation in his nose. To stop the sneeze, Elwood pressed his hands over his mouth. The sneeze was muffled, but Peridot whipped her head around at the sound. Elwood panicked. Had she heard him sneeze? Peridot turned around a few seconds later and continued walking onward with her allies. Elwood was safe. Paranoid that he would be found again, Elwood raced into the nearest room—a music practice room—and threw himself underneath the piano.

That would not be Elwood's last encounter with the careers. On the morning of Day 5, when Elwood figured that the careers would be at the horn, he slinked out from under the piano and slid down the hallway. The nearby ranks of Illius, Peridot, and Dylan had been scouting the area for a while, and Illius saw Elwood. Illius got his allies' attention and pointed out Elwood's form far down the hallway. Dylan unsheathed his katana as quietly as possible and silently crept forward. Peridot and Illius both drew their swords. Dylan was a few strides ahead of them, and he urged them to stay behind. Dylan broke into a sprint and discreetly instructed the District 2 tributes to stay in the darkness. They wanted to ambush Elwood. Dylan stopped and allowed the District 2 tributes to catch up to him. Then, all three together, with their prey mere feet away, they pounced. Illius tacked the boy and knocked away his pocketknife, sending it spiraling out of his hand and crashing into the obsidian wall with a shower of sparks. Elwood rolled out of the way and threw a punch at his attacker. Illius reeled from the blow, and when he fell to the ground, Elwood kicked him in the head. Elwood ran to retrieve his little knife, but he didn't bother to finish off Illius. He had bigger fish to fry. Dylan pounced onto him, brandishing his katana. Dylan scraped his katana across Elwood's shoulder, drawing a few drops of blood. During this, sneaky Peridot had walked around Elwood and was now directly behind him. Peridot ran toward Elwood's back and drove her knife into his back for all of her worth. Elwood roared and whirled around. The last thing Elwood did before dying from the stab wound was swing his knife into Peridot's head. His aim was true, and her head was nearly cleaved completely in half. Elwood and Peridot fell dead beside each other, leaving Dylan and Illius the only survivors of the fight.

 _Peridot Wielder, District 2 Female: 10th, Killed by Elwood, Day 5_

 _Elwood Yandell, District 7 Male: 9th, Killed by Peridot, Day 5_

That left the final eight: Gleamton Tarantola and Sequin Storlazzi from District 1, Illius Paget from District 2, Dylan Levitt and Aft Bigelow from District 4, Dorothea Vonsolis from District 5, Bear Cantu from District 10, and Aprilus Kramer from District 11.

No more deaths occurred that day. The careers figured that a boy as strong as Elwood would have allies, so they spent an hour or so searching the areas around him for any more tributes. There were none, and they ended up returning to the horn. They figured that the outliers would all be hiding with fear after the cannon shots and would be harder to come across, and they needed to restock on supplies anyways. Dorothea didn't like it, but she crawled into her small little cupboard for another day. She was willing to sacrifice her physical comfort for physical safety. She was in the tight area when, exactly at noon, she heard a beeping sound from immediately outside. Dorothea pushed open the cupboard door and spotted a piece of burlap secured in place around something with a rubber band. Dorothea picked up the package, discarded the rubber band, and began unwrapping the burlap. Inside was a one-liter jug of water and a pocketknife. It wasn't much, but Dorothea was thankful for whatever sponsor had delivered it to her. She actually spent most of the day making scratches on the kitchen appliances and furniture as if telling the other tributes that she wasn't one to be messed with. Bear stayed content in his bathtub-towel fort, but the gamemakers were beginning to grow bored of him. The boy that had once been among the strongest outliers was now turning out to be sort of a flop, and the possibility of gamemaker threats in the immediate future wasn't out of the question. Up in his attic, Aprilus was serenely rocking back and forth in his rocking chair when a shower of old black plaster and dust fell from the ceiling. Aprilus dismissed this as a fluke, but even when he stopped rocking the debris kept falling from the ceiling onto the ground. Aprilus panicked as he inhaled a bit of the dust. It stung at his throat, made his nose run, and made his eyes water. He clapped his shirt over his mouth to filter out some of the dust as he made a break for the ladder. He managed to climb down, but he wasn't very comfortable with his new look of being completely covered with plaster and ugly grey, clumpy dust.

Day 6 saw three deaths. In the career pack, there was growing to be a bit of unrest. Dylan, Aft, and Illius were beginning to become hostile toward their allies from 1, Gleamton and Sequin. It started when the group was out hunting and the District 1 duo thought they saw another tribute. It was really just their imaginations, but the others scolded them for letting the "tribute" escape from under their noses. Soon, it blossomed into a case of full-fledged persecution. Most of the insults for Gleamton called him a clumsy fool, not necessarily in words that tame. The insults that Sequin received… well… let's just say that some of the more feminist members of the audience were very offended. When the careers returned to the cornucopia to stock up on supplies, the gamemakers saw a perfect opportunity. Wisp couldn't just let these things happen during his games, so he punished the careers. The careers left to go hunting, and immediately after the cornucopia was blown to smithereens. Bits of the black stone flew everywhere, one of them even impaling Illius in the leg. The entire castle seemed to shake from the force of the explosion, and the debris took several seconds to settle around the throne room.

All turned to Sequin, who was the most geeky member of the quartet and knew the most about electronics and the like. Naturally, the others suspected her of being the one who rigged the explosion, and Sequin couldn't even lift a finger in protest before Illius stepped forward and raked his knife across her leg. Sequin turned around and tried to flee, but Illius had already grabbed onto her dress. When Sequin tried to tear it off, Illius made another move. He showed his knife sharply to the left and opened a huge gash in the back of her neck. Sequin blubbered and fell to the ground like a dying fish.

 _Sequin Storlazzi, District 1 Female: 8th, Killed by Illius, Day 6_

Gleamton, disgusted and mortified at the murder of his district partner, dove toward Illius and tackled him to the ground. Aft and Dylan were broken out of their trances of shock and got toward prying the furious District 1 boy off of the boy that had killed his district partner. His hands were like vices, and no matter how hard they tried they just couldn't pry off his fingers. Eventually, they had no choice but to subdue the rabid boy. Aft did the deed, flinging a sharp arrow into his neck. Gleamton fell off of Illius, marking the second career death within a span of two minutes.

 _Gleamton Tarantola, District 1 Male: 7th, Killed by Aft, Day 6_

The two District 4 tributes swiftly turned on their only remaining ally: Illius. Illius was exhausted from the wrestling match with Gleamton and uttered only a short mewl of protest as Dylan speared his katana deftly through his torso. Dylan and Aft were the only two remaining careers, and the three dead bodies that lay around them stood as a testimony to their viciousness. There were high chances of a career victor this year, so it seemed.

 _Illius Paget, District 2 Male: 6th, Killed by Dylan, Day 6_

Careers betraying each other wasn't a new thing by any stretch of the imagination. But the sheer hostility of Illius, Dylan, and Aft shocked the nation.

Nothing of significance happened for the rest of Day 6. Dorothea was so thirsty that by the time the anthem began sounding she had drank more than half of her water bottle. The dust and plaster had really begun to take its toll on Aprilus. He had inhaled so much of it that most of his Day 6 was wrapped up in a terrible coughing fit. His body fought hard to expel the material from his lungs, and even once he was fine a tickling sensation still remained in his entire face from his hundreds of sneezes and coughs. The gamemakers gave Bear a bit more time chillaxing in his towel fort in the bathroom. He ditched his golden yellow suit entirely in favor of a midnight-blue robe that he found in one of the drawers. It wasn't black as he had hoped, but it would be harder to see than the vibrant yellow of his previous outfit.

Day 7 came about with only one death. Aft and Dylan weren't up to going hunting after the fight with their ex-allies and so they stayed behind at the horn to sweep away the debris of the chandelier that had fallen five long days earlier. Aprilus finally recovered fully from his coughing fit and was able to function normally. Aprilus wandered through the cavernous palace and ended up in a library. The books were all jet black leather, and the strange whispers that floated from them gave him the heebie-jeebies. He was too scared to sleep among the books and slept under one of the reading benches far away from the looming shelves. Dorothea found a storage room and saw the perfect opportunity for a hiding place. She threw open a large chest and found it stocked with paper. Dorothea emptied the chest of its papery contents and then crawled inside. She was careful to leave the lock open as she went inside lest she be locked in.

The gamemakers were done with playing Bear's little game. Although not all of the others were playing an offensive game, Bear fell short of them. He was doing absolutely nothing, tucked away in his bathtub underneath the layers of towels. Bear was relaxing in the bathroom when he heard a commotion from outside. Intrigued by the thumping and knocking, Bear opened the door and slunk back into the room with a yelp when he saw what was outside. Three jaguars, their fur a brilliant yellow, were prowling through the corridor, intensely sniffing the air. When the door shut, all of the jaguars whipped their heads toward it and charged. Bear beelined for his bathtub hiding place, but the jaguars busted down the door. These weren't just any jaguars. Their fur was inlaid with jewels every color of the rainbow and more, and the way they purred sent off an aura of terror that turned Bear's trembling into violent spasming. Bear pulled out his knife that he had had since Day 1 and had refused to use. When the largest of the jaguars began walking toward him, Bear began climbing up onto the linoleum countertop. He stayed still for a few seconds and then dove through the empty doorway. Bear made a run for it, but the jaguar alerted its two allies of the fleeing boy. For a while, Bear just ran, but once he reached a dead end he was forced to fight. Bear stood his steady ground and showed his knife sharply to the right, drawing evil black muttation blood from the head of the nearest jaguar. It hissed with fury and ordered its allies to charge on. They did, and when one of them raced toward him he sidestepped and quickly planted the knife into the back of its head. By this point, the first jaguar had recovered from its wounds and was charging, as was the third muttation which had yet to attack Bear. Bear was overwhelmed by the two jaguars approaching him, and his knife wasn't enough to fend off both attackers. The third jaguar extended a paw and raked its claws across Bear's torso, inspiring a scream of fright. The other jaguar, seeing easy prey in the boy, opened its mouth and tore off Bear's entire left arm. The last thing he saw before his life slipped away was the eager faces of the jaguars as they were about to dig into their newest meal.

 _Bear Cantu, District 10 Male: 5th: Killed by Jaguar Muttations, Day 7_

Day 8 was uneventful. The jaguars' roars had been loud enough to hear throughout the better part of the palace, and they spooked the remaining tributes into their hiding places. Aprilus heard the first growl and darted back to his hiding place under the library bench, quivering with terror. Dorothea stayed in her wooden chest, reassuring herself that nothing short of an unlikely upset could hurt her. Even mighty Dylan and Aft from District 4 were tentative to go hunting. As an excuse to stay back at the cornucopia's comforting darkness, the duet sorted through supplies for most of the day.

On Day 9, Aprilus gave into a strange sort of sensation. He had been in the library for two days, and for two days the strange whispers of the books had both terrified and entranced him. The whispers that filled the room made Aprilus think that they were haunted or enchanted somehow. How he longed to throw open one of the books, just to see what was inside! But he dared not, not wanting to get into whatever trouble opening the "forbidden" texts might hold. Abruptly, Aprilus gave into temptation. He leapt out from under the bench, grabbed the first book that he encountered, and tossed into onto the bench.

Aprilus reached down and hesitated. His hands hovered over the strange book for a moment before he made up his mind for good. Aprilus opened the cover. On the first page, scribbled out in beautiful handwriting, were words that he recognized.

 _You have given into temptation, tribute. Now you will pay the price,_ he read. The words gave off an aura of fear. The writing, though ordinary at first glance, was creepy in a way that Aprilus couldn't describe.

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He was being watched. Aprilus looked up and froze in place when he spotted a woman nearby. She was less than thirty yards away. At closer investigation, the woman looked to be less of a grown woman and more of a young woman, maybe even younger than twenty. Her jet black hair smoothly cascaded down her back, and her pristine white dress was stained crimson with blood. The most terrifying part of her, though, was her eyes. They were blank, with no pupils or irises, just milky white spheres. And, she didn't seem to have a real form. Whenever Aprilus tried to stare intently at her, she disappeared. The room grew cold, and there was silence. The woman held out a hand, and the whispers of the books ceased.

Aprilus was too terrified to move as the woman began strolling toward him. He was paralyzed with fear… literally. He tried to move his hand, but the woman held out her own and froze it in place. Aprilus couldn't move until the woman was less than five yards away. Instantly, the boy grabbed his knife and made a run for it. The woman didn't walk, but instead glided across the ground. Aprilus let out a sigh of relief. He was a much faster runner than the ghost, and he was certain he could run away. Suddenly, as if she had picked up speed drasctically, she was on top of him, slashing away at his back. Aprilus let out a little yelp of shock as she sank a chorus of sharp fangs into his neck. His vision instantly went fuzzy. When he fell with a thud, the ghost woman cackled _die!_ And then she went in for the kill. It was the first time that a ghost had been utilized in the games. This entire scene infested the nightmares of many district children. Wisp was using fear to his advantage. He had already learned much from his overseer, President Snow.

 _Aprilus Kramer, District 11 Male: 4th, Killed by Ghost Woman Muttation, Day 9_

With only Dylan, Aft, and Dorothea left to vie for the victor's crown, the Capitol was more shocked than it should have been that Days 10 and 11 passed deathless. Dylan and Aft were well stocked at the horn, and even though the former was more powerful than the latter they got along well. Dorothea lived off of the cavernous palace as she always had. She left her chest around noon on Day 11 and abandoned that strategy. With her sponsored pocketknife, she began the trek toward the cornucopia, ready for the final battle.

Day 12 would turn out to be the final day of the games. Dylan and Aft went out hunting for the elusive Dorothea, and once they were a substantial distance out in the arena the mutts could begin.

Aft was the first to hear the eerie hissing sound. She alerted her ally Dylan, who quickly picked up on the peculiar sound. This sound wasn't just any hiss. It was… serpentine. Suddenly, bursting around the corner came the mythical woman Medusa. Her entire body was wrapped up in green scales, and each of her hands sported foot-long claws and sharp as daggers. The scales twirled up into her head, which, instead of hair, held hundreds of tiny snakes that shot out their forked tongues and tasted the air with fervor. The two careers instantly looked away. In Greek mythology, Medusa had the magical power to turn anyone that looked at her to stone. Even though they knew this was impossible, the two District 4 tributes weren't taking any chances. The two fled, Dylan with his katana and Aft with her knife, toward the horn where the final fight would inevitably begin.

Dorothea didn't notice the serpentine hiss until it was too late. Her Medusa burst into the room that she was in. Dorothea shot her a terrified glance and immediately felt searing pain shoot through her body. Although she wasn't stone, she wasn't eager to feel that pain again. She closed her eyes, grabbed her pocketknife, and ran. Medusa quickly caught up to her. Dorothea leapt on top of one of the ornate glass chairs and jumped on top of its accompanying table. It was impressive what the District 5 girl could do with her eyes closed. She swung her pocketknife, decapitating three snakes and angering Medusa. She held her ground and cut off the heads of the snakes. Mere minutes later, one of the larger snakes shot out and wrapped around Dorothea's torso. Dorothea cried out in fear as it pulled her to the ground. She refused to open her eyes even when Medusa buried her claws into her torso, and then speared her other set straight through her neck. Dorothea went limp almost immediately, at which point Medusa and her snake companions burst into flames and disappeared. Now, only two tributes remained.

 _Dorothea Vonsolis, District 5 Female: 3rd, Killed by Medusa Muttation, Day 12_

At the sound of Dorothea's cannon shot, Aft and Dylan stared at each other. They were the only tributes remaining, and in unspoken agreement they began dueling with each other. It was difficult, as they had to balance attacking each other with fending off the Medusa mutt that was nearby. Wisp recalled Medusa, wanting to see their duel naturally unfold without the threat of the muttation. Dylan swept his katana in a wide arc. He would have slashed open Aft's torso if she hadn't ducked. The katana flew over her head, and she instantly leapt to her feet and dove for Dylan's neck. Dylan smashed her weapon away with his katana. It was sent spiraling away and clattered to the floor. At that, Aft was defenseless. Dylan thrust his katana forth and skewered it straight through Aft's neck. She flailed around wordlessly for a few moments before sliding off of his weapon and crashing to the floor with a thump, dead.

 _Aft Bigelow, District 4 Female: 2nd, Killed by Dylan, Day 12_

"Dylan Levitt of District 4, you are the victor of the forty-third annual Hunger Games!" Wisp cheered heartily.

Dylan raised his bloodstained katana into the air in celebration of his victory as Aft's blood pooled around his feet.

 _Dylan Levitt, District 4 Male: Victor of the Forty-Third Hunger Games, Day 12_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Dylan was faced with rather strong public backlash for his rude actions toward a few of his allies during the games. As the most powerful tribute in the games, many learned to love him, but some just couldn't forgive the insults that he had thrown toward the other careers for seemingly no reason at all. He really was just another boy following the typical career path, and so he wasn't very memorable for any reason. This, along with his tarnished reputation, caused him to swiftly fade from the public eye. District 4 applauded him heartily, for he brought the district its ninth victor, placing it second only to District 2 in terms of number of victors.

Dylan moved into the Victor's Village of District 4, the ninth victor to do so.

During his victory tour, District 1 showered him with hate for how he had mistreated Gleamton and Sequin during the games. In District 4, the only sign of ill will was from Aft's father, who tried to tackle him off of the stage during his victory tour. The man was tried and hanged for assault. He also faced hardship in Districts 5 and 11, which were cold toward him because of how their Dorothea and Aprilus respectively had perished in the games. Overall, the tour was a mess.

Dylan would live to the age of fifty, dying a premature death from a stroke around the time of the seventy-fifth annual Hunger Games, the third Quarter Quell. He would marry his high school sweetheart immediately after his victory, but the two would divorce three years later. Dylan would devote most of the rest of his life to being a professional athlete, specializing in American football and dabbling in baseball. Before and after games, Dylan would always bring up special memories and moments from his married days, short and sweet as they were. Around the age of thirty, a girl just his age caught his eye. The two wouldn't marry but would remain in a loyal and committed relationship until Dylan's death. The couple would adopt twin daughters.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Dylan moves into the Victor's Village of District 4, the ninth victor to do so.

Dylan marries his high school sweetheart, Anemone "Nemo" Celandine-Levitt.

Isaac Crandall weds his fiancée, Junichi Gadget, after dating for six years.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry for the absurdly long wait. In the last few chapters, I've developed a habit of rattling off excuses as to why the chapters have been taking longer. I'll try to stop doing that, but just know that now that these chapters are getting longer they'll, naturally, take longer for me to write.**

 **Here's Dylan! I hope you like him. With nine victors, there's going to be some intense competition for the district to dethrone the masonry district. And I hope you've enjoyed the arena. If I do say so myself, I think it was a super original idea and a unique rendition of the transportation district that I haven't seen before. The same will be true of next year's District 7 arena. Although you might think it'll be a plain forest, you'd be wrong. And there'll be a twist, like, an almost Quarter Quell-worthy twist.**

 **Two chapters ago, I said that I'd give a shoutout to anyone that could name the four Spongebob Squarepants references from the episode. Cragmite Blaster was the only user that did. Check out his stories if you need something new to read! In my opinion, his best works are in his Nameless Chronicles series, where he documents the stories of the tributes from Katniss' games that aren't named in the books or films. In case you're wondering, the four references are: the fact that there was a tribute named Thepio Neers (the pioneers), the fact that you could ride the rocks, the edible coral, and how all of the algae pointed toward civilization. Also, the pink starfish mutt could count as a fifth reference. All four of these references come from Season 1 Episode 5, Pizza Delivery. It's my favorite episode of the show at the moment.**

 **Please review if you're able! I'd love to hear how I'm doing. Expect the forty-fourth Hunger Games soon! Just over half a decade remains until the coveted second Quarter Quell :D**


	45. The 44th Hunger Games

**The 44th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Immediately before the reapings of the forty-fourth annual Hunger Games were set to begin, a scientific discovery was made in the Capitol. A woman (a young woman, in fact, only twenty-five) named Caelinia Gadsby was experimenting with different trees. She was hoping to find a cure for the whooping cough that was on the rise in the Capitol and in the primary districts like 1 and 2. This Caelinia fellow ended up discovering a revolutionary method for headache treatment. Although nobody knows exactly where these brain waves came from, Caelinia made a concoction primarily consisting of birch and willow sap as well as caffeine and a few other chemicals that was the fastest headache curing method known to medicine. She fashioned her new invention into a tablet and began selling it to those who habitually suffered from headaches, especially migraines. Many businesses, seeing potential in Caelinia's new product, pestered her for the rights to sell it in their stores, but she refused. She knew that if she let any store sell it that the prices would skyrocket partly due to corporate greed. Caelinia continued to make these tablets and kept on selling them. Soon, they morphed from treatment for those with severe headaches to recreational headache treatment for use in everyday life. Caelinia was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine that year.

Wisp Glasgow returned for another year as head gamemaker. This year's arena would be modeled after District 7, and since the revolutionary new medicine was fashioned largely from trees he wanted this year's arena to be modeled after two things… trees and medicine. The entire arena was a mammoth oak tree. Falling off meant certain death. The cornucopia stood in the center, with the tree's limbs sprawling out in every direction. Fashioned out of wood and decorated with whimsically lime-green leaves, the horn was low-ceilinged and rather humble in appearance. Although the limbs of the titanic tree seemed to be randomly scattered at first glance, they were distinctly bunched up into four groups. Each quadrant represented one of the four the north, the winter quadrant of the tree, the wood was tough and sharp and the twigs were completely bear. To the east, spring held a luscious scene of brilliant green leaves and flowery blossoms, teaming with life. The south embodied summer, and its leaves were sturdy and a settled green color. The west, autumn, had leaves that fluttered and whirled around. They were all of the colors you'd expect from fall leaves, but heightened: valiant, crimson red; marvelous, vibrant orange; and delectable, golden yellow. The feature of the games associated with medicine… well, that'll be introduced momentarily.

This year's careers were slightly stronger than usual. The career districts all knew that District 7 was the strongest outlying district, and they knew that in an arena fashioned in their favor they would be more powerful than ever before. As such, academy training was on overdrive as the career districts were determined to whip up a batch of six strong kids to counteract the likely strength of those from District 7. District 1 had two natural beauties as always. The male was the son of a famous District 1 painter whose work sold throughout the district and even in the Capitol. The boy himself wasn't the most formidable fighter in the world but was more determined and tenacious than any tribute that the academy had seen in a long time. The female went with the archetype of a pretty girl. It was often considered that District 1 females could either be fighters or beauties, not both, but this girl managed to pull both off. District 2 offered up a pair of formidable fighters, the two most powerful tributes this year. The male was as cold as ice and hard as stone and was a wizard with the dagger. The female was a beauty particularly with her soothing voice. Back in District 2, she had a job using her calming voice to make listening books for blind children. She was a great fighter, though, menacing alongside her district partner. District 4's male had a sort of exotic beauty to him, and many a sponsor was drawn to his looks like a fly to a sugar bowl. The District 4 girl was caught bribing one of the top gamemakers into giving her a nine instead of an eight. The girl herself received a thorough scolding, and the gamemaker that had accepted her bribe was fired and hanged for his actions. In total, the training scores of the careers were higher than average, with three tens and three nines.

Outside of the careers, the batch of tributes was much more diverse, if not groundbreaking, than usual. Two nines were scored outside of the careers. Rye Boyum of District 9 was the son of Victor Barley Chisolm. Put into the games via a rigged reaping, this Rye fellow managed an impressive nine with not only his talent but his elegance. With a single swipe of his sickle he could wow the audience with his grace. Sumac Scalia from District 11 was the only other outlier nine scorer. Sumac had mastered the throwing knives, and his effect on the audience was monumental. There were no eights scored this year. Train from 6 and Rayon and Lycra from 8 were the only tributes to score sevens. Train was a girl with a brain who used her intellectual ability to score a seven. The District 8 tributes were neighbors and close friends. Rayon had substantial practice with the knife, whereas Lycra liked swords. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. Mae, District 12's girl, was a standout to the audience. Mae was a highly religious girl who preached love and acceptance in her interview. There were two volunteers outside of the careers: Tilly Wright from District 5, who volunteered to save her sister; and Cilla Whitaker from District 11, who volunteered for her girlfriend. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Beret Miracle, 18, (9) 6-1 and Sephora Kallinger, 17, (9) 7-1

District 2: Amadeus Severus, 18, (10) 3-1 and Jade Resnik, 18, (10) 5-1

District 3: Daemon Carter, 14, (4) 30-1 and Unix Lesdale, 15, (5) 21-1

District 4: Sunken Ivette, 16, (10) 4-1 and Allison Zaleskas, 16, (9) 7-1

District 5: Archard Decker, 18, (6) 18-1 and Tilly Wright, 13, (3) 46-1

District 6: Locomotive Cantor, 17, (5) 20-1 and Train Le Blanc, 17, (7) 12-1

District 7: Albin Braudel, 14, (6) 23-1 and Laurel Sase, 18, (5) 21-1

District 8: Rayon Corduroy, 18, (7) 11-1 and Lycra Madaline, 14, (7) 20-1

District 9: Rye Boyum, 16, (9) 8-1 and Bushel Riordian, 13, (3) 39-1

District 10: Fawn Lamberger, 12, (4) 47-1 and Yara Karabell, 14, (4) 45-1

District 11: Sumac Scalia, 17, (9) 8-1 and Cilla Whitaker, 17, (5) 22-1

District 12: Ember Seaborg, 15, (5) 25-1 and Mae Leccee, 13, (6) 25-1

HGBO Bets: 8% on Amadeus and Sunken, 7% on Beret, Jade, and Allison, 6% on Sephora, Rye, and Sumac, 5% on Train, Rayon, and Mae, 4% on Archard, Albin, Laurel, Lycra, and Cilla, 2% on Daemon, Unix, and Locomotive, 1% or Less on Tilly, Bushel, Fawn, Yara, and Ember.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Before the tributes entered the arena, they were brought together in a circular rom. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all starch white, and it was so silent you could hear a pin drop. Around the perimeter of the circular room, there were twenty-five doors. They were almost completely flush with the wall. Twenty four of the doors were marked with the name of one of the tributes. The twenty-fifth door, however, was blank. Each door led to one of the launch rooms. Before the games began, Wisp Glasgow had some business to take care of with the tributes.

In the room, the tributes stood in silence for a few minutes. Then, the blank door burst open and in came Wisp, escorted by two peacekeepers. One of the peacekeepers closed the door behind them. Wisp set down a large suitcase that he was carrying, unlatched it, and opened it. Inside were twenty-four syringes, each filled with electric-blue liquid.

"Come forth, tributes," Wisp instructed. The tributes all gathered around him, the careers eager to get to the front and the outliers falling into the back. All of them waited to hear what he would say next.

"I will call you up in district order. When your name is called, you are to extend your arm and accept one of these syringes. Once I tell you to do so, you will go through the door marked with your name," he said. His voice was laced with sticky sweetness that made many a tribute feel like vomiting. He had already learned much from the venomous President Snow. "Mr. Miracle, you are first."

Beret Miracle, District 1's male, stepped forward. He pulled up his sleeve and extended his arm. Wisp reached into his open suitcase, pulled out the first syringe, and stuck the needle into Beret's forearm. He twitched slightly with pain as Wisp pressed down the plunger and injected the electric blue liquid into his body.

Wisp called for Sephora from 1, then Amadeus and Jade from 2, then Daemon and Unix from 3, then Sunken and Allison from 4, and so on. Shaking Mae from District 12 was the last to be called up, her arm trembling with fear as Wisp pressed the liquid from the final syringe into it. All of the tributes fiddled nervously around the room, waiting for further instruction from the gamemaker.

"The poison I have just injected into each and every one of you will kill you suddenly and instantaneously in exactly twenty-four hours," Wisp barked. At the word _poison_ , the outliers were jostled with terror. Even the careers' hearts raced.

"Throughout the arena, small vials of medicine will be hidden. Some will be in plain sight. Others will be more hidden. These vials of medicine are to be consumed by mouth. Each vial will be labeled with how many hours it will delay the poison. For example, a vial labeled with the number seventy-two will extend the amount of time it will take the poison to kill you by seventy-two hours, or precisely three days. Some vials are labeled as little as one or two hours, and some, though few and far between, may be labeled for up to one-hundred hours. Any tribute may consume any vial that he or she finds, and until then all bets are off. You may cheat, steal, lie, manipulate, or kill to reach the vials of medicine," Wisp told.

"Now enter the door marked with your name. These will take you to your launch room, where your stylist and mentor will say some final words to you as usual. Then, as always, you must enter your pod and rise up into the arena. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor."

The tributes all scrambled to their doors. Once everyone was in their pods, they began rising up into the arena. They were instantly greeted by the chirping of birds and the rattling of woodpeckers. In the mammoth oak tree, life was plentiful, with the exception of maybe the winter quadrant. Even the winter quadrant, however, held a few tame arctic foxes and cardinals.

The gong rang, and tributes burst forward and backward. Many tributes, enticed by the natural bounty of the arena that surrounded them, ran away at the very beginning. There were five of them, and they were Daemon from 3, Train from 6, Fawn and Yara from 10, and Mae from 12. The other tributes went to the cornucopia either to gather supplies or thinking that it might hold at least some medicine to postpone the killing process of the poison. The moment that the outliers realized that the cornucopia was empty of medicine, many of them turned around and fled the scene. This, combined with the large number of tributes that scattered at the very beginning, made for a pathetic bloodbath. The bloodbath only hosted six deaths.

Amadeus was off of his pedestal the second the gong rang, leaping and bounding over roots and tearing through the foliage. Amadeus picked up a serrated sword that lay almost completely buried under a pile of leaves about fifty yards from his pedestal. Meanwhile, young Albin from 7 kept running and raced into the cornucopia to look for a hatchet. Albin found one. When he raced out into the light, he was greeted by the bite of Amadeus' sword in his gut. Grinning, Amadeus tore his sword out of Albin's body and then ripped his hatchet out of his hand. Amadeus held a firm grip as he slammed the hatchet into Albin's head, nearly cleaving his skull completely in half. Now wielding a sword in one hand and a hatchet in the other, Amadeus stalked off to look for more prey.

 _Albin Braudel, District 7 Male: 24th, Killed by Amadeus, Bloodbath_

Seconds before, Sunken had picked up a smaller boy and thrown him to the ground. The pitiful boy crumpled into the underbrush like a torn paper doll as Sunken picked up a trident and went in for the kill. The boy lay on the ground with his mouth open like a fish's, the air crushed out of his lungs. As the gleaming prongs of Sunken's trident descended upon him, he inhaled a huge gasp of air and leapt to his feet. The boy kicked Sunken in the groin with all of the force that he could muster. Sunken moaned with pain but chased after the boy, eventually seducing him by sliding the prongs of his trident into the back of his neck.

 _Archard Decker, District 5 Male: 23rd, Killed by Sunken, Bloodbath_

Beret scooped up a knife just in time to spot a small and lithe boy darting past, his arms wrapped around a backpack that he was clinging onto for dear life. Beret dove toward the young boy and raked his knife across his back. The boy let out a yelp and dropped the backpack, running for his life. Beret had already grabbed the back of his neck, though, and he skewered his knife through the boy's head after a few seconds of watching him squirm desperately.

 _Locomotive Cantor, District 6 Male: 22nd, Killed by Beret, Bloodbath_

Amadeus, duel-wielding his two weapons, saw a girl on the ground, taking inventory of the contents of an orange backpack. Amadeus ran toward the girl, but she saw him. The girl jumped to her feet and tried to run, but Amadeus had already grabbed the back of her necklace (her tribute token). The necklace dug into the girl's throat before snapping with a pop. She tried to run, but Amadeus barked, "Oh no you don't," and tossed his hatchet toward her back. The hatchet flipped end over end before burying its blade into the girl's back. She stopped running and fell forward so hard that she literally flew a few yards and landed on her stomach.

 _Bushel Riordan, District 9 Female: 21st, Killed by Amadeus, Bloodbath_

Sephora smirked when she affixed her gaze to a whip that sat on a crate a few yards from where she was standing. The leather grip fell snugly into her hand. Instantly, Sephora lashed down the whip onto the nearest girl. The girl screamed as the leather strap wrapped around her arm. The career pulled, and the girl's entire limb was torn off. She screamed as Sephora lashed her whip again, ramming it into the keening girl's back. As the metal teeth sank into her back, Sephora became freckled with blood. But Sephora kept whipping, and the girl kept screaming, and she died from blood loss a few minutes later.

 _Cilla Whitaker, District 11 Female: 20th, Killed by Sephora, Bloodbath_

That was the end of the bloodbath… or so it seemed. The outliers had all scampered away from the horn, leaving only the sound of birds chirping in the clearing. The bloodbath cannons weren't firing. The careers immediately began searching around for the tribute that they knew must be hiding somewhere. Sephora and Amadeus took to the actual horn, and the other four careers searched through the clearing for any hiders. When they found no tributes and the cannons still hadn't sounded, they figured that one of the "dead" tributes must not actually be dead. Allison from 4 was the first to test this theory. Allison strolled over toward the bloodlathered corpse of Cilla, who had died mere moments prior. Allison kicked her in the face. She moved a bit, but didn't react to the pain at all, a sure sign that she was dead. The careers continued this for about a minute, with no results. However, a bit later, Jade found Unix from District 3 on the ground. Jade kicked Unix in the neck with all of her might. Unix squeezed her eyes and winced a bit from the pain. She had done a good job of masking the fact that she was still alive until then. Jade picked up the nearest katana and speared it through Unix's heart before she could get to her feet and run. Six cannon shots shattered the natural peace of the arena.

 _Unix Lesdale, District 3 Female: 19th, Killed by Jade, Bloodbath_

The outliers scattered. There were eighteen remaining tributes, which was something that Wisp hoped for. He knew that the poison element of this year's games would cause the crowd of tributes to be thinned very quickly, so a small bloodbath was just what he needed. Wisp hoped to have an uneventful beginning and to crescendo into a chaotic and rocking finale that would leave the nation dumbfounded with awe. The careers didn't have much to do at the horn, and with so many outliers they figured that it would be a good idea to get hunting early and pick off a few that were off-kilter after the bloodbath. They split into two groups of three: Amadeus, Sunken, and Allison in one group; and Beret, Sephora, and Jade in the other. With stronger tributes, the former covered more ground. The quadrant of the tree representing winter was certainly the least hospitable and least attractive of all. With its bare branches and frost-coated twigs, it looking unwelcoming to many a tribute. Despite this, two tributes headed into it. Lycra wove through the branches for a bit. Eventually, she found an area where several branches had been caught by one another and had grown around each other, creating a hollow space inside. Lycra crawled into this space and unearthed the towel that she had snagged from the horn. Lycra threw the towel around herself and sank to the bottom of the wooden ditch, trying to get warm. Never mind finding medicine for the poison, her biggest concern was not freezing to death. Faun also headed for the winter quadrant, but in pursuit of medicine. He figured that, as the quadrant that would attract the least tributes, he would have more medicine to himself than he would if he had embarked on any of the other seasons. Searching meticulously through the dry and snapping twigs, Faun caught a glimpse of something colorful. Faun ran toward it and found a metal cup bolted to the base of a tree. Inside of the cup was a crystal-clear vial. And inside the vial was a yellow liquid. Faun rejoiced, but when he reached down to pull the vial out of the cup his fingers slid off of it. Frustrated, Faun tried again. No matter how hard he tried, his fingers slid off of the slippery glass whenever he tried to pick it up. Then, Faun remembered a puzzle that his father had shown him back in District 7 when he was a youngster. Faun blew over top off of the cup, and the vial instantly leapt out and into his waiting grasp. Faun made out the number "24" labeled on the side of the vial before tossing the liquid into his mouth. It tasted disgusting, and Faun gagged. With the poison delayed twenty-four hours, he could finally rest and find a place to call home. The sun was already setting, and so he made camp in an area heavily populated by red cardinals. He would find a better place to live in the morning.

Spring, with its pink blossoms and luscious fruit, naturally attracted the most tributes. Five tributes ran there at the conclusion of the bloodbath. They were Daemon, Train, Laurel, Rye, and Yara. Daemon had run away from the bloodbath with only his bare hands. He spent the rest of the day alternating between walking and jogging down the tree's thick branches. Daemon was quick to realize that the pink blossoms were edible, and he munched contentedly on them every once and a while when he got hungry. Daemon was jogging through an area of thick underbrush when he heard a crunching sound underfoot. Daemon looked down and saw that he had just stepped on a vial of liquid. Daemon tried to pick up what little remained of the vial, but as he did he shifted his foot just enough to knock the shards of glass and medicine and sent then hurling downward into the oblivion below. Daemon cursed himself for his stupidity and devoted himself toward finding a bit of medicine. Luckily, he found a vial underneath a web of ivy less than an hour later. Daemon reached down into the ivy, but the hairs of the ivy latched onto his hand and wouldn't let go. Daemon grabbed the vial from underneath and tried to run when a searing pain began shooting up his arm. Daemon yelled with pain as the poison ivy ejected its toxic oils. Daemon finally managed to tear his arm out of the mass. He threw the medicine (labeled "48") into his mouth and fled the scene. His arm was beginning to puff up in reaction to the poison ivy, and small yellow spots were beginning to form. At least he had delayed the poison by two entire days. Train was another one to seek spring's natural bounty. With no food from the horn, Train had to set up some traps of her own. She ended up fashioning a snare out of plant fiber. Resourceful Train was able to fashion at least ten sister snares within one hour. She leaned against the nearest sturdy branch and waited. Eventually, Train heard a snapping sound. She ran toward it and found a beautiful golden squirrel, its foot stuck in her trap, flailing around and hanging in the air. Train slit it to death with a sharp rock. She originally contemplated starting a fire. She was out gathering firewood when she realized that if a fire got out of hand it could spell disaster in big, flaming red letters. Train ate the meat raw, and she had to chew and chew until her jaw was sore. Laurel was a sort of hunter-gatherer for most of Day 1. After fleeing the bloodbath with a knife, she ran as fast as she could and eventually collapsed beside a small pool. Laurel slurped down some water to ease her raging thirst and then continued on, finding a patch of strawberries amidst those pink blossoms. She gathered a huge clump of the blossoms and strawberries and feasted on them before moving on. She hopped around, not only because it was a more efficient strategy for survival but because it would make it harder for her to be tracked. Rye had gotten a sickle from the horn and spent the rest of the day practicing with it. He started off by just hacking it into branches, but he quickly realized that that was just dulling the blade and so he started chopping up shoots and roots and leaves. Yara was walking through the arena, seeking medicine for the poison that she knew was creeping up on her, when she spotted the flick of a deer's tail from around a nearby branch. Yara began walking closer toward the deer, and, in her distraction, stepped on an area where there were no branches, just a mass of foliage. Yara slid and fell. She desperately flailed around her arms and tried to grab hold of something, but Yara could ultimately do nothing as she slipped through the underbrush and fell down… down… down into the endless oblivion below.

 _Yara Karabell, District 10 Female: 18th, Killed by Falling out of the Tree, Day 1_

Surprisingly, the summer quadrant of the arena attracted only two tributes. The first was Sumac. Having scored a nine, a sponsor that liked him sent him a razor-sharp blade that he practiced with all day. Eventually, Sumac found a vial of medicine for twelve hours tucked under the root of a sapling and tore it out, chugging it down. Mae ran as fast as she could, and when she could run no longer she set up camp. It was a humble abode, merely a little cove behind a curtain of moss, but it was surprisingly cozy inside. Mae spent the rest of the day praying for the tributes that had passed on that day, and a sponsor soon sent her a copy of the bible for her to read from.

Fall's quadrant caught the eyes of three tributes. Tilly, only twelve, was too weak and small to travel down the entire length of the tree in a single day, so she only walked two miles or so before sitting down around a pool of rainwater. Tilly was fascinated by the swirling colors around her. Tilly got to her feet to search for resources when she saw the tiniest sparkle from underneath the murky puddle. Dumbfounded, Tilly reached into the puddle and pulled out a glittering vial of golden liquid, labeled "18". Tilly drank the liquid and discarded the vial. Relieved that the time until her death from the poison was lengthened, Tilly began setting up shelter near the pool. She was rather paranoid of fire, and that was perhaps one reason why she chose home as next to a body of water. Rayon didn't find any medicine, as he was creative, if not exactly intelligent, and he searched in the weirdest and most obscure places for the medicine. In failure, he slept tucked away in a copse of bushes where he hoped nobody would be able to find him. Ember travelled to the autumn quadrant and instantly produced a pot that he had gotten from the cornucopia. Ember filled the pot with dirt and then found a puddle of rainwater. Gently wetting and folding the dirt into mud, Ember was ready. He splashed himself with the bucket. Ember put the bucket of mud above him and tipped it upside down, letting the glob of earth consume him. Covered with mud, he began attaching leaves and sticks to his body to camouflage himself. Covered with the essence of Mother Earth, Ember slept against a sturdy sapling, reassured that nobody would be able to see him with heis new look.

On Day 2, the immediacy of the circumstances at hand sank in to many a tribute. The day saw a mad dash for the tributes to find medicine to delay their deaths. The threat of the poison that each tribute knew was creeping up on them was just as big of a threat as dying from natural cause or in combat. The prime source of chaos was in the ranks of the careers. They had spent most of Day 1 hunting for tributes and not enough time hunting for medicine. Amadeus, Sunken, and Allison were searching feverishly for a glint of golden liquid. Allison was tearing up roots and trying to find a vial. All seemed hopeless until she reached into a mass of moss and felt her fingers touch glass. Making sure that none of her allies were looking her way, she sneakily drank down the antidote and discarded the vial. Selfish, but it was the career constitution to survive as long as possible and to be merciless for others. Allison hadn't checked the number on the side of the glass contained, but it was 30. And a good thing indeed. At the time she drank it down, she had only four hours left until the poison became lethal. Her allies continued to hunt down the elusive stuff, with varying degrees of success. Amadeus was trying to tear bark off of one of the branches in hope of trying to find some of the heavenly antidote underneath it. Amadeus was running his hand across a shelf of bark when he encountered a panel of smooth metal. The career pulled open the small door and saw a glass of medicine inside, labeled "50" in carefully penned handwriting. All stood still as Amadeus' mouth hung open with shock. Sunken saw that he was holding the vial and darted toward him. Sunken tacked Amadeus and snatched the vial out of hands. Sunken was about to slurp down the shimmering liquid when Amadeus kicked him in the groin. He reeled, lost balance, slid down, and began falling from the tree. Sunken flailed around his limbs, trying to grab hold of a branch or twig. One of his flailing hands caught onto Amadeus' shoelace, which he clung onto for dear life. Amadeus was instantly ripped off of the branch alongside screaming Sunken. The two careers plummeted downward on and on and on until Allison only saw them as two little ants before disappearing entirely into the misty

 _Sunken Ivette, District 4 Male: 17th, Killed by Himself and Amadeus, Day 2_

 _Amadeus Severus, District 2 Male: 16th, Killed by Himself and Sunken, Day 2_

There was much more success in the trio of Beret, Sephora, and Jade. Beret was the first to find some of the medicine after sliding back a thin sheet of papery bark from a rotting limb. Beret chugged down the liquid, and even after that he kept searching. Mere minutes later, Beret found another small vial tucked away between two twigs. He handed it to Jade, his nearest ally, who thankfully gulped it down. That left only Sephora having not found any of the antidote. Sephora hunted feverishly, and when she couldn't find any medicine she began panicking. Shaking more than ever, she breathed heavily and bowled through the arena, tearing apart whatever she could find in desperate search of a that precious gold glint. Suddenly, Sephora's struggles were silenced. The poison had set in, just as Wisp had promised. Sephora's body clenched before going completely limp. Her cannon shot fired as she crumpled like a paper doll at the feet of her allies. Now, only three careers remained.

 _Sephora Kallinger, District 1 Female: 15th, Killed by Poison, Day 2_

Over in the winter quadrant, Lycra was beginning to have second thoughts. She had originally chosen to flock to winter because of reverse psychology, but it was just so cold that she couldn't bear to stay any longer. Lycra shivered, and the chattering of her teeth was bone-chilling to hear. The worst pain, though, was the one deep down in her stomach. Starvation and frostbite weren't nonexistent threats in the arena, and Lycra decided once and for all to evacuate the winter quadrant in favor of a warmer season like spring or summer. In the end, the road was too precarious to reach either of those seasons, so Lycra had to head toward fall. Although it was cool in the fall quadrant, it was so much warmer than winter that she cried out with relief. Lycra hugged herself and allowed herself a few hours to get accustomed to the new lifestyle before hunting for medicine. Lycra got up from her hiding spot against a sturdy rock and didn't have to hunt at all, for a glimpse of gold could be seen wedged in between the stone and the ground. Lycra pushed the stone a few inches out of the way and snatched up the antidote. She sipped down the medicine gratefully. In the winter quadrant, Faun was having more luck. He had gotten a bow and arrow from the horn and had managed to shoot down one of the cardinals that flew around the region merrily. Faun caught the bird and tore off its feathers before roasting it over a fire that he made in an area that was rather wet from melting snow. He had a bucket of snow nearby to douse the fire at once in case it should get out of hand.

Over in the spring quadrant, there was a mania of finding more medicine. Rye practiced with his sickle, swinging it between the branches and snapping twigs and whatnot. As the son of a victor, Rye needed to always keep sharp and always impress the audience. When slashing around his sickle grew a bit boring, Rye began doing backflips. A vial of medicine he did find around nine in the morning, growing out of one of the merry pink blossoms. Lasting forty-eight entire hours, Rye was set for at least two days. Train's snares continued to pour out their bountiful outputs. One of train's traps caught a chipmunk that was rather feisty, hissing and flailing around until Train killed it with her knife. Still vehemently against introducing fire into the competition, Train put her jaw muscles to good use once more. The only medicine she got was that which was in plain sight. Her biggest find was of a vial of antidote marked for thirty hours, which she quaffed before returning to check on her snares.

Laurel was in a flurry of fright on the morning of Day 2. She hadn't found any medicine at all, and she knew that she would die soon if this continued. Since she was in the spring quadrant, Laurel figured that it was that the spring quadrant had less medicine than the other quadrant. She was naturally drawn to the autumn quadrant, as perhaps she associated the golden leaves with matching the antidote. The only problem was that, in order to reach it, she had to cross the cornucopia. Laurel was willing to do this if it meant saving her life, and she picked up her limited supplies and began running. Laurel was less than a hundred yards from the horn when she heard an arrow singing behind her. Sephora, Beret, and Jade had gone back to the horn and were now scavenging the lands around it to search for prey. Sephora prepared to fire another arrow, and Laurel ran, shooting through the foliage. Her shoes both came off, but never mind that. All of the sudden, her toe caught a root, and she was flying. She landed with a thud on a heavy slab of wood, where Sephora unleashed yet a third arrow. This one struck home, landing straight in Laurel's thigh. Sephora called over her allies, who wasted no time finishing her off. Jade made the move, spearing her katana through Laurel's neck. She blubbered and wailed nonsensically as Sephora finished the job that she had started, firing a volley of two arrows into Laurel's torso. As she died, the careers relished.

 _Laurel Sase, District 7 Female: 14th, Killed by Sephora and Jade, Day 2_

Summer saw little of conflict on Day 2. Sumac and Mae, its only human residents, were happily acquainted with their new surroundings and didn't have any intentions of moving any time soon. Sumac found a gaping hole into a tree. He threw a few rocks inside to make sure that it was empty, and when nothing came scuttling out he crawled into the tree. Dehydration wasn't an issue, as he had gotten a nice water supply from the horn. Mae kept her copy of the good book close at hand, always leaving it within her sight for fear of losing it. Mae found a branch that had curved up so high that it was nearly vertical, and she slunk to the ground behind a curtain of vines that veiled the scene.

Similarly, the fall quadrant didn't have much to boast for the day. Tilly had become so paranoid of fire in the arena that she had set aside her water-sensitive items and sank down into the murky puddle, with only her eyes and nose above the water. Finding medicine was easy, as no other tributes had been there before her and most of the medicine was in plain sight. Down in his copse of bushes, Rayon figured around noon on Day 2 that he needed to get up. He tried to, but it was as if his arms were stapled to the ground. Rayon struggled and found that he had picked up a large number of burrs that clung to anything they touched like velcro. Rayon struggled to peel the burrs off of his skin, and in his panic he nearly stumbled out of the tree several times. After finding his daily dose of the antidote, he slunk into a dark area with despair. Ember was content, wrapped up mud and leaves and sticks. Reasoning that milling around would just go to expose himself, he stayed still and only got up once or twice to find medicine. Lycra took a while to get used to her new home in the fall quadrant, but she came close to dying from poison around two in the evening. She came the closest to death that any tribute had gotten yet; she was less than ten minutes from the poison becoming lethal when she slurped down a vial of the gold antidote.

Day 3 hosted the peak of the forty-fourth Hunger Games' excitement. For years to come, whenever anyone thought of the forty-fourth Hunger Games, they would think of this moment. Out in the spring quadrant, Train had become fed up of eating her kills raw. As such, she decided to risk starting a fire. Train gathered a few stray logs and arranged them in a pile which she surrounded by stones. Crafting a bow, the dry wood caught on fire quickly. She nurtured the growing ember, and soon a blazing inferno was rising up on which Train roasted the outputs of her snares. After that, Train walked away to check on her traps for yet more prey.

Train walked away. The fire gave a roar. A spark flew and landed in a pile of leaves a few feet away. Immediately, the leaf caught fire. It turned black, crumpled, and in its dying breath it transferred its flame to its neighbor. That leaf caught on fire, and the fire spread to at least three other leaves before it died out. After a minute, an area of nearly a square yard was on fire, producing a thin trail of smoke that descended into the heavens. Thrill was about to ensue, the entire audience knew.

After reaping the dead animals from her traps, Train was jogging back to home base when she suddenly recoiled. A wisp of smoke had floated to her and was now stinging her eye. She instinctively cried a few tears to expel the smoke, and when she finally wiped it away her eyes widened with horror. Less than a hundred yards away, a huge cloud of smoke was forming over the mess of foliage and underbrush. Below the plume of pulsating smoke, a blazing red inferno.

Train dropped her things and she ran. She didn't bother to hold on to any of her supplies. The fire was spreading faster than she was running. Train had only run for about a mile when the fire was only a few dozen feet behind her. Suddenly, a large plant behind her caught fire. The blazing plant fell down and landed in front of her with a crash, catching the foliage in front of her on fire. Train was trapped between two walls that were so bright she couldn't even look directly at them. The air was so hot and thick that she was sweating bullets and whenever she breathed she was sure to cough soon after. The two walls were spreading toward her, and she could only wait in agony for the fire to consume her as the chaos was about to begin.

 _Train Le Blanc, District 6 Female: 13th, Killed by Herself, Day 3_

The other tributes in the spring quadrant could now hear the roaring of the fire, the evil, all-consuming rage of the embers being spat out in rapid succession from the mother conflagration. When Laurel heard the rumbling of the fire, she picked a direction and ran. Laurel had run less than a hundred yards when her ankle landed in a small hole, perhaps one dug by a rodent or other small mammal. Laurel hissed as a cracking sound came from below. Laurel assessed her wound. Not broken, that was for sure, but sprained. Laurel hobbled away from the fire as it continued on in its unsatable rage. Rye was practicing with his sickle when he smelled foul smoke. He turned sharply on his heel and saw the evil fire racing toward him, and Rye was off and running with his sickle. Rye eventually came to an area where there was a small hole that had filled with murky water. Thankful, the District 9 boy leapt into the puddle and sank below. The fire roared over him. Then, Rye considered something he hadn't before. He would need to breathe. Once his lungs were screaming for air, he raised his head above the water for a tiny second and took a quick breath. His lungs filled with the noxious smoke, and he coughed a few times before retreating back under the surface of the water. Daemon was working to try and craft a snare when he heard the whining of the fire from far in the distance. Reassuring himself that the fire couldn't possibly get to him, Daemon wasn't up and running until it was too late. Daemon saw the fire on the horizon, churning through the autumn foliage and leaving a black, charred lunar landscape in its wake. Daemon leapt to his feet and ran nimbly across the branches. When he could run no farther, he got into a muddy area and got to the ground. He hoped that the fire would pass over him because heat rises. That was what happened. The all-consuming, furious flare rushed over him. Daemon wasn't touched by the fire's licking flames, but the temperature grew extremely hot underneath it. Soon, Daemon was near crying from the one-hundred and twenty degree temperature underneath the fire. Soon, that number rose to a hundred and fifty. At about two hundred degrees, Daemon passed out, and he died from heat stroke mere minutes later. His cannon shot fired, and the fire continued blazing through the mammoth oak tree in its rampage.

 _Daemon Carter, District 3 Male: 12th, Killed by Train, Day 3_

Meanwhile, the people in the other quadrants of the arena were beginning to notice the fire that was taking place. At the horn, the careers were all woken up the vicious churning noise of the fire and high-tailed it to the autumn quadrant, which was opposite the spring quadrant. Allison and Jade were ahead of Beret, for he had taken slightly longer to realize the immediate danger and get up. At this point, the fire had spread to the summer quadrant, whose lush wildlife was perfect kindling for the monster that Train had created. The group of three careers stumbled upon a clearing in the autumn quadrant in which two pools of water stood side-by-side. One of the pools was empty. A snoozing Tilly slept peacefully in the other pool. Always the good career, Allison produced her bow and deftly shot a single arrow into Tilly's head. Tilly woke with a screech before dying, and Allison ran forth to claim the refuge of the puddle of murky water.

 _Tilly Wright, District 5 Female: 11th, Killed by Allison, Day 3_

Allison darted forward, shoved the dead Tilly out of the pool, and leapt into it, quickly sinking under. Jade took the other pool, leaving only Beret out in the open. The clearing in which they were standing was being closed in upon, with very few places to run. Beret knew that his only hope of survival was to get into one of those puddles. Beret ran toward the pool that Jade was in and picked her out of it, throwing her to the ground a few feet away before slinking down into the pool. Out in open, Jade tried to get back into the puddle of water, but didn't have enough time. A burning branch fell from above her and landed straight on top of her head. Jade wept and tried to fit into one of the murky puddles, but the foliage underfoot had already caught on fire and she couldn't move anywhere. Jade just screamed for help that would never come as the flames caught her clothes on fire and swallowed her down.

 _Jade Resnik, District 2 Female: 10th, Killed by Train, Day 3_

The two inhabitants of the summer quadrant immediately began fleeing when they saw the swirling conflagration on the horizon. Sumac jumped out of his vine-hidden place and went toward lower ground, knowing that fire spread faster uphill than downhill. Sumac darted down into a little valley, but less than halfway down his foot caught a root and he was flying. He landed with a thud in the base of the valley and screeched when he saw the fire rushing down toward him.

Nearby Mae was darting toward the safety of the winter quadrant when she heard Sumac's screams of fright. Mae was a highly religious girl with a clear set of morals. She wasn't about to let another human die. Mae screamed for Sumac to keep screaming. Sumac, relieved that help was coming, kept screaming as loud as possible, and soon running Mae came into view. Mae ran down and grabbed a battered and scared Sumac by the arm. Mae pulled him to his feet and then dragged him away from the fire. Mae originally tried to keep him in as comfortable a position as possible, but as the sea of flames spread toward her she just bounded over the ground, dragging the weeping boy behind her. The games had never seen such a noble and heroic tribute as Mae.

Mae ran and ran and ran, never looking back and never loosening her firm grip on Sumac. Eventually, Mae stopped herself. She was standing on the very end of a thick branch. About twenty feet of empty space past was another branch. They would never make it. Mae just crawled down so that she was at the eye level of sobbing Sumac. The two tributes clung onto each other and cried as the fire engulfed them. Mae was certain that she was heading off to her heaven.

 _Sumac Scalia, District 11 Male: 9th, Killed by Train, Day 3_

 _Mae Leccee, District 12 Female: 8th, Killed by Train, Day 3_

Seven tributes remained. Mae had died so swiftly after Sumac that there wasn't enough time to carry out the final eight family interviews and such, so this year had a final seven: Beret Miracle from District 1, Allison Zaleskas from District 4, Rayon Corduroy and Lycra Madaline from District 8, Rye Boyum from District 9, Fawn Lamberger from District 10, and Ember Seaborg from District 12.

That was when the gamemakers knew it was time to call it quits on the fire. As dark clouds rolled in, the tributes rejoiced. Rain poured down, wetting the leaves and extinguishing the fire that had claimed six lives. With seven tributes left three days in, Wisp would have to be careful to manage things from then on forth, lest Snow see that he was failing. And Snow was _always_ watching.

No more deaths occurred that day. The spring and summer quadrants of the tree were completely uninhabitable. The fire had blown through them and left a charred, eerie black hell behind. Even though it was raining and the fire had been put out, everything was still sizzling hot. The winter quadrant wasn't hospitable either, as it was far too open in the first place for anybody to feel safe without some form of cover. As such, all of the remaining outliers were forced to retreat to the fall quadrant. Beret and Allison were quick to realize that the cornucopia and all of its supplies had been completely incinerated by the hungry fire, and for the first time in as long as anyone could remember the two careers were forced to survive off of their wits in the wild. They didn't hunt, as hypothermia was a more pressing concern. Allison started working on a bonfire, but Beret cut in, vehemently against introducing fire back into the competition. Rayon had managed to pick the last few burrs off of his skin. It was soon revealed to all that he had had some sort of allergic reaction. The places where the rough seeds had once stuck were now growing red and irritated. Whenever Rayon touched them, pain shot through his arm. Finding medicine was slightly more problematic than usual, but in the long run it turned out to be no difficulty. Lycra was the only tribute in the arena that remained completely inconvenienced by the fire. It couldn't hurt her, tucked away down in a ditch of damp soil far away in the autumn quadrant. She just peeked up from her hidey hole and watched with fascination and horror as the fire consumed more than half of the arena. Rye's sickle had sure come in handy, cutting through the foliage whenever it got thick. Having a sharp and nimble blade came with his advantages, and Rye's sickle was his most prized possession at the moment. Ember was rather shaken up from the fire but hadn't received any real injuries. As he used his hands to cleanse himself of the grime that he had collected, he recited poems and songs to himself.

On the morning of Day 4, a cannon shot shattered the peaceful quiet of the arena. Fawn from District 10 had stayed off of radars so much that he had been forgotten by the audience and by Caesar. Fawn had been displaced from his home by the fire, and after it stopped he had endeavored to venture back into the forsaken wasteland to salvage some of his resources that he had to leave behind before fleeing. Once in there, pangs of regret instantly bolted through him. In the burned landscape, everywhere looked exactly the same, and Fawn quickly got lost. After several hours of scavenging the dry, swelteringly hot region for something to drink or eat, he fell dead from dehydration.

 _Fawn Lamberger, District 10 Male: 7th, Killed by Dehydration, Day 4_

The rest of Day 4 was deathless, as was the entirety of Day 5. The careers didn't hunt, discouraged by the destruction of the cornucopia and the embarrassment of being reduced to mere tributes surviving in the wild with hunting as a low priority.

Day 6 was when Wisp realized that his plan for the games was backfiring terribly. He had planned for a small bloodbath slowly crescendoing into a gratifying and seat-rocking conclusion. That was not what he got. The poison aspect of the games was just failing miserably, and with Train's fire less than half of the arena was habitable by the tributes. Hoping to end the boring games quickly, Wisp declared a feast.

"My deepest congratulations to the six remaining tributes of the forty-fourth Hunger Games," Wisp said. "At noon tomorrow, a feast will be hosted on a certain hilltop near the westernmost point of the arena. There will be wonderful and marvelous surprises awaiting you there, so think twice about not showing up." Immediately after he began speaking, a light shot out of the earth in the location that Wisp had described. The beacon of light was visible to all, advertising the location at which the feast would take place.

Every single one of the six tributes showed up to the feast the next day. Beret and Allison didn't have many weapons on them, but they were determined to land a few kills in the feast and hopefully end the games. Rayon's allergic reaction to the burrs was growing severe, and he was so afraid of infection that he decided to risk his life at the feast to find medicine for the infection. Dehydration was Lycra's reason for attending the feast. She was hoping to snatch some water from the feast. Rye had a brain in his head, feet in his shoes, and a sickle in his hand, and he wanted an opportunity to show off his might to the audience. He knew it was the best time to impress that Capitol as well as snatch up some supplies, too. Ember did the math and figured out that by the time that the feast occurred she would have mere minutes until death from the poison. She was beginning to panic when she couldn't find any of it anymore, so she hoped that the feast would have some that she could take.

It came time for the feast, and the tributes all arrived at the hilltop. On top of the hill was a long table such as is used for a banquet. It was covered with backpacks and suitcases and weapons of every kind. At the end of the table were several large pouring glasses of adam's ale, and delicious cakes decorated the tabletop.

The tributes charged forward. The careers were at the head of the onrush, spurred on by the sight of the weapons. Rye was another fast runner. Rye slinked between thick areas of foliage, trying not to stay in the open for too long. Rye was jumping between two ferns when he locked eyes with Beret. Beret darted toward him, wielding his knife, and Rye had no choice but to fight. He slashed his sickle, but Beret crouched down. The blade flew over his head, singing off a few of his stray curls. Beret got to his feet and kicked Rye squarely in the stomach. He reeled and landed with a thud on a heavy log. His vision was growing foggy, but he could just make out the sight of an axe sitting a few feet to his right. Never mind the fact that he could go unconscious at any second. Rye grabbed the axe and scuttled to his feet. Beret wasn't expecting Rye to have so much energy, so he couldn't sidestep fast enough before Rye slammed the axe into his head. It cleaved his skull perfectly in half. Rye wrenched out the axe and ran further toward the hilltop, where more supplies and more prey were waiting for him.

 _Beret Miracle, District 1 Male: 6th, Killed by Rye, Day 6_

Ember had made an error in his calculations. At the time that the feast was going on, he had less than a minute left before the poison took hold in him and he died. Ember didn't even know how swiftly his fate was approaching. Ember was darting across the open field when suddenly the poison began its nasty work and killed him within three or four seconds. With only four tributes remaining, it was almost certain that the victor would be crowned soon.

 _Ember Seaborg, District 12 Male: 5th, Killed by Poison, Day 6_

Rayon was riffling through the contents of the banquet table when his fingertips closed around something glass. When Rayon pulled out the vial of antidote for all to see, Lycra tackled him. Lycra tried to tear the container of medicine out of Rayon's grasp, and he had no choice but to fight back. Rayon threw a fist at Lycra's shoulder. She let out a mewl of pain and rolled aside. Rayon didn't want to kill, but he knew that he was in the games and if he wanted to win she would have to die anyway. Rayon punched Lycra in the side of the head and hammered her to the ground, where Rayon picked her up and threw her to the side like nothing. Her neck was snapped from the blow, and she died from head trauma soon after.

 _Lycra Madaline, District 8 Female: 4th, Killed by Rayon, Day 6_

Rayon was shocked and disoriented after killing Lycra, but he was jolted back to his senses at the sight of Allison thundering toward him, her eyes gleaming with malice. Allison had picked up an elegantly crafted trident a few seconds earlier, and it was like an extension of her arm. Rayon had just his fist to fend off his attacker. Within seconds, Allison had Rayon on the ground, begging and crying for mercy. Allison slid her trident into his neck, quieting him and leaving only two tributes remaining.

 _Rayon Corduroy, District 8 Male: 3rd, Killed by Allison, Day 6_

Only two tributes were alive in the arena: Allison and Rye. Thrill surged through Allison. If she won, she would bring District 4 its tenth victor. It would be the second district to reach double-digits in terms of number of victors, the first being District 2.

The queer thing was that Allison had no idea where her final opponent was. Allison stalked around the hilly area, looking everywhere and trying to find where Rye was hiding. In fact, Rye had crouched under the table and nestled himself into the midst of a pile of black cases. Rye watched with earnest as Allison walked straight past him.

Once everything was in place, Rye dove out from under the table. Allison looked his way and gave a little gasp of shock but couldn't react fast enough before Rye tackled her to the ground and slashed her across the chest with his sickle. Allison dropped her trident and tumbled backward, landing on the ground with a thud. Rye picked up her trident and shoved it into her heart.

 _Allison Zaleskas, District 4 Female: 2nd, Killed by Rye, Day 6_

"Rye Boyum of District 9, you are the victor of the forty-fourth annual Hunger Games!" Wisp screamed.

Rye dropped his sickle and staggered away from Allison's body, waiting patiently for the hovercraft to come and retrieve him.

 _Rye Boyum, District 9 Male: Victor of the Forty-Fourth Hunger Games, Day 6_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 9 welcomed its second victor with open arms. Barley rejoiced, for her son had survived the horrors of the arena just as she had and just as she had feared he would not. The Capitol liked Rye as a victor, but apart from being District 9's first in over a decade there wasn't much to make him memorable. Many people saw Rye's games as being a big failure, and because of this he quickly faded from the public eye.

Rye moved into the Victor's Village of District 9, occupying the second house.

His victory tour was rather bland. The only district that showed him ill will was District 4, who was hoping to get their tenth victor with Allison.

Rye would live to the age of sixty, dying from liver disease around the time of seventy-eighth annual Hunger Games. Unlike his mother, Rye would turn to alcohol to quiet the rampant memories of the time he served in the arena. Since District 9 made alcohol for the Capitol, the stuff was in plentiful supply, and he became a lesser example of a victor as he wasted away his life over the happy juice. As his mother fell into old age, Rye moved into her house to take care of her. Rye would never marry nor have children.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Woof Dozier gets married to his girlfriend, Bobbin Ogannesion.

Porter Tripp weds her fiance of nine months, a man named Thomas Scene.

Radiance Clinton marries Silk Griffin after dating her for seven months.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)

* * *

 **A/N: Writer's block strikes again! I know this wasn't the best chapter but I hope you still enjoyed it. About halfway through the chapter I knew that there was no way that I could pull off a thrilling games and so I just did the fire and the feast to end it quickly. Better to have a short and exciting games than a long and boring one :D**

 **Anyways… Rye! Always nice to see a victor from an outlying district. Thanks to all of you who have read and reviewed recently. You've kept me going through the good and the bad, and I could not be more thankful for what you do.**

 **Expect the forty-fifth games soon! Next chapter we get to see Chaff, another canon victor and a personal favorite of mine. Thanks for reading!**


	46. The 45th Hunger Games

**The 45th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

President Snow remained supreme over his domain called Panem, keeping his firm grip on the presidency for his twenty-first year. Immediately following the New Year, a new trend began sweeping through the Capitol and stirring up the enthusiasm of many a Capitol citizen. Glitter was all the rage in the Capitol. The glitter fad grew so big that Snow had to order District 1 to nearly double production of the sparkling stuff. Several famous Capitol fashion designers began designing glittered clothing, and it was a way for many up-and-coming tailors and seamstresses to strike it rich with the new clothing that they could produce. Soon, anybody walking on a Capitol street would be sure to see the splendor of glitter shining from its radiant citizens. This trend swallowed internet search results and social media, so much so that at the games' opening ceremony the fireworks that were fired into the sky matched the colors of glitter that were popular at the moment. Snow even wore a glittered tie to the festival, and his wife Magnolia wore a marvelous blue dress shining with iridescence. This further popularized the growing fad. After the reapings of the forty-fifth Hunger Games, the stylists even decided to ditch all previous rules for the chariot outfits and dressed up all of the tributes in glittered clothing. The Capitol couldn't get enough of it. The only tribute that actually liked the outfits was the twelve year-old Alice Brown from District 11. Alice had been a lover of fashion for most of her life and adored her costume. However, her district partner, the massive Chaff Korsmun, did not like his dorky outfit and seemed rather humiliated by the whole ordeal. With the Capitol absorbed in a storm of glitter, the forty-fifth Hunger Games rolled around.

The head gamemaker this year was Wisp Glasgow once more. Last year's game had been a flop, and it was a miracle in and of itself that Wisp wasn't dead. If Snow had punished him with death, the Capitol would be tainted with shock like he tainted the food of his enemies with poison. Not wanting the backlash that could come from disposing of the man, Snow allowed Wisp to return as head gamemaker once more, with a warning. If the forty-fifth games were to fail, Wisp would be dead, kicked out of job, no questions asked. Wisp was festered by expectation, but this worked to his advantage. It meant that he and his team designed and constructed the arena extra quick. They were so quick, in fact, that after it was completed there was nearly five months left until the games were set to begin. This year, Wisp tried to stray away from "extra" and "frivolous" elements of the games, like the poison feature of the year prior. This year's games, he hoped, would have no other such attributes. The arena was a nearly exact replica of the region of District 8 abandoned after the rebellion nearly half a century earlier. After the rebellion, District 8, as one of the closest districts to the still-smoking 13, had to have half of its land marked as an exclusion zone. The people living in this area were to evacuate and move to safer areas, never to return again. Forty-five years later, the area was still not habitable. The entire arena was cocooned in complete silence. Not a bird sang from anywhere. Not a river flowed, nor did the wildlife of the arena make any sound. Even the air was completely still, never showing the slightest hint of a breeze. The cornucopia stood in the center of the arena. Nestled away in a ditch, the tributes would have to run up a steep slope to flee to the bloodbath after running in. This could possibly dissuade some outliers and maybe even careers. Splayed out around the arena was a series of textile mills. There were nine mills in total. Each was large and had several stories, like a church. Inside were rows and rows of old, English leather seats. Each seat was connected to a loom or a sewing machine where employees could have once sat weaving thread into fabric. Each mill had a storage room in it. Each cardboard box tucked away was filled to the brim with clothing of every color imaginable. Outside of the mills, it was far too open for anybody to feel safe without some sort of cover, so it was expected that most of the carnage would occur inside of the bulky buildings.

After an outlier victory the year before, the careers were determined to take home the crown this year. District 1 produced the strongest batch. They were a duo of formidable fighters and were beautiful enough to draw tons of sponsors. The male was the best sword fighter that the academy had seen in a long time, but he could also work magic with the dagger. The female liked bows, and she was sexy enough to score a ten along with her weapon skills. District 2 certainly fell behind this year in terms of strength. The male was muscular and broad-shouldered but was pretty weak for a career because he was wasn't the best weapon user in the world. The girl was a terrifying and vicious warrior. Her beauty made her a hit with the audience, and in the arena she would rather die than admit defeat. District 4 produced some pretty powerful kids, but they were overall overshadowed by their flashier peers. The male was the son of a famous District 4 goldfish seller. Long days of helping his father sweep nets through water to catch the golden fish had perfected his elegance to a tee. The girl was the weakest career this year. Managing a meager eight, she was seen mostly as a place filler by her stronger allies. While she was laid-back and unconventional, she was fiercely loyal. Their training scores were average, with three tens, two nines, and one eight.

Outside of the careers, the batch of outliers didn't have much to boast. The strongest outlier was a certain Chevron Prentiss from District 8. Although nobody knew how or where she had perfected her knife skills, Chevron was a dangerous fighter and a big target for the careers, who were determined to take home the victor's crown. Chaff Korsmun of District 11 also scored an eight. He was large and muscular and had substantial looks and talents with the javelin to impress the sponsors quite a bit. The only two sevens earned were by Enzo from District 6, who had put on lots of muscle from the hard labor quotas of District 6; and Otter Saville from District 10, who had had lots of practice killing cows and chickens on his ranch with daggers and applied that to the cloth dummies in the training center to score an impressive seven. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There were no real standouts outside of the careers besides Chevron, and she was really only notable because of her training score. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Zinfandel Bernard, 18, (10) 4-1 and Viola Jendrock, 18, (10) 4-1

District 2: Cassius Fuentes, 16, (9) 6-1 and Cayenne Scapini, 17, (10) 5-1

District 3: Captcha Fitchett, 16, (4) 33-1 and Kernel Luca, 14, (4) 36-1

District 4: Koi Oslo, 18, (9) 5-1 and Wava Holzgrefe, 15, (8) 9-1

District 5: Diode Stevenson, 17, (5) 19-1 and Shunt Urdang, 15, (4) 22-1

District 6: Enzo Burley, 16, (7) 14-1 and Porsche Solace, 12, (3) 45-1

District 7: Leaf Slive, 16, (6) 16-1 and Logger Dexter, 16, (6) 16-1

District 8: Denim Elkies, 18, (5) 18-1 and Chevron Prentiss, 18, (8) 10-1

District 9: Irvin Euling, 18, (4) 24-1 and Renata Silvera, 17, (5) 20-1

District 10: Otter Saville, 16, (7) 27-1 and Poe Vitale, 12, (3) 44-1

District 11: Chaff Korsmun, 17, (8) 10-1 and Alice Brown, 12, (3) 44-1

District 12: Cavern Kringle, 16, (6) 23-1 and Cylvene Jackson, 16, (5) 25-1

HGBO Bets: 11% on Zinfandel and Viola, 7% on Cassius, Cayenne, and Koi, 6% on Wava, Chevron, and Chaff, 4% on Enzo, Leaf, Logger, and Otter, 3% on Diode, Denim, Renata, Zinnia, and Cylvene, 2% on Captcha, Kernel, Shunt, Irvin, and Cavern, 1% or Less on Porsche, Poe, and Alice.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The abandoned industrial area that the tributes emerged into seemed creepy in a way. The sky was solid grey, without a cloud in sight. Paved sidewalks, weeds sprouting from the cracks, shot out from the cornucopia and wormed their way toward the textile mills. Barely a blade of grass in sight. The completely human-made arena showed few hints of nature. As such, when the gong rang, only one tribute fled off the fly: Enzo from District 6. This year's bloodbath hosted twelve deaths. After two years in a row with small bloodbaths, this fact reassured Wisp. It meant that the games were off to a good start.

Zinfandel was at the head of the onrush, literally kicking up the dirt that had built up in the cement and leaving a cloud of dust behind him. In one swipe of his arm, Zinfandel deftly swept up a double-edged sword that sat just inside of the cornucopia's open mouth. Zinfandel flung the sword into a nearby sinewy girl. The girl stopped dead in her tracks as the sword cut through her torso and protruded from her back. Her form tightened before going slack and falling forward with a thud. Zinfandel tore his sword messily out of her dead body to look for more prey.

 _Shunt Urdang, District 5 Female: 24th, Killed by Zinfandel, Bloodbath_

Viola was only a few strides behind her district partner. A gleam of metal caught her eye from around a rather bulky crate. Viola thundered forth and found herself beside a sleek bow and its accompanying quiver of arrows. As she picked them up, they let off the faintest glimmer, reflecting the little sunlight that was able to stream through the polluted air. Viola threw the quiver over her shoulder and immediately fired a volley of three arrows at a boy that had fallen to his knees from a stab wound inflicted by Zinfandel mere seconds prior. The boy had his hand clapped to his side, wheezing, blood pouring plentifully from between his fingers. One of Viola's arrows struck home, worming its way into one of the boy's ears and out the other. His cries of terror were silenced immediately preceding a heavy thud.

 _Irvin Euling, District 9 Male: 23rd, Killed by Zinfandel and Viola, Bloodbath_

Koi had run all of the way into the horn to grab a trident. As he emerged into the light, he was immediately greeted by the terrifying sight of District 11's Chaff bolting toward him, javelin in hand. Koi was too shocked to make any movement until the sharp tip of Chaff's weapon was a scary two feet from spearing his neck like a shish kebab. Koi swiftly brought up his trident, placing it in front of his neck. The tip of the javelin clanged against the bronze trident and bounced off with a few glowing sparks. One of the sparks landed on Koi's neck. Koi reached up with his hand to slap at the red-hot particle that had landed on his body, and it was then that Chaff saw the perfect opportunity. Chaff backed up by a few feet to build up momentum and then shoved his javelin into the career's arm. Koi made a sound that started with a yelp and ended with a roar, but Chaff had fled the scene before Koi had the sense to fight back. With the gaping wound pouring out thick blood onto the ground, Koi bled out in due time as Chaff thundered away to gather more supplies.

 _Koi Oslo, District 4 Male: 22nd, Killed by Chaff, Bloodbath_

Wava from District 4 was darting toward the horn, her blonde hair rippling behind her, when she swept up an axe that sat on a plate of rock. Wava picked up the heavy weapon and moved it around a bit, trying to get a sense of the weapon that she was dealing with. Less than thirty yards away, a young girl of only twelve was struggling to get out of the ditch that the cornucopia was nestled inside of. The girl's calves were burning from running around so much in the first few minutes, and those tired muscles were precisely what made it so difficult to run up the steep slope. It was nearly a fifty degree angle going up, and whenever the girl got halfway up she was sure to trip and slide down soon after. Wava tossed the axe in one graceful sweep of her arm. The girl, who was slightly more than halfway up the slope at the time, whipped her head around and let out a short scream before the axe buried itself into her head with a crunch. She tumbled like a roly-poly to the bottom of the ditch, where Wava wrenched her axe out of her dilapidated skull.

 _Porsche Solace, District 6 Female: 21st, Killed by Wava, Bloodbath_

Although Cassius liked spears more than any other weapon, he was unable to find one. As such, he settled for a belt of throwing knives, figuring that they were the next best thing and that he could use similar techniques to use them as when using his beloved spear. Cassius secured the velcro belt around his waist and froze in place for a moment at the sight of a very peculiar chain of events. Logger, the charismatic girl from District 7, had dragged a few suitcases and crates into one place. Logger had constructed a rather wonky and precarious structure by stacking them on top of each other. Logger used the added height to leap on top of the ivory cornucopia. Logger unearthed a knife that she had hidden in her shirt and looked out over the bloodbath, which was unfurling below her. Logger thought rather stupidly that nobody would be able to hurt her up there. Cassius saw the girl on top of the horn and immediately hurled a throwing knife her way. The knife missed, whizzing past Logger's torso with a breadth of about two meters. As the knife landed behind the horn with a clang, Logger let a laugh tumble from her lips. Shaking, Cassius fired another knife. This knife was even more off course, flying nearly five yards over Logger's head. Furious, Cassius ran toward the tower that Logger had made and climbed on top of the horn. With Cassius cornering her on top of the cornucopia, Logger had no choice but to leap off of the horn lest she feel one of his throwing knives for real. Logger leapt off of the horn. She landed on her feet less than two feet from Wava, who had just finished pulling her axe out of Porsche's misshapen head. Wava spun sharply and buried her axe into Logger's neck. The axe cut about halfway into her neck, and she died immediately as blood flow to her brain ceased entirely.

 _Logger Dexter, District 7 Female: 20th, Killed by Wava, Bloodbath_

Cassius had watched the whole scene unfold from on top of the cornucopia. With reassurance that the tribute that had insulted him was dead, Cassius pounced off of the ivory horn to thank Wava. Wava, caught up in a killing spree, instinctively flung her axe forward. Cassius shot out his hands to defend against the trigger-happy District 4 girl, but her axe had already impaled Cassius' hip. Cassius keened as Wava realized her grave mistake. Hoping to hide the fact that it was her who had killed her ally, she grabbed a knife and inflicted a few stabs into his body. Nobody, she thought, would suspect the girl with the trident to have killed the boy who showed lots of knife wounds.

 _Cassius Fuentes, District 2 Male: 19th, Killed by Wava, Bloodbath_

Zinfandel, ready to make another kill, saw easy prey in a dark-haired girl that had picked up a backpack and was now booking it away from the horn. Zinfandel stormed toward her, zigzagging all the while to avoid attacks from the outliers that were looking to eliminate competition early. He caught up to her within a few seconds, and soon the girl recognized that she had no choice but to fight. She spun around and produced a sword of her own, ready to fend off the career. Zinfandel swung his sword, and the girl held her steady ground as she delivered a blow of rebuttal. Her sword cut through the air and landed in Zinfandel's shoulder. Zinfandel looked at the shoulder that had taken the blow. It was wet with blood. Furious, the career tackled the girl and shoved her to the ground. Zinfandel pressed the tip of his sword into her neck. She choked out pleas of mercy as Zinfandel drove the blade into her neck. The skin broke. Blood burbled forth. The girl started full-on screaming, but the further and further that Zinfandel's sword went into her neck the quieter she got until she had gone completely silent and left Zinfandel part of a two-way tie for most kills, along with Wava.

 _Renata Silvera, District 9 Female: 18th, Killed by Zinfandel, Bloodbath_

Cayenne had laid eyes on a green jar that sat on a countertop inside of the horn. She walked toward it and read its label. It was clearly labeled _poison_ in elaborate cursive, and inside was a clear liquid. Cayenne impulsively snatched it up. Wanting to put the poison to the test, Cayenne looked for easy prey, eventually laying eyes on a miner girl from District 12. The District 2 girl raced toward the girl and tackled her to the ground. Cayenne pinned her down and pinched her nose shut. Then, Cayenne placed the vial of poison just above her mouth. The intention was that, with her noes grasped shut with strong fingers, the girl would eventually have to open her mouth to breathe. When that happened, Cayenne poured about a tablespoon of the poison into her mouth. She instantly began spasming violently, and her mangled, grotesque corpse was one that the gamemakers weren't too keen about showing on television.

 _Cylvene Jackson, District 12 Female: 17th, Killed by Cayenne, Bloodbath_

Viola's aim was impeccable, and her gazelle-like grace was unmatched by most tributes that had come before her. At the sight of a willowy boy nearby, Viola fired a single arrow. The arrow arced along its path before planting itself into the top of the boy's head. By the time he fell with a loud noise, he was dead, and he was open for Viola to approach and retrieve her arrow.

 _Leaf Slive, District 7 Male: 16th, Killed by Viola, Bloodbath_

Chevron's braid thumped against her back as she darted toward the cornucopia's dark interior, hoping to find weapons and other supplies. Chevron's first order of business was to get a weapon so that she could defend against any attackers that tried to kill her while she was in the horn. She chose a curved sword and placed it beside her as she riffled though a crate containing several different supplies. Zinfandel spotted Chevron in the horn and ran to her side to kill her. He was so quiet and stealthy that Chevron didn't even hear him come up right behind her and bring down his sword. Chevron screamed and grabbed her weapon as the razor-sharp blade cut into her neck like butter. Chevron got to her feet and tried to fight back, but she staggered to the ground mere seconds later, too weak from the grievous wound she had sustained. Zinfandel watched smugly as her blood pooled around her. He marched off proudly, having eliminated the strongest outlier in the games.

 _Chevron Prentiss, District 8 Female: 15th, Killed by Zinfandel, Bloodbath_

Denim from District 8 should have learned from the failed attempts of so many tributes in previous games. Despite how heavily the odds were weighed against him, Denim scooped up two tomahawks and charged toward Viola, who seemed engrossed in scanning the terrain for prey. Viola heard the clumsy boy when he was a substantial distance away. Viola turned sharply on her heel and fired a single arrow. The arrow landed squarely in Denim's heart, killing him immediately.

 _Denim Elkies, District 8 Male: 14th, Killed by Viola, Bloodbath_

Cayenne made the final kill. She was looking through the cornucopia for weapons when she spotted a pair of eyes staring at her from the darkness, like a cat's. The eyes were unmistakable as being a human's. Cayenne picked up a machete and stalked forward to investigate. Immediately, a twelve year-old girl sprang out from the darkness and made a beeline for the cornucopia's exit. She only made it a few feet before Cayenne uncorked her vial of poison and threw it at the girl. The girl screamed as the acidic poison splattered her face and ate away at her skin. When she fell, never to rise again, her face was scarred and degraded like that of a victim of some terrible fire. The three other careers all gathered around to watch as Cayenne kneeled beside her and plunged her knife into her heart. Immediately, twelve cannon shots shattered the silence of the arena.

 _Poe Vitale, District 10 Female: 13th, Killed by Cayenne, Bloodbath_

The careers regrouped at the cornucopia. With a twelve piece bloodbath, they knew that they probably didn't need to go hunting for the rest of the day, but since it was customary they decided to trek away from the horn. Leaving Wava behind to guard the cornucopia, Cayenne, Zinfandel, and Viola hunted. While they were moving around, Cayenne kept perking up. Whenever the others asked her what was wrong, she said that she had heard something. Every time they went to investigate, they would find nothing. Zinfandel and Viola dismissed this as her having "bad hearing", and they stopped taking suggestions from her as to where to look for tributes. This angered her, but she dared not roar at her stronger allies who she knew could take her down if they really wanted to. With a kill under his belt, Chaff's confidence was boosted. His endurance was spectacular, and he ran away from the horn for fifteen minutes at a stretch without breaks. Breathing heavily from the long run, Chaff eventually found himself at the base of a large textile mill. He popped open the door and slipped inside. Intrigued, Chaff marched toward the long lines of sewing machines and work stations. He tried to get into the curator's office, but it was locked. He didn't want to break the window to get in because that would just display to all that he had been there. Chaff settled for a spot underneath one of the sewing machines. He slithered underneath it. It smelled old and musty, almost like mossy stone. His javelin couldn't fit in the small space, so he had to let part of it protrude from his hiding place lest it snap. Alice was entirely mortified by the chaos that she was leaving behind her as she ran away from the bloodbath. She would force herself to find some cover, then she would leave herself time to cry out whatever she needed to. Red-faced and shot-eyed, Alice crawled into a spot where a circle of trees surrounded a hidden area. Then, she fell to the ground and she cried. She cried for the family that she would probably never see again. She cried for the innocent souls that had been silenced by those "noble" careers. If anyone had looked through the trees that night and seen her, they would have seen a girl sobbing to herself at the unfairness of this life. Having chosen not to fight at the bloodbath, Enzo had to survive with only his wits and his bare hands. He couldn't reach the textile mills in one day, as even though he was more nimble than Chaff he didn't have half that spectacular endurance. As such, Enzo searched for an area with lots of mud. Enzo sank down few inches into the mud. Then, he reached out on either side of him and tore up the few weeds and even fewer blades of grass that surrounded him. Then, he sprinkled them on top of him. Enzo's dark skin blended in well to the dirt, and the grass that covered him camouflaged him even more. At first, Otter was apprehensive to do much. Even though he had earned an impressive seven in training, he couldn't bring himself to do much else but practice with the shogei that he had gotten from the horn. Otter knew that the shogei wasn't his best weapon, but he practiced and practiced for hours on end until he perfected every single move. Cavern was one of the only other tributes besides Chaff that was able to reach the textile mills in the first day. Cavern ended up at the base of one with two large smokestacks. This wasn't a mill, it was a factory. He treaded inside and ended up being able to stomp into the overseer's office, which was at the head of the grand building. Inside, he crouched behind a safe and just… waited. He eventually grew bored as the day wore on, and so he began throwing open drawers and taking out the things inside. Eventually, his curiosity got the best of him and he began rummaging through the drawers. He found a fashion magazine, and even though he had no interest in fashion he read every page over intently. Diode had gotten a lightbulb, coil of wire, and coil of rope from the horn. He ran and eventually came to a stop at the bed of a river, long-dried up. Trees stood on either bank, but they were dehydrated and looked as if they might crumple to dust at any moment. Diode found a way to gather water from underneath the soil that had once belonged to the river. With dehydration death out of the question, he set to work trying to figure out a way to win the games like Beetee. Captcha had snatched a spiked mace from the cornucopia. He ran away from the horn, and a few minutes later he ran into Kernel, his district partner. A long chase ensued, and eventually Captcha managed to lose Kernel. Captcha collapsed at the end of a long, wide chasm and backed away for fear of falling over the edge. Kernel was both frustrated and relieved about Captcha escaping from underneath her; she felt responsible to make a kill but also dreaded the concept. Kernel didn't have water and so she slept thirsty in a copse of bushes. Captcha tried to sleep, but the looming gap in the earth ahead of him kept him awake for long stretches at a time. Unnerved, he got up around two in the morning and trekked about ten yards away.

Little excitement filled the long hours of Day 2. Those tributes that were out in the open didn't neccesarily feel that way, for most of them were able to find clever ways to blend in to the environment. A prime example of this was Captcha. Not only was he off of ease from his proximity to the gaping chasm, he felt very exposed with nothing covering him but his thin clothes out in the open. Captcha ducked into a pile of rocks and placed a few in front of him to hopefully keep him from rolling out in his sleep. Captcha reached down and clawed lumps of dirt out of the earth. Captcha smacked the dirt on to himself to make him blend in to the earth. Alice had cried herself to sleep the night prior, and after that time of mourning she got up, wiped the dust off of herself, wiped the tears from her eyes, and marched toward the nearest textile mill. This one seemed to specialize in blankets more than anything else. Lines of looms neatly traversed the large building. Into each loom travelled a line of fuzzy yarn, and coming out of the other side was a fantastic creation. The place didn't seem abandoned. It was as if everyone in the place had set down what they were doing and left the place. Perhaps that was what happened with the evacuation of nearly half of District 8 forty-five years prior. Alice explored the large mill and eventually found a storage room filled with blankets waiting to be shipped out. A large truck stood pulled into the room, but the garage door was closed. Alice walked in, shut the door behind her, and fell down onto a pile of fluffy blankets. How amazing it felt after a night of sleeping on the cold hard ground! Alice cocooned herself in the fuzzy warmness, and, for a moment, she forgot that she was in the Hunger Games. After walking for several hours, Otter found himself at the base of a large textile mill. He strolled inside and realized that this mill must have specialized in production of furniture, blankets, and pillows when it was active. Although it was stale, he drank water from the taps in the restroom. Then, he had nothing much to do. Perhaps in an effort to amuse himself, or possibly in an effort to keep alive the heart of childhood in such a dangerous place, Otter began work on an elaborate pillow/blanket fort. He sketched it with pencils and paper that he found on a bench, and after about four hours of work, he had perfected his structure. This wasn't your average child's blanket fort. There was an elaborate entrance hall. Behind that, the house contained three different rooms. The floors were lined with colorful damask blankets throughout. Otter was proud of his handiwork, spending the rest of Day 2 inside of it. Chaff's back needed a break after bending so much to fit him inside of the cramped space. Chaff got out and did a few stretches before grabbing his javelin. Chaff practiced with his javelin for the better part of Day 2. For the first hour or so, he practiced between the lines of work stations, but he soon realized that this was dangerous. His weapon frequently banged and clanged against objects, and this made quite a racket. Chaff was set off on an odyssey through the factory, and he eventually found a place where yarn was stored. The room was nearly thirty yards a side, and piled up to the ceiling were bundles of yarn. There, he had lots of room, and even when his spear did hit something, the sound was just a mere thud against yarn.

This year, the careers' plan was to only take the bare necessities out hunting each day. At the end of every day they would return to the horn to restock. They returned to the cornucopia on the morning of Day 2. There, they left Viola behind and went hunting. The careers knew that most of the tributes would be in the factories, and so they split up and went to three different factories to look for prey. Cavern was hidden away safely inside of the mill that he was in and didn't have any reason to leave. Enzo set up a series of snare traps. They were crudely made; they produced a combined total of one kill for the entire day. The one animal that Enzo did catch was a chipmunk that hung by its foot and screeched madly as it flailed around in the air. It was a feisty one, and it took several minutes for a frustrated Enzo to grab hold of it to actually kill it with his knife. Seeing how disastrous the fire had been in the last year's games, Enzo figured that roasting his prey wouldn't be the best idea. This arena was a lot less flammable that last year's, but Enzo still didn't want to take any chances. Diode gave up trying to form his lightbulb, wire, and rope into an elaborate electrical trap, and so he set his mind toward finding water. Diode was walking contentedly along when suddenly his foot caught a rock and he fell forward onto the ground. His cheek raked across a sharp surface, and he felt a hot wetness drizzle down his face and neck. A sizable gash had opened up in his neck from the scrape, and Diode knew that he couldn't ignore the wound. Hoping to prevent infection, he tore off a bit of his shirt and used a rubber band that he found discarded on the ground to secure it around his head. Kernel endeavored to do something that few tributes had ever done successfully in Hunger Games history. She grabbed her limited supplies and began the long trek toward the cornucopia.

Kernel arrived around one o'clock in the morning. There, Viola was out in the clearing, yawning with tiredness and waiting for her allies to get back. Racing on her tiptoes and taking infinite care, Kernel scampered toward the horn. In the darkness, Kernel tripped on a suitcase and face planted into the ground in front of her like an idiot. Viola whipped her head around and spotted her, dumfounded, on the ground. Viola leapt to her feet and charged, and Kernel was dead before she could even get to her feet. Viola fired two arrows in rapid succession, both of them skewering themselves through her torso in perfect precision. Blood spouted from the holes that they had opened in her flesh, and the dark pool quickly reached Viola's feet. She retrieved her two arrows, wiped them off on her shirt, and then shoved her away to get back to her business.

 _Kernel Luca, District 3 Female: 12th, Killed by Viola, Day 3_

The rest of Day 3 trickled by without any more deaths. Having made the latest kill, Viola was the popular one in the pack for the time. Cayenne found a very bright flashlight and affixed it to the ceiling with duct tape. This illuminated the entire interior of the cornucopia and virtually the entire ditch into which the horn had been situated. This was of great convenience for the others, particularly Zinfandel who liked to sharpen his sword inside of the horn and was constantly complaining that it wasn't bright enough to work. Chaff was growing fed up of the stale water from the sinks in the textile mill, and so he decided to leave and go hunting. With his javelin at his side, Chaff was hardy and strong. At one point in the day, Chaff found the blanket storage room that Alice was hiding in. Chaff was about to kill Alice before realizing that she was his district partner. Chaff let her go, and with that freedom Alice swore to never leave hiding ever again. She travelled to the nearest factory, where she found a cardboard box and crouched up inside of it. Lest asphyxia give her a nasty end, Alice carved a small hole in the floor of the box. Whenever she needed air, she would swing her body to the left. This would lift the floor of the box off of the ground and expose the hole for fresh air to flow in. Otter was working on adding an extension to his blanket fort when a tiny drone zipped toward him carrying a message from his mentor, a Capitol citizen who had been hired to give him advice since District 10 had no victors. The note suggested that he add a sort of mechanism that would allow him to destroy the entire thing in a second's notice and make it look like nobody had ever been there. What Otter did was cover the floor surrounding the fort with bunched-up blankets. Then, Otter found a broom and found a way to support the entire abode by the broom. If Otter pushed over the broom, the entire thing would fall, mingle with the bundles of blankets on the floor, and make it look like the fort had never existed. Otter was rather proud of his creation, but he still slept a few feet away from the broom for fear of knocking it over while tossing and turning in his slumber. Enzo continued setting up more snares, and it paid off. On Day 3, he collected three kills, whereas the day prior he had only collected one. In his cozy little office on the wheelie chair, Cavern flicked on the television to see what was on. It was just a bunch of Capitol propaganda, but it was better than nothing to fill the boring hours of the day. Diode had seemingly managed to prevent the infection that could have taken root in his gash, but it was still immensely painful. His mentor Porter sent him a bag of ice, which he put onto the wound to nurse it.

As the sun rose on Day 4, things began to grow peculiar. Cavern, who was very hungry after staying inside for three days, went outside to look for food in the wee morning hours of the day. The moment Cavern stepped outside to forage for food, he began to feel faint tremors beneath his feet. He just dismissed these as his upset stomach and kept searching. Eventually, he came across a patch of carrots. They were gnarly and wrinkly, but carrots nonetheless. After munching down the sour vegetables, the shivers and shakes from the earth seemed to be getting louder, way too loud to dismiss as tummy problems. Suddenly, the earth let out a huge roar and began shaking back and forth. Cavern let out a yelp and leapt up from his place sitting cross-legged in a ditch eating carrots. Less than ten yards away, a huge crack was opening up in the earth. The ground was cracking open in front of him like ice thawing in hot water. Then, suddenly, a roar that shook the heavens bellowed out from all around him and a plume of red-hot lava came shooting out of the ground. The first plume of ash was mere yards from his face. Cavern recoiled. He stood, dumbfounded, as the gash widened and red-hot lava began burbling forth. The lava pooled around his feet and held him in place, and it was too late to run. The force of the lava slamming into his feet caused him to fall forward, his body sinking down into the molten magma and killing him in due time.

 _Cavern Kringle, District 12 Male: 11th, Killed by Volcanic Earthquake, Day 4_

The bellows and screams that the earth was letting out roused many tributes from their slumbers. Chaff had been camping out for the night in the blanket factory recently vacated by young Alice. Suddenly, a spurt of boiling lava shot toward the building and broke through the wall like nothing. The magma exploded through the room, and Chaff had no choice but to run. To gain high ground, he leapt on top of the countertops as the lava built up beneath him and began rising. Otter heard the groans of the earth and thought that a monster was outside of the factory. So, he used his little broom trick. The second that Otter pulled the broomstick out from its place, the entire building fell to the ground in a heap of blankets. Otter backed away, holding his knife, prepared to fight against whatever monster sought his blood. Soon, his back touched a wall. But the wall was strangely hot. It was as if something boiling hot was on the other side…

Suddenly, the wall burst and a hungry mass of lava began pouring in. Otter, whose back was touching the wall, was instantly swallowed by the lava and was killed immediately. The lava approached what once was his fort and lit the blankets ablaze. They only had a few seconds to blaze before the lava rolled over them, and, leaving Otter's burning corpse behind, continuing on in its insatiable rage.

 _Otter Saville, District 10 Male: 10th, Killed by Volcanic Earthquake, Day 4_

Meanwhile, at the horn, the careers were all going about their business. When they heart the rumbles of the crying earth, they grabbed their weapon and prepared for whatever monster was their way. Nothing happened for at least an hour, and so they went back to their business. All four careers were out in the area surrounding the horn sorting through supplies when, suddenly, the earth burst before them and a fountain of hot lava spurted out into the sky. The careers screamed and tried to run as the lava splashed down and droplets of it flew every which way. One of the droplets landed on Cayenne's forehead. It burned through her skin, and Cayenne tried to bat it away but couldn't. Cayenne was in critical condition but kept running. In a pack of four, the careers were less than ten steps from escaping the ditch when a geyser of lava shot up in front of them and started its own lava flow, trapping the careers between them. Zinfandel saw the tall pile of suitcases that Logger had built during the bloodbath. Zinfandel gave a mighty leap and pounced on top of the pile. Using all of his muscular strength to hoist himself up, Zinfandel was able to jump on top of the ivory cornucopia. Viola followed suit, laughing with relief, as did Wava, who was sweating bullets from the blistering heat of the lava. That left only Cayenne. With two flows of lava rushing in toward her from opposite directions, Cayenne had leapt on top of a crate and watched with terror as the lava pooled around the crate and began going upward. When the lava was mere seconds from pouring over the top of the crate, she gave a leap of faith toward the tower of suitcases and crates that her allies had used to reach safety. Alas, she was too far away, and she smacked into the lava more than a yard short of her target. The lava burbled beneath her as she sank into it and left her three surviving allies watching with earnest from atop the ivory horn.

 _Cayenne Scapini, District 2 Female: 9th, Killed by Volcanic Earthquake, Day 4_

That left the final eight: Zinfandel Bernard and Viola Jendrock from District 1, Captcha Fitchett from District 3, Wava Holzgrefe from District 4, Diode Stevenson from District 5, Enzo Burley from District 6, and Chaff Korsmun and Alice Brown from District 11.

Meanwhile, Chaff was beginning to grow overwhelmed by the way the lava was building up around him. Up about ten feet in the air, he estimated that he had three or four minutes before the level of the lava reached him and he was toast. Chaff tried to make a break for the door, but it was covered to the halfway point with the boiling stuff. His only choice was to escape through the ceiling. Chaff looked around and spotted a small skylight nearby. Pouncing over the work stations and desks and chairs and tables, Chaff reached directly under the skylight. Then, he reached up with his javelin and slammed the sharp tip into the glass. The glass was strong, and a minute of hard pounding later Chaff had made progress of less than an inch. Chaff's arms felt like they were on fire, but he kept pounding away at the glass until finally the skylight shattered. The shower of glass fell down, some pieces impaling him, but he ignored them as he hoisted himself up through the broken skylight and onto the roof of the factory, which was filling with lava underneath his feet.

Weirdly, some tributes didn't notice the onslaught of lava for a really long time. Perhaps they didn't know that the labored cries of the ground beneath them were signs that a terrible disaster was about to occur. Diode was an example of this. He had high ground, and the lava didn't inconvenience him in the slightest. Enzo was walking out to collect the outputs of his snares when he saw the hungry lava flow rushing in from in front of him. He turned around and darted away from the lava as fast as he could. He came to a stop beside a long metal pole. Enzo shinnied up the pole and held on for dear life, but could do nothing as the lava eventually reached him. The lava melted through the base of the pole, and without a base it fell to one side. Enzo landed straight in a huge plume of ash, dust, and, most importantly, lava. The flagpole melted into liquid as Enzo was scorched to death, the second to last tribute whose life would be claimed by the earthquake.

 _Enzo Burley, District 6 Male: 8th, Killed by Volcanic Earthquake, Day 4_

Captcha didn't notice the onslaught of bubbling lava until it was too late. He had settled down into a district thick with trees, and as the lava raced toward him the trees toppled. Abruptly, the lava felled a tree nearby. The tree fell down toward Captcha, and he was too dumbfounded with shock to move as the tree landed straight on top of him and hammered him to a pulp. He was the final tribute to perish in the terrible disaster.

 _Captcha Fitchett, District 3 Male: 7th, Killed by Volcanic Earthquake, Day 4_

Day 5 had no deaths as the tributes scrambled to find safety in the arena. By morning the lava had hardened into stone but was still too hot to walk across or touch. Until the rock was safe to walk on, Chaff was stranded on top of one of the textile mills. He occasionally peeked down through the busted open skylight and saw that the area he had been standing in before his exit was completely covered with lava, and whenever he did he felt thankful that he had been able to break through the skylight. The careers were able to return to the cornucopia, as the gamemakers had stopped the hungry lava flow after Captcha's death, before it was able to consume the entire cornucopia. Some of their supplies, particularly plastic objects, had melted and changed shape, and anything metal was blisteringly hot to the touch. Zinfandel suggested that they stay on top of the horn all day, but Wava objected and said that it would be far too open up there. Viola broke the tie and suggested that atop the cornucopia would be the safest option. Wava was mad because she was paranoid that the ivory horn would melt, but Zinfandel pointed out to her that it hadn't melted at all thus far and such was unlikely to do so ever. Up there they didn't have much to do but practice with their weapons, and really only Wava and Zinfandel could do that. Viola couldn't practice with her bow because whenever she fired at the roof of the cornucopia the arrow would bounce off and land somewhere far away. She would just be wasting arrows. Diode, like Chaff, was stranded. He had been on the top of a dusty hill when the lava had pooled up around him and hardened into rough rock. Only a tiny bit of the hill protruded from above the surface of the stone, and since the stone was too hot to go near he was pretty much trapped there. He dug a hole in the ground with his hands to crawl inside of to give himself an illusion of shelter. If a threat came along , he would have nowhere to run. The entire duration of the disaster, nimble Alice had been only a few precious strides ahead of the lava. If she ever stopped to catch her breath, she would be dead. On Day 5, she was exhausted and, after finding high ground, she just laid around and slept. Never mind finding shelter.

Days 6 and 7 passed deathless, the most slow and boring that the games had seen yet. Progress slowed down to a crawl. On Day 7, the rock was finally cool enough to walk on. Chaff was able to escape his island prison. After discreetly scouting the horn and ensuring that all of the careers were there, he travelled to one of the textile mills and ducked behind a basket. He knew that the tributes would all flock to the mills seeking their cover, and he wanted to have an outlier encounter or two. Alice searched for a good place to build shelter and soon found a space perfect for her needs. She used moss and sticks to create a structure that would be able to keep out the cold fairly well. The only exciting thing that happened was when Diode got a dagger from a sponsor. He had misplaced his shogei that day prior and was thankful to have a weapon. He practiced with the dagger not only to give him something to do but also because he knew there would be more threats soon…

The tributes woke up to a bloodcurdling screech that filled the sky and earth. Circling overhead each tribute was a marvelous golden eagle. The careers immediately grabbed their weapons to fight. The eagle extended its talents and dove toward them. Viola shot a single arrow. It landed in the golden bird's neck and angered it. It cawed and raced down toward Viola. Hurriedly, her allies ran to her side to defend against the creature. Wava held her steady ground and swiped away at the creature with her axe. Zinfandel slashed his sword every which way and ran around, trying to injure the eagle. Abruptly, it dove in and prepared for hand-to-hand combat with the three tributes. The eagle screeched and clawed at the air with its talons, threatening death to anyone who dared come near. Viola was doing the most damage against the muttation, having a bow. The fight came to an end when Viola flung an arrow that found its way through the eagle's sparkling feathers and into its head. Black muttation blood stained its pristine feathers, and right before dying it flung out a mighty claw and slammed it into the nearest tribute: Wava. Wava screamed as the eagle raked its talons across her torso. Then, the eagle gave a final caw and died.

The careers ran to Wava's side. Zinfandel immediately ran to grab healing supplies from the cornucopia, but the plastic packages of medicine had all been melted by the heat from the lava flow a few days earlier. Neither Zinfandel nor Viola could do anything as they stood by with earnest and watched Wava bleed out from the three gashes that traversed her chest.

 _Wava Holzgrefe, District 4 Female: 6th, Killed by Eagle Muttation, Day 8_

Meanwhile, the outliers strived to kill their eagle predators, with varying degrees of success. Diode slashed away at the air with his dagger and tried to fend off the beast. The eagle was nimble, and it dodged his scattered attacks most of the time. His most harmful hit saw the sharp edge of his dagger scrape across the eagle's leg. It cawed with agony and rage as it dove toward Diode, and he had no choice but to turn around and run. Diode ran at top speed for nearly twenty minutes, not once looking behind him. The calls of the golden eagle from behind him were evidence enough that he had not yet lost his pursuer. Eventually, he had no choice but to hide. Diode darted toward an area were the earth curved down into a steep slope. Then, he rolled forward and went tumbling down the hill. With the added velocity of the roll, the eagle fell behind him. Diode prayed that he would find some sanctuary, and his eyes immediately travelled to a place in the side of the slope where a rock was covering up a hole dug by some kind of large mammal. Diode pulled away the rock, crawled inside the hole, and scrunched up into the very back. The eagle couldn't find him, and even if it did it wouldn't be able to get through the hole and reach him. Even so, he dared not move a muscle until the creature gave up and flew away in a flap of leathery wings. Chaff was the only tribute besides the careers that managed to kill his muttation. The creature dove toward him with great speed, and Chaff rolled to the side. The eagle smashed into the ground where he had once been, and Chaff leapt to his feet to grab his javelin and go in for the kill. He skewered the long spear through the eagle's neck. Its cries became choked and much quieter until it finally died.

Alice was not so lucky. After her shelter was destroyed, she had been sitting on the ground with her back against a sturdy tree. The eagle barreled through the air and toward her, and she didn't notice it until it was too late. In one second, the eagle snatched her off of the ground and carried her high into the air. Alice thrashed and struggled, but the grasp of the muttation was so tight that she couldn't escape. Struggling just made her more tired, but even so her screams were mortifying to many a district child as the eagle munched away at her body as an airtime snack.

 _Alice Brown, District 11 Female: 5th, Killed by Eagle Muttation, Day 8_

With eight days down and only four tributes remaining, Wisp knew that he had to tone things down a bit. Zinfandel and Viola were rather shaken up from the attack and so decided to stay at the horn, not hunting at all on Day 9. They didn't even do much productive wise, and given how hard they had worked throughout the games before the audience was able to give them a break. Chaff got to work literally tearing off the feathery flesh of the eagle that he had slew. Then, he traveled to the nearest textile mill, grabbed some scissors, whipped out one of the sewing machines, and starting creating a coat with the hide of the eagle. Few things are more menacing than a hero that makes a cloak out of the pelt of his kill, and Chaff did exactly that as he marched off proudly to look for prey with his new look. Diode had a run in with the creature that lived in the hole when it returned that night. It was a massive beaver, and even though it wasn't deadly it had a fierce bite and Diode had to run for a few minutes to lose it. Diode came to a stop at the edge of a large chasm, the very same chasm encountered by Captcha over a week prior. He was too scared to make camp directly on the edge of the chasm, so he went a few feet away and made shelter there.

Day 10 saw a single death. Sporting his new cloak made from the pelt of the golden eagle, Chaff continued tribute hunting through the day. He wanted to make a kill by the end of the day, and he did just that. Diode had been snoozing contentedly for most of the day, exhausted from the day prior, and he was asleep when Chaff saw him and scampered toward him. Diode woke up to the horrible sensation of Chaff's javelin raking across his leg. Diode screamed and grabbed his dagger, but before he could get back at Chaff he had already speared his javelin through his hip. Diode's blood spouted from the large hole that Chaff had opened, and as Chaff scurried away from the scene the boy was left to die. Chaff had defeated some quite tough enemies before, but could he emerge victorious over Zinfandel and Viola? Time would tell.

 _Diode Stevenson, District 5 Male: 4th, Killed by Chaff, Day 10_

At this point in the game, Wisp had to make a big decision. One option was to let the games go on under his nose and not interfere. This wasn't the preferable option. At this point, Chaff was the audience's favorite to win behind possibly one of either Zinfandel or Viola, and Wisp knew that even though he was a strong boy he probably couldn't take down the united strength of the two District 1'ers. This would make an exciting fight but would leave Chaff's chances of victory low. His other option was to kill off one of the careers before the final fight. This would mean that one of the popular and beloved careers would have to die, but Chaff and the surviving career would have a duel that could end either way. That was what Wisp decided to do. How he determined which career to kill is unknown to this day, but he chose Viola to die before the final fight.

Convenient that was, for the very next day Viola went hunting while Zinfandel stayed behind to guard the cornucopia. Wisp waited for Viola to be a mile or so away from the horn before unleashing hell. The mutts that attacked her could have once been human, but they looked to be so altered by radiation that they were almost unrecognizable. Their skin was blue and stricken with veins, and their limbs shot out at awkward angles. They cackled strange phrases. Viola was in an area thick with trees when suddenly two of the strange ghouls leapt down and landed straight in front of her. Viola immediately fired a volley of two arrows at each one. The first ghoul was able to dodge both arrows. The second ghoul dodged the first arrow and swatted away the second arrow like nothing. Despite their awkward stature and form, they scuttled over the ground with impressive speed, and as Viola fired more and more arrows it became increasingly obvious that her arrows weren't hurting the monsters. Eventually, she had no choice but to find shelter and hide. She raced as fast as she could toward the nearest textile mill and threw herself inside. She looked around for some heavy furniture and found a sort of desk, which she shoved in front of the heavy door. She repeated this for a few other pieces of furniture. Viola was almost completely certain that she had lost the ghouls when she heard a thud on the door. The heavy objects rattled. Another thud. Viola ran away from the door and sought shelter in the lady's restroom, which was at the very back of the factory. She crouched down into one of the stalls and waited, not knowing what to expect. Suddenly, there was a great crashing sound as the monsters broke through the door and raced toward Viola as if sniffing her out. The beasts crawled into the stall, and she leapt on top of the toilet and pounced out of the stall with perfect precision. She landed on the ground, rolled, and got to her feet a few yards away, but by the time she got up to run one of the creatures had grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her to the ground. Their mouths watered and Viola wept as they mauled apart her body and tasted her delicious flesh.

 _Viola Jendrock, District 1 Female: 3rd, Killed by Ghoul Muttations, Day 11_

The gamemakers had whittled down the crowd to their cherished final two, and luckily for them it contained the two most popular tributes of the year. Zinfandel Bernard was one of the most powerful tributes that the academy had seen in ages, and if he won he would help his district along the way to overtaking District 4, which had recently surpassed it in victor count. Chaff Korsmun, however, was the true underdog. After his mother died when he was four, Chaff had been living in the slums of District 11 doing back-breaking work to support him and his crippled father. If he won, he could help his family escape all of that. He would also bring District 11 its second victor, which it really could use given how overwhelmed Seeder was in keeping track of so many tributes.

On Day 12, Wisp unleashed the golden eagle mutts once again. Zinfandel had his sword, Chaff his javelin; they both met up in an open field of cement a few hours later. The eagles weren't meant to kill, but they had injured both of the tributes nonetheless. Zinfandel had gotten a slash to the side, and Chaff had received a claw to his back. Both were bleeding fiercely, and at this point in the competition it was either each tribute kill their opponent or die trying.

Zinfandel spotted Chaff on the horizon around noon, racing away from his eagle mutt pursuer. The two tributes clashed together in the meadow, and their fight began. Zinfandel made a devious move, showing his sword sharply to the left. The sharp edge of the blade grazed Chaff's arm, drawing a few drops of blood. Chaff tried to grab a steady hold of Zinfandel's arm, but he managed to shake the District 11 boy off and throw him to the ground. Chaff landed on his bum on the ground, with Zinfandel above him. Suddenly, with a burst of energy so sudden that Zinfandel was too stupefied to move, Chaff leapt to his feet, tore Zinfandel's sword out of his grasp, and kicked him to the ground. Chaff leapt on top of Zinfandel. The career struggled. He was strong, but Chaff was stronger, and as he slowly drove his knife into Zinfandel's chest he could do nothing to protest. Zinfandel was dead seconds after the blade pierced his heart, and then Chaff was the only remaining tribute.

 _Zinfandel Bernard, District 1 Male: 2nd, Killed by Chaff, Day 12_

"Chaff Korsmun of District 11, you are the victor of the forty-fifth annual Hunger Games!" Wisp cheered, his voice energetic and bright. Wisp was confident that he had pulled off the games well, and he didn't think he would face the punishments Snow promised if he had failed.

Chaff staggered away from Zinfandel's corpse before collapsing to the ground, bleeding out from the huge gash that the eagle mutt had dealt him mere minutes prior. A team of medic officials poured out of the hovercraft to help him, and as they did they couldn't help but notice the weak, but certain smile that was plastered across his face.

 _Chaff Korsmun, District 11 Male: Victor of the Forty-Fifth Hunger Games, Day 12_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 11 was overjoyed to have their second victor. Seeder was the happiest resident of the district by far, as since Chaff was now a mentor she only had to take care of one tribute each year instead of two. District 1 was furious, as they had provided their two strongest pupils to fight in the games with hopes of winning and catching up to District 4. The sourest of all was Zinfandel's father and mother, who literally threw curses at him during his victory tour.

Chaff moved into the Victor's Village of District 11, the second victor to do so.

His victory tour was a varied show. In all districts except 1, 4, and 5, he was loved. He had killed at least one tribute from each District 1, 4, and 5, and the relatives of those tributes showered him with ill will. The crowning moment of his Victory Tour, however, happened during his stop in District 11. Chaff turned out to be a fantastic public speaker, and he gave little Alice a heart-wrenching eulogy that left few dry eyes in the nation. Snow didn't exactly like this display of mourning for a tribute, but he let it slide since Alice had been young and wasn't rebellious anyways.

Chaff would live to the age of sixty-nine, dying from a possibly intentional alcohol overdose around the time of the ninety-seventh annual Hunger Games. In those games, he was instructed to mentor a twelve year-old boy named Marvin. This Marvin boy was the sweetest and kindest person that Chaff had ever seen, and he quickly made good friends with the boy. When Marvin's neck was snapped by the District 2 boy twelve seconds into the games, Chaff fled the control center and was found dead in his apartment an hour later, surrounded by empty glass bottles. In his lifetime, he wouldn't marry nor have children. He would turn to the vice of alcohol to dissuade the rampant memories of his time in the games. Because of this, he would become great friends with fellow alcoholic Victor Haymitch Abernathy.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Chaff settles down into the Victor's Village of District 11, occupying the second house.

Porter Tripp adopts triplet daughters named Phoebe, Rachel, and Monica.

Radiance Clinton has quadruplet sons: Brilliance, Valor, Splendour, and Gleam.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)

* * *

 **A/N: Chaff was super fun to write! He was a personal favorite of mine all along and I think that's why I'm personally pretty proud of this chapter. I hope you liked reading him as much as I liked writing him.**

 **Thanks for reading, and thanks to all of you for sticking with me for so long! We're coming up on a lot of canon victors: The District 5 Male for the 47** **th** **, Brutus for the 48** **th** **, Wiress for the 49** **th** **, Haymitch for the 50** **th** **, and Lyme for the 51** **st** **! As always, I love getting your reviews so please tell me how I'm doing. See you all next time :D**


	47. The 46th Hunger Games

**The 46th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Much like how the twinkling glitter had swept through the Capitol and stirred up the enthusiasm of its citizens the year before, a trend was growing in the districts that could not be controlled no matter how badly Snow tried. It started when a man named Vincent Thomas, the CEO of a famous Capitol pharmaceutical brand, purchased from Caelinia Gadsby the right to sell her revolutionary new headache medicine in his stores. The purchase was worth millions, but it paid off for Vincent in the long run. Traffic in his stores nearly tripled after they began selling the new drug. All seemed well in the Capitol, but there was another layer to Vincent's purchase that was not visible to the casual observer. Vincent had taken Caelinia's invention and hired a few henchmen to toil over giving it a new form. They eventually succeeded, and soon Vincent had "created" a liquid that was one of the greatest pain killers known to medicine at the time (though really the men he had hired did all of the work). This new painkiller became of common use to Capitol doctors, but it soon leeched out into the districts. Many a district citizen began purchasing or stealing the drug, for it turned out to be highly addictive. Within a few months, the "fad" began to die out, but there were two districts that refused to stop abusing the medicine. They were Districts 6 and 7. It was easy to get District 7 to jump off of the bandwagon after Snow discovered a single man who had stolen hundreds of pounds of the stuff and dealt it to hundreds of clients across the district. He was locked in prison for his crimes. However, shutting the seat on abuse of the drug was impossible in a district as large as District 6. It spread through the entire district, and, soon, nearly a tenth of its population was involved in the drug somehow. Selling it became a quick way to get rich. It soon developed the street name morphling. Use of the stuff had nasty side-affects: green spots on the skin, rotting of teeth, gum disease, gnarling of skin on the face and hands, and many more horrendous ailments than could likely fit in this book.

Snow hadn't been expecting the games of the year prior to go so well, but before his eyes they did, and so he allowed Wisp Glasgow to keep his head and his job as head gamemaker. Following the order of the districts, this year's arena would be inspired by District 9. Many people remark, to this day, that District 9 is the blandest district. This is true, in a way. Compared to the rough mountains of District 2, the timber forests of District 7, or the spectacular beaches of Districts 4 and 11, its amber waves of grain can be plain to the eye. This would not discourage Wisp, however, and construction of an arena began despite all possibilities of failure. There wasn't much to do with District 9, so the arena was a medley of landscapes held by the grain district. The circular arena had three parts. In the center was a circular field of wheat that stretched on for miles in every direction. In the center was a clearing, and in that clearing was the cornucopia. It was set up like an oversized garden shed. Its only weapons were sickles and scythes, the two chief tools utilized by citizens of District 9. The cornucopia also held shovels aplenty, although a shovel's status as a weapon is disputable. A series of rolling hills wrapped around the right side of the wheat field. It is trivial to mention these hills, however, because they were never used during the games and no tribute ever discovered them. Although it had promise for beauty, its grass was crumbly with dehydration and the few trees were gnarly and ugly. But there was food and water if one knew how to find it. A simple plain stood to the left side of the grain field. A few animals grazed the open area, but the crowning feature was a huge plantation house that stood nestled between two areas of raised land. The mansion was crafting expertly from white marble. The interior of the house was rigged with booby traps, though prizes stood in remote areas of the abode for tributes that dared to reach them.

The careers this year scored averagely. Like last year's games, District 1 produced the cream of the crop this year. The male from District 1 was a famous glass blower whose artworks often sold for high prices in his district and sometimes in the Capitol. For all of that time spent creating things, he also spent time destroying things, and to do that he preferred the knife more than any other weapon because of its versatility. His girlfriend was selected as District 1's female volunteer. This chap was the loveliest little District 1 girl. She seemed weak at first glance, but she was faster than the wind and was extremely stealthy. This, combined with her wonderful skills with bows, earned her an impressive ten, only matched by her district partner. District 2's tributes were more mysterious than anything else. The male fit this bill perfectly. Although he fell short of the often lusted-after ten in weaponry, he had a sort of mysticism that made him all the more intriguing. He hinted often throughout his time in the Capitol that he had a unique strategy for the games, but he refused to tell anybody what it was. The female from District 2 was one of the wealthiest citizens of the district, so much so that she could afford to dye her tresses the deepest shade of blue. She was tough and rather masculine both in form and demeanor. District 4 was seeing an all-time low in number of students attending the academy, so they had less contestants to choose from to go into the arena. The male was a spectacular sailor and fisher, but when he was in battle he preferred the scythe more than anything. The girl did have the typical career attitude, but she also knew how to have fun. She pulled practical jokes on her fellow tributes during her time in the Capitol. The only joke that backfired was when the District 4 girl snuck into the apartment of the District 1 boy and taped down the button inside of his refrigerator so that the light wouldn't go on when he opened it. The boy found the tape instantly, and he was so shocked and infuriated that he pushed the refrigerator to the ground. A group of peacekeepers rushed to him, and after he described the circumstances it became clear that it was the District 4 girl who had set up the whole thing. The training scores of the careers were average this year. In their ranks, two tens and four nines were earned.

Outside of the careers, there weren't many standouts. The most powerful outlier was Thimble Aminoff from District 8. Thimble had remarkable experience with the knife, and he was burly in form to the point that he could lift and move large amounts of weight. His impressive nine spoke to the other outliers that he was not one to be messed with. The fourteen year-old Silo Grouse from District 9 also captivated the Capitol with how he was able to score so high (an eight) being so young, and he became a Capitol favorite. Sevens were scored by Rail from District 6 and Acker and Dara from District 7. Rail Le Blanc was the younger brother of Train Le Blanc, the tribute that had started a massive fire two games ago. Rail would be extra cautious in the arena, not wanting to fall into the same fate as his deceased older sister. District 7 produced a stellar showing, and with both of their tributes scoring sevens it was likely that they could take home the crown. Acker and Dara were both spectacular wielders of axes, like many District 7 tributes before them, and they would certainly not be the last. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. This year's games had a much larger amount of sub-fifteen year-olds this year. There was one fourteen year-old, two thirteen year-olds, and three twelve year-olds. This meant that a quarter of the tributes were less than fifteen, an abnormality that was due to coincidence more than anything. The only other standout in the crop of outliers was Bailey, a sixteen year-old girl from District 12. After being reaped and being escorted into the Justice Building, Bailey broke through the window of the visiting room and ran away. It took days of searching before a squad of peacekeepers found her cowering in the middle of a forest nearly four miles away. She was marched back to the Justice Building and then sent on toward the Capitol, where she claimed her spot as a tribute once and for all. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Glass Wernholm, 16, (10) 5-1 and Gossamer Kelman, 16, (10) 5-1

District 2: Nolan Wrack, 17, (9) 6-1 and Boulder Fiore, 18, (9) 6-1

District 3: Cache Rees, 13, (4) 39-1 and Mona Brunk, 15, (5) 25-1

District 4: Stern Pinto, 18, (9) 7-1 and Grouper Congreve, 15, (9) 8-1

District 5: Hertz McShelby, 18, (5) 21-1 and Node Langer, 18, (4) 23-1

District 6: Rail Le Blanc, 17, (7) 13-1 and Zellera Brenneke, 12, (2) 69-1

District 7: Acker Hummel, 18, (7) 13-1 and Dara Blizard, 18, (7) 12-1

District 8: Thimble Aminoff, 17, (9) 7-1 and Tapestry Septima, 16, (4) 34-1

District 9: Silo Grouse, 14, (8) 10-1 and Oralie Botosh, 12, (2) 70-1

District 10: Antoine Piediscalzi, 15, (6) 19-1 and Faline Lapidus, 16, (6) 18-1

District 11: Matthew Roystone, 13, (3) 42-1 and Jane Frew, 12, (3) 49-1

District 12: Abbott Cyert, 18, (5) 21-1 and Bailey Sears, 16, (5) 22-1

HGBO Bets: 8% on Glass and Gossamer, 7% on Nolan, Stern, and Thimble, 6% on Boulder, Grouper, and Silo, 5% on Rail, Acker, Dara, and Faline, 4% on Mona, Hertz, Antoine, Abbott, and Bailey, 3% on Cache and Node, 2% on Tapestry, 1% or Less on Zellera, Oralie, Matthew, and Jane.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Warm, balmy air washed over the tributes as the rooves of their pods opened up and daggers of sunlight cut into their eyes from above. The first thing that the careers noticed was that the horn held only scythes and sickles as weapons. The only tribute that was thrilled about this was Stern, as the scythe was his chief weapon. The most let-down was Glass, who had been looking forward to showing off his knife skills during the games. As the careers leaned forward and the outliers' minds raced, the flashing countdown reached zero and the tributes were off. The plainness of the terrain was broken only by the plantation house, a faint white smudge far in the distance. Two tributes noticed it and ran away the second the gong rang, bowling through the golden wheat toward the house on the horizon. They were Rail and Zellera, both from District 6.

Naturally, Gossamer was the first to reach the horn. Smiling at the sight of the bounty of weapons laid out before her, her eyes wandered around, searching for the perfect weapon. Her gaze eventually caught a whimsically curved sickle that sat on a countertop inside of the shed cornucopia. Gossamer ran toward the weapon and held it firmly in her grasp. She then zipped back out into the clearing and zoomed toward the nearest tribute. The boy let out a gasp of shock as Gossamer raked the sharp tip of her sickle across his chest. He was too startled to run before Gossamer kicked him in the torso and sent him to the grass, coughing up blood and wheezing from out of his nose. The career delivered her final blow less than a second later, slitting his throat with the edge of the blade. The thirteen year-old boy quickly died, leaving a cackling Gossamer open for more prey.

 _Cache Rees, District 3 Male: 24th, Killed by Gossamer, Bloodbath_

Nolan was about halfway to the cornucopia when he picked up a smaller boy and threw him to the ground like nothing. The boy crumpled into a heap as Nolan picked up an elegantly crafted scythe and went in for the kill. He was about to bring down the weapon of death when the outlier boy suddenly sprang to his feet and ran. Nolan chased after him. He was a swift runner; it was nearly a minute before Nolan was able to catch up to him. But he eventually did. Nolan buried his scythe firmly into his back. The boy fell forward from the blow and skidded across the grass for several yards before coming to a stop. He was so exhausted and terrified that he was almost glad to feel, for the instant longer than his life lasted, the bite of Nolan's scythe in his gut.

 _Matthew Roystone, District 11 Male: 23rd, Killed by Nolan, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Grouper had scooped up a golden sickle and managed to corner a shaking Tapestry against the side of the cornucopia. Grouper walked forward, holding out her weapon. Tapestry dove to the left and tried to escape, but she just landed on her bum on the ground like a complete fool. That just made her all the more disoriented and weak when Grouper approached and slashed her sickle across her chest. The splendid golden blade was stained an evil red as all of Tapestry's blood leaked out of her body. Tapestry moaned, wept, and called out for help that would never come as she bled out and wet the dry soil around her.

 _Tapestry Septima, District 8 Female: 22nd, Killed by Grouper, Bloodbath_

Glass cracked his knuckles and smirked as he picked up a sickle and tackled a nearby boy who was occupied with trying to pick a heavy black suitcase off of the ground. The boy yelped and instinctively threw a punch at Glass' face, trying to buy himself time to run away. The boy's punch was strong, and Glass hissed with pain as blood oozed from his nose. Furious, Glass chased after the boy and ended up trapping him between himself and his girlfriend, Gossamer. Glass discreetly mouthed instructions to Gossamer, and the two tributes walked in toward the boy. The boy saw Glass approaching and whipped around, immediately feeling the point of Gossamer's sickle in his throat. Gossamer grabbed him and held him in place, and Glass charged. The two District 1 tributes had their sickles and muscles, and the boy was in ribbons by the time that they were done with him.

 _Abbott Cyert, District 12 Male: 21st, Killed by Gossamer and Glass, Bloodbath_

Boulder began slashing away at the nearest boy the second that her grasp was firmly locked around a scythe. The boy howled with fear and tried to flee, but his foot got caught in a small hole and he fell to the ground. Boulder pounced and landed beside the boy. In an effort to make a splash and impress the sponsors, Boulder was creative in her killing. She forced the boy's neck into the bend of her scythe. The pressure cut off his ability to breathe. He struggled and panicked, but that just helped to amuse the girl from District 2 and make the outlier boy use up oxygen faster. He passed out and suffocated to death mere minutes later, when Boulder let him drop to ground with a satisfying thud.

 _Hertz McShelby, District 5 Male: 20th, Killed by Boulder, Bloodbath_

Thimble nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Dara from District 7 charging toward him, brandishing a sickle and hoping to eliminate the strongest outlier early on in the games. Thimble wasn't near any real weapons, so he picked up the nearest shovel and used it to fend off his attacker. Dara was strong, and even though Thimble was stronger he had the worse weapon. Dara could actually work with her sickle, whereas Thimble could do naught but wave around the shovel and bat away her attacks. Thimble eventually decided that this duel wouldn't end until one of them died, and knowing that the fight couldn't last forever he surged toward the girl when she was staying still and trying to catch her breath. He clutched the shovel so hard his knuckles turned white before slamming it into Dara's head. She screamed and fell to the ground from the blow. The sound of the clang rang in Thimble's ears as he tore the sickle out of the thrashing girl's hands. Even the mighty District 8 boy couldn't bear to watch the killing. He closed his eyes as he scraped the sickle over the girl's throat.

 _Dara Blizard, District 7 Female: 19th, Killed by Thimble, Bloodbath_

Nolan tugged his scythe cleanly out of Matthew's limp form and immediately leapt toward a nearby girl who was on the ground trying to get a heavy backpack onto her back. The girl screamed and covered her face with her arm. Nolan raked the scythe across the girl's arm, opening up a gash from which blood poured plentifully. She was bleeding fiercely and was already beginning to feel as if the world was growing fuzzy. She got to her feet but only staggered a few steps before falling back onto the ground like a drunk. Nolan delivered one more blow, this one to her calf, and her body was simply losing too much blood to keep on fighting.

 _Node Langer, District 5 Female: 18th, Killed by Nolan, Bloodbath_

Stern from District 4 was the only career yet to make a kill, but he was determined to do so before the bloodbath cannons sounded. After sweeping up an elegant sickle that fell perfectly into his grasp, Stern tackled a twelve year-old girl from District 9. The girl yelped and tried to worm her way out from underneath Stern, but the career had already thrown a punch at her skull. Resorting to creativity to make his kill, Stern used the tip of his sickle as a mace and slammed it into the girl's head. Her screams of terror were abruptly silenced, but Stern continued to smash the weapon into her head until her skull was bashed in and she stopped moving completely.

 _Oralie Botosh, District 9 Male: 17th, Killed by Stern, Bloodbath_

Stern heard a shuffling noise behind him and instantly jumped to his senses. Standing right above him was the lanky boy from District 7. As Stern was rising to his feet, his head bumped into the boy's hand, which was holding a vicious looking scythe. The boy tried to injure Stern, but before he had the time the career pounced toward his legs and knocked him to the ground. He was so stunned that he couldn't move at all as Stern hacked away at his head and neck mercilessly with his weapon.

 _Acker Hummel, District 7 Male: 16th, Killed by Stern, Bloodbath_

Gossamer gritted her teeth as she dueled with a dark-haired girl from an outlying district. The girl was supple and graceful to the point that she could almost match Gossamer in elegance. She always dodged the furious career's blows with astounding precision, and all the while Gossamer seethed with fury and hatred. Gossamer _would_ win this battle. But, her prodigious opponent was gaining on her, and in a move that would either make or break her chances of survival she showed her sickle sharply to the left. As she did, she loped off one of the girl's fingers. She sobbed from the pain, and in this moment Gossamer went in for the kill, slicing away at her abdomen messily with her sickle.

 _Mona Brunk, District 3 Female: 15th, Killed by Gossamer, Bloodbath_

Thimble made another kill. After killing Dara a few minutes earlier, the burly District 8 boy had crawled into the cornucopia's darkness and hid for a second to get his bearings. He finally decided it was time to leave, as he didn't want to be there when the careers realized that the bloodbath cannons weren't firing. Thimble was mere feet from entering the wall of wheat when Glass emerged from it and pounced toward him. Glass had been hiding inside of the wheat for several minutes because he had seen the strength of the District 8 male and wanted to ambush and kill him early on. Instinctively, Thimble ducked as Glass swung his sickle over his head. He was just in time, and the sharp edge chopped off a few of his stray curls. Glass spun around and tried to go for Thimble's heart, but he was gone. Where Thimble had once been, there was nothing but empty grass. Glass walked forward to investigate and suddenly Thimble was on top of him, pinning him to the ground. Thimble opened two heavy gashes in his back and marched away into the expanse of wheat, leaving the career boy to die behind him.

 _Glass Wernholm, District 1 Male: 14th, Killed by Thimble, Bloodbath_

As Nolan walked around the clearing, a plan began solidifying in his mind. It was the plan that he had already formed in the Capitol, but after seeing how strong his career allies were he had scrapped it. But, now that he was in the pressure of the arena, those evil thoughts were beginning to come back to him. Careers betraying each other, Nolan knew, wasn't unheard of, and whenever it happened karma often struck back sooner than later. But the opportunity to kill off another career, another huge threat to his winning… he was darting toward his nearest ally, the District 2 girl, before he had time to change his mind. Nolan slashed away at Boulder's left leg before she could hear him. She whipped around and was shocked to see her district partner leaping toward her, sporting his sickle. Boulder was petrified with terror and shock as Nolan wormed his blade through her heart and then darted away into the wheat, abandoning his "allies" after killing one of them.

 _Boulder Fiore, District 2 Female: 13th, Killed by Nolan, Bloodbath_

Twelve cannons shattered the silence of the windless day the second that Nolan's back foot disappeared into the forest of grain. The careers began surveying the dead and getting ready to hunt. All of the corpses seemed normal, except for one. Boulder seemed as if she had been killed in a hurry. One slash across her leg and one through her heart, both messy and unprecise. There wasn't any reason for a career to kill that sloppily, and none of them had seen any of the outliers kill Boulder. Additionally, Nolan was nowhere to be found. The only explanation was that Nolan had killed Boulder and then fled.

"Traitor," Gossamer spat. "Typical of those District 2'ers. They'll backstab you any chance they get. Keep an eye out for him. If he comes back, kill him. Don't believe anything he says," she sneered.

At this point, the nation was left reeling. That was why Nolan had acted so peculiar in the Capitol. He had always planned to kill his allies and then abandon the survivors. That explained why he had kept so much separation between himself and the other careers during training. It was a strategy never used before, and time would tell how it would turn out.

Nolan sped through the grain. At that point, his only objective was to place as much distance between himself and his ex-allies as possible before they deducted that he was the killer. He ran so much that he eventually collapsed beside a small pool of water, tired and thirsty. Fortunately for him, he had packed a bag filled with packs of crackers, two canteens of water, and medicine amongst other supplies before killing Boulder. He relaxed with his feet in the cool water as he munched on the crackers and sipped water from his thermos. Back at the horn, Gossamer took charge over Stern and Grouper, the only other living loyal careers. With Nolan's betrayal, they knew that they would be extra likely to have unexpected visitors, so they left two guards at the horn instead of one. Gossamer and Grouper stayed to guard, whereas Stern went hunting by himself. All through the day and night, Gossamer refused to sleep a wink. She was so disgusted by the betrayal of Nolan that she vowed to scout for twenty-four entire hours. Stubborn, yes, but proving to the audience that she was a dominant career. This earned her many sponsors and many gifts, the largest of which was a bag of chocolate chip cookies. But she refused to touch any of them, instead dutifully flanking the horn and sizzling with a furious hatred and a burning passion to slaughter that good-for-nothing rebel.

The rest of Day 1 passed in almost complete peace. Thimble trudged through the grain and found a good camp in a low-lying area near a short, swift brook. After filling the only container he had with the clear water, he drew doodles in the dirt with his sickle. Jane, being from District 11, knew a great deal about how to separate wheat, and the second she had found a good hiding place she began the laborious work. Jane first created a sort of basket out of stems and leaves. Then, she gathered a large amount of grain in the basket and poured it out onto the ground to be whacked apart with her fist, a satisfactory albeit time-consuming method. Antoine from District 10 had nothing from the bloodbath, and the second that he saw the careers starting to kill he raced cluelessly through the grain, his only goal to get as far away from those careers as he could. Antoine was so panicked that he didn't even bother to cover up his tracks. Eventually, Antoine bowled into a clearing and spotted little Jane from 11 on the ground. Jane screamed. Antoine was about to attack her before noticing her basket overflowing with snowy golden wheat. Antoine offered an alliance, which Jane gladly accepted. Antoine was the muscles, and Jane was the wits. Being the oldest, Antoine began assembling a shelter by taking stalks of wheat and bending them toward a single point to create a dome. Jane spent the rest of the day collecting more wheat, but she never let Antoine out of her sight. She didn't fully trust the boy. Not yet, at least. Bailey was possibly the worst excuse for a tribute in these games. She had run about five yards into the bloodbath. When she saw the first death occur, she turned around and darted away as fast as possible. She came to a stop in a rocky ditch. Bailey collapsed into the ditch and just cried. Faline's first order of business was to find a good source of water. Using logic, she travelled to the areas where the grain was a more vibrant color and looked more hydrated. She also followed rabbits, mice, and the other animals, knowing that they had to drink too. The dark ground underfoot eventually became slushy and squishy, and when that happened a pond surrounded by golden reeds came into view. Faline crouched down and sipped down the pool's refreshing water gratefully. Silo was the only bloodbath participant to notice the blob on the horizon that was the plantation home. As such, Silo began the long trek. Young, he wasn't able to reach the structure in one day. He had to stop about halfway through once night fell, and he chose a spot nestled between two hills to snooze away.

An alliance between outliers certainly wasn't unheard of, but at that time in Hunger Games history it was rare. Wouldn't Lady Luck know it, a second alliance between outliers was made mere hours after that between Jane and Antoine. Rail and Zelllera had been jogging toward the plantation home parallel to each other for several hours when they finally spotted each other. They simply looked forward and kept moving. Each tribute figured that the other would leave them alone if they did the same, so they simply ran beside each other without speaking a word. Around nightfall, Rail stopped to set up a shelter. He chose as his place of residence a cozy little area of sloping land in the shadow of a large sunflower that stretched to the heavens. Mere minutes after settling in, Rail was shocked to see Zellera approaching him. Rail tried staying silent, but Zellera kept strolling on. Eventually, Zellera held out both hands, proving that she had no weapons on her. Intrigued, Rail did the same, extending his two limbs and revealing his empty palms. They negotiated an alliance, and Rail made room for Zellera. That night, the wind was biting cold, and the two District 6 tributes huddled together to conserve warmth.

Similarly, the entirety of Day 2 passed, deathless. After finishing their shelter, Jane spent the day teaching Antoine how to prepare the wheat to be eaten. Antoine practiced for a while, and after they grew bored they crawled into their shelter with walls of wheat and told scary stories to lighten the mood. The constant threat of dehydration was the only thing that brought Bailey up from her crying fit. Despite her apparent weakness, Bailey had a brain, and she knew that water would be more available downhill. After finding a steady slope, Bailey treaded down it and found a puddle of muddy water. She was so desperately thirsty that, in her desperate mindset, water was water. Rail aroused Zellera at sunrise. After packing up their things, they continued their voyage toward the plantation home. Day 2 proved to be much hotter than Day 1, and they grew thirsty quicker than their supplies of water could keep up. As such, they had to "jump" between the scattered pools of water around the arena. They weren't going in a straight line anymore, which meant they were overall covering less distance toward the growing marble mansion far away. Silo continued his journey toward the plantation house, but around noon he tripped in a hole and collapsed to the ground, sobbing. His ankle screamed with pain. It wasn't sprained or broken or anything, but it was in such severe agony that he couldn't walk. He could just sit down in a thicket of wheat, sweltering in the relentless sun, willing the pain to fall away from his body. At the cornucopia, Gossamer insisted that she go hunting that day. She wasn't looking for outliers, no. She was looking for Nolan. She would kill Nolan if it was the last thing she did. She went hunting by herself and left Stern and Grouper at the horn. There, they sorted through supplies and then practiced with weapons, conversing all the way. Gossamer was furious when she was forced to storm home empty-handed that night, but she swore that she would find him. Nolan himself kept moving around, never staying in one place for long. This made it harder for anyone to track him, if they found him. Nolan was a bit upset that he couldn't practice with his scythe; whenever he did, he would cut down the wheat and leave a marker of his exact location. Thimble kept sipping water from the brook. A sponsor sent him a package of beef jerky, which he munched greedily. Faline kept near her little lake. In the morning of the day, she noticed a school of three small fish swimming merrily in the pond. Giggling, Faline ran her hand through the water and played with the fish.

The peace in the arena would not last. Blood would soon paint the amber wheat red. The morning of Day 3 came in the form of a cannon shot, marking the death of a tribute. Stern and Grouper finally convinced Gossamer that they needed to be hunting for outliers and not for that boy who would probably die off soon anyways. Gossamer grudgingly agreed, and let Stern and Grouper go hunting. She at least wanted to be the only person guarding the horn so that, if and when he came to raid the horn, Nolan's blood would be hers and hers alone.

The two District 4 tributes traipsed through the wheat. Stern and Grouper were both armed with the best sickles that the cornucopia had to offer. They had even found a thin chest plate while rummaging through the horn. Stern won it after winning a game of rock, paper, scissors. At first they were energetic in their movements, but they soon grew slower, trudging slowly through the area in search of prey. The duo soon decided to take a break in a clearing. The clearing was centered around a pool of murky water. The two sat cross-legged on the ground. Grouper broke open a pack of food that she had brought from the horn and offered some to Stern. Little did they know, however, that they were in the home of Bailey, who had wandered off to look for food for a few minutes. When she returned, she was extremely shocked to find two careers in her hiding place. Bailey tried to turn around and run, but the careers had already seen her. They leapt to their feet and chased after her, leaving their food and supplies behind them. Bailey's mind raced. Grouper and Stern were abuzz with excitement. Thoughts of death festered Bailey. She was running so fast that both of her shoes came off. She ran across the soil barefoot. Whenever she stepped on a needle or sharp stone, she felt all of the pain accompanying it. Suddenly, her toe caught a root and she was flying. She landed on her face a few yards ahead, and the careers approached her. Stern threw down his sickle and then scraped it across Bailey's back. She tried to drag herself away, but Grouper had already leapt in front of her. Bailey finally had the energy to get to her feet, but she immediately felt a blade at her throat. Grouper drove the sickle into her neck, and watching Stern even felt a little icky when the sharp tip grew from the back of her neck. Bailey's cannon shot fired. The two trouped away smugly, having made the first post-bloodbath kill of the games.

 _Bailey Sears, District 12 Female: 12th, Killed by Stern and Grouper, Day 3_

Rail and Zellera were on the way to the mansion, but they experienced a setback when Rail deeply sniffed a bushel of wheat. The small particles went up into his nose and irritated his lungs. He was caught up in a coughing fit, and Zellera was always so paranoid that he was choking that they had to stay still for the entire day in one spot. Antoine and Jane struck a chord with the audience when Jane produced her tribute token, a small ruby ring that her mother had given her before she died from falling into a grain silo and suffocating. Antoine was moved and comforted her by telling her that he had lost a loved one recently as well, and many boxes of tissues were used up in the Capitol that day. Faline found a better, much clearer lake, and moved her supplies toward its sloping bank. Silo's ankle was coming along well. It didn't seem to be welcoming any sort of infection, but he kept an eye on it nonetheless as he scavenged for liquid water in the wheat field. Thimble was in for a nasty shock when his legs began reacting to the long wheat that they were constantly brushing against. In some areas, his skin was just tinted beet red, but in other areas, itchy red spots were beginning to flare up. Thimble was having an allergic reaction to the grain. This mostly confined him to his brookside camp, and he ran his legs through the water to cleanse them, trying to think of a way to guard his legs against contact with the golden grain.

On Day 4, only one tribute died. At the cornucopia, Grouper finally managed to convince a steaming Gossamer that Nolan wasn't interested in attacking the careers. Gossamer reluctantly agreed, and they left Stern to guard the cornucopia. Gossamer and Grouper were on the prowl. Most of the time, Gossamer was in front, being the stronger career and the one with the keener vision and hearing. After hunting for less than two hours, the two tributes spotted Faline moving silently through the wheat. She was as graceful as a deer, silently treading across the dark soil, but it would not last. Gossamer pushed Grouper back and instructed her only to pounce once she told her to. Gossamer strolled forward as quiet as a mouse. All was still. Then, like a cat sabotaging its prey, she leapt forward and tackled Faline to the ground. Faline gasped. In an effort to disarm her attacker, she threw small rocks, but most of them missed and the ones that hit her didn't hurt at all. Then Gossamer drew her sickle, and Faline's heart stopped. She turned around and she ran. Gossamer called for Grouper, and in no time the two career girls were bowling through the chest-high stalks of wheat to reach their target. With the wheat so high, they couldn't really see where she had gone. They lost her. They were about to give up hope when Gossamer spotted the glimmer of her blonde hair in the sun a few yards away. Gossamer immediately went in with her sickle, scraping it across Faline's leg and severing it. Grouper bowled toward her to get in on the action, but her cannon shot had already fired. Faline was dead.

 _Faline Lapitus, District 10 Female: 11th, Killed by Gossamer, Day 4_

Rail and Zellera were up bright and early and on their merry way toward the plantation home. Rail's lungs had healed ever since the incident the day prior, and the duo finally reached the front steps of the marble plantation home. It had several wings, stretching out from the center like legs of a spider. The menace and grandeur of the splendid marble columns in front matched those of the stained glass windows in which color swirled together like paint. The two District 6 tributes creaked open the door and stepped inside. They were immediately greeted by the sight of a musty old entryway with a carpet that had been stamped flat by who knows how many feet. They were having a bad feeling about this. After they left the entryway, they entered the foyer. A staircase on either side led up to a large catwalk. Suddenly, Zellera's foot caught a string. A tripwire. Zellera screamed for Rail to run, and the two tributes darted back into the entry room. Seconds later, an axe fell from the ceiling and buried itself into the floor exactly where Zellera had been standing when she pulled the tripwire. The two realized that the gamemakers wouldn't include something like this if there wasn't some kind of reward, and so they delved into the darkness of the house once more. More times than each tribute could count they almost activated some kind of pressure plate or tripwire. They didn't find anything of real value, though, and so they slept on the couch in the living room. Rail first suggested they slept in the entry room, but Zellera disagreed because then they would be in full sight of anyone who entered. In the living room, they would be more concealed and would have more time to prepare in the case of an attacker.

After that, the rest of Day 4 came about with little to boast. Nolan kept moving further away from the cornucopia. He had seen Gossamer's fierce loyalty during training, and he did not want to have to fight with her, and least not yet. Nolan alternated between jogging and walking for the better part of the day, and around sunset he came to a stop on a hillside that had a sort of cave in its side. Nolan chucked a rock inside to see if there were any animals inside. He was expecting some kind of rodent to scurry out, but nothing did. Nolan peered inside and saw that it was empty. Inside, there was room for him with some to spare, but it was too small for him to make any real movement so he didn't get anything done. Antoine was out looking for food when he found a creek bubbling with cool water. He ran back to their wheat stalk home and told Jane the news. The two outliers broke camp and headed down toward the river. They sipped its refreshing water and then got to gathering more wheat. Thimble realized that he wasn't necessarily held prisoner along the edge of the brook. He could go into the wheat whenever he needed to; he would just have to rinse off his legs in the brook after he was finished. Thimble set a snare and managed to capture a rabbit, which he killed and ate. Silo continued his journey toward the plantation home. He received a major setback when a group of two gazelle mutts pursued him. They chased him for a while, but he eventually managed to outrun them. Silo fell from exhaustion with the mansion in sight, but he couldn't be bothered to travel any further and fell instantly asleep.

On the faded velvet couch of the mansion they were staying in, the two District 6 tributes woke up bright and early. They were smart enough to know that the place must have been riddled with traps, so they made a rule that they could never be within five feet of each other. That way, if one tribute triggered a trap, the other tribute wouldn't be in reach and so would be safe. Rail wanted to stay behind and relax on the cushiony albeit scratchy couch, but Zellera's morbid curiousity got the best of her and she wanted to explore the house. Rail instantly said no. If she ventured off she was sure to die in some sort of booby trap. But Zellera wouldn't listen. As she traipsed away into a nearby kitchen, Rail mumbled about how it would be her fault when she became the prey of whatever dangerous surprises the mansion had in store.

Zellera slowly walked into the kitchen. The little sunlight that could filter through the closed blinds illuminated a linoleum countertop covered with rotting food and a round wooden table that was well worn by thousands and hands and plates. Zellera had walked about ten steps when she stepped forward onto a light-blue tile in the floor. The tile immediately gave way under her foot, and a monstrous whizzing sound filled her ears. Zellera tried to run, but she couldn't move ten feet before a volley of about twenty knives was flung down at her. She placed her arm in front of her face to protect it. Luck was on her side, as she was able to dodge all of the knives. She thought that it was all over, but two seconds later another volley of knives was sent flying down. One of them buried itself into Zellera's arm, and one into her back soon after. Zellera screamed as loud as she could as she fell to the ground, a third volley of knives beginning to shoot down toward her thrashing form.

Rail heard her cries and came bounding toward her. He saw her just as the third volley of arrows was ending. Rail ran to Zellera's side and asked her if she could hear him, but all he heard was silence. Rail felt for her pulse. It was slow and uneven, but it was there. What a relief! Rail had just noticed the dark pool spreading around him when the ceiling whined once more and a fourth chorus of knives came firing down. Rail was so shocked that he was frozen in place. One particularly wicked looking dagger came flying forth and buried itself into the back of Rail's head. He died right away, leaving his ally to die from blood loss about a minute later.

 _Rail Le Blanc, District 6 Male: 10th, Killed by Knife Booby Trap, Day 5_

 _Zellera Brenneke, District 6 Female: 9th, Killed by Knife Booby Trap, Day 5_

That left the final eight: Gossamer Kelman from District 1, Nolan Wrack from District 2, Stern Pinto and Grouper Congreve from District 4, Thimble Aminoff from District 8, Silo Grouse from District 9, Antoine Piediscalzi from District 10, and Jane Frew from District 11.

For the remainder of Day 5, peace reigned supreme over the arena. Nolan got fed up of sleeping inside of a hole in the ground, so he built a proper shelter. He went about the task similarly to how Antoine and Jane had. He cleared out an area of wheat and bent the stalks around it inward to form a dome. Surprisingly, it was significantly warmer inside. During the night, he swore that the bitter chill of the wind wasn't nearly as bad. His ex-allies were beginning to lose motivation to go hunting. Well, that would be better rephrased. Gossamer wanted to hunt, hunt, hunt, and Stern and Grouper wanted to rest, rest, rest. They had just lost motivation to do their hunting until Gossamer gave them a pep talk. This rekindled them significantly, so much so that they were both willing to go hunting. Only one could, however, and Grouper stayed to guard the horn while Gossamer and Stern went out hunting. Jane innovated a remarkable way to find food other than wheat in the arena. She discovered that if she dug deep enough into the sand bordering the creek, she would find a layer of water in which small crabs dwelled. She and Antoine started a fire by the creek's sandy bed. After roasting, the crabs were delicious and left them sucking their fingers. Thimble finally decided to go out hunting. He could have used more sponsor gifts. He knew that once he left the river he would never find it again, so he meandered along its curving edge in hunting so he would never lose it. He noticed the mansion and began walking toward it. Thimble almost found the prey that he had been searching for. Silo was sleeping sprawled out on the ground when he heard Thimble's footsteps nearby. Silo immediately scuttled into a ditch and stayed as still as a stone. He was breathing so lightly that his chest wasn't even rising a millimeter. Thimble kept on walking straight past, and Silo had to fight the urge to let out a sigh of heavenly relief. Thimble eventually reached the door of the plantation house, but he didn't go inside. He wanted to put that off until the next day, when his schedule was empty and he could devote lots of time to exploration of the spooky marble house's interior.

Day 6 came about with a singular peak of excitement. As soon as the radiant sun rose, dark clouds began to roll in. The air grew wispy and the sky rumbled angrily. _Crash!_ An arm of lightning jumped out of the sky and ice-cold rain began shooting down. For many tributes, particularly Silo and Thimble, this was a relief. They rushed to fill whatever container they had with the rainwater before gulping it down. While Jane and Antoine wanted to stay outside and enjoy the shower, they knew that they needed to get as much shelter as possible when the thunder roared. Water aplenty still dripped down into their shelter, a carefully built structure of sticks and stalks of wheat. Nolan was tired of the stale water from his little brook. So, when the rain began pouring down, he stuck out his tongue and tried to catch as much of the cold liquid as he could.

The real excitement, though, was happening back at the cornucopia. The trio had all regrouped. Stern and Grouper were inside of the cornucopia sorting through supplies, with a roof over their heads. Gossamer was more brave and was out in the clearing.

Gossamer looked up into the air and saw a flash of light directly above the horn. She was frozen in place for a second and then screamed to her allies to scramble. Grouper heard her and raced out of the horn as fast as her feet could carry her, having seen the flash of lightning herself. Stern had been kneeling in a precarious position, and by the time the sky gave way to a massive bolt of lightning, he realized that his life was over. He tried to get up, but the lightning bolt jumped toward the metal shed like a pin to a magnet. One moment, the cornucopia was there, a panicked Stern inside of it. The next, the structure was blown to smithereens. Debris flew, and Gossamer threw out her arms to protect her face while Grouper turned around and ducked. That was it. Five seconds later, the careers dared to look back at the horn. What had once been their magnificent stock of supplies was now a pile of rubble. Stern was nowhere to be seen.

 _Stern Pinto, District 4 Male: 8th, Killed by Lightning, Day 6_

Gossamer and Grouper stood in somber silence for a second. Grouper wanted to run back to the horn and see if Stern was okay, but the second after his cannon shot fired. Gossamer grabbed her, saying that the wreckage was likely still scorching hot. They were reduced to standing miserably in the freezing rain, and falling asleep was a nasty ordeal on the squishy mud ground out in the open.

On Day 7, the storm clouds drifted away to reveal a sparkling gem of a sun and puffy white clouds dotting an azure blue sky. It was a beautiful day, and one never would have known about the disaster of the day prior had they not seen the still-steaming wreck of the cornucopia. Gossamer and Grouper decided that they would make better use of themselves by hunting than by standing out in the clearing like fools. Gossamer had her sickle with her, but Grouper was not so lucky. Her weapon had been annihilated by the bolt of lightning. In hopes of finding a new weapon, she and Gossamer searched the land around the horn, but the best thing they found was a blade that was scorched black at one end and had half of its handle blown clean off.

After the setback, Thimble finally got around to investigating the inside of the mansion. He was nimble and sneaky, managing to evade several traps. The closest he came to death was when his shirt caught on a transparent, nearly invisible, hook. Nails popped under his feet like gunfire as the floor collapsed below him, but Thimble managed to throw himself a few yards out of the way as a sinkhole opened up in the floor where he had once stood. After that, he was even more careful of his movements. After opening a closet filled with old, faded clothing, he found a secret door in the back. He popped it open and crawled inside. He found himself in a room completely fashioned out of wooden planks. In the back of the little space was a group of two backpacks leaning against a wall. Thimble tore open the packs and found them filled with food, weapons, and clean water that was surprisingly cool to the touch and taste. Thimble stayed in that hidden room for the night and stuffed himself with a pack of perfectly frosted cupcakes that he found in one of the backpacks, completely fresh and sugary to his liking. Silo hadn't been doing much, just moving around the arena so that the gamemakers would leave him alone. He came to a stop at dusk on the bank of a river, where he fell asleep almost immediately. Nolan had gotten a tin bucket from a sponsor that he had filled up about halfway with rainwater. He rationed the liquid carefully throughout the day, and when the sun set he had drank less than half of his water stockpile. The shelter of Antoine and Jane had been battered severely. Throughout the day, as Jane reaped and prepared more wheat, Antoine repaired the shelter. The two were very fatigued from the long day of work, and so they slept like rocks.

Antoine bolted awake at thee in the morning on Day 8 to a snarling sound that made his blood curdle and his insides turn with fear. Taking infinite care not to make a sound, Antoine looked up from where he was sleeping and spotted a form pacing around their shelter. Panting, its mouth was watering. Antoine got back into his sleeping bag and stayed still as a stone, hoping that the creature would pass them by. Antoine jumped ten feet into the air when the creature stamped its paw on the ground.

Beside him, Jane was awakened by the thud. She sat up straight.

"What was that noise?" she asked. "It sounded like a…" The last part of her sentence was never heard as Antoine clapped his hand over her mouth and hissed for her to be quiet. Antoine hoped and prayed that the monster hadn't heard her, but it had. It was staring straight at them, its glowing red eyes standing out in the darkness like bulbs. Suddenly, the wolf gave a howl and raced toward them. Jane let out a scream of fright as it broke through the wall of their shelter like nothing and pounced onto Antoine. He just managed to leap out from underneath it the second before it snapped its jaws around where his head had once been. He told Jane that they had to split up. Antoine used his hands to signal a strategy to Jane. But, misunderstanding Antoine's cryptic hand gestures, Jane thought that he wanted her to run alongside him and to go to the cornucopia. Jane ran after him, but Antoine didn't have time to tell her that she was doing it wrong. The wolf was at Jane's six. Suddenly, the duo came to a trench where the earth fell out in front of them. Antoine yelled for Jane to roll down the slope and hide at the bottom. She obeyed, though it was difficult to make out his yells over the furious cries of the wolf. The wolf's silvery hair shimmered in the moonlight behind them as they rolled down the hill like pill bugs and came to a stop at the bottom.

They stayed completely still, hardly daring to breathe. They did not fool the wolf. It pounced toward them, and, of course, it went for the weaker and more defenseless prey: Jane. Antoine used his hands to try to swat the wolf away from his ally, but the wolf bit down and tore off his entire arm. Antoine screamed and went slack beside his paralyzed ally. Jane sped across the terrain as fast as her legs could carry her. She tried to escape the wolf, but it always seemed to know where she was. It was as if it could feel vibrations from the earth. The audience couldn't get enough of the whole fiasco, but they wanted some blood to spice up the scene. A parachute containing a sleek sickle came speeding down toward Jane, who snatched it up and turned around, nervous but ready to take on her muttation pursuer. The two dueled for several minutes. Jane's first blows were strong. The strongest of her attacks loped off part of the wolf's snout. It was so infuriated that it charged forward and tackled Jane. The thing wrestled her to the ground in no time and knocked her sickle out of her hands, watching it arc along its path and land with a thud in the wheat about ten yards away. The wolf dug in, and the golden wheat was painted red as it gorged on her flesh.

 _Jane Frew, District 11 Female: 7th, Killed by Wolf Muttation, Day 8_

Back at the allies' original shelter, Antoine could do nothing but loll on the ground and moan with pain as he slowly died from loss of blood. It was pouring from his empty arm socket remarkably fast. Within minutes, the world grew fuzzy. Antoine fought with all of his might to stay alive. He could not die! He had to return home to his family! But eventually the tugging feeling all around his body became so strong that he could not resist. He slowly closed his eyes. And then his body gave up fighting.

 _Antoine Piediscalzi, District 10 Male: 6th, Killed by Wolf Muttation, Day 8_

The rest of Day 8, and the entirety of Day 9, held a combined total of one death. In this time, Silo was becoming increasingly paranoid of gamemaker threats, so he kept on the move and told corny jokes to keep himself from fading into the background. Thimble was content in his mansion house, only really leaving his hidey hole to relieve himself. Around noon on Day 9, however, he began to grow ferociously hot, so he left the shelter and fanned himself to cool off.

On Day 8, Grouper had grown extremely frustrated with Gossamer. At the beginning of the games, Gossamer had her heart set on killing Nolan, and all of her actions were tailored toward that objective. However, after the destruction of the horn, her mind had been taken off of him. Grouper thought that her annoying rants were all over, but they soon came back, and they came back hard. Day 9, Gossamer sprung up and declared that they had to find Nolan and kill him before the day was over. Really, she was just beginning to grow cuckoo crazy from dehydration. Even so, Grouper was tired of her nonsense. A heated argument arose between the two.

The two career girls began full-on screaming at each other. Gossamer wanted to kill the traitor Nolan, but Grouper said that it didn't matter and that she didn't know why Gossamer was so passionate about making sure he died. To this day, nobody is entirely sure why Gossamer wanted to kill Nolan so badly.

In the midst of a string of violent words, a string of highly insulting profanities tumbled from Grouper's lips. Those words insulted and humiliated and shamed Gossamer to the point that she unearthed her sickle and charged. Grouper couldn't sidestep fast enough before Gossamer slammed the edge of the blade down into her head, nearly cleaving it completely in half. She crumpled at Gossamer's side like a torn paper doll, and her cannon shot immediately fired. Gossamer marched off smugly into the wheat field to find Nolan, her chief remaining enemy. With all of her "inferior" allies out of the way, she could really get down to business.

 _Grouper Congreve, District 4 Female: 5th, Killed by Gossamer, Day 8_

In the midst of all this, Nolan himself wasn't doing much. The Capitol didn't want to kill him because he had such an interesting story, so he had that armor around him that made him wander freely without much worry of gamemaker threats. On Day 9, he made his biggest discovery yet: a churning creek from which fish merrily jumped, swimming against the current. Nolan fashioned a fishing rod and enjoyed himself trying to catch the fish. He fished for an hour or two and caught three fish, which he plopped down into his bucket to flop around and die. He had the courage to start a fire, cooking the fish and feasting on them for dinner.

On Day 10, Thimble decided that it was time to disembark from the plantation home and get back out into the arena. After all, he knew that the gamemakers wouldn't be too pleased with him staying in the same place for any longer. Thimble pushed open the door of the hidey hole and then the door of the closet, stepping out into a long hallway flanked by doors on either side. He took each step carefully and was constantly looking around for hidden traps. He found himself at a rear entrance and was about to open it when he noticed a thin silver wire running from the door hinge. He had seen those kinds of traps before. They work like this: when one opens the door, two metal plates separate. This causes an electrical current to be disrupted, which sets off the trap, whatever it may be. Thimble looked up and winced when he saw a crate of razors right above him, hanging by a rope. He didn't have to test it to infer that it would tip over and dump out its contents if he opened up the door. Thimble couldn't find his way to any of the other exits, however, so he used a pocketknife to saw away at the silver wire before opening the door. His confidence boosted, he tramped down the steps without taking any care to avoid traps. He was on the bottom step about to step off onto the ground when an iron clamp shot out of the cement and bound down his foot. Thimble struggled and tried to escape, but his other foot had already been bound down as well. He struggled and reached for the pocketknife but realized that he had left it inside. Even if he hadn't, it probably couldn't have been of use sawing through the iron anyway. Suddenly, a flame shot up his left pant leg. Thimble tried to reach down and stamp out the flames, but they had already spread too far. His clothes were catching fire. He swirled his body around in an effort to extinguish the fire that was spreading across his body, but it was ultimately futile. He screamed as the fire burned his skin and literally cooked him alive. The fire didn't kill him, but he had sustained terrible burns up his arms, legs, and torso. Finally, after the last wisp was extinguished by the wind, the iron clamps binding down his feet were released and he fell forward onto the ground. Infection quickly took root in the burns, and he could only wait to die.

The morning of Day 11 was completely clear, without the slightest wind brushing over the stalks of wheat. The silence was shattered by Thimble's cannon. Infection had quickly seeped into his body through the burns, and his body was so weak that it just didn't have the energy to fight back. He couldn't really make coordinated movements. In order to make the slightest budge, he had to spend several seconds to several minutes channeling all of his energy and willpower into the effort. Upon his death, only three tributes remained in the forty-sixth annual Hunger Games.

 _Thimble Aminoff, District 8 Male: 4th, Killed by Infection, Day 11_

In an effort to win over the sponsors, the remaining tributes turned to whipping up storms in an attempt to herd more sponsors into their "fan clubs" so-to-speak. Gossamer was the sole exception to this rule. She charged through the wheat and responded to the faintest sound, trying to find her sworn enemy since Day 1. Gossamer also knew that gamemaker threats were more likely than ever, so she was always on the lookout for any muttation pursuers or other tricks of the overseers. Nolan himself spent much of the day practicing with his scythe. Given the chaos of the games thus far, he hadn't had much practice time, so he was glad to finally find some. As he hacked away at the golden stalks and twirled with astounding grace and precision, many a sponsor took a liking to him, and he received a much sleeker and sharper scythe that fell even more snugly into his grasp. As the sole remaining outlier, Silo was incredibly nervous for the final fight. He didn't even have a weapon, so he tried to fashion one out of a sharp stone. This effort failed miserably; the rock was brittle and not good for carving. Silo tried to impress the sponsors the best ways he knew how, but they completely ignored him. He had been wholly overshadowed by his flashier and more extravagant peers.

Day 12 came about with a single death. Given Gossamer's bitter hatred for Nolan since the beginning of the games, the entire Capitol wanted to see them clash head-on. This would be even more exciting if they dueled in a final battle, and impossible if one of them died before. That left only Silo in the way of a thrilling ending to the forty-sixth Hunger Games. Wisp needed to get rid of Silo, but he didn't want to do it averagely because the games were nearing their end. Any boring death would stick out to the audience and likely make the entire games less attractive. Wisp had one particular threat in mind. This threat would hopefully kill Silo while simultaneously herding Gossamer and Nolan together.

The second that the last sliver of the sun set below the horizon was the second that a strange whizzing sound could be heard from the sky. The tributes looked up and frantically searched around for the source of the whizzing, which was now crescendoing into a loud buzz. Within five minutes, it was as loud the roar of a chainsaw. One who sniffed could smell gas. Suddenly, a glowing shape came into view on the east horizon. It was a strange silver disk hovering in the sky, studded with glowing lights on all sides. The strangest thing wasn't that it was floating perfectly in place. The strange thing was that two red-hot lasers were radiating from it. The saucer-shaped object aimed its lasers at the ground. The lasers burnt through the wheat like nothing. It began forming a full-on crop circle, using elaborate swirls and whorls to form a rather beautiful pattern. There was only one thing that it could be. A UFO. And everyone knows what is inside of a UFO…

Silo was the closest to the UFO. When he noticed that it was coming for him, he left everything behind and ran. At that point, his priority was getting as far away as possible, not to hide. The flying saucer was gaining on him, burning patterns into the wheat as it did. Eventually, Silo had no choice but to hide. He ducked into a ditch and prayed that the spaceship would fly straight past.

Meanwhile, Gossamer ducked into the cooling wreck of the cornucopia, knowing that she couldn't fight against the object and it was better to hide. Nolan proceeded similarly, scrunching himself up into the damp soil near his brook.

Silo lay so still he could have been a statue. For a scary second, there was silence. Then, an electric shock so strong he couldn't move coursed through his body as the ship's tractor beam shot down and grabbed him. He was quickly pulled up into the UFO. The laser beam deposited him in an open area of a round control room. Surrounding him were buttons, switches, and leaves, with notes scrawled out in an unintelligible language surrounding them. He stood still for a second when suddenly a slimy tentacle snatched his leg. He was lifted into the air by his foot and was instantly greeted by the slimy, serpentine face of a hideous alien. Silo flailed around and tried to escape from its grasp, but his efforts were useless. Its grip was too strong. When the green alien began bringing him toward its mouth, he grabbed onto a handle in the ceiling and held on with all of his might. As the alien pulled him away, he kept holding on tight. Eventually, its slimy grip slipped, and he was hanging from the ceiling. He took the opportunity to run, but he found in front of him the stinky alien's twin. He was paralyzed with terror as Alien Number Two opened its mouth wide, displaying two rows of teeth. The creature snatched Silo off of the ground, and no amount of flailing made the alien any more tired. The alien suspended Silo in its great mouth. Its breath stank of bad meat. Silo screamed, and the aliens cackled. Suddenly, the alien dropped him into its mouth and gave a heavy swallow. Then the UFO zipped off into the night sky, leaving Gossamer and Nolan behind for a bloody final battle.

 _Silo Grouse, District 9 Male: 3rd, Killed by Alien Muttations, Day 12_

After it disappeared, Gossamer finally emerged from the wreck of the cornucopia. She had a spring in her step; Nolan was her final remaining opponent, and she was confident that she could take him down. Nolan knew that there were only two tributes left and that he'd better high-tail it to the final duel lest the gamemakers throw more threats at him. He was also scared in the dark wheat field after the alien attack and wanted any excuse to get out of it. Gossamer spotted Nolan running at her in the dark from about fifty yards away, a form moving in the darkness. Gossamer grinned, grabbed her sickle, and screamed out battle cries. Nolan unsheathed his scythe. The two clashed in the center of the clearing. Gossamer was so exhilarated that her first move was too sudden for Nolan to dodge. Her sickle raked across his upper chest, causing an onslaught of oozing blood. Infuriated and pumped up to win the fight, Nolan tried to tackle Gossamer to the dirt, knowing that he was bigger and stronger than her. But Gossamer was smart, and she had dove out of the way. Because of this, Nolan crashed into the ground like an idiot a few yards past.

Gossamer's dive was going well. She was planning to do a roll on the ground and then get to her feet, but things did not work out. Her head smacked into the ground and she crumpled to the dirt, dazed. She tried to get up, but Nolan got up faster than she did, and it was all over from there. Nolan planted his scythe into the back of Gossamer's head, bashing in her skull and rendering her unconscious. From there, Nolan scored her back with a series of heavy gashes. Nolan rejoiced when her cannon shot fired, leaving himself the sole tribute in the arena and Panem's newest victor.

 _Gossamer Kelman, District 1 Female: 2nd, Killed by Nolan, Day 12_

"Nolan Wrack of District 2, you are the victor of the forty-sixth annual Hunger Games!" Wisp screamed over a fanfare of trumpets.

Nolan couldn't do much but smile weakly before crumpling to the ground, bleeding out from the wounds he had sustained in his duel with Gossamer. He might have died if not for the fantastic Capitol doctors that immediately poured out of the hovercraft to put him back together again.

 _Nolan Wrack, District 2 Male: Victor of the Forty-Sixth Hunger Games, Day 12_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 2 hadn't gotten a victor since Lana, ten years earlier. This wasn't a long gap for an outlying district, but for a career district like 2 it was huge. The festivals celebrating Nolan's victory were some of the most spectacular yet. Nolan was District 2's eleventh victor, and he would not be the last by any stretch of the imagination. In the Capitol, he was loved as another valiant career victor, and many were intrigued by his strategy of abandoning his career allies. In Districts 1, 2, and 4, however, staff at the academies were worried. If careers betraying their allies became the norm, why would there be any need for them to form an alliance at all? Luckily, Nolan's strategy was seldom used in future games, and when it was karma most often slithered back and bit the traitor soon.

He settled into the Victor's Village of District 2, the eleventh victor to do so.

Nolan's victory tour was average. He only received ill will in District 1, where Gossamer's mother had some choice words to say about him. District 9 was also a little cold.

Nolan would live to the age of eighty-one, dying from cholera around the time of the one-hundred tenth annual Hunger Games. He would stay almost completely clean of alcohol and other chemical escapes over the years, and he would enjoy the remainder of his life thoroughly. He would marry and have two strong daughters, one of which would compete in the seventy-second annual Hunger Games.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Nolan settles into the Victor's Village in District 2, occupying the eleventh house.

Mags Flanagan adopts a fifth child, a young girl named Angel.

Grover Handa, the victor of the thirty-fourth annual Hunger Games, dies trapped in his bedroom when it catches on fire due to a gas leak. His young daughter tries to get to him to help him, but a beam of wood falls from the ceiling and crushes her to death. With his daughter dead, Grover doesn't have any reason to escape the fire. He goes back to sleep and waits for the end.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Here it is! I am so sorry for the delay. District 9 is a boring district so I was facing a lack of inspiration and had to add some elements like the plantation home and the aliens, which I found hard to write for some reason. Then there were exams, the studying for which swallowed most of the time I usually spend writing.**

 **I hope you've enjoyed Nolan! We're coming up on a whole slew of canon victors: five in a row, actually: The District 5 Male from Catching Fire, Brutus, Wiress, Haymitch, and Lyme, all in that order. Got any speculations for what District 10's arena will be? I'd love to hear them, and I also like hearing anything else you like or dislike, so please drop a review if you have the time. Expect the next games soon :D**


	48. The 47th Hunger Games

**The 47th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

President Coriolanus Snow kept his unrelenting grip strangling the throat of the nation for another year, and his corruption was only growing. The entire year was passing in serenity with almost no rebellion, yet punishments for insubordination were harsher than ever and taxes were as bloated as Snow's ministers. The district that felt this the worst was District 12. At that point in Panem's history, District 12 was one of the most rebellious districts, perhaps even up to par with Districts 8 and 6. Because of involvement in the rebellion forty-seven years earlier and talk of another spreading through the streets (or slums, rather) of the mining district, they were already living terribly. With Snow's additional strictness, the backbone keeping the district from tumbling into anarchy finally snapped. A terrible famine occurred in the district. Nearly one tenth of District 12's population perished due to the famine. Following the famine, there was a long, icy winter and a short, mild summer. In the winter, an additional five percent of the population perished from starvation. The Capitol tried to keep the news from spreading around the nation. So, for the forty-seventh Hunger Games, they rigged District 12's reapings. Two healthy kids picked from a healthy crowd. No need to panic if nobody knows to. But the news spread out through the whole nation. A peacekeeper might see what was going on and tell his brother, who might tell his wife, and so on and so forth until the entire nation stood in appellation about the horrible state of the mining district. The horrible thing was that, even in this unbearable state, taxes weren't reduced by one cent. Labor quotas weren't reduced by a single lump of coal. Eventually, the Capitol could not ignore this. After much peer pressure and public backlash, President Snow started a charity in the Capitol. Citizens could donate money that would go to purchasing food for the citizens of the district that kept their factories and lightbulbs running year-round. Nearly one-hundred thousand dollars were raised, enough to keep the five-thousand citizens of District 12 fed for a week. But Snow, that despicable snake, had really created the charity as a scam. He took nearly half of the money raised and used it for his own needs, not the least of which was adding a new wing to his mansion and filling it with the most extravagant things money could buy. He divvied up much of the remaining money to his (equally as corrupted) ministers, and in the end only one fifth of the money actually went to the starving of District 12. It was enough to feed them for a few days (a Capitolite's definition of "well-fed" and a District 12 citizen's definition of "well-fed" are very different, as one could imagine), but their stomachs could not be satisfied forever. Eventually, District 12's sister district, District 11, was the savior that kept the district from collapsing altogether. The Capitol reluctantly allowed District 11 to donate a portion of the things it harvested to go to District 12. Those generous District 11 citizens worked from dawn to dusk, and those in District 12 were overjoyed to see those trucks of grain and corn pull in to save them from their sticky situation. After the winter ended, however, conditions were back to normal, and District 11 stopped the donations. But District 12 was eternally grateful to District 11, and it would always have a special place as the district that snatched them from the claws of death.

Wisp Glasgow kept his job as head gamemaker for another year. Because of the rule set into place nine years earlier that the twelve arenas leading up to the second Quarter Quell would be modeled after the twelve districts, the arena for the forty-seventh Hunger Games would represent District 10, the livestock district. And Wisp really outdid himself. Wisp said in an interview that District 10 was his favorite district, and that was shown by the immense amount of time he put into the creation of the arena. The entire arena was on an island in the middle of an ocean. The ocean water was so beautifully clear that one could see the sand and rock on the sea bed. The island was the most breathtaking place imaginable. The cornucopia, a freshly painted barn, stood in the center of a shockingly beautiful meadow. The grass was lime-green and fuzzy and had the most wonderful aroma. Dotting the meadow were brightly-colored flowers every color of the rainbow, springing out from the green grass and giving a false sense of serenity to the scene. Puffy white sheep and mooing cows grazed the area, as well as brilliantly-colored birds that roosted in the flower patches after long flights through the azure blue sky dotted with clouds. Several rushing rivers cut through the landscape. Their water smelled sweet, and they were lined on either side with lilies and heavenly reeds. Rainbows stretched across the azure blue sky, though it didn't look like it had just rained. Surrounding the meadow was a forest that stretched on for half a mile or so. But, the crowning jewel of the arena was on the north tip of the island. A rocky cliff jutted out of the earth like a piece of rough metal, completely fruitless and menacing. At the very top of the black mountain was a cave. Surrounding the entrance to the cave were skeletons of sheep, cows, and even some humans. You might as well have put up a billboard that said _something evil lives here._ The entire landscape was, of course, modeled after District 10. With its rolling plains dotted with flowers and livestock and its beautiful forests, the arena seemed to capture the essence of the livestock district. This pleased District 10 immensely, as it was the first time they had ever really been projected as anything positive.

The career pack this year was a remarkable group of kids. District 1 produced a pair that was as gorgeous as always. The male was well-versed with long range weapons, particularly the bow and the harpoon. He was a beauty, with his ocean blue eyes and blonde hair. The girl was one of the most beautiful tributes District 1 had seen in several years, and that was saying something. She made the sponsors' mouths hang open with awe, and in combat she preferred the whip more than any other weapon. District 2 produced a pair that made up with valor what they lacked with looks. The boy was arguably the strongest tribute this year. With two eyes like pieces of ice, he didn't seem to give a crap about any of the pre-games ceremonies. The girl was confident in many ways, maybe a bit too much, as she could be foolish at times. District 4's male the weakest of the bunch. The youngest this year at only fifteen, he was under par due to a lack of training compared to the others. The District 4 girl had a sort of exotic beauty to her. Although it couldn't match the District 1 girl, it provided the right combination of awe and intrigue to those looking for good tributes to sponsor. She liked whips, with their merciless grip and biting teeth. The training scores of the careers were higher than usual. Every single career scored a nine or above. In total, two tens and four nines were earned.

The outliers this year were rather lackluster, and there weren't many standouts. Two outliers scored eights. Annie Ribbons from District 8 had a knack for knives, and she was also supple enough to catch the attention of the Capitol. Madigan Moller, a boy from District 10, was broad-shouldered and muscular, and he was acquainted with the sickle and sword. Only two sevens were scored. Lennox, a boy from District 7 who had knowledge of the axe and of basic survival skills; and Reid, a nimble and stealthy boy from District 11. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers. She was the first outlier volunteer in five years, the last one being Miss Sequoia O'Rourke from the forty-second Hunger Games. This year, the girl from District 3, Avatar Cable, entered the games voluntarily. Her sister's name was read at the reaping, and she wasted no time volunteering for her. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Fifer Golden, 16, (9) 7-1 and Fiesta Tedlow, 16, (9) 7-1

District 2: Robust Talbot, 17, (10) 6-1 and Faye Gowen, 17, (9) 6-1

District 3: Router Singh, 18, (6) 19-1 and Avatar Cable, 18, (4) 32-1

District 4: Ballast Nyckell, 15, (8) 8-1 and Flounder Escot, 17, (10) 6-1

District 5: Klink Byrae, 16, (4) 35-1 and Binary Slane, 13, (3) 54-1

District 6: Roy Joiner, 18, (6) 21-1 and Elise Skala, 14, (4) 44-1

District 7: Lennox Chiara, 17, (7) 14-1 and Poppy Holway, 16, (6) 22-1

District 8: Fleece Lents, 15, (3) 51-1 and Annie Ribbons, 18, (8) 10-1

District 9: Fonio Bison, 13, (3) 56-1 and Zinnia Manners, 15, (5) 22-1

District 10: Madigan Moller, 18, (8) 10-1 and Pasture Watkins, 12, (2) 82-1

District 11: Reid Kinchla, 16, (7) 19-1 and Belle Jewel, 17, (4) 33-1

District 12: Cody Perlmann, 18, (4) 32-1 and Nedra Laplume, 18, (4) 33-1

HGBO Bets: 9% on Robust and Flounder, 8% on Fifer, Fiesta, and Faye, 6% on Ballast, Annie, and Madigan, 5% on Lennox, Poppy, and Reid, 4% on Router and Roy, 3% on Zinnia, 2% on Avatar, Klink, Elise, Fleece, Belle, Cody, and Nedra, 1% on Binary, Fonio, and Pasture.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

This year's arena was a breathtaking majesty of a place, and it would prove to be one of the greatest of Wisp's career, perhaps only surpassed by the arena of the second Quarter Quell, which was almost universally considered his best arena. In fact, many elements of the Quell's arena were inspired by the forty-seventh Games' arena, which just proves how fantastic it was. Many of the tributes stood with their mouths hanging open in awe until the second that the flashing countdown above the cornucopia reached zero.

Tributes burst forward and backward. Robust was the fastest of the lot this year, and he was the first to finish the sprint toward the cornucopia, his slower allies behind him. Robust scooped up an axe that sat in a cluster of pink blossoms at his feet and hurled it with all of his might toward an outlier girl that was shaking with panic as she thundered toward the cornucopia. With a bloodcurdling crunch that was music to Robust's ears, the axe buried itself squarely into her chest. Her ribcage was immediately shattered. Robust ran to her side to tear the axe out of her spasming torso as her blood painted the fuzzy green grass dark red.

 _Elise Skala, District 6 Female: 24th, Killed by Robust, Bloodbath_

Fiesta's golden blonde hair rippled behind her as she raced toward a nifty whip that she had requested from the gamemakers. The glint of its metal teeth in the sun was easy for her to spot amongst the mass of supplies. The weapon fell snugly into her grasp. Fiesta whirled around and slammed down the whip onto the nearest girl, a sinewy and undernourished one from District 5. The whip wrapped around the girl's arm several times. Fiesta yanked back the whip and was greeted by the screams of the girl as half of her arm was torn off. She fell forward, and she was easy work for Fiesta from there.

 _Binary Slane, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Fiesta, Bloodbath_

Fifer, well-versed with bows, was pleased to find one lying in the grass less than thirty yards from his pedestal. Fifer snatched up the weapon and readied a single arrow, aiming for an outlier boy that had scored an astonishing eight in training. He let the arrow fly. Fifer smirked as the projectile glided through the air, arcing along a perfectly circular path, before landing in the top of the boy's head. Fifer darted forward to tear the arrow out of his head as he whooped with triumph, having eliminated a major non-career target.

 _Madigan Moller, District 10 Male: 22nd, Killed by Fifer, Bloodbath_

Now that three kills had been made, things were really starting to organize in the career pack. Ballast and Flouder were scouting the perimeter of the circle of pedestals, trying to catch tributes that were running away from the chaos of the bloodbath. Meanwhile, Faye and Fifer stood their steady ground in the clearing. They both had bows, so they were able to fire without moving at all. Fiesta and Robust wanted to make a splash to impress the sponsors, and they figured that it was a good time to bump off the three tributes that were inside of the horn. Fiesta readied her whip and Robust prepared his axe, and the two careers stormed in front of the horn's exit, trapping the three outliers inside. Fiesta immediately charged toward the weakest of the tributes, the dark-haired boy from District 5. Meanwhile, Robust tackled one of the stronger outlier boys. Robust wrestled him to the ground and whipped out his axe, ready to strike. The boy rolled out from underneath him and tried to escape, but Robust ran in front of him and stopped him dead in his tracks. He didn't have enough notice to sidestep before Robust swung his axe and decapitated him in one clean slice. His head was sent tumbling to the floor, stringy blood splashing against Robust's legs and clinging to everything around.

 _Roy Joiner, District 6 Male: 21st, Killed by Robust, Bloodbath_

Robust immediately ran forward to assist Fiesta, who was struggling to contain the elusively nimble outlier. In the midst of all of this, the third outlier had been left completely unharmed. She tried to stay as silent as possible as she sauntered out of the horn, but the other tributes heard her. Fiesta ordered Robust to bump off the boy before charging toward the girl that was just about to escape the horn. Fiesta lashed her black whip at the girl's back. She immediately fell and skidded across the ground for a few seconds before coming to a stop. The girl landed right at the feet of Faye, who had been running to investigate the chaos that was unfolding inside of the cornucopia. Faye fired an arrow with impeccable speed and precision. It whizzed through the air for the few feet it had to and planted itself into the girl's head, ending her life right away.

 _Nedra Laplume, District 12 Female: 20th, Killed by Fiesta and Faye, Bloodbath_

Inside of the horn, Robust was struggling to contain the boy from District 5, whose name was Klink. Robust swung away with his axe. Adrenaline fired Klink up to the point that he was able to dodge all of his blows. After Nedra's death, Robust looked up for a tiny instant, and Klink took the opportunity. He sprinted out of the horn, ignoring the furious yells of the careers behind him as he sprinted away into the meadow.

Seconds before on the outskirts of the ring of pedestals, Flounder had caught a glimpse of a certain boy thundering away from the horn before disappearing into the meadow. Flounder chased after him. It was several seconds before the boy realized that he was being chased. When that happened, adrenaline powered him up to run even faster, and Flounder had to run with all of her strength to catch up to him. Flounder hurled her spear and watched as it skewered itself through the boy's leg. He stumbled forward and tried to keep running, but the injury was too grievous for him to run normally. He soon collapsed. Flounder tore the spear out of his leg and thrust it into his heart before returning to the horn.

 _Fonio Bison, District 9 Male: 19th, Killed by Flounder, Bloodbath_

Fifer twirled around with astounding finesse and fired a volley of two arrows at a nearby girl that looked like easy prey. The girl lifted up a small pack to guard the back of her head. The shield worked. The arrows landed in the pack. It had cushioned the blow, but not stopped it completely, and the young girl was thrown into a fit of agony. It was quite like someone had thrown a punch at the back of her head. Fifer launched another arrow. His arrow whizzed through the air and landed in the small of the girl's back. Her efforts to get back up after the fall that ensued were futile, only ending in her death from blood loss about a minute later.

 _Pasture Watkins, District 10 Female: 18th, Killed by Fifer, Bloodbath_

Robust, now scouting the clearing and trying to catch a few scrambling outliers, hurled himself at a nearby girl and forced her thrashing form to the ground. She screamed and fought with all of her might to escape. When Robust whipped out his axe and prepared to strike, the girl knew it was all over. The last thing she saw was the blade of Robust's axe flying down at her torso, and then she fell away into oblivion, leaving the cackling boy from District 2 to pillage her of her measly supplies.

 _Avatar Cable, District 3 Female: 17th, Killed by Robust, Bloodbath_

Fiesta's whip cracked once more as she lashed it down upon the sobbing boy from District 12. He was carrying a package of water and tried to toss it at Fiesta to knock her out, but she just stepped out of the way as it sailed past her before landing on the ground behind her and popping. Fiesta slammed down her merciless whip onto the boy's face and turned him into a bloody mess as she continued to tear him apart one lash at a time.

 _Cody Perlmann, District 12 Male: 16th, Killed by Fiesta, Bloodbath_

Ballast grinned as he chased a weeping girl away from the cornucopia. She wasn't very fast, and Ballast caught up to her quickly. Wanting to savor his first kill, Ballast decided to kill her slowly. He first grabbed her firmly and threw her to the ground, snapping her neck and rendering her immobile below the center of her torso. Ballast snatched up a nifty dagger and went in for the kill. Driving the knife into the girl's torso, his hands were soon washed over with her blood. Ballast induced several sizable scrapes into her body and watched as her hopeless screams faded away to silence.

 _Zinnia Manners, District 9 Female: 15th, Killed by Ballast, Bloodbath_

Two girls had been fighting over a blue backpack filled to the brim with supplies for about a minute when they began to grow violent. The younger of the two girls, Poppy from 7, was kicking around her legs and trying to swat away the grand Annie Ribbons from District 8, who had a knife. Annie swiped the knife through the air. Poppy pulled back her head just in the nick of time, but she still cursed when the tip of the blade nicked her cheek. Annie was off of her bearings after the strike, and Poppy took the opportunity to grab the pack and run. Poppy was high-tailing it away when Annie grabbed her ankle. Poppy face-planted into the ground like an idiot, and it was all over from there. Annie plunged the knife into Poppy's back before slinging the backpack over her shoulder and fleeing the scene.

 _Poppy Holway, District 7 Female: 14th, Killed by Annie, Bloodbath_

Annie was mere feet from entering the picturesque flower-strewn meadow when she heard a shuffling sound behind her. It was Faye from District 2. Faye had noticed that the triumphant Annie was one of the only outliers left at the horn and had singled her out because of her training score. Faye readied herself to fire an arrow, but Annie attacked the hawkish girl and shoved her onto the ground. Faye leapt to her feet and looked around, but Annie was nowhere to be seen. She had taken off into the meadow, and Faye could only see her because the blue backpack stood out like a sore thumb in the field of green grass. Faye chased after Annie. All seemed hopeless for the career girl until Annie's foot got caught in a small hole and she collapsed like a paper doll. Faye sprinted toward her. Annie had really fallen on purpose and was faking extreme pain. She knew that Faye would take her sweet time killing her, and she had a plan. Faye cried out insults at her. Annie was now fake crying and clutching her ankle as if in agony. Faye was about to fire an arrow when suddenly Annie jumped up and stabbed her knife into Faye's shoulder. She was so surprised that she couldn't even move as the girl from District 8 slashed away at her head and torso mercilessly with her weapon before disappearing once and for all into the meadow.

 _Faye Gowen, District 2 Female: 13th, Killed by Annie, Bloodbath_

Back at the cornucopia, Fiesta made the final kill. A few minutes before, Fiesta had struck a boy with her vicious whip. She had then run away from him to do something more important. The boy had dragged himself across the grass and then thrown a crate over himself. He was still tucked away inside the orange crate, shaking like a leaf, slowly dying as blood leaked from the holes inflicted by the sharp teeth of Fiesta's whip. Now, Fiesta turned over the crate that he was in and found him again. Fiesta flung down her whip and finished the job that she had started five minutes before. The pitiful boy was mere seconds from death already, and he barely felt it.

 _Router Singh, District 3 Male: 12th, Killed by Fiesta, Bloodbath_

Thirteen cannons shattered the peaceful silence of the meadow. The careers all regrouped at the cornucopia and went hunting, leaving Flounder behind to guard their supplies. When they went hunting, they unanimously agreed to head toward the looming mountain on the horizon. As the dominant feature on the horizon, it would likely attract many tributes to its uneven slopes despite its apparent harshness. Though tributes who headed there would be faced with a rough environment, there were several of them. Reid had grabbed a bowl and a pack of just-add-water noodles from the cornucopia. As he scaled the steep and rocky mountainside, he clutched onto his supplies for dear life, which they very well could be. Reid came to a stop on a flat terrace of land, where he gathered a few sticks and started a fire. He brought water from a nearby pool to a boil and used it to prepare a portion of the plasticky noodles. Fleece knew that temperatures got lower the higher in elevation one travels. Thus, the higher he climbed up the mountain, the longer he made his strides. Fleece hoped that this extra physical movement would keep up his body temperature. It did, at least for a while. Soon, he was running to and fro and stamping his icy feet to keep warm. When night fell, Fleece ducked into an outcoving in the mountainside and tried to quiet the chattering of his teeth. It would seem that no outlier would think it a good strategy to stay in the meadow. Because of its proximity to the cornucopia, anyone in it would be the first prey that the trained tributes would encounter. However, a tribute chose this route. It was Lennox from District 7. This was ironic, for District 7 produced lumber and so one would have expected Lennox to run to the forest because he was more comfortable with the terrain. However, he stayed in the meadow and picked flowers that he recognized as edible. He got to work finding a water source, and he succeeded when he found a creek of sweet-smelling water winding along and slicing the land in two. He sipped its water down and made camp at its bank. The forest, of course, was the place that the most tributes travelled to. After her fight with Faye, Annie decided that she had had enough trouble for one day. Keeping the blue backpack with her at all times, Annie ventured through the lovely forest and found herself in a sandy clearing around a little pond. Annie wasn't desperate enough to drink it though because it wasn't exactly the clearest water that the games had ever seen. She drank the water from her pack, of which there was quite a lot. Belle wanted a very secluded area to live in, but she was having trouble finding it because the trees were relatively far apart. After searching for several hours, Belle discovered an oblong ring of trees encircling an empty area. Belle sat down and rested her tired feet. The sounds of the birds singing and the wind quietly washing over her quickly put her to sleep. After narrowly escaping Robust and Fiesta during the bloodbath, Klink was determined to take no risks. He moved between the trees as silently as possible and tried not to tread over anything that could snap. He wasn't exactly experienced in the art of moving quietly, and despite his best efforts he was clumsy to put in nicely. On his way away from the cornucopia, he had managed to grab a spile and a dagger. Klink shoved the spile into a lush tree and waited for water to come pouring out. When it did, he didn't have a bucket or anything, so he had to place his open mouth underneath the faucet as water poured into it. He was too caught up in all this to have time to build a real shelter, so he simply got down into a ditch and slept the night away like a stone.

The sun rose above the forest on the morning of Day 2. The careers staying out hunting, surveying the face of the mountain for prey. Reid was smart enough to stay in hiding during the early morning hours; the careers were the most active in the early morning, so he remained still and when he had to move he did it as quietly as possible. A sponsor delivered him a lemon flavored cookie, which he shoved into his pocket for later. Reid discovered that the seemingly inhospitable mountain had food if one knew how to find it. Reid munched on green leaves the sprouted from the stubborn, rough rock in some places. Over the night, Fleece's hands felt like ice and he couldn't feel his toes. Frostbite was such an immediate concern that Fleece had no choice but to head down the mountain. There weren't exactly any paths to follow, so the journey was precarious to say the least. The quartet of careers were walking about when suddenly Fifer hissed for his allies to be quiet. The others followed Fifer's gaze and saw Fleece's shivering form moving clumsily down the rough mountain. Fifer instructed his allies to prepare their weapons as they crept toward the boy. Fifer pounced and landed straight on top of Fleece. Fleece screamed and tried to run, but Fifer was holding him down. He launched an arrow from his bow into Fleece's heart. The others caught up to him and prepared to get in on the action, but Fleece was already dead, his cannon shot booming in their ears and echoing around the stony cliff like thunder.

 _Fleece Lents, District 8 Male: 11th, Killed by Fifer, Day 2_

In the meadow, Lennox's morning was going well. Realizing that the sheep and cows that grazed the area were great potential sources of food, he went on a mission to kill one for its meat. He peppered a series of small holes into the ground and waited. Lennox watched as one sheep stepped into one of his holes and shrieked. It immediately fell to the ground, unable to move with its leg broken, and Lennox could go in for the kill with a saw that he snatched up from the bloodbath on the way out. He didn't dare go so far as to start a fire; he figured that, if it got out of hand, it could spell disaster in big, fiery red letters. The forest experienced only peace for the duration of the day, and as day turned into night. Annie crawled away from her sandy home beside the pool and sought better shelter. After searching for about an hour, Annie discovered a space in which three strong trees had fallen around a hole. Annie crawled in and felt secure inside her fortress with wooden walls. Hidden, she sharpened the several small blades that were in her pack with a rough stone that she found lodged underneath one of the fallen trees. Klink was quite fed up of settling for life scrunched up in a ditch, so he got to work on an actual shelter. After much searching, he discovered an area with a lot of old logs. Klink stacked these logs in alternating directions, like a Lincoln Log house, and then covered the top and sides with leaves. It was cozy inside apart from the occasional sprinkle of mud from the roof. Belle had never been able to sleep more than a few minutes at a time because of horrible nightmares. Every five minutes or so, she jolted awake screaming. Belle theorized that this was because the area she was in had a lack of sunlight, which made her uncomfortable. She left her hiding place with the ominous trees overlooking all and trekked to a more sunlit region of the forest. Open to the sky, she slept much better, though she was awoken at least ten times through the warm night by the nightmares.

On Day 3, many of the tributes awoke to a faint trembling from deep within the earth. Several tributes, in their sleep-addled states, like Reid and Klink, dismissed them entirely and went back to get more shut-eye. Belle had a memory sparked by the tremors. Something she had learned in school. Belle racked her brain for the answer but found nothing. The prospect of more sleep was so enticing that she fell back into it after a few minutes, thinking that the rumbling wasn't an issue and couldn't hurt her in her beautiful forest home.

The tremors continued throughout the wee hours of the morning, and when day broke the careers decided to head down the mountain and back toward the cornucopia to restock on supplies. All of them had a strange feeling that something was up. Those shakes and cries from the earth couldn't mean nothing. As they stepped into the meadow, the earth let out a mighty roar and rapidly began spasming back and forth. The careers clawed through the air for each other, wanting to stay in a group to have more stability. The initial jerk had thrown Fiesta away and tossed her like a rag doll. Fiesta landed on the ground a few yards away and cursed. The world continued shaking harder and faster. The earthquake was tossing Fiesta around on the ground like a bouncy ball, and she was so battered she could hardly think or breathe. Meanwhile, her allies were gripping on to each other harder than ever to keep from shattering apart and flying every which way. Back at the cornucopia, Flouder leapt underneath a heavy table and covered her head with her hands, wanting to stay as safe as possible from the earthquake. The earthquake caused chaos in the forest. Trees toppled like plastic dominoes. Annie fought to get out of her shelter, but the earth was shaking so fiercely that the walls were rattling around her and squeezing her to death. Annie managed to slip out just as a tree fell nearby and landed where she had just been with a crash. If she had acted a second later, she would most certainly have been killed. Klink's puny log home immediately crashed down around him. He hissed with pain when one log landed on his head. His vision was black and blurry. Klink wormed his way out of the wreck with all of his might and bounded toward clearer areas, where there would be less trees to crush him. Belle didn't notice how harsh the world's joggling was growing until it was too late. A gash was opening in the earth beneath her, and there seemed to be nothing she could do. That was when a miracle happened. Nearby, a tree was falling, and it was falling less than five feet from her. As the tree was about to hit the ground, Belle grabbed onto it and hoisted herself out of the gash just before it closed up and crushed her supplies, which had all tumbled in. Belle sat on top of the tree like a rodeo bull for a few seconds before it crashed to the ground. As it did, Belle was thrown off of it. She landed on the ground about twenty yards away and skidded for one or two before screeching to a halt on the dusty forest floor. She was so tired and bruised that she couldn't react when she noticed a heavy tree falling down toward her. It instantaneously crushed her to death. Everyone thought that would be the end of the earthquake… and it was. But something much worse would follow. They would see.

 _Belle Jewel, District 11 Female: 10th, Killed by Falling Tree, Day 3_

Alarm bells went off in the gamemaker's control center, and every gamemaker rushed to his or her controls, ready to witness and control the disaster that was to come. Every eye in the nation was glued to its television screen, hanging in anticipation and terror for what was to come next. The ocean was drawing back far past the lowest tide, and the east horizon, far out beyond the ocean, was beginning to heighten, as if a wall was rushing toward the land. The careers and Lennox were the only tributes at immediate risk because they were in the meadow. They would have died if not for Ballast. Ballast not only lived in District 4, the district with the most earthquakes, but he also knew the signs of a tsunami. That thing racing toward the land was a monster wave. There was no doubt about it.

"Get to high ground!" Ballast screamed to the others, and they all scattered, trying to get as high an elevation as possible as a screaming sound as loud as a bellowing train filled the air. In the forest, tributes were scrambling to get to areas they thought were safer. Annie knew a tsunami was coming after the bellowing sound, so she ran up the nearest hill and prayed for protection from the ensuing disaster. Klink had no idea that a tsunami was coming. He thought there was some kind of monster whose stomping had shook the earth, and he was now hearing its roars. As such, he hid in a small cave and bunched himself up, praying that the creature would not find him. The only tribute safe from the threat was Reid. Up on the icy mountain's slope, the water could never get to him. Though he knew horrible sights were about to occur, he was so captivated with terrible fascination that he couldn't look away. He sprawled himself out and peeked over the edge of the mountain, watching as the tsunami crashed into the land.

Sand, mud, and trees were kicked up. Like children's toys, everything in sight was toppled by the onslaught of water. The huge weight crushed animal's dens and flattened trees to the ground. The terror of a tsunami is impossible to understand unless one has experienced it first-hand. And none of the tributes had. The terror was fresh and terrible in the tributes' minds as the water came racing across the terrain and barreling toward them.

The careers in the meadow were the first to feel the oncoming tsunami. The only outlier in the meadow, Lennox, was now racing toward the mountain to get high ground, but he would never make it fast enough. He dropped and dug his fingers into the ground like claws and held on for dear life as the water came for him. The careers grabbed onto whatever they could. They hadn't had time to make it all the way back to the mountain, though the terrain surrounding it was rocky and uneven. Fifer and Robust both grabbed rocks with all of their strength as the tsunami blocked the sun and plunged the world into darkness. Fiesta, who had just managed to get back to her shaking allies, clutched onto Robust for extra stability. Ballast joined in, and the three huddled together in terror as the water washed over them.

Their first surprise was just how cold the water was. Although it was nowhere near freezing, it felt as if their skin was being scored with a million tiny daggers. They were too shocked to move or think. They could do nothing but stay where they were, lungs screaming for air, shivering as the frigid water crashed around them, and wait for the tsunami to pass. They couldn't swim up to breathe, for they all felt as if the second they let go of whatever they were holding on to they would be washed away by the current and killed.

The tsunami claimed its first life when it rushed toward the cornucopia, where Flounder was cowering underneath her table. It could protect her from the earthquake, but it couldn't protect her now. Flounder wept quietly to herself as the water slammed into the cornucopia and tore it off of the face of the earth along with countless other debris. Flounder was left under yards of the ice-cold water as debris slammed into her. Most of it was small, but her life was over when a large black suitcase filled with supplies came rushing toward her and slammed her in the head. If Flounder hadn't died from the head trauma that followed, she most certainly would have drowned within minutes, and perhaps the former was more painless and perhaps she should have been glad that her life was ended before suffocation could reach her with its agonizing, death-bringing hands.

 _Flounder Escot, District 4 Female: 9th, Killed by Tsunami, Day 3_

That left the finale eight: Fifer Golden and Fiesta Tedlow from District 1, Robust Talbot from District 2, Ballast Nyckell from District 4, Klink Byrae from District 5, Lennox Chiara from District 7, Annie Ribbons from District 8, and Reid Kinchla from District 11.

The angry water then crashed down into the forest, where Annie and Klink were hiding. In the last minute or so, Annie had managed to find higher ground than before, in an area overlooking a valley. This was good; it meant that the valley had to fill up before the water touched her and she would hopefully be safe. Klink quickly realized that there was no monster coming for him. When he saw the wall of water crashing through the forest, he zipped to a strong tree and clung onto it as the water rushed past. He was so cold from the water that he felt like screaming, but he resisted the urge, as that would just make his body use up precious oxygen faster. As the thrashing of the water around him began to die down, he finally was able to swim for the surface. He took many grateful breaths of the stale air but was soon thrown back under as a wave of water came crashing toward him. Klink fought to stay at the surface, and he was so exhausted that he nearly gave up. But thoughts of his friends and family motivated him, and he stayed treading water until the dreadful flash flood stopped and left a field of relatively calm water covering the arena. Amidst all of this, Annie had watched with earnest as water rushed down into the valley and filled it up. By the time the cold water reached her, it had died down significantly and she was able to wade to a higher and drier area safely.

One more death occurred that day. The force of the water sliding past him had thrown Lennox off of the ground and deposited him in an underground cave dug into the base of the mountain. The small room with walls of stone was filled with a foot of freezing water, and even after the flood began to settle he couldn't escape. The small hole in the ceiling was too far up for him to reach no matter how high he jumped. The foot of water at the bottom of the cave was lowering his body temperature a lot. Although there wasn't much of the cold water at all, it can surprise one how quickly cold can kill, and Lennox died from hypothermia a few minutes before midnight.

 _Lennox Chiara, District 7 Male: 8th, Killed by Hypothermia, Day 3_

With the crowd thinned to seven tributes, the batch of survivors didn't have much reason to do anything but reel from the catastrophic effects of the tsunami. The careers had all managed to hang on tight, though the trio of Fiesta, Robust, and Ballast had been dragged away significantly by the tsunami. Fifer had had much more luck. He had managed to dig his fingers and feet underneath a rock to latch himself onto the ground so that no amount of rushing water could sweep him away. They were all freezing cold, and crossed their arms to maintain warmth as they trekked back toward the cornucopia.

Meanwhile, in the forest, tributes frantically tried to recover from the intense damage caused by the monster wave. With her clothes sopping with freezing water, Annie knew that hypothermia could be a problem. Annie discovered an area beside a lazily burbling river that was veiled by strong trees that had managed to withstand the flood. There, she wrung out her clothes and put them back on, and she was very surprised to find just how much warmer she felt. Klink had been patiently treading water as the water level went down and down. The water was so cold that he was shivering profusely and holding his limbs in toward his core to maintain precious body heat. He proceeded similarly to Annie, and once his clothes were dry he got to salvaging what he could in the mushy, crushed-up wasteland. He got to work building another shelter similar to his first, though it wasn't nearly as stable because the muddy ground was so uneven. Up on the mountain's face, Reid was so traumatized by the horrifying events that had occurred that he scrunched himself up into his hiding place and wept quietly to himself for the entire day.

After the spectacular yet destructive chain of natural disasters, two entire days passed deathless. The tributes were weary, tired, cold, and not in the mood to do anything productive. On Day 4, the careers finally trudged toward the cornucopia, which was completely gone, swept away by the water. They set up camp with what few supplies had caught on rocks and such and hadn't been destroyed in the flood. There were surprisingly many of these. All of the food was waterlogged. They hoped for sponsor gifts of food, but since they weren't exactly looking their best none came. Fifer and Fiesta, beauties from District 1, tried to impress the audience the best ways they knew how, but their efforts of hopelessly acting sexy were failing miserably. Reid finally got around to establishing a shelter. Individual stones were scarce on the rough, slippery mountain, but he used the ones that he could find to form a wall sectioning off an area for him to live in. Inside, it was noticeably warmer, but not by much. Annie stayed beside the murmuring stream and sipped from it whenever she got thirsty. She got food from a trio of snares that she built, and Annie slept against a hillside with her feet in the cool river. Her pack of supplies had been lost during the initial earthquake of the day prior, and she only had two wicked-looking hunting knives that a generous sponsor delivered her in a silver parachute. Klink awoke to a nasty shock on the morning of Day 4 as he was beginning to sink into the mud like quicksand, his shelter falling in on top of him. Klink fought his way out of the quicksand and managed to snatch out his few supplies before the lazily flowing earth swallowed down his shelter. Klink was too tired to set up another shelter, and given that it was the middle of the night he was too sleep-addled to do anything but lean against a nearby tree and fall asleep on stabler ground.

Similarly, Day 5 passed without any deaths. Annie managed to cut down a white-tailed deer with her hunting knives, and she roasted its meat over a fire that she started on the sloping land near the creek. Eventually, Klink spotted a furry grouse less than twenty feet away, and he unearthed the dagger he had received from a sponsor. He leapt at the grouse and sliced it cleanly in half with the dagger. It was enough food to fill him up, though he said to the cameras that it was a little too smoky for his liking. At the cornucopia, the quartet of unhappy careers kept slaving away to restore the cornucopia as much as they could. Their best find was made by Fiesta, who discovered a waterproof case containing an extremely bright flashlight. Fiesta created a precarious structure, like an upside-down U, with three pieces of wood, and attached the flashlight to it. This illuminated a good chunk of the meadow and made work easier for the bunch after the sun set. Reid, for once, decided to head further up the mountain. This would mean leaving his shelter behind for good, he originally thought, but maybe it didn't have to. Reid asked for a bucket full of colorful beads from the sponsors. This was a peculiar request, but sure enough a small pot of red wooden beads was sent down to him within a few minutes. As he circled up the mountain, he left the beads behind him like bread crumbs. He couldn't make it all the way up the mountain in a single day, so he had to make a very temporary shelter and settle down. He was the closest that any tribute had ever been to the threat that lurked on the mountain's rocky top, but apparently the flashing lights of that billboard saying that _something evil lives here_ just weren't visible to Reid and his curious mind. Not yet, at least.

Day 6 arrived. Annie didn't have any reason to leave her forest home, so she sat at the riverside for much of the day. When she got hungry, she put her hunting knives to use once more and cut down a fuzzy golden squirrel that wandered into her riverside den. She cooked it over a fire but never left it unattended for fear of it getting out of control. Klink had wisely eaten only half of his grouse the day before, planning to save the other half for Day 6. But the meat had gone bad overnight. As such, he was forced to discard it and continue moving through the toppled-over trees to look for more prey, eventually finding and killing two chipmunks.

Day 6 also marked the time when the careers completely exhausted their supplies of food. All of the livestock that grazed the meadow had been washed away and killed in the tsunami, as had the edible flowers that were once strewn beautifully over the sweet-smelling grass. They had to go out to hunt, not only for food but also for tributes (lest the Capitol grow tired of the lack of blood and send a threat their way). They were going to leave Ballast behind to guard the horn, but when he noted that there wasn't really much to guard they let him go with them. Travelling to the few areas that hadn't been totally annihilated by the flood, they were living kill-to-kill and playing hand games to decide who got to eat each one. Robust was the happiest. Out of the eleven kills they made peppered throughout the day and night, four went to him. Three went to Fiesta and Ballast each, and only one went to poor Fifer. The weapons they hunted with were really only the knives that the sponsors gave them, since all of the good weapons were lost to the great disaster. They strolled back to the horn long after sunset and weren't surprised to find that the pathetic excuse for a camp had remained untouched by the outliers.

It was Robust's turn to sleep in the only sleeping bag for the night, while Fiesta, Fifer, and Ballast had to tough it out on the damp ground, shivering. It was a couple of minutes before eleven when the careers awoke to a bloodcurdling hiss. They were all smart enough to stay quiet, though they glared at each other and reached for their weapons, slowly getting into positions where they could get up and flee if need-be. It was incredible how much they were able to accomplish without saying a word. After they were all in position, the careers stared off into the cloud of darkness and listened as the hissing sound got closer and closer, louder and louder.

Suddenly, a massive viper snake as wide around as a pickup truck and several times as long leapt out of the darkness and attacked the careers. Fiesta and Ballast ran to one side of the monster, whereas Fifer and Robust scurried to the other. The huge snake lashed out and threw itself at Robust, but he managed to sidestep. Immediately, Fifer aimed at the snake's long body with an arrow. The arrow flew with perfect precision but bounced harmlessly off of its scales. Fifer screamed to his allies that they would have to go for its face to kill it. The snake was now chasing after Fiesta. Years of practice kept her alive. Fiesta wove through the soup of debris and away from the monster. Then, Ballast hatched a plan. He ordered Fiesta to make the snake open its mouth. Fiesta was taken aback by the request, but she quickly realized what Ballast was trying to do. Ballast got Robust and Fifer in on the plan. Fiesta stood completely still, acting as meat, as the snake lunged toward her. The rattlesnake opened its mouth wide enough to swallow Fiesta when suddenly the careers hurled their weapons into the rattlesnake's mouth. The only career that was doing real damage was Fifer, who had gotten a bow from a sponsor a few hours earlier. The others threw rocks, baskets, and whatever else was near them. The snake shrieked with fury and fell forward, and Fiesta sprinted out of the way just as it landed on the ground with a thud, dead.

The careers shared a moment of triumph, having taken down the monster. They were about to clean up the mess and go back to sleep when the same hissing sound came from the darkness. They knew what was coming this time, and so they were extra prepared when the snake leapt out of the dark cloud. This snake was just as big as the first, but it seemed to be moving more slowly, as if lugging along a huge weight. Fiesta darted toward the wreck of the horn and snatched up the strong flashlight. When she shined the light onto the monster, all of the careers felt pangs of shock. Standing in front of them was a dinosaur-esque body from which three heads sprouted, like string cheese being peeled into three pieces. One head lolled uselessly on the ground, dead. One of the heads was in a stance prepared to attack. The third head was waiting back in the darkness, only ready to emerge once the second head was killed. The careers all noticed this, and Fifer and Robust broke off to attack the third head while Fiesta ran down the hill to join Ballast in cutting down the closest head. Of course, they tried to get it to open its mouth, but it was too smart for that now and refused to move its jaw an inch. The snake snapped at the air, and the careers picked up their combative objects and batted away the creature. Fifer and Robust were having the most luck. Since Fifer had his bow, his was able to do a ton of damage. He made several decent shots, not the least of which occurred when he launched an arrow into the monster's forked tongue when it stuck it out. The rattlesnake hissed and dove toward Fifer, slamming into the ground the instant after he dove out of the way and landed on the ground. Robust tore Fifer's bow out of his flaccid hand and sprinted off toward the creature's body. The others yelled for him to stop, that they would be better taking down the beast's heads, but he would listen. Robust disappeared into the darkness.

With his allies behind him, Robust found the creature's heart. It glowed a beautiful gold and showed through the creature's scales. Robust lunged toward it and grabbed an arrow. With all of his might, he drove the arrow through two scales and plunged it into its heart.

The snake-headed monster screamed with anguish as black muttation blood spouted from the wound that Robust had opened. Robust repeated this several times with different parts of its torso, and after he had made several incisions he raced far away and watched it fall forward, dead.

Fiesta, Fifer, and Ballast all realized that the snake-headed muttation was falling and had time to run away. But only two of them made it. Fiesta was the first to realize, and she screamed for Fifer and Ballast to follow her far away from the dying monster. Fifer heeded her warning, but Ballast was so entranced that by the time his life was in immediate danger he didn't have time to run away fast enough. The limp creature collapsed on top of him, thousands of pounds of monster crushing him to a pulp instantaneously. Now, only six tributes remained.

 _Ballast Nyckell, District 4 Male: 7th, Killed by Three-Headed Snake Muttation, Day 6_

As the careers trudged through the soup of gunk and swerved around the pile of heads that had fallen together in a heap of spaghetti, they found that the monster had absolutely annihilated their camp. The only sleeping bag was trampled and torn, with cotton strewn everywhere. Their limited water supply had been destroyed as well, along with nearly all of their food. Needless to say, it wasn't a very great night for the three remaining careers. The sleeping bag was still useful, though it had to be unzipped and used as a blanket. The careers figured that two of them could sleep underneath it, with a third if they scrunched underneath it real tight. They were all uncomfortable packed together under the blanket like sardines in a can, but it was better than being out in the cold.

The careers caught on to the gamemakers on the morning of Day 7. With the destruction of the cornucopia and the hideous mutt that ruined their few possessions that remained, it became obvious that the gamemakers wanted the careers to leave the cornucopia. They grabbed the very few supplies that they still had and hiked toward the mountain. Everyone figured a threat would be lurking at the top of the rocky cliff. The careers knew that the gamemakers would force them to the mountain soon if they didn't do it of their own accord, and if they chose the latter that there would be one less threat for them to deal with. They reached the mountain around noon and stopped to munch on a few waterlogged daisies that Ballast and Robust recognized as edible. After that, they began scaling the mountain, staying close to each other for added balance and as not to get lost in the terrain where every square inch looked exactly the same. After scavenging the lush land by the edge of the river, Annie came across a path of leaves that looked suspiciously like the collard greens she and her family often used to make salad back in District 8. Annie sliced the greens out of the ground and collected them in a small wooden bowl delivered to her by a sponsor. She wasn't hungry enough to eat them all and wanted to save them for tomorrow. As such, she took a layer of leaves and laid them over top of the bowl, wanting to keep out bacteria and keep the greens fresh. Klink continued his life of scavenging for prey. He tried to rack up more kills with his dagger but found nothing, so he was forced to settle for an assortment of misshapen grey berries that hung from a limp bush. They clearly weren't healthy, as they upset his stomach quite a bit and he tossed and turned for much of the night until they naturally worked their way out of his system. Reid was about an hour from the top of the mountain when he suddenly chickened out and started to head back down. He changed his mind when the Capitol unleashed a large spider muttation after him that chased him back up the slope. Reid lost the spider after about twenty minutes of running, and then the gamemakers were happy with his position. Reid set up camp in an area where he could get to the tip of the mountain the next day, which the Capitol evidently wanted him to. Anything to delay that as much as possible.

For the entire night, Reid dreaded the terrible fate that loomed before him, even though there was still hope for him to cling onto: hope that the creature at the top of the mountain wouldn't hurt him, hope that he could survive. He couldn't get any sleep at all when he needed it most. And when the sun rose, he had no choice but to lumber up the mountainside and toward his doom. A sponsor sent him a dagger, which didn't make him any less comfortable about the whole ordeal. In fact, it just reassured his greatest fears that a huge threat was up there. The careers stalked up the mountain behind him in their group of three. Fifer, Fiesta, and Robust got closer and closer together to maintain more precious body heat the higher and higher they got. It wasn't long until they could see their breath, and their teeth were chattering by the time they stepped out onto the top of the mountain. Reid had gotten to the mountaintop a few minutes before them. He had lifted himself up onto the plate of rock and seen the yawning mouth of a dark cave before him. After backing away from the cave as much as possible, Reid slid down behind a large stone and waited. What he was waiting for he wasn't exactly sure.

Reid heard the footsteps of the careers as they trampled across the mountaintop. The ground was caked with frost from the extremely cold temperature, and it was slippery in some places. All four of the tributes (Fifer, Fiesta, and Robust from the center of the plateau, and Reid from behind the boulder) held their weapons at the ready and prepared for whatever terrible threat was to come.

The sparkling sun reached its zenith high up in the sky. Noon struck. Then a great stirring arose from within the cavern. Next, a hiss filled the ears of all of the tributes. It stank of malice and desire to murder and brought to mind the splatter of blood and the foul breath of a killer. The most horrifying thing of all, though, was that the hisses weren't random. Words could be heard from deep within them. Words of death and blood. They were difficult to hear, but they were most certainly there. The creature's hisses were cut off. There was silence. The world held its breath.

Then a volley of spines came firing out of the cave. Reid flinched when one of them slammed into the rock he was hiding behind and shattered. The careers all swerved away from the spines. Fifer dodged one just in the nick of time, and it grazed his shoulder. Fiesta and Robust backed away, and Fifer soon followed when he saw a hideous monster stepping out of the cave and into the sunlight.

In the grassy meadows and rough mountains of District 10 long ago, farmers used to tell a legend. The chupacabra, meaning "goat sucker". Traditional myth portrays Chupacabra as a nimble, terrible creature about the size of a dog. The fabled monster snuck into farmers' pastures at night and sucked the blood out of their livestock before scampering off without leaving a trace. It fed off of blood, yes, but there were other things it lusted for beyond all reason. It strived off of fear, death, and hatred. Wherever farmers were most scared of Chupacabra's existence, it would appear.

The creature that leapt out of the cave was the Chupacabra, but a hundred times as large. It was nearly fifty yards tall. Like a dragon, it was black and rough. Its back was covered with silvery spines that glinted in the sun. Its tail had a spiked tip like a club. Chupacabra flailed around the club and destroyed everything it came into contact with. Sporting two massive horns, its head was hideous. Its eyes glowed a sinister red color. As it opened its mouth and let out an intimidating roar, it displayed two rows of teeth that protruded from its gums like curved knives. They were stained red with blood. As it thundered out of the cave, it kicked up heaps of bones, skulls and ribs, that crashed to the ground with a sound that was painfully like the clattering of breaking glass.

The careers scattered and screamed orders to each other as Chupacabra thundered toward them. They all forced Fifer to the front. He had the bow. He was the only one with a hope of doing damage to the beast. Parachutes containing crossbows sailed down to Robust and Fiesta, which they snatched up instantly. Fiesta fired a volley of three arrows in rapid succession. They landed in the creature's arm, but Chupacabra batted them away and sent them flying back toward the careers. Fiesta sprinted out of the way as the arrows came flying back. Fifer figured he had better aim for its mouth, and he screamed for Robust to make it open wide. Amidst the roars of the beast, however, Robust had no idea what he was saying. He screamed for clarification, but it was hopeless.

Robust and Fifer then noticed that the Chupacabra was chasing Fiesta. Fiesta had no hope of outrunning it, and for the first time the creature opened its mouth to go in for the kill. Fiesta screamed for help, and Fifer let loose his bowstring. An arrow flew into the monster's mouth. Black muttation blood spouted out and splashed into the ground like water at a water park. The others, reflecting on the death of Andre Plunkett from the first Quarter Quell, scrambled out of the way. Mutt blood was acidic and could kill upon contact with human skin.

Fifer had run out of the way fast enough and managed to swerve around the splattering blood that was landing all around the shelf of rock. Fiesta also noticed the blood pouring toward the ground and got low to the ground before waddling to safety. That left Robust, standing out in the open when a torrent of blood came down and swallowed him up. The others gasped with horror and disgust as the poisonous acid ate away at his skin and consumed him completely. The black blood all drizzled away and left no sign of Robust's existence at all. He had been completely dissolved by the monster's blood.

 _Robust Talbot, District 2 Male: 6th, Killed by Chupacabra Muttation, Day 8_

Fifer stormed away from the Chupacabra as fast as he could and spotted a large stone nearby. Fifer ran toward the stone, wanting to hide behind it and have some time to take a short rest. He ran around the rock and found Reid cowering behind. Always the good career, Fifer shot an arrow into his head and killed him. Fifer shoved his limp form away and crouched down behind the rock, panting fiercely and trying to catch his breath.

 _Reid Kinchla, District 11 Male: 5th, Killed by Fifer, Day 8_

With Fifer hiding behind the stone, Fiesta was the lone tribute on the mountaintop, and it was hopeless to try to kill Chupacabra. It was so big and so powerful that it would be impossible to slay on her own. She tried to run down the side of the mountain. When one can't fight, one should flee. It was a futile endeavor, and the Chupacabra caught up to her. It reached down its hideous claws, ready to snatch her up. Fiesta leapt off of the side of the mountain. Suicide. She went plummeting down and snapped her neck the instant she crashed to the ground. It was a much quicker and more painless death than the Chupacabra could ever give her.

 _Fiesta Tedlow, District 1 Female: 4th, Killed by Herself, Day 8_

Wisp didn't want the Chupacabra to kill all of the tributes on the mountaintop. He planned to have two tributes out of the four survive. Three deaths had occurred, which was slightly more than planned, but it was no biggy. Through his fair share of luck, Fifer had survived the Chupacabra. The huge beast slunk back into its cave, and Fifer fled. He tore down the mountain without looking back and didn't rest until he collapsed at the wreck of the cornucopia. Maybe this cloud had a silver lining. He was the sole remaining career in the forty-seventh annual Hunger Games.

No more deaths happened on Day 8. In the forest, Klink and Annie were absolutely mortified by the chaos they watched unfolding on top of the mountain. Annie abandoned the calmly murmuring stream and raced as far away from the mountain as she could. She found herself atop a tall hill overlooking a marshy swamp. There, she lay down and stood still for several hours. She didn't eat for the entire day. Klink heard the grumbles of the monster and thought that another earthquake was on its way. In preparation, he barricaded himself underneath a heavy fallen log and braced himself for the oncoming disaster. He waited for hours. When his mentor Porter sent him a note saying that an earthquake wasn't coming, he felt embarrassed and rather humiliated, so he tried to keep himself busy by hunting to restore his already pretty low standard for the sponsors.

Day 9 turned out to be the final day of the games. This was a critical decision for Wisp, as he wanted the games to end with an action-packed finale. The Chupacabra attack had gotten the ball rolling and it was time for him to finish off his cake.

On the morning of Day 9, Wisp lit the forest ablaze. The fire started in the southeast corner of the wood and spread quickly, scorching the debris littering the ground and lighting the strong trees that had withstood the tsunami ablaze. Annie was closest to the fire. She was snoozing away on the ground when she awoke the crackle of the fire. She was on her feet and sprinting away from the fire as fast as her legs could carry her, leaving everything behind but her trusty hunting knives. Klink had set up a makeshift shelter over the night and was notified of the fire in the worst possible way: when a spark landed on his shoulder. Klink jumped ten feet into the air and stamped out the spark before his shirt could catch on fire. Then he grabbed his dagger and sprinted away from the conflagration that was rushing toward him. Fifer, once at the cornucopia, had gone scavenging the lands around the meadow for food. He had ventured a mile or so into the forest when he heard the roaring of the fire. Fifer immediately turned tail and fled, jumping on top of the cornucopia for added safety as the fire scorched what little was left of the forest below his feet.

Klink was a significant distance ahead of Annie in the race to the cornucopia. However, he fell behind when his foot got caught underneath a log and he fell to the ground. The inhaling of so much smoke caused his stomach to turn up its contents, and Kink had to fight against every muscle in his body to get up and continue running away from the hungry fire.

Klink and Annie both burst into the meadow at the same time and made the six-mile sprint toward the cornucopia. Being younger, Klink had to stop and break more often. One would have thought they would be safe, but this was not so. The fire had spread to the grass and foliage in the meadow and was tearing through it faster than ever before. The two crashed toward the cornucopia and leapt on top of it, greeted by Fifer, and the final battle began.

Fifer's first target was, of course, Annie, because she was the stronger. Fifer hurled himself at the District 8 girl and knocked her off her feet. Fifer was on top of Annie and pinning her down, but that didn't stop her from trying to fight back. Annie swiped away with her wicked hunting knives, scraping Fifer across the face. Fifer hissed as warm blood drizzled forth. Klink darted toward the two with a plan to stab Fifer in the back when he was distracted with Annie, but he couldn't even touch him before he reached out a hand and grabbed him. Klink flailed his limbs before Fifer smashed him into the floor with all of his might. He collapsed like a rag doll, and Fifer turned back toward Annie. But Annie was gone. Where she had once been was simply a platform of empty metal, the roof of the farmhouse cornucopia. Fifer walked forward to investigate and suddenly Annie was on top of him, grabbing him by the neck so he couldn't move. Fifer struggled for freedom, but Annie had already planted one of her knives into his back. The career screamed. Annie let him loose and watched him flop around like a fish out of water, dying from the wounds Annie had administered to him.

 _Fifer Golden, District 1 Male: 3rd, Killed by Annie, Day 9_

Annie got to her feet and wiped the grime off of herself, a torrent of emotions attacking her after watching Fifer die. Annie had been so caught up in the chaos of her duel with Fifer that she had completely forgotten about Klink. Klink saw an opportunity. Right when Annie was the weakest, Klink darted toward her and punched her in the back with his fist. Annie screeched and spiraled forward from the blow. Annie tried to grab onto something, anything, to keep her from tumbling off of the cornucopia, but there was nothing. She lost balance and slipped down into the flames. Annie screamed as she was scorched to death by the fire. At first she struggled to climb back on top of the cornucopia, but within a few seconds she couldn't move at all. Klink turned away so that he wouldn't have to watch, but no matter how hard he pressed his hands over his ears he couldn't drown out her screams of terror. Annie quickly died, leaving Klink as the only living tribute in the arena.

 _Annie Ribbons, District 8 Female: 2nd, Killed by Klink, Day 9_

"Klink Byrae of District 5, you are the victor of the forty-seventh annual Hunger Games!" Wisp announced, his voice barely audible over a symphony of euphonious trumpets.

Klink wiped away his tears and tried to look presentable for the nation whose eyes were all focused on him.

 _Klink Byrae, District 5 Male: Victor of the Forty-Seventh Hunger Games, Day 9_

* * *

 _ **AFTERM**_ _ **ATH**_

In history, Klink was often considered among the "lucky" victors: those unassuming tributes who shouldn't have had any chance of survival but beat the odds to defeat the toughest of opponents and make it home safe and sound. The Capitol wasn't a very big fanatic, for he had only made one kill and hadn't stood out for any real reason.

Klink moved into the Victor's Village of District 5, the fourth victor to do so.

His victory tour wasn't the best, as he had stage fright and delivered rather bland and boring speeches to the public.

Klink would live to the age of eighty, killed by Alzheimer's disease around the time of the one-hundred eleventh annual Hunger Games. Annie's screams as she was burned to death by the brush fire would haunt him forever, and he would quickly find that the vice of alcohol was the only way to silence them. He developed into an alcoholic. However, in his fifties, he would try to make a recovery and would succeed, doing so for the girl of his dreams (who was named Annie, coincidentally. Klink would nickname her Anna so that she wouldn't remind him of Annie Ribbons from his games). After that, he would go on to donate much of his riches to the poor of District 5, for he had been among them before he became a victor.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Klink occupies the fourth house of District 5's Victor's Village.

Woof Dozier has his first child with his wife, a girl named Loom.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)

* * *

 **A/N: Enter Klink, the District 5 Male from Catching Fire. He's always been sort of an ambiguity to be because we get to see so little of him, so it was fun to write him. I love these unnamed victors because they're so open to interpretation.**

 **Next chapter we see the legendary Brutus. I'm planning to make him one of the best victors yet, possibly** _ **the**_ **best victor yet. Because of this his chapter will likely take longer than usual. Thank you so much for all of your reviews! Whether they're praising my work or criticizing it, they all mean the world to me and I'm so thankful that people are reading my work. The coveted second quarter quell approaches…**


	49. The 48th Hunger Games

**The 48th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

With only two more games left until the highly-anticipated second Quarter Quell, Snow's expectations of Wisp and his team were flying through the roof and into outer space. Just over twenty years prior, the only think that Snow hadn't adored about his brutal first Quarter Quell was the fact that the games prior were very action-packed loved by the audience, thus distracting viewers from the quell and maybe even overshadowing. This time around, Snow wanted the games before the second Quarter Quell, the forty-ninth, to be lackluster and rather bland, so that the quell itself would seem particularly exhilarating. However, two boring games in a row would be overkill, so Snow demanded that this year's games be among the most exciting yet, lest the carefully mapped out plans for the era of the second quell be ruined. Wisp and his team got to work on the arena and the carnage that would take place inside of it while Snow went back to his business poisoning anyone who objected him. The Capitol, with the quell so close around the corner, was caught up in a full-fledged Hunger Games frenzy. Tickets to the chariot rides sold out in just a few days. A popular Capitol filmmaking company began selling deluxe editions of past games on DVD and home video. Of course, the demand for victors, particularly desirable ones like Porter and Dylan, was higher than ever, and many victors unwillingly spent many a night in posh Capitol hotels with the highest bidder.

When one thinks of agriculture, one likely thinks of rows of corn and grain standing proudly in the sunlight. While District 11 did provide the nation with this nourishment, its livelihood wasn't just limited to growing crops. Anything involving harnessing the beauty and glory of the earth was District 11's job. It grew flowers for sale in the Capitol and made sweet-smelling body lotion from aloe. As such, the arena for the forty-eighth Hunger Games, though inspired by District 11, took a turn away from all of those rows of wheat and toward the more obscure products of the district. The cornucopia was nestled cozily in a flower-strewn meadow. Its supplies largely consisted of knives, though other weapons were provided including a single bow. Colorful blossoms burst forth around the meadow every color of the rainbow. Butterflies leapt between them and unfurled their tongues to sip the delicious nectar. The meadow stretched on for about a mile in all directions before changing into different landscapes. To the far east was a dense, brightly-colored jungle teeming with life. The rainforests of District 11 provide it with many resources to make some medicines and foods. A peach grove lay in the far west. Dirt paths winded through the trees, and the smell of the peaches was alluring enough to get even the most stubborn to give them a try and leave them sucking their fingers.

This year, the career pack was exceptionally weak, with one exception. District 1, overall, produced the weakest of the bunch. The male was less skilled due to a lack of training compared the others and a minor injury to his leg that the sustained during training. The medics in the training center helped him to bandage the gash inflicted accidentally by a swordsman he was studying under. However, it couldn't heal fast enough, and the games began with a painful scar that restricted him from running too fast without extreme pain. The female from District 1 wasn't even a career. The chosen volunteer, the eighteen year-old Glitza Midnight, chickened out at the last moment and didn't volunteer. As such, the reaped girl, a pathetic thirteen year-old that scored a two in her private session, entered the games, marking the first reaped tribute from a career district in decades. Undeniably, though, the most powerful tribute was the District 2 male. The eighteen year-old Brutus Cordley was the son of the mayor of District 2 and the headmistress of the combat academy, and he would make even the most intimidating careers cry for mommy. He was a giant, towering over the rest of the terrified tributes, and ripping with muscle all throughout. He was as cold as ice and responded to anything except victory with a snarl of fury. He was the best swordsman that the academy had ever seen, and if he wanted to he could easily take down every trainer at the academy without being late for supper. He was the first tribute to score an eleven since Discordia Komine nineteen years earlier, and he was , without doubt, the strongest tribute of the first Hunger Games century. Earning forty-nine percent of bets, he was also the tribute in the first century to earn the most bets. To date, this record has only been broken twice. Brutus' training score was the first major piece of evidence that the training score of twelve was literally impossible to earn. The Capitol reasoned that if Brutus couldn't score a twelve then no tribute could. One more note: his 2-1 odds of winning were only matched by Sapphire Waber from forty-six years earlier. Brutus and Sapphire were the only tributes in the first hundred games to earn 2-1 odds of winning. His district partner was an intimidating career, though she paled in comparison to her terrifying district partner. The girl was well-versed with bows and managed to catch the eye of the Capitol with her beauty, though it couldn't come close to comparing with Brutus once again. District 4 offered up your typical pair of kids. The male was a popular surfer and was level-headed and unknown by much of his district. The girl was the youngest trained career this year at only fifteen, though she was able to score a respectable nine. The Capitol liked her because of her craftiness and creativity. The male liked tridents, whereas the female fancied spears. The training scores of the career tributes were rather pathetic. Apart from Brutus' astounding eleven, one ten, two nines, one seven, and one two were scored.

The outliers this year put on a varied showing. A few sevens were earned: three in total. Jack from District 7 captivated the audience with how he was able to score so high being so young, and he became a favorite in the Capitol. Hailing from the textile district, Canvas Ballatynne was well-versed with knives and had looks to match. Finally, Duncan from District 11 had enough experience with the sickle and enough charm to earn a seven in his private session. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. Because of Brutus' eleven and two-to-one odds, the training scores and odds of the other tributes were thrown completely out of whack. After the games, the method of assigning odds was changed so that this couldn't happen. However, in these games, it wasn't uncommon to see two tributes of similar ages and training scores earn wildly different odds of taking home the Victor's Crown. Brutus had thrown a wrench into the works and made all of the math to determine the odds haywire. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Luster Forcinius, 16, (7) 14-1 and Trinket Chantry, 13, (2) 64-1

District 2: Brutus Cordley, 18, (11) 2-1 and Calypso Madison, 17, (10) 6-1

District 3: Lance Moble, 18, (5) 26-1 and Blog Canessa, 13, (3) 74-1

District 4: Floatsam Minnow, 17, (9) 8-1 and Clew Woods, 18, (9) 8-1

District 5: Grid Knuth, 18, (4) 60-1 and Volta Martel, 18, (6) 24-1

District 6: Listrus Basquet, 13, (5) 27-1 and Loraselle Colin, 15, (5) 32-1

District 7: Jack Fabian, 12, (7) 18-1 and Hazel Daoust, 14, (6) 25-1

District 8: Canvas Ballatynne, 18, (7) 16-1 and Georgette Pomona, 16, (5) 25-1

District 9: Ash Knowles, 17, (6) 22-1 and Luna Scinto, 12, (3) 80-1

District 10: Anthony Bechtel, 15, (4) 33-1 and Frostine Hemphill, 17, (4) 32-1

District 11: Duncan Bleck, 18, (7) 23-1 and Iris York, 18, (6) 26-1

District 12: Hewitt Eagle, 17, (3) 69-1 and Rebekah Mobley, 14, (4) 53-1

HGBO Bets: 49% on Brutus, 6% on Calypso, 5% on Floatsam and Clew, 4% on Luster, Jack, Canvas, and Duncan, 3% on Volta, Hazel, Ash, and Iris, 1% or Less on Lance, Blog, Grid, Listrus, Loraselle, Georgette, Luna, Anthony, Frostine, Hewitt, and Rebekah.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

It was an agreeable temperature as the tributes rose up into the flower-strewn meadow atop their pedestals. A radiant spring sun sat high in the sky, illuminating a silver cornucopia that glistened with the splendor of a thousand diamonds. Several tributes spotted the jungle far away in one direction or the peach grove in the other direction, and they looked just as picturesque as the meadow in which they were standing. Only fourteen tributes would escape the bloodbath alive this year.

Brutus thundered toward the cornucopia, leaving even the fastest outliers in the dust as he sprinted a hundred yards to the cornucopia in less than fifteen seconds. He snatched up a sword and grinned at the glint of its blade. The massive boy made the three feet of gleaming iron look miniature. Brutus sprinted toward the nearest outlier, a small girl who had scored a five in training, and stabbed his sword into her back. The girl screamed and tried to flee, but she only stumbled forward a few steps before falling to the ground, the movement of her muscles working to lodge Brutus' sword deeper into her back. The career ran to her side and lifted her into the air by the scruff of her neck like a kitten before hurling her to the ground. Her neck snapped as she slammed into the grass like a child's doll. Brutus tore his sword messily out of her back and roared with triumph as he galloped off to find more prey.

 _Georgette Pomona, District 8 Female: 24th, Killed by Brutus, Bloodbath_

Though Calypso knew that she was overshadowed by her mighty district partner, that didn't stop her from making a splash. Calypso was the first to reach the single bow in the cornucopia, sneakily hidden between two black crates. She nocked an arrow and pulled back the bowstring. After a few seconds of scanning the clearing, she set her gaze upon a nearby boy who was running away from the cornucopia carrying a bag of loaves of bread. The arrow sailed along its path and landed straight into the boy's back, lodging itself between his shoulder blades. He was dead within seconds, and Calypso reveled in her first kill.

 _Listrus Basquet, District 6 Male: 23rd, Killed by Calypso, Bloodbath_

Brutus cackled with glee as he chased a weeping girl away from the cornucopia. With all of his might, the burly career boy hurled himself at the girl and tackled her to the ground. She was a slippery one, and it was difficult even for Brutus to contain her underneath his massive weight. Brutus used his legs to pin her wrists against the ground as he slashed his sword across her chest. Beads of scarlet splattered across Brutus' face, but he kept hacking away at her torso until her sobs died away to silence.

 _Iris York, District 11 Female: 22nd, Killed by Brutus, Bloodbath_

Brutus leapt up off of Iris' limp form and immediately spotted a young outlier boy stealthily running into the cornucopia to hide. Brutus shook his head and smirked as he chased after him. The boy ducked behind a crate inside of the cornucopia and discreetly grabbed an axe, but Brutus had already seen him. He dove toward the outlier boy. The boy jumped ten feet into the air and had no choice but to fight. Of course, Brutus disarmed him in ten seconds, tearing his axe out of his grasp and shoving him against a silver crate filled with tools. Brutus grabbed him by either side of the head and bashed it repeatedly against the crate until he died from head trauma. As if some sort of archaic war hero, Brutus used the boy's own axe to decapitate him in two or three clean slices. Carrying his head outside of the horn, he used a nearby blade to spear it into the dirt in front of the cornucopia. Brutus' message was clear. He was not to be messed with, and anyone who challenged him would pay.

 _Anthony Bechtel, District 10 Male: 21st, Killed by Brutus, Bloodbath_

At that, many of the outliers and some of the careers were so horrified that they dropped whatever they were doing and fled. Floatsam hefted up a heavy trident, and he was in business when he heard the thumping footsteps of a tribute storming away from the horn. Floatsam ran in front of her. When she saw the District 4 boy standing dead in front of her, she tried to change course. But Floatsam followed her wherever she went. Finally, Floatsam lunged toward her and knocked her in the legs, sending her spiraling backward. Floatsam speared the three prongs of his trident through her torso.

 _Blog Canessa, District 3 Female: 20th, Killed by Floatsam, Bloodbath_

The screaming of the terrified outliers was music to Brutus' ears. He got his sword at the ready and bowled through the clearing, toward the wave of outliers that were frantically scampering away from him and the other careers. A girl made the mistake of her life as she grabbed a dagger and ran toward Brutus' back, planning to stab him and eliminate the strongest tribute in the games. Brutus heard her clumsy movement and whipped around. He balled his right fist and slammed her in the head. She dropped her dagger and was sent into a daze, spinning around and going unconscious from the strike. One slash of Brutus' trusty sword, and her life force was drained away.

 _Loraselle Colin, District 6 Female: 19th, Killed by Brutus, Bloodbath_

The glisten of a pair of bronze knuckles caught Luster's eye. Luster sprinted toward them and tried them on. They fit on snugly, almost as if they had been made for him. The District 1 boy, wanting to put the unique new weapons to the test, ran up to the nearest boy and rammed the spiked knuckles into his body. He stumbled and reeled backward as Luster continued to slash away at his face and abdomen without mercy. After he was dead from blood loss, Luster pumped his fists with triumph and let the sun gleam over his lethal brass knuckles.

 _Grid Knuth, District 5 Male: 18th, Killed by Luster, Bloodbath_

It was Frostine of District 10, of all people, who made the next kill. Though she had been a clear-moraled girl back in her home district and a good person, the stress of the games was getting to her and the thought of killing was becoming less and less outlandish. She scooped up a coil of rope and wrapped it around the neck of a nearby boy. Frostine tied the rope into a firm knot and fled, leaving the boy to suffocate to death behind her. The boy clawed at the tightly-knotted rope and tried to undo it, but thinking was becoming more and more difficult with how much oxygen his body was using up. His lungs screamed for air, but the rope clutched his neck so tightly that he could do nothing to satisfy their pleas. The boy was finally seduced as Frostine took off into the meadow, a torrent of emotions attacking her after making her first kill.

 _Jack Fabian, District 7 Male: 17th, Killed by Frostine, Bloodbath_

Brutus used his sword to nail a sobbing boy against the ground. He pressed the point of the sword deeper and deeper into his neck. The skin broke, and blood promptly burbled forward. The boy screamed for help that would never come. His cries of agony and anguish pleased Brutus, and the boy cackled like a maniac as he drove the sword further through his torso. The sword finally finished its path through his body and pierced the ground like a toothpick spearing through meat. Brutus yanked his sword out of the limp boy's body and kicked him aside as he ran off to kill the last few outliers strewn around the clearing.

 _Hewitt Eagle, District 12 Male: 16th, Killed by Brutus, Bloodbath_

The problem was, those few remaining outliers were smart and knew that the best plan would be to take off into the meadow before Brutus could find them. Brutus roared with fury so loud that heaven and earth seemed to rumble along with him. Nothing would satisfy him except more blood. As he stalked through the clearing searching for any hiding outliers, he grew more and more furious. Finally, he found what he was looking for. Brutus tossed aside a canvas covering and found the pudgy Trinket from District 1 quivering with terror underneath. Brutus wanted to draw out the last bloodbath kill as much as possible, and he did. The other careers watched with shock from the edges of the meadow as he sawed off her limbs one by one and angled her slightly upward so that the blood would rush to her head and keep her conscious through the long torture. Her moans of agony finally gave way to silence, and the birds squawked and flew away as ten cannon shots proudly boomed throughout the arena.

 _Trinket Chantry, District 1 Female: 15th, Killed by Brutus, Bloodbath_

For a while, the other careers just stood in awe. Of course, their constitution as careers was to slaughter mercilessly and bring honor to their districts, but they had never seen any career nearly as vicious as Brutus. Quietly, the quartet of careers grouped together on the north side of the clearing.

"He's our ally," said Floatsam after a long, pensive silence. "And he'll be the number one source of sponsors. We have to approach him."

The others shifted uncomfortably. Deep down, they all knew he was right, but they were still all terrified that what had happened to Trinket or Anthony could happen to them. In an act that proved his bravery, Floatsam proclaimed, "Fine. If none of you want to go up to him then I will."

Floatsam marched through the meadow toward Brutus, who was now tearing out the teeth of his victims and stringing them on a rope to make a necklace. He hesitated, and contemplated turning around, but he kept walking forward.

"Scram!" Brutus demanded, followed by a string of profanities, calling Floatsam no more talented than the pond scum from his district and waving his sword wildly to and fro. Suddenly, Brutus saw the other three careers a few dozen yards away, and his agitation melted away and was replaced with an expression calm and inviting. He was being a snake. Snow would be proud. Brutus beckoned the terrified kids forth, and he offered them his own food and weapons. Really, he was lying to them, trying to earn their trust just so that he could backstab them later. That night, Brutus patiently waited for the others to fall asleep. Then he grabbed his district partner Calypso by the neck and shoved his hand over her mouth. "Don't make a peep," Brutus instructed, unsheathing his sword. Brutus grabbed the flailing career girl by the neck, shoving a piece of cloth into her mouth so she couldn't scream, and started off toward the jungle in the distance.

The trek was long and difficult. On the outskirts of the meadow, the flat land was replaced by rolling hills, but if Brutus felt any difficulty at all starting up and down the uneven landscape he didn't show it. Gnats buzzed furiously around. The jungle was hot and muggy, with the chirping of insects always present. Brutus unearthed a piece of rope and bound together Calypso's two arms. That was when Calypso managed to use her tongue to dislodge the gag. The slimy rag was sent to the ground, and her mouth was free to move. Calypso screamed and thrashed and flailed around, but Brutus was unfazed. He knew that those few outliers that were nearby wouldn't dream of coming near him in a thousand years. In fact, her desperate cries amused him and made the work of tying her up more eventful.

Once Calypso was tied and bound up by the rope, she really began putting up a fight. She fought with all of her might to escape, but Brutus' knots were firm and the rope was as strong as steel. Brutus circled around Calypso and let her toss and turn on the ground, though unable to get to her feet because of the ropes. The maniacal District 2 boy cackled with joy at the sight of her tears. As Brutus danced around her, he occasionally lunged forward with his sword just to frighten her and just to keep the fear fresh in her mind. Calypso was balling now. Her wrists and ankles were bleeding from tugging uselessly against the ropes, and she was crying out, mouth quivering violently and snot pouring from her nose. Brutus was patient, doodling bloody methods of killing in the dirt with his sword.

After the bloodbath, the outliers seemed to have no goal but to place themselves as far away from Brutus as possible. It was really a game of chance for the outliers. About half of them travelled to the jungle, and the other half made the journey to the sweet-smelling peach grove. None stayed in the meadow. For those in the peach grove, the word hunger was taken out of the name of the game. Food was plentiful, and one was never more than a few feet from it. After escaping the bloodbath alive with a knife, Hazel jogged the radius of the meadow and found herself at the base of the first peach tree. Experimentally, she used her knife to cut down one of the peaches before throwing it into her mouth. Her mouth flooded with saliva at the delicious fruit, and within a few minutes she had eaten ten of them and was left licking her fingers. She fell asleep with peach juice stuck to the corners of her mouth right at the grove's entrance way. The only outlier with a kill under her belt, Frostine confidently trekked through the meadow until the luscious peaches came into clear sight. As soon as she entered the grove, a silver parachute sailed down containing a bowl and a stubby pocketknife. Frostine filled the bowl with peach slices and snacked on them as she ventured through the grove. A dirt trail guided her to a small lake, on the sandy beach of which she fell into a dreamless sleep. Lance saw Brutus decapitate Anthony during the bloodbath and was so festered with horror that he fled from the bloodbath then and there. He sprinted through the meadow without looking back before collapsing in a circular clearing in the peach grove. Lance just lie down on the muddy ground and sobbed the night away. Rebekah had gotten a spear from the cornucopia and never let it out of her sight as she ventured out on an odyssey through the peach grove. It really was an adventure more than anything. She soon found a small pool with crystal clear water. Soon after quenching her thirst, Rebekah discovered an area where a peach tree's roots had stretched over a valley and created a sheltered area underneath. That area of the arena experienced a light sprinkle for a few minutes, and Rebekah was completely dry underneath. She was happy and safe. But that all changed when the sun set. Suddenly, Rebekah was plagued with fear. The looming trees were so menacing that she never left her little shelter. She crammed herself into the corner as still as a stone and jumped at the slightest sound. Terrifying thoughts ravaged her mind, and she had horrible nightmares that she woke up crying from. She got almost no sleep when it was needed most.

Those tributes that headed for the jungle certainly faced the most cover, though they also faced the most dangers, from mutts to proximity to the monstrous Brutus. Duncan had gotten a dart gun with ten darts from the cornucopia. As he entered the jungle, he immediately spotted a bright blue frog leaping between the leaves. He almost mistook it for an edible frog that he ate often back in District 11. His fingers were mere feet from it when he jumped backward. Its skin was burbling, and colored liquid was coating the frog's body. It was a poison dart frog. Its venom could cause excruciating pain and death. Duncan grabbed a few pieces of bark and carefully lined them up around the frog, trapping it. Then, he dipped his darts in its venom to make them extra lethal, if he ever needed to use them. Volta ran through the jungle for a good hour, wanting to place as much distance between herself and that horrible Brutus as possible. It was muggy and swelteringly hot, and she was sweating profusely. Eventually, Volta settled down on a hill overlooking a swampy marsh. Volta fashioned a slingshot out of a stick shaped like the letter Y and an elastic band a sponsor delivered her. She fired rocks at passing birds and eventually shot down a colorful one. The bird, as blue as the ocean, landed beside her with a thump. Volta grabbed a stone and smashed it to death before roasting its meat over a small fire.

Canvas alternated between walking and jogging through the jungle for much of the light hours of the day. He made camp in a fissure in the earth beside a calmly murmuring stream. Canvas was frightened awake at around eleven at night by a rustling sound. A colony of army ants, millions of them, was scuttling across the ground at nearly eight miles per hour. Canvas jumped out of his skin with fright and fled. The ants eeked and chased after him. He was getting away from them, but very slowly. They snapped the air with their jaws and lashed out. Each one was nearly the size of a human hand, and they were fiery-red. Canvas didn't know what would happen if they caught up to him, but it didn't look good. As he got more and more tired, Canvas naturally got slower and slower. Then his foot caught a root and he was flying. He landed on the ground a few feet ahead and skidded for a while before coming to a stop. The army ants overwhelmed him. They called for their brethren, and the little monsters poured out from the trees, crawled out of the soil, and formed a barrier around Canvas. He tried to swat them away and get up, but their stings felt like fire. His screams pierced the night as the ants tunneled down into his skin and ate him up before marching away and leaving his entrails behind to rot in the heat of the jungle.

 _Canvas Ballatynne, District 8 Male: 14th, Killed by Army Ant Muttations, Day 1_

Ash and Luna from District 9, who had allied prior to the games, stayed close together as they ventured through the brightly-colored jungle. Everywhere looked the same, and they didn't want to lose each other. As the jungle became thicker and more complex, they locked arms so that they would stay together. As night began to fall, they used fallen logs to create a shelter at the bottom of a sheet of sloping land. Ash put together the logs, while Luna draped vines and heavy leaves overtop to keep out all of the furiously buzzing gnats and flies. They were miserable in the intense heat, with countless bug bites. It was even hotter inside the shelter, and it was nearly impossible for them to sleep so parched and swelteringly hot.

Back to Brutus. Calypso was covered in cuts and bruises, as Brutus was beginning to actually do damage by inducing minor scrapes and such just to scare her but nothing major. The Capitol cheered with delight as Brutus slammed her in the nose with the butt of his sword, crunching the cartilage underneath. The girl kept screaming, but the outliers didn't dare come near to rescue her. Finally, as the sun was rising in the sky after nearly seven hours of brutal torture, Brutus shoved the tip of his sword into Calypso's stomach. Brutus drove the sword further and further into her chest, and Brutus beat his own with triumph when her cannon shot sounded. Before stalking off to induce more terror, Brutus snatched up his prey's dead body and threw her over the bough of a tree like a towel. "Let the birds feast on her flesh," Brutus snarled pompously before thundering off deeper into the jungle.

 _Calypso Madison, District 2 Female: 13th, Killed by Brutus, Day 2_

At the cornucopia, when the careers awoke to find Brutus and Calypso gone, they looked at each other gravely. There was no possibility other than Brutus had stolen away with Calypso in the night and killed her. They all agreed that, whatever Brutus was, he was not one of them. The careers went hunting, though they stayed in the lands close to the cornucopia out of fear. Even they were terrified of Brutus, and they hid and reached for their weapons at the slightest noise. Even when all was silent, they looked over their shoulders constantly out of paranoia.

As the mighty Brutus delved deeper into the jungle, his clutch on his sword grew tighter and tighter. His knuckles were white as he grasped the blade that had drained the lives of seven tributes. His impatience turned to fury as he failed to find any tributes after eight hours of hunting. He was about to give up and demand that the gamemakers send one of the outliers to him when he spotted the shelter of Ash and Luna. Brutus smiled and crept toward their shelter. The tail end of the night had been much cooler than the front end, and the two District 9 tributes were snoozing contentedly inside. Brutus could just kill them with his sword right then and there. But he wanted more than that, of course. Brutus rapped his sword on the side of the shelter and the two tributes bolted to their senses. Brutus showed his face between two logs, and the tributes screamed. They stood up and exploded through the roof of the shelter as they sped off. Luna yelled at Ash that they needed to split up, but Brutus had other plans. So quickly they couldn't react, Brutus reached out with his rope and bound their wrists together. They were stuck together, and Brutus chased after them. It pleased him immensely to see the outliers trying to coordinate to make any sort of movement, and Brutus intentionally ran slower than full speed behind them. The tributes couldn't untie the rope because their other hands were swinging at their sides from the fast run. Finally, they were too exhausted to move any further. Ash made a wrong move, and the two outliers were sent falling to the ground in a heap. Ash and Luna struggled to get backup, but Brutus caught up. He played eenie-meenie-minie-mo to determine who he would kill first, and his finger landed on Luna.

Brutus approached the terrified District 9 boy and whacked him in the head with the butt of his sword soft enough that he would be able to regain consciousness, but hard enough that it wouldn't be until he was done with Luna. Brutus was a few feet from Luna when he produced a little contraption from the pocket of his pants. It had been delivered to him by a sponsor that morning. A thumbscrew. It was a torture method often used in the mediaeval ages and was a vice that was designed to slowly crush the toes and thumbs of its unfortunate victims. Luna cried as Brutus seized her thumb and crammed it into the vice. Brutus spun it a few times to tighten it, and the pressure on Luna's thumb was immediately felt. It wasn't painful, just a pressing sensation. After seeing that Luna wasn't reacting, Brutus tightened the vice a few more turns. The girl instantly began sobbing. Her thumb was being squeezed in the vice so hard that she couldn't see straight. She tried to tear the horrible tool off of her finger, but it was on so tight that it was futile. Brutus spun the wheel with all of his might and suddenly Luna's thumb snapped. She screamed with terror as Brutus snapped her pointer finger, middle finger, ring finger, and thumb in order. It took nearly an hour to do all five fingers. They all stuck out of her hand at awkward angles and bent in unnatural ways from the damage they had been dealt by the dreadful thumbscrew. Brutus was about to do her other hand when his mentor Discordia sent him a note saying that the audience wanted more blood. Brutus was happy to comply, skewering his sword through Luna's torso and yanking it out. Like many of Brutus' other kills, Luna was almost glad when the world began to drop away as long as it meant that the excruciating pain would leave with it.

 _Luna Scinto, District 9 Female: 12th, Killed by Brutus, Day 2_

Brutus' timing had been perfect. Ash came to less than a minute after Luna's cannon shot, fresh prey for the savage District 2 boy and his barbaric techniques of inflicting death. Keeping Discordia's request that his kills be bloodier in mind, Brutus went straight in with his sword. He scraped the blade across Ash's arm. He didn't dig it completely into the skin. If he did, the boy would die soon. Instead, he just broke the surface of Ash's pale skin such that there would be blood but also so that he wouldn't die quickly. As blood poured from his wound, Ash tried to his best to be quiet. He wouldn't give Brutus the satisfaction of tears or screams. His silence infuriated him, and Brutus went in for the real deal sooner than usual. He dug his sword into his wrist, a more critical point of blood in the body, and Ash died briskly from loss of blood. It wasn't Brutus' proudest kill, and he swore to make another kill before the day was done to make up for it. After Ash's death, he discarded the thumbscrew.

 _Ash Knowles, District 9 Male: 11th, Killed by Brutus, Day 2_

There wasn't much movement or action among the rest of the tributes for the day. Those two deaths were no doubt carried out by Brutus, and most of the others figured that since he was back at large it would be wise to stay in hiding. Those in the jungle were both close enough to hear the screams of Luna and Ash and to figure that Brutus was nearby. These tributes, Duncan and Volta, kept activity to a minimum. Duncan used one of his poisoned darts to kill a small, peach-colored ocelot with chocolate brown spots. After sipping some water from a stream and cutting up the ocelot's meat, Duncan slunk back into his shelter and waited out the day in silence. Volta slithered under the thick layer of vines littering the forest floor and occupied herself by crafting a spile out of a slab of wood. The wood was rather brittle, and her creation was crude. The spile certainly worked, but it was drawing water from the trees at a rate of less than two tablespoons a minute.

The peach grove didn't have much to boast either. Hazel had gotten up from her slumber at the entrance of the grove and delved deep into the orchard. After several hours of travel, she settled down in a bed of roses and feasted on more peaches. Frostine kept by her little lake and even managed to catch a fish. It had a repulsive texture and taste, and Frostine discarded it after the first bite and settled for slicing up more peaches into her bowl. Lance finally got up, wiped the dirt off himself, and put himself to work. He used several felled logs to create a hut in a heavily-wooded area where it would blend into the wilderness. After the shelter was finished, he set off to find water to quench his raging thirst. Rebekah got up the second the sun rose, wanting to be delivered from her horrific nightmares, most of which contained Brutus' blood smattered face and the bite of his sword. Rebekah found a good water source and munched contentedly on the peaches. Around noon, she accidentally scraped against a sharp piece of tree bark and hissed as blood poured from the wound. She tore off parts of her clothing to stop the blood flow and to prevent infection, and Rebekah stayed still and nursed her wound for the remaining light hours of the day.

Brutus was back on the prowl the second Ash bled to death. He drilled silently through the forest with his sword resting snugly in his grasp. Finally, after nearly thirty hours of continuous hunting, he needed to rest. Brutus sat down on a large stone and, finally, announced his plan to the audience. His goal was to kill at least one tribute from every district. He had already killed at least one tribute from Districts 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. That left Districts 3, 4, 5, and 7 as the only ones to have never felt Brutus' wrath. The only tribute alive from District 3 was Lance. 4 had both Floatsam and Clew. District 5 had only Volta left alive, and same for District 7 with Hazel.

Brutus scribbled down a little note for his mentor Discordia negotiating a bargain.

 _Want to kill one from each district. Need 3, 4, 5, and 7. You give me that 5 girl and 3 boy, and I forfeit one of the 4s. Deal or no deal?_

 _Glasgow says deal,_ Discordia wrote back in her spidery handwriting, _and he'll also give you 7._

 _Deal,_ said Brutus' final note simply.

Within minutes, Brutus was back up and running, combing through the jungle for victims. Brutus' run slowed a tiptoe when he saw Volta, the District 5 girl, curled up in the bough of a cherry-colored tree. Volta's ground shelter had gotten destroyed by a wild animal, and she couldn't be bothered to build another so she had climbed up the tree and was catching zs on its lowest branch. Brutus shinnied up the tree like a squirrel, never loosening his grip on his sword.

Brutus climbed onto the bough that Volta was sleeping on, taking infinite care not to make a sound. Brutus' plan was to get her to fall onto the ground and break a leg or something, so that she couldn't run and Brutus could kill her off. Brutus was ready to carry out his plan. He scraped the tip of his sword across Volta's arm. Volta started awake and screamed when she saw Brutus right next to her. There was no way she could climb down the tree without Brutus getting to her first. She leapt off of the tree without a second thought. She tried to steady herself through the fall, but about halfway down she was flipped over and collided with the earth as if belly flopping into a swimming pool. Her right arm took most of the blow, and two of its sturdy bones immediately shattered from the collision. Brutus scurried down the tree and to her side, where she was moaning and weeping from the pain. Brutus had her right where he wanted her. The son of the mayor of District 2 slid the tip of his sword into her neck. The blade dug down for about half a centimeter before Brutus yanked it out. Dark red strings flew everywhere and splattered against Brutus, but he didn't mind it in the least.

Brutus felt for Volta's pulse. It was certainly there, but it was weak and uneven. As one final hoorah, Brutus flipped the girl over and shoved his sword through her ribs so savagely that even the Capitol was shocked. Volta died instantaneously, her death the tenth initiated by Brutus.

 _Volta Martel, District 5 Female: 10th, Killed by Brutus, Day 2_

The morning of Day 3, Discordia sent Brutus another note. The note said that Brutus had these games in the bag and he needed to slow down a bit. But Brutus just discarded the note with a scowl. When Brutus Cordley made a goal, he never, ever failed. Nothing would satisfy him except the Victor's Crown, served bloody and cold, of course.

At the cornucopia, the careers were beginning to grow desperate. Brutus was hogging all of their sponsors, and the best gift they had gotten was a small steak that they split among the three of them and overall provided very little sustenance. Because of Brutus, they had been forgotten by most of the audience and by Caesar, and on Day 3 they were determined to make a splash and impress those sponsors.

Floatsam was left behind to guard the cornucopia. Luster and Clew ventured into the peach grove. The mouth-watering aroma enticed them more than the earthy smell of the far-away jungle, and they figured that most of the outliers would have made the same decision.

The two careers had reached a level area of land when Luster stopped dead in his tracks. He pointed out the moving form of Rebekah traveling silently through the trees. Luster readied his knife, Clew her sickle, and they charged toward Rebekah. Luster reached her first and stabbed her in the abdomen with his knife. Rebekah opened her mouth to scream. Before she could make a sound, Clew threw forward his sickle and shoved it down the girl's throat. The girl vomited, her bile splashing over Clew's arm. He recoiled with disgust and inflicted further injury as he unevenly pulled his slimy sickle out of her mouth. Rebekah blubbered nonsensically and flailed around before finally collapsing in death. The two pillaged her of her meager stocks of supplies and split them amongst themselves before returning to the cornucopia.

 _Rebekah Mobley, District 12 Female: 9th, Killed by Luster and Clew, Day 3_

That left the final eight: Luster Forcinius from District 1, Brutus Cordley from District 2, Lance Moble from District 3, Floatsam Minnow and Clew Woods from District 4, Hazel Daoust from District 7, Frostine Hemphill from District 10, and Duncan Blech from District 11.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Apart from Brutus, Duncan was the only tribute in the jungle, and, hearing the horrified screams of his victims, he stayed in hiding for the whole day. Frostine rested in a thick area of the peach grove laden with moss and cherry-colored blossoms, munching on peaches and sipping water from a nearby spring sporadically throughout the day. After several hours of feverish searching, Lance discovered a satisfactory albeit a bit shoddy source of water, a small muddy pool nestled comfortably between two hills. He was so loopy from dehydration that he didn't stop to think that the water would likely contain all of the residue drawn down the two hills by gravity. The water quenched his thirst all right, but his stomach tossed and turned and he stopped six times throughout the course of the day to heave himself dry. Hazel was content relaxing underneath the blood-red roses listening to the burbling of the lake to the south. However, she moved around on occasion so that the gamemakers would leave her alone.

Brutus was up and at 'em bright and early on the morning of the fourth day as bloodthirsty as ever. He jogged through the jungle for several hours, not bothering to be stealthy or careful. Any time he sustained an injury, enough medicine was delivered in minutes to last him for days. As for tossing stealth out of the window, he figured it didn't matter whether the outliers heard him and had time to hide or not. Nothing would satisfy him except for reaching his daily goal of bumping off at least one more outlier, and that was what he would have.

Duncan was out and about looking for water after his supplies from the cornucopia ran dry. He knew that Brutus was in the jungle, but he didn't bother to be quiet because he believed hiding places were bountiful in the rainforest and he could easily pass of his footsteps as those of a wild jungle animal. Big mistake. Brutus was strolling along, sharpening his sword with a stone, when he spotted Duncan trampling clumsily through the dense jungle. Ditching the stone and turning his sword in hand, Brutus crept forward.

When he pounced like a cat, Duncan didn't have time to react. Brutus hurled himself at the outlier boy and tackled him to the ground. It was as if he had melted out of the jungle. With outstanding elegance, Brutus snapped off a bright-green tree vine and bound Duncan's feet together, all in less than a second. Duncan made a desperate attempt at escape, but with his legs tied together he could only leap for a few awkward steps before plummeting to the jungle foliage. Brutus went for a repeat Calypso, circling him for hours and lunging forward occasionally just to terrify him. Duncan reached for his poisoned darts, but he had used them all up hunting. Now, he was defenseless.

Duncan struggled with all of his might to escape. His skin was cracked and bleeding from rubbing against the strong vine. But Duncan had a brain. He located a small rock nearby and grabbed it. Then he threw it a few feet. It landed in the brush with a rustle, and for an instant, the slightest instant, Brutus averted his gaze. Then, Duncan tugged at the vines with all of his might. He pushed on them for all that he was worth, all of the reasons he had to win the games. The vine gave a creak. Then, one of the knots slipped. The vine unwound within moments. Duncan was free.

He ran. He bolted across the uneven rainforest ground faster than he had ever run in his life. Brutus roared with fury and followed behind, and the terror of the situation was getting to Duncan and only made him run faster. He had to stop sometime, though, and after a half hour-long chase Duncan stopped for a tiny second to take one quick rest. Brutus, of course, caught up to him, and pressed the metal tip of his sword, covered with dried blood, to his neck. Duncan's eyes opened wide. He had been so close to escape! Brutus shoved the blade point into Duncan's neck, seducing him immediately and triggering his cannon a moment later.

 _Duncan Bleck, District 11 Male: 8th, Killed by Brutus, Day 4_

In the early hours of Day 4, the careers didn't start out by hunting. Alternatively, they went for a strategy unprecedented in the Hunger Games. They sent out a spy. The careers knew so little about Brutus, their number one source of opposition, yet they would have to face him sooner or later and when that happened heaven help them if they didn't know anything about his tactics.

Neither Luster, Clew, nor Floatsam volunteered at first, which was to be expected. Who would volunteer to get nearer to Brutus? But after a popular vote, the careers determined that Floatsam should be the one to do the job. He was quick, speedy, and slippery enough that he might be able to escape if Brutus caught him on his hunting ground. He refused at first, but over time he gave in under the pressure of his peers.

Floatsam slunk into the jungle and was soon sweating fiercely in the intense heat. Floatsam gasped and placed a shaking hand over his mouth when he stepped on something hard, yet soft. He looked down and was greeted with the dead body of Calypso Madison. Though she had been dead for only a few days, decomposition had already begun to take root. And the expression on her face was one that horrified Floatsam more than anything. The sheer look of hopelessness and terror plastered in her expression made it look like she had died uselessly pleading for Brutus' mercy. Floatsam trekked onward, wanting to get away from Calypso and from the horrible thoughts that were swimming around his mind.

This whole spying shenanigan was fascinating and intriguing most of the audience, and Floatsam's mentor Lucy sent him a note giving him directions to Brutus. Floatsam swallowed hard and walked between the landmarks Lucy had written to him in her elegant hand. Floatsam clutched his trident as he walked, and it wasn't long before the thump of Brutus' footsteps filled his ears and stirred up his deepest terrors. Floatsam ran through a list of information he needed to recover. Brutus still had a sword. Check. Now they knew what weapon to practice fighting against. He was growling, evidently frustrated by not being able to find any kills. He was… he was… staring right at Floatsam, a smirk plastered across his face!

Floatsam screamed like a little schoolgirl, turned tail, and sped away. Brutus growled like a bear and scampered behind. Floatsam was nimble, and Brutus lost him twice, but his whimpers of fright always allowed Brutus to find him again.

"A four!" Brutus sneered. "Just what I needed. Glad it wasn't your partner, stupid girl can't even hold a sword. You, well, you'll be entertainment."

Brutus chased Floatsam to the edge of a furiously rushing river. Sure, he was a fantastic swimmer, but the river water was moving so fast that Floatsam wasn't sure if he would be able to keep his bearings in the current. Furthermore, the small portion of the riverbed he could see looked rocky, perfect grounds for a concussion if the current threw him into them.

Brutus teased him. "District 4 can't even swim, can he?" Floatsam wasn't sure if he could manage to cross the river. But he had to get away from Brutus. He stood in scary indecision for a few seconds, so much time that Brutus was able to approach him and grab him by the neck. Brutus lifted him into the air like a naughty puppy and shook him around.

To begin his torture, Brutus pulled out his trusty sword and speared it through his hand. Floatsam screamed as the sharp blade bored through the flesh and protruded from the other side, and Brutus buried the tip of the three foot-long blade into the dirt, essentially binding his prey to the ground. Then he picked up a five pound stone, and it was all over. He slammed it into Floatsam's head, bashing in part of his skull and rendering him immediately unconscious. Over the course of several minutes, Brutus beat the pitiful boy to death. He died from head trauma in less than five minutes, and Brutus left his misshapen head and blood-lathered body behind him as he ran away back into the thick of the jungle to hunt some more.

 _Floatsam Minnow, District 4 Male: 7th, Killed by Brutus, Day 4_

The rest of Day 4, as well as the entirety of Day 5, passed with neither interaction nor conflict between the six surviving tributes. Most of them stayed in hiding for much of this period, scared by the two cannon shots that fired in the early hours of Day 4. After sending out Floatsam to spy, the careers halfheartedly hunted the lands around the cornucopia. When a cannon shot sounded, they all clung onto a tiny thread of hope that the career had managed to survive, but as day turned into night they wore solemn expressions. And then his face appeared in the sky, shattering their hopes of triumphing over the beast like a ceramic sculpture dropped on concrete. Luster and Clew spent much of Day 5 resting at the cornucopia. After Floatsam's death, they slithered into the horn and made as many excuses as possible to stay inside. It was the first time that any career had been openly afraid by another. Brutus, of course, was on the prowl, as savagely bloodthirsty as ever. When the sun set on Day 5 and he hadn't made a kill, Brutus let out a roar so loud that the rainforest leaves seemed to rattle underneath his feet. He could not accept defeat. His mentor sent him a note saying that there wasn't any prey left in the jungle and that he should head to the peach grove. Brutus was glad to obey, sprinting through the meadow toward the peach grove. Victory was so close he could taste it. He didn't bother killing the careers as he sprinted past the cornucopia with all the grace of a gazelle. He had bigger fish to fry. He wanted to save his energy for Lance and Hazel, the only tributes standing between him and his objective of killing at least one tribute from every district.

Among the tributes from the outlying districts, there was an awful lot of hysteria. They all figured that Brutus would be heading toward them now after so long in the jungle, and good hiding places near the edges of the arena were in high demand. Hazel discovered a remarkably well-formed natural shelter. The roots of three peach trees wove around each other and overlapped above an empty space hidden on either side by thick bushes. It was the perfect hiding place. Hazel even had some room to move around inside. As the only outlier off of Brutus' kill list, Frostine was in much less peril than her peers. Still, she jogged further away from the center of the arena for several hours and found herself at a point where the land dropped off at a ninety degree angle and fell down forever into oblivion. At the very edge of the arena, she created a little shelter in a copse of bushes and amused herself by tossing stones over the edge of the cliff. Lance's stomach kept on churning for several days. The muddy water he had drank was really getting to his system. His stomach churned, and he threw up on regular occasions. Extreme diarrhea was dehydrating Lance severely, and he was in misery with no sponsors generous enough to open their wallets and purses for him.

After not making a kill on Day 5, Brutus sped through the peach grove faster than ever before, growling with fury every time he heard a sound that turned out to be a small animal. He was slithering through a thicket of branches when he heard human sounds very nearby. Brutus laughed and followed them. He saw Lance on the ground, retching himself dry, with a sunken mouth and dry, pink eyes. He looked like he might fall dead at any moment, and Brutus wanted to get to him before that happened. The career boy didn't bother to torture him any more than he needed to. He was pretty unresponsive, so he wouldn't be much fun anyways. Brutus jabbed his sword through his back. That was the straw that broke the camel's back, and Lance's limp form slid off Brutus' sword.

 _Lance Moble, District 3 Male: 6th, Killed by Brutus, Day 6_

Tributes stirred in unease for the remainder of Day 6. Lance's cannon shot meant that Brutus was once again on the prowl, and nobody wanted to be found by the victory-hungry career boy. Frostine was too close for comfort to the edge of the arena, so she backed away about a hundred yards and found herself at a pool of water. Her supplies were low, and she was glad to restock on precious body fluid. By this point, Hazel had caught on that Brutus was striving to kill at least one tribute from every district. That meant that she was his sole true target. She stayed in hiding the entire day. At sunset, the gamemakers sent her a cryptic note warning her that she'd better get out and about or else they would send a threat after her. But Hazel was so terrified that her brain was refusing to process the information. She discarded the note. That would be the mistake that ended her life.

Mere minutes prior, Brutus had grown thirsty for the blood of his last few opponents and demanded that the gamemakers guide him to one of the other tributes. Given that their end of the deal had not yet been paid, they took the opportunity to show him Hazel's location. Hazel was crouched down in her crudely-built shelter when a firework burst out of the ground a few feet away from her and flew into the sky. The firework exploded with a sound that left Hazel's ears ringing. Terror was impairing her sense of reason, and whatever she though the firework was for she didn't perceive it as any real threat.

Brutus bared his teeth and snarled with triumph as he saw a red firework fly into the air from somewhere in the middle of the peach grove. His faithful sword at his side, he raced toward the general location that the firework had been set off. It was scary how well his bearings were. He sprinted through the forest without slowing down and without faltering. He leapt between rocks and over burbling creeks with impeccable grace. When Hazel's mud shelter came into view, Brutus chuckled. He trekked forward as quietly as his legs could carry him, approaching Hazel's shelter after about a minute of tip-toeing forward.

He produced his rope.

He pounced.

Hazel shrieked as Brutus' humungous weight landed on top of her. She tried to knock down the wall of her shelter and escape, but Brutus had already bound her hands together with a strong knot. She kicked with her feet like a child. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying, and hot tears pooled up on her cheeks. Brutus shoved her legs into two loops of his rope, effectively binding her. There wasn't much light where Hazel had built her shelter. Brutus gagged her and snatched her up like a rag doll. He marched off into the peach grove.

Brutus dropped Hazel in a clearing well-lit by the silvery moonlight. Then he unsheathed his sword. The glint of its blade in the light of the moon made Hazel's life flash before her eyes. She tugged against the constraints harder than ever. She probably could have broken them, but Brutus had learned from Duncan that the knots he had been using originally weren't strong enough. He had developed a whole new method of rope-tying that ensured that not even Hazel, adrenaline firing throughout her body like water through a straw, could escape.

This was Brutus' last kill until he met his goal of killing one tribute from every district. He wanted to savor this as much as possible. Now that she was constrained without hope of escape, he tore out her gag. As soon as the slimy rag was removed, Hazel screamed as loud as she could. Mustering up all of her strength, she strained against her rope confinements. But she could not break Brutus' rope. The boy circled around her, joy flashing in his eyes. And how did she scream!

Nearby, Frostine bolted awake at the sound of Hazel's cries of fear. However unreasonable, but no doubting heroic, she got to her feet and produced her knife. She had to help that poor girl. She walked a few steps in the direction of the screams and then stopped. What if the killer was still nearby? She could be killed as well. Tears burned the back of her eyes as she debated whether to risk her own life to save another. Finally, she came to the verdict that she had to help the poor girl, lest it weigh down on her conscious forever. She was off before she could change her mind. What were the chances that it was Brutus anyhow?

It was easy for Frostine to find Hazel. Her yelps pierced the night. Finally, Frostine arrived. When she saw the District 7 girl lying on the ground, wrists and ankles bleeding, she ran forward to help. Hazel choked out her thanks as Frostine sawed away at her confinements.

Then, Brutus leapt out of the dark. She didn't even see him coming. Just a flash of movement in the darkness, and suddenly Frostine was on the ground on top of Hazel. "I come here to catch one tribute, and I find two! Came to save her? How sweet," Brutus teased.

Frostine grabbed Hazel, and the two got to their feet. Immediately, Brutus went in for the kill. He didn't even bother to draw out their deaths any more. His prey was escaping underneath his nose. With expertise that bespoke years of dutiful practice, Brutus slashed away at the air with his sword. It slashed across both of their backs in rapid succession, and they tumbled forward. Brutus approached Hazel first, figuring she was more important fodder. He shoved the point of his sword into her throat before tearing it out. She gurgled and moaned, near death, as Brutus turned toward Frostine. Frostine was playing dead, lying sprawled out of the floor of the forest. She was putting up a pathetic job. She was breathing normally, and the absence of her cannon shot shattered all of Frostine's hopes. Brutus wasn't fooled. He loped off Frostine's left arm in one clean slice, sending it tumbling away. After a few more moments of entertainment, he planted his sword into her back like a skewer. The girls both died within seconds of each other.

 _Hazel Daoust, District 7 Female: 5th, Killed by Brutus, Day 6_

 _Frostine Hemphill, District 10 Female: 4th, Killed by Brutus, Day 6_

Brutus beat his chest and howled into the night like a wolf, advertising his presence to all of the world. It would take the biggest upset in the history of the Hunger Games to result in anything but his victory, and, with only two competitors living in the arena, the odds of his failure were astronomical. He had thirteen kills so far. No matter how many of the last tributes he killed, he would set the record for the most kills for any tribute in any Hunger Games thus far. If he killed both of the tributes left, he would have racked up a monumental fifteen kills.

Day 7 was the last day of the games. From the second the sun rose, Brutus galloped across the terrain. His only goal in mind was to reach the cornucopia, where his final two kills would be waiting. The non-Brutus careers had been completely forgotten by the audience. Luster and Clew waited around at the horn for Brutus to arrive. They scavenged the cornucopia for supplies. By the time Brutus burst into the clearing with a grin as wide as the moon on his face, they were all covered with chainmail body armor and had the wickedest looking swords the arena had to offer. They were ready to kill or be killed.

Brutus wasn't tired at all from his trans-arena trek, and if he was he didn't show it. He hacked away at the air. By instinct, he swiped and slashed and dodged. His sword was an arc of pure destruction. In one move, he drove his sword through a chink in Clew's armor. She staggered backward a few feet from the blow. She was an instant from regaining her footing when Brutus slammed the metal butt of his sword into her head. She was immediately knocked unconscious. Right before she lost balance, the District 2 boy skewered his sword through her torso. Her cannon shot rang throughout the arena like thunder. Only two tributes remained.

 _Clew Woods, District 4 Female: 3rd, Killed by Brutus, Day 7_

Luster had to fight against Brutus. There were no other options. To the best of his ability, he whirled around and lashed out with his sword. But, Brutus had predicted his blow and was able to swat it out of the way before the sword could touch him. Gripping his sword so hard his knuckles turned white, the boy with fifteen kills leapt forward with his sword. The sharp edge of the blade raked across Luster's forehead. He reeled, spinning, and Brutus grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

"I've always wanted to try this," Brutus giggled, a childlike glint in his eyes. He grabbed a thrashing Luster by the head and snapped his neck with both hands. The snap was sickening to hear for all but Brutus. It was music to his ears. The scene festered the nightmares of district children for weeks to come. Brutus staggered away from Luster and let him tumble to the ground, a look of sheer terror forever frozen in his expression.

 _Luster Forcinius, District 1 Male: 2nd, Killed by Brutus, Day 7_

A symphony of trumpets blared throughout the arena. A familiar voice accompanied them. "Brutus Cordley of District 2, you are the victor of the forty-eighth annual Hunger Games!" Wisp Glasgow shouted.

Brutus bellowed with triumph and beat his chest with pride in celebration of his victory.

 _Brutus Cordley, District 2 Male: Victor of the Forty-Eighth Hunger Games, Day 7_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Brutus received a hero's welcome when he returned home to District 2. He was their pride and glory, and many would praise the Cordley name for years to come. He had brought their total victor count to an astounding twelve. He was adored in the Capitol, and he would go down in history books as one of the best victors in Hunger Games history. He was also among the most beautiful victors yet, which of course meant that Snow used him in the same sick, twisted ways he used many of the other desirable victors. With seventeen kills, Brutus broke Molly Toliday's record for most kills of any tribute in any Hunger Games. This record would only be broken once, when the victor of the three-hundred and fifty-fourth Hunger Games would make nineteen kills in his games.

He settled into the Victor's Village of District 2, occupying the twelfth and final house. The Capitol added another twelve fine houses to the Victor's Village to accommodate any future victors that the district of masonry may obtain.

His victory tour was rather quiet and dull. Those in the outlying districts were disgusted by his tactics but also terrified of him. Not even the loved ones of his kills showed Brutus any hardship publically.

Brutus would live to the age of one-hundred and twelve, dying from a heart attack around the time of the one-hundred and forty-second annual Hunger Games. That made him the victor with one of the longest lifespans so far, second only to Mags Flanagan of the eleventh Hunger Games. Brutus would marry and have two strong boys. He would also become mayor of District 2 for a brief time before resigning to focus more on raising his children. At the age of one-hundred and five, he would suffer a heart attack. The professional Capitol doctors were able to keep him alive, but only using advanced and wildly expensive medication. He was bound to his hospital bed for the next five years before finally dying. The Capitol was willing to sacrifice all that they had for one of the greatest victors of all time.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Brutus moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, occupying the twelfth and final house,

Isaac Crandall adopts a son named Robin.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Brutus! My apologies if the chapter isn't as great as my usual work; I had lots to do and wrote the chapter in lots of little segments over a period of time so I wasn't really submerged in the world like I usually am. Brutus himself is a victor among victors. I figured that any career willing to volunteer into a battle against other trained victors can't just be your typical District 2 kid.**

 **Readers, I need your advice. Lately, I've been thinking about starting a new story. More specifically, a story about the 1000th and final Hunger Games. In case you haven't read my Quarter Quell Cards story, the twist is as follows: each district reaps twenty-four tributes that fight to death in an arena until only two remain. Every district does this. The two tributes from each district are then put together in one fight amongst the district until a single victor is crowned, having survived two consecutive Hunger Games. I have lots of great ideas for that story, and I think it'll give you an extra something to read. However, it would mean that I would be updating 23 Cannons less often. I'll be putting a poll on my profile that hopefully you dutiful readers will answer. I'd love to hear your thoughts because I don't want to be writing content that nobody will be enjoying.**

 **The forty-ninth is up next with Wiress! Please stay tuned until then :D**


	50. The 49th Hunger Games

**The 49th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The forty-ninth Hunger Games was the first time in ages that the Capitol paid any real attention to the tributes. After Brutus' victory the year before, it became apparent that the array of tributes could have just as much of an effect on the games as the arena or muttations could. As the last games before the hotly anticipated second Quarter Quell, Wisp had an idea of the perfect batch of tributes in mind. He wanted a career pack that wasn't too strong, as he didn't want a repeat Brutus this year. Additionally, he made sure that some strong contenders showed their faces in often ignored districts like 5, 6, 9, and 10. Wisp hoped that by evening the playing field amongst all of the competitors, the games would be more exciting by default. Brutus' games had certainly been one of thrill, but there was a certain sort of anticipation that was removed because everyone knew Brutus would win. This year, Wisp wanted just the opposite; for nobody to have a clue who would escape the games alive until the hovercraft appeared and the trumpets began blaring.

The arena this year closely mimicked District 12, and the Capitol couldn't get enough of it. The cornucopia sat in a huge underground chamber. Its weapons largely consisted of pickaxes. In fact, nearly twenty pickaxes were supplied in the cornucopia, one of the highest numbers in games history. A dozen low-ceilinged corridors sprouted out from the central chamber like the legs of a spider. Placed sporadically throughout the mineshaft were entrances to the world above. As one stepped out of the earth and into the daylight, one would see a neighborhood of gray slum houses, mimicking the Seam. Just like in District 12, a thin layer of coal dust covered everything. The District 12 tributes had gotten used to the presence of coal dust in the air and could tolerate the stuff to an extent, but it would give the other tributes hardship without doubt. Gravel and dirt pathways wound through the uneven rows of homes, the owners of which had seemingly long since given up trying to keep in good repair. Beyond the Seam, there was a dense wood. Inhabiting this forest were animals like squirrels, mockingjays, deer, groosling, crows, opossum, and hares. Three rivers, short and swift, cut through the forest, good sources of water for the tributes and the wildlife. Daytime temperatures could be anywhere from fifty degrees to seventy degrees, whereas in the night temperatures could drop as low as ten degrees. The precipitation also mimicked that of District 12, with frequent snowfall.

Per Snow's orders, this year's careers were considered weak in comparison to their usual. District 1 produced a pair that wowed the Capitol with their looks more than anything else. The male was the son of a famous District 1 fashion designer who was well known in the Capitol. The nation looked forward to seeing how he would fare in the arena. His district partner was a quaint girl, and she was overshadowed by several of her flashier peers. All that she had going for her was a special talent with the crossbow. District 2 was once again up to the challenge of offering up two formidable fighters, and they succeeded once more. The male took inspiration from Brutus Cordley of the year before and chose the sword as his signature weapon. He had an exotic beauty to him that fascinated the audience. The girl was a ruthless warrior, much like her district partner. She had nerves of steel and a brain that ran at the speed of light, though she sometimes did foolish things on her whims. District 4's male was skilled with the knife, a versatile albeit stereotypical weapon. The female was the only tribute outside of District 2 to score the often lusted-after ten. She displayed her mastery of weapons like bows, axes, and tridents to the audience, and she earned the highest percentage of bets. Though the career pack was a bit shoddy, they still earned average scores, with three tens, two nines, and a single eight in total.

The collection of outliers was an impressive one, with many tributes scoring high. A plethora of sevens were earned. In fact, six sevens were earned in these games! Wiress of District 3 had a knack for knives, and, like many other District 3 citizens, had a sharp mind and keen eye. Corona from 5 was determined and hardy, though her skills with weaponry weren't the best. Maize and Avena from District 9 also scored sevens, both choosing sickles. Finally, there was Bezoar and Ramona, the two District 11 tributes. Bezoar had experience with the knife from long days chopping up shoots and leaves back in District 11. Ramona was an expert survivalist, able to make incredible use of even the most basic supplies she may have had at hand. Technetium from District 3 and Sapwood from District 7 scored sixes. The rest of the outliers scored between five and three in their private sessions. There was an alliance outside of the careers: Wiress of District 3 and Ramona of District 11. Wiress was well-enough acquainted with weaponry and well-versed with technology, whereas Ramona's survival skills were exemplary. Time would tell how this alliance would turn out. There was only one volunteer outside of the career pack: Technetium Gil from District 3, who volunteered in place of his brother. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Handbag McSmithson, 14, (8) 8-1 and Isabel Carlos, 16, (9) 7-1

District 2: Stego Knox, 18, (10) 4-1 and Tori Comstock, 17, (10) 5-1

District 3: Technetium Gil, 13, (6) 20-1 and Wiress Freid, 16, (7) 13-1

District 4: Shark Cosima, 18, (9) 6-1 and Undine Goldfish, 18, (10) 4-1

District 5: Beacon Littlewood, 17, (5) 22-1 and Corona Fischer, 18, (7) 12-1

District 6: Chassis Williams, 17, (4) 25-1 and Silvia Morse, 18, (5) 22-1

District 7: Pine Meleedy, 15, (4) 28-1 and Sapwood Ayoub, 18, (6) 18-1

District 8: Crêpe Chekov, 13, (3) 50-1 and Chintz Lacroix, 16, (5) 24-1

District 9: Maize Price, 17, (7) 13-1 and Avena Tiffany, 17, (7) 12-1

District 10: Corbin Prestwich, 13, (4) 36-1 and Daqua Louise, 14, (4) 32-1

District 11: Bezoar Drew, 16, (7) 15-1 and Ramona Seed, 18, (7) 12-1

District 12: Culm Fujimoto, 16, (5) 24-1 and Peyton Leter, 16, (5) 24-1

HGBO Bets: 8% on Undine, 7% on Stego and Tori, 6% on Isabel and Shark, 5% on Handbag, Wiress, Corona, Maize, Avena, Bezoar, and Ramona, 4% on Technetium and Sapwood, 3% on Beacon, Sylvia, Chintz, Culm, and Peyton, 2% on Chassis and Pine, 1% or Less on Crêpe, Corbin, and Daqua.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The tributes could barely see each other in the poorly-lit central chamber of the mining shaft. They could only slightly make out the form of the cornucopia in the center of the ring of pedestals. Its weapons glowed in the dark like fireflies so that they looked red-hot. The sound of the gong ricocheted around the cave for several seconds before dying away to silence. All of the tributes, uncertain of what lay around them or above, headed in to fight it out in the bloodbath.

Tori was ahead of the others by several strides, bolstered on by the sight of a pickaxe about thirty yards away that was glowing a brilliant electric violet. The handle of the weapon fell snugly into her grasp. Using the weapon as a light source, the career girl soon spotted the silhouette of a boy zigzagging to dodge attacks as he stormed toward the cornucopia. Tori hurled herself at him and wrestled him to the ground. She used the pickaxe to bash in his skull. The boy's head was now a misshapen blob. Tori strolled away in triumph to regroup with her allies.

 _Maize Price, District 9 Male: 24th, Killed by Tori, Bloodbath_

Undine gracefully hoisted a beautiful hatchet into the air. As she bolted toward the cornucopia's yawning mouth, she knocked into another tribute and fell to the ground. The outlier made a break for it, but Undine was grabbing onto his shirt so strongly that he couldn't move anywhere. In one clean slice, Undine planted the hatchet into his torso. Blood exploded from the wound and splattered Undine. Not wanting to get any messier, she ripped the hatchet out of the boy's stomach and fled.

 _Beacon Littlewood, District 5 Male: 23rd, Killed by Undine, Bloodbath_

Stego, wielding three feet of deadly iron, chuckled slyly at the sight of two girls grappling over a backpack containing packages of water. The girls screamed in an oddly melodic harmony as Stego skewered his sword through the shoulder of the taller of the two girls. She let out a soft groan before falling backward. Stego turned toward the other girl. Before he could react, the girl summoned up all of her worldly strength and kicked Stego in the face. He reeled backward, disoriented. It seemed like the girl could escape, but on the way out she tripped on the backpack and face-planted into the damp stone ground. By that point, Stego had regained his bearings. Stego whirled around and hacked away at her abdomen mercilessly. She collapsed beside the other girl, and they both died within a minute of each other.

 _Corona Fischer, District 5 Female: 22nd, Killed by Stego, Bloodbath_

 _Peyton Leter, District 12 Female: 21st, Killed by Stego, Bloodbath_

Shark hadn't made a single kill yet, but this was for good reason. He was more concerned with guarding the cornucopia than playing the offensive game that his allies were playing. One boy spotted just the supplies he needed a few feet behind Shark and tried to slip his way past him. He was clumsy and made a ruckus. Shark heard him, of course, and went to work with his weapon, a dagger about the length of his forearm. The pitiful boy was confetti when the job was done.

 _Cr_ _ê_ _pe Chekov, District 8 Male: 20th, Killed by Shark, Bloodbath_

A few seconds before, Isabel had managed to corner a crying girl against the exterior wall of the cornucopia. Isabel held a crossbow firmly in her grasp. The girl had no hope of escape. She squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head and prayed that her death would be quick. Isabel raised the crossbow and released a single arrow. The small dart whistled through the air and buried itself between two of the girl's ribs. Her knees buckled, and she fell into a pool of her own blood. Like a real District 1 lady, Isabel tried not to get her shoes wet as she started to the girl's side to retrieve the dart that had ended her life.

 _Silvia Morse, District 6 Female: 19th, Killed by Isabel, Bloodbath_

Tori grinned roguishly and swung her pickaxe anxiously at her side as she crept toward a young boy that was curled up in a ball on the cold ground. The circumstances were getting to him, and the boy was having a panic attack, rocking back and forth and sobbing. Tori bashed her pickaxe into the side of his head. He was immediately seduced, thrown so off-kilter that when he tried to move he just lolled nonsensically. Tori marched away and left him to perish. Nearby Stego finished the boy off, spearing his bloodstained sword through his neck. He died almost instantly, marking the first collaborate kill of the forty-ninth Hunger Games.

 _Corbin Prestwich, District 10 Male: 18th, Killed by Tori and Stego, Bloodbath_

Allies Wiress and Ramona were both armed within the first minute of the bloodbath. They had both gotten knives from the cornucopia's bounty of supplies. The two tributes quietly scuttled down one of the long mining tunnels. They heard loud footsteps from nearby after about fifty feet. Ramona spotted a mine cart and hoisted herself into it, instructing Wiress to do the same. They peeked overtop of the edge of the cart and saw the seventeen year-old Chassis from District 6 about ten yards away, running to and fro. His hands were both clapped to his side, where blood oozed between the fingertips. He had been stabbed by Shark's dagger a few minutes earlier and was close to death. Chassis saw the eyes of Wiress and Ramona and let out a cry of relief. He stumbled toward them and grabbed onto Wiress' hand, begging for her to help him. If he kept making that ruckus, their position would be revealed. Anyhow, it would be the kindest thing to put him out of his misery early. Wiress offered to do the deed, and Ramona thanked her. She wasn't ready for killing, at least not yet, but Wiress was poised enough. She grabbed Chassis by the hand and quickly slashed her knife across his chest. Chassis screamed and realized that Wiress wasn't there to help him. He tried to stumble away, but he was losing too much blood. Wiress and Ramona watched solemnly as he slid to the ground, never to rise again.

 _Chassis Williams, District 6 Male: 17th, Killed by Shark and Wiress, Bloodbath_

Handbag, wielding a pair of wicked-looking curved swords, zeroed in on a girl that was sprinting toward one of the mine tunnels with a heavy black pack. After the girl fully entered the darkness of the tunnel, she slowed to a brisk walk. Handbag ran to her side and slammed her in the abdomen with one of his swords. The girl screamed and made a break down the corridor. Handbag extended one of his swords and jabbed it through her back, up through her ribcage, and out of her chest. A cry tumbled from her lips, but it was cut short. Handbag pillaged her of her backpack before returning to the horn.

 _Sapwood Ayoub, District 7 Female: 16th, Killed by Handbag, Bloodbath_

Undine's hatchet swung through the air at incredible speeds. She was doing it solely to impress the sponsors, but when an outlier girl sprinted past her she was more than happy to rack up another kill. Undine stepped in front of the girl. She screeched to a halt and ran in the opposite direction. Undine hurled her hatchet into the darkness. With a thud and a crunch, the blade of the throwing axe buried itself into her skull.

 _Chintz Lacroix, District 8 Female: 15th, Killed by Undine, Bloodbath_

Pine from District 7 was the last tribute to be killed in the opening minutes. He knelt on the ground, packs and supplies strewn around him, picking out things that might be useful in the difficult days to come. He felt around in one shallow plastic pack and removed a flashlight. Pine smiled. A flashlight would be incredibly useful in the arena that year, which was bathed in darkness except for the glow of the weapons. He was so full of adrenaline that he wasn't thinking logically. He gave the flashlight a tester go. He flicked the switch, and a circle of light appeared on the floor a few yards away. In the virtually pitch-black chamber, the light attracted the attention of every single tribute. Two nearby careers—Handbag and Stego—leapt toward the light. Pine was overwhelmed before he could even lift a finger. Handbag smacked the blade of a sword into his torso. Pine whipped himself around, but he was met with the bite of Stego's sword in his gut. Pine's yelps echoed around the cave like thunder. His screams served as a hint to all of the outliers remaining around the cornucopia that it was time to leave. By the time Handbag and Stego had managed to extinguish his life force completely, the chamber was completely empty apart from the careers, sweating and panting from exhaustion and the heat of the underground. Eleven earsplitting cannon shots could be heard.

 _Pine Meleedy, District 7 Female: 14th, Killed by Handbag and Stego, Bloodbath_

As the careers regrouped at the cornucopia and prepared for their hunting spree, the outliers scattered. The alliance of Wiress and Ramona crawled out of the mine cart and tried not to gag too much at the sight of Chassis' mangled corpse. They engaged in quiet, yet casual, conversation as they walked down the long shaft. In due time, the pair found themselves at a crossroads. The singular tunnel split into three different passageways, like string cheese being torn in three pieces at once. Ramona wanted to keep moving onward. Wiress, however, wanted to rest for the day. Ramona didn't refuse. She knew that Wiress was a little shaken up, and she welcomed the concept of resting her own tired legs and mind. They set up camp at the intersection. Along with her knife, Wiress had managed some water, a package of jerky, and a small towel. Ramona was not nearly as lucky. She had barely managed to grab a knife of her own. Other than that, her only earthly possession was a small paper fan, like the kind kids make by folding a sheet of copy paper accordion-style and stapling one end off. It came in great handy in the sweltering heat. The two took turns waving it at themselves whenever the temperature was disagreeing with them. Technetium fled down one of the tunnels. Fortunately, he had grabbed a pair of night vision glasses from the cornucopia. Though they weren't his size, they helped greatly in navigating the maze of tunnels. After a mile or so, Technetium found himself beside a pool of rich-smelling water. He dipped his fingers in the water to test the temperature and pulled them back. That water was boiling hot. He noticed trails of hot vapor trailing off of the surface of the liquid and cursed himself. He tore off a bit of his clothing and wrapped it around the burn to heal it. Technetium sat down and ate a small jar of sliced watermelon he had managed to snatch from the horn. After the container was empty, he filled it with water and waited for it to cool to room temperature. He drank it down afterward and instantly felt invigorated. After one of Isabel's darts grazed her leg about a minute into the games, Avena hobbled through the darkness, weeping quietly to herself. Blood was oozing from the broken skin. Bolts of pain shot up her leg whenever she moved the wounded area too suddenly. Avena collapsed with exhaustion beside a puddle of cool water. Avena used the water to clean out her wound. It was difficult working in pitch black, but soon she had wiped away all of the blood. Her mentor Barley sent her a medium-sized cloth bandage, which helped to quell the bleeding.

Daqua held her supplies at her side always as she tiptoed through the mineshaft, scared to make a sound. It was impressive how graceful she was in her movements, and because of that she caught the eye of many a sponsor. She dropped down in a large triangular corridor with small rocks scattered around the floor. Daqua gathered her supplies and lay down against the wall. Then, she revealed her hidden talent to the audience. She began to sing. At first, she hummed simple melodies. Within minutes, however, she was passing the time by belting out beautiful music in her golden voice. The Capitol was blown away, and sponsor gifts would have probably rained down on her if not for the fact that the ceiling of the mine was made of solid stone. Magnet Lisagor's drone was put to use once again to deliver sponsor gifts to her. Daqua received a dagger and a small mirror. She thanked the Capitol for the gifts and then went to sleep, tucking the presents behind her so that she wouldn't lose them. Culm's only possession in the world at the time was a small silver flashlight. He traced the circular beam of light along the facets of the stone walls and through the crannies of the floor to amuse himself as he walked along. Another tribute was nearby: Bezoar from District 11. He had a dagger and wasn't afraid to use it. Bezoar took off after Culm. A long chase ensued, but Culm eventually managed to evade his pursuer by dropping down into a niche in the wall at the perfect moment. Bezoar ran right past. Culm was so exhausted from the run that he fell asleep right then and there. Bezoar was a little upset that he had lost Culm, but he didn't let it keep him from going about his day. Bezoar established a sort of shelter by locating an outcoving in the stone wall, climbing into it, and shoving his pack of supplies in front of him. Afterward, he threw a piece of cloth from the pack over him, enclosing him in his fortress.

After the bloodbath ended, the careers sent out one of their members, Undine, to scout the tunnels surrounding the horn. She returned about an hour later, having dutifully sketched a map of the winding corridors. She and Handbag worked together to the copy the map onto a larger sheet of paper while the others cleaned their weapons and prepared for the hunt. They left Tori to guard the cornucopia with her hatchet and then wandered down one of the tunnels. As the creators of the map, Undine and Handbag walked in front of the other careers and consulted it whenever they were lost. They had also brought a pencil, so they were able to make new additions to the map. However well-planned, their hunt was fruitless. When Undine's mentor Dylan sent her a note saying that they had been hunting for far too long and needed to rest, the quintuplet of hunters set up their camp. The anthem played, little drones showing the faces of the dead were zipped down to every tribute, and everyone went to sleep.

Day 2 passed with lots of movement but little action. In his sleep, Technetium accidentally rolled into the pool of boiling water. He screamed and scrambled out of the pool, the skin on his leg that was submerged in the water growing thick and taking on an ugly red color. A generous sponsor delivered him a cloth and ice pack. After strapping the cold pack to his leg, he got to work, trying his best to ignore the agony the burn was causing. Avena's strategy of binding cloth over her wound helped to stop the blood flow, but ultimately did little to prevent the oncoming infection. Avena begged the Capitol for medicine, but she was overshadowed by several of her peers and received nothing. She stayed in one spot all day and willed her body to fend off the infection. Wiress and Ramona packed up their belongings and were on the move the "morning" of the second day. A few minutes before noon, the two stopped for a break, and Wiress exposed a plan of hers to Ramona. A Hunger Games arena had to be exciting if the gamemakers wanted an eventful games. A monotonous underground maze was the exact opposite of exciting, and Wiress was sure that there must have been something beyond the mineshaft. At her words, Snow was disgusted. She was thinking outside of the box and understanding the ways of the Capitol. Somebody like that was a good candidate for a rebel. He considered ordering Wisp to smite her at that very moment, but he wasn't about to eliminate his biggest chance at a good underdog story, so he let her live. With her faithful ally at her side, Wiress stalked through the underground labyrinth. They had travelled for nearly an entire day without breaks. The death recap drone was flown down to them, their signal that it was time to rest. They vowed to continue their search for an exit from the mine the next day. Culms' foremost concern was water. In the heat of the mineshaft, he felt a raging thirst. He feared that he might die if he couldn't find anything to drink. With his flashlight, he did a quick sweep of a couple branches of the mine. Hallelujah, he stepped into a pit of cool water. Culm laughed with relief and cupped his hands to collect the clear liquid. He set up his base a few feet away from the pool so that he would have water whenever he needed it.

The careers experienced a bitter defeat around nine at night. The six trained warriors, minus Tori, shushed each other when they heard heavy footsteps from nearby. They quietly prepared their weapons and stayed as still as stone. A tribute was walking toward them: Bezoar from District 11, though they didn't know who it was. Stego charged with his sword, and the others followed behind him. Bezoar screamed and fled. By some miracle, he was able to avoid their flying weapons and stay a few precious steps ahead. After a two hour-long chase, Bezoar found that he couldn't keep running away from the careers forever. He needed to lose them.

All seemed hopeless, but then a plan formed in his mind. He stretched out his arms and legs to their full span and pressed them against the sides of the shaft. He waddled upward. By the time the careers reached him, he was a good two feet above their heads. Bezoar fought with all of his strength to silence his moans of exhaustion. The careers passed right under his legs. He waited for a few seconds until he lost them before crumpling to the floor of the cave. He fell asleep within seconds, leaving a pack of furious careers cursing his name.

Similarly to Day 2, the entirety of Day 3 passed, deathless. Avena was weaker than ever from her infection. Her wound had become horribly festered, with ugly yellow streaks radiating from its core and pus oozing forth whenever she moved. She could do nothing but lie still on the damp stone floor and pray that help would come quickly. Technetium discovered that the stone in the bed of the hot water pool was soft and malleable. He broke some off and chipped away at it to form a weapon. If any predators came, he would be prepared. The careers finally returned to the cornucopia to restock on supplies. They left Isabel as the horn's guard and went hunting down a new shaft that they had yet to explore. Culm was hungrier and thirstier than ever. The pains in his throat and stomach were a million times worse than the pain from the cuts and scrapes that littered his body. As far as he knew, he had no sponsors. He was so desperate that he decided to raid the cornucopia. He packed up his few belongings and retraced his footsteps to the horn. His tired body was too frail to make the whole trip in a single day, and he stopped for the night about halfway through his journey.

Day 3 also marked three tributes' discovery of the outside world. Wiress and Ramona were persistent on their journey to the world above. With time, the floor and walls turned from solid stone to brick. At long last, they found themselves at the base of a staircase. Moss and fungus coated the steps, so it looked like it hadn't been used in a long time. Ramona beamed and pointed at a square of brilliant sunlight filtering in through the entrance. The two giggled with glee and sped up the staircase. It felt amazing to finally be in the outside world after so much time in the musty underground. A cool breeze rustled through the trees and whistled around the slum houses of the Seam. They briskly got to work. After a bit of hunting, Ramona discovered a relatively sturdy house. She worked to set up a home while Wiress went hunting. She managed to cut down a squirrel with her knife. The two sat around a dusty kitchen table in the house that Ramona had picked out to eat her kill.

Unlike Wiress and Ramona who had discovered the aboveground world by actively searching for it, Daqua found an exit purely by chance. Knowing that the gamemakers would not take kindly to her staying in one spot for the entire games, she got up and moved around from time to time so that she would be left alone. Just when she was about to stop for a quick rest, Daqua tripped on a step. She fell forward onto the rest of the staircase. Intrigued, she climbed up the stairway until she felt the crunch of coal dust under her feet. Daqua was in the outside world. She quickly got to work. She gathered water from a faucet located due east of where she had emerged. Afterward, she picked some berries off of a thorny bush and had a feast inside of one of the poorly-built Seam houses.

The morning of Day 4 arrived. In the mineshaft far below, a tribute perished for the first time in nearly three days. Avena was completely immobile from her horrible infection. An evil black color swirled underneath her skin around the wound dealt by Isabel all those painful days before. Sprawled out on the floor of the cave without so much as a groan of pain, she passed away from the infection.

 _Avena Tiffany, District 9 Female: 13th, Killed by Isabel, Day 4_

For those still underground, Avena's cannon shot acted as a major source of anxiety. Technetium was a prime example of this. The stress of the games was really getting to him, and the cannon shot served as a reminder that, even though he had survived the bloodbath without a scratch, there was a high chance that his death was on the horizon. He held himself and rocked back and forth, quietly weeping to himself. He glanced over his shoulder every few seconds. Technetium was terrified. Bezoar awoke to a brushing sensation. Something furry was rubbing against his side. He instinctively grabbed it and found himself holding a wriggling mole. Bezoar smashed it into the wall until it died and then ate its slimy meat like there was no tomorrow.

Culm was less than a mile from the cornucopia. Only Isabel was there, dutifully guarding the supplies with her crossbow. Young and foolish, Culm thought he could easily take down the dainty girl from District 1. He didn't consider for an instant that she had had years of intense training and he had seldom touched a weapon in his life with the intent of injuring somebody. Coincidentally, Day 4 was when the careers decided to head back to the cornucopia to restock and take a needed break. Culm could see the dark form of the cornucopia far in the distance when he heard light footsteps behind him. Culm slapped his hand in front of his mouth so that he couldn't scream and squeezed himself against the wall as hard as he could. The pack of five careers noticed him instantly.

"Look what we have here!" Stego cackled, stepping forward with his sword. He was flanked by his allies Tori and Shark, with Handbag and Undine leaping behind him so he was trapped. Culm made a break for it. He tried to slip under Handbag's legs, but he shot out a hand to stop him. Culm tumbled backward onto the floor with a crash, rolling to the base of Undine's feet. Undine swirled her body around with enchanting grace before slamming her hatchet into his stomach. The pitiful boy squirmed and gurgled for a brief moment. Upon his cannon shot, they finished the walk back to the cornucopia to meet up with Isabel and recount their new adventure.

 _Culm Fujimoto, District 12 Male: 12th, Killed by Undine, Day 4_

Up on the surface, Daqua was traipsing through the Seam when she spotted two figures in the distance: Ramona and Wiress. Daqua ducked behind a pile of bricks and peeked out from around the corner. She wasn't alone in the outside world. For some reason, this thought terrified Daqua so much that she fled without a second thought. She leapt between the crumbling houses and over the uneven terrain toward the forest about a hundred yards away. As soon as she entered, she collapsed in a pile of leaves and fell asleep, having left all of her supplies behind.

Wiress and Ramona themselves didn't do much for most of the day other than scavenge the neighborhood for supplies. Wiress found a cooking pot in a closet lined with cobwebs and showed it to Ramona. Ramona went out to gather vegetables. The two found a patch of clean snow and melted it in the pot. They then plopped in the vegetables and heated it over a stove. They dug into the hot vegetable soup that resulted, glad to taste something with flavor.

The fifth day wasn't greatly eventful, with no deaths. In the network of underground mining trenches, Technetium received a cryptic note warning him to evacuate the cave soon. He was so terrified that he simply discarded the note. It was only an hour or so later that Technetium realized what importance the note could have had. He searched in vain for it. He eventually found it, but it was printed with soluble ink, and the moisture from the floor had dissolved the writing. He knew nothing except that something big was about to happen. The gamemakers didn't send down notes every day, after all. After returning to the cornucopia, the careers took an entire night to rest. The morning of Day 5, they left Handbag at the horn and went hunting. Once again, Undine walked in front of her allies, her trusty map in hand. Bezoar received the same note as Technetium, warning him to exit the mineshaft. He heeded the warning. Bezoar packed up his possessions and was on the run, trying to cover as much ground as possible to increase his chances of finding the exit. Bezoar had been travelling for nearly ten hours and was about to give up when he spotted a deep groove in the wall that stirred up his curiosity. Bezoar reached through the darkness and hooked his fingers around the dent. He pulled his hand back and found that he had opened a door large enough to climb through. Bezoar threw his supplies through and then crawled through himself. He found himself at the base of a winding staircase. By the time he felt warm sunlight on the back of his neck, he was so tired he could have collapsed any second. Bezoar sighed, relieved to see something other than stone, and collapsed right then and there.

Day 6 stirred up the excitement of the Capitol viewers, as it hosted a death. After a much-needed night of rest, Bezoar travelled to the woods beyond the Seam to hunt for food. A sponsor sent him a bow and five arrows, which he always kept at his side as he walked over the foliage. The songs of mockingjays from above kept him motivated to keep moving on, and a few minutes before nightfall he spotted the form of Daqua moving quietly through the trees. Bezoar was taken aback. He glanced down at his bow, then up at Daqua. Could he bring himself to kill another human being? The thought of blood staining his hands was nearly incomprehensible, but the idea of never seeing his family again was far worse. Some people had to die in the games, he told himself, and he walked forward.

Hands trembling, Bezoar aimed at the girl, who had stopped to pick the fruit off of a sturdy shoot growing from the ground. Now was his chance. Bezoar released the arrow. The second that he heard the whistle of the projectile through the air, he turned around and ran. Bezoar heard Daqua's screams behind him. He bit his lip and tried not to cry. Bezoar disappeared into the green, leaving Daqua behind to die. Lying in a bed of flowers, before her death, she vowed to give the world something to remember her by. Something to show everyone that there was a part of her that the Capitol could never control.

She sang. Daqua sang to the mockingjays. She sang about love and trust and mercy and all the things that made life worth living. She sang about peace. She sang about faith and hope and home. At first, her golden voice was merely one among the sounds of the forest. But soon the mockingjays began to take up her song. Their beautiful voices filled up the forest. Soon, all across the arena, the melodies of love that Daqua had sung could be heard. She let out a sigh and said her goodbyes to her friends and family. Then she slowly closed her eyes and died. Arguably, it was among the most beautiful deaths of the first Hunger Games century. In most Capitol stations where the games were airing live, people fished tissues from their wallets and pockets to dry their wet eyes. It really looked like Daqua could have been peacefully asleep in the forest.

 _Daqua Louise, District 10 Female: 11th, Killed by Bezoar, Day 6_

Daqua's cannon shot just freshened Technetium's sense of mortification. Instead of crying, he was absolutely silent, his sharp weapon in his clutch always, his pupils as large as marbles. He was absolutely terrified, able to do nothing to change his fate.

The careers, minus Handbag, were out hunting when Shark broke off from the pack. The others demanded that he come back, but he refused, saying that he heard something. The other careers thought it silly, but they listened up too. Tori was the first to hear it. One by one, the others picked up on the faint sound. Could it be.. birds chirping?

The quintet searched around for the source of the noise, and Stego was the one to discover the staircase. He called over his allies, and they climbed up the stairs in turn. Though the air of the outside world was filled with coal dust and made them cough like mad, it was far more refreshing than the dank, musty air from the mineshaft. It was easy to get lost in the rows of buildings that all looked the same, so they made it a rule that no career could go anywhere that the others couldn't see him or her. They made camp on the border of the Seam and the forest, atop a circle of gravel with a water faucet. In the cluster of slum houses, Wiress and Ramona were more careful than ever. Ramona was out hunting for food earlier that day when she saw the group of careers walking past. She urgently ran back to Wiress to tell her the news. In their panic, they moved their home to an abandoned house where a shelf of kitchen utensils had fallen across the main window, shielding the inside of the house from view.

Day 7, Technetium and Handbag awoke to a faint rumble. They were the only tributes left underground. Technetium was as paranoid as always, not moving unless one counts his terrified quivering. The other careers were so excited to finally be outside that they hadn't even remembered that Handbag was left behind at the horn. Technetium had no idea what the rumbles meant. Handbag, on the other hand, lived in District 1, which is also inhabited by swarms of jewel miners. He knew that that sound meant that the mine was about to collapse.

He didn't have time to grab any supplies. Handbag made a dash down one of the mining tunnels in a mad race to find an exit from the underground complex. He screamed when he bumped into a dead end. A pebble fell from the ceiling. The moment after, a rock the size of Handbag's hand plopped to the floor. Small stones were raining down like summer hail. Handbag turned around and dashed. He wasn't bothering to make note of what turns he was taking. He was running down a sloped tunnel when a huge slab of rock from the ceiling tumbled down and crashed behind him. Debris flew, impaling the bare backs of the career boy's legs. He ignored the agony and the blood and kept running. The tunnel was literally collapsing behind him. If he stopped moving for an instant, he would be crushed.

Handbag ran for almost thirty minutes when he came to another dead end. This time, there was nowhere to run. The mineshaft collapsed on top of him. He was instantly crushed to death under the weight of the ceiling. He was the career pack's first loss.

 _Handbag McSmithson, District 1 Male: 10th, Killed by Mineshaft Collapse, Day 7_

By the time Technetium noticed that the earth was crumbling around him, it was too late. A rock about the size of a chicken egg landed at his feet. He let out a whimper, and in moments the entire ceiling was crumbling. Technetium tried to run, but the second he got to his feet a shelf of stone nearly a yard in diameter rained from the ceiling and landed on his head, squashing him to death. The underground continued to collapse until the mine was no more. All that was left was the aboveground, where the final battles of the games would occur.

 _Technetium Gil, District 3 Male: 9th, Killed by Mineshaft Collapse, Day 7_

That left the final 8: Isabel Carlos from District 1, Stego Knox and Tori Comstock from District 2, Wiress Freid from District 3, Shark Cosima and Undine Goldfish from District 4, and Bezoar Drew and Ramona Seed from District 11.

A great amount of excitement had already occurred, but Day 7 would host yet another death. The groans from deep beneath the earth as the cave collapsed had frightened most of the tributes into hiding. Ramona and Wiress received a pair of heating packs from a sponsor, along with a note simply labeled _keep warm_. This clued them that there was going to be cold weather ahead, so they stocked up on food and other commodities. The well-stocked career pack of Isabel, Stego, Tori, Shark, and Undine hunted the Seam for prey. The found nothing and returned to their home centered around the water pump as night fell.

Meanwhile, in the forest, Bezoar was beginning to grow incredibly chilly. He felt as if he might freeze to death if he didn't get back to the relative warmth of the Seam, and fast. Snow began to fall. Icy wind blew across the arena that chilled him to the bone. Eventually, the forms of the crumbling houses came into view. Bezoar surveyed the area for a nice house to stay in when he heard a sound behind him.

Bezoar spun around at the speed of light and felt the bite of Stego's sword in his abdomen. A few minutes earlier, the careers had seen him moving through the Seam and had gotten up to kill him. Bezoar made a break for it, running between two houses to disorient his attackers. The snow blinded him, though, and the pain in his abdomen was too severe for him to make any real movement without falling to the ground. To seal in his kill, Stego jabbed his sword up through Bezoar's back and out through the front of his neck. After Bezoar's cannon shot, Stego tore his sword messily out of the boy's torso and marched himself back to home with his allies on either side.

 _Bezoar Drew, District 11 Male: 8th, Killed by Stego, Day 7_

Day 8 was one of the more eventful days of the forty-ninth annual Hunger Games. As soon as the sun rose, the careers realized just how hungry they were. They hadn't eaten anything but cold sponsor food in days. They were itching to travel to the forest to collect some unique foot to eat. Undine and Stego volunteered to go hunting in the woods for prey while Isabel, Tori, and Shark stayed behind to hunt in the Seam.

Undine and Stego stayed beside each other as they plunged into the woods. They hunted for several hours before coming to a stop beside a frozen stream. It was freezing cold, and the two huddled together for warmth during their break. Stego managed to kill a deer with his sword. The two started a fire and cooked the meat of the deer. They considered bringing it back to the Seam right then and there, but it was too long of a walk for their cold bodies to make in one day. They set up camp as best they could and slept under the icy winter moon.

Back at the Seam, the careers' efforts to kill more outliers were fruitless, but Isabel did manage to make a find. She shot a grouse perfectly between the eyes with her crossbow, and the others gave her the honor of cooking the meat as they wandered off to do more hunting.

Isabel started the fire and began to roast the meat of the grouse over it. Then, she turned around and walked away, leaving the fire unattended. The fire licked through the air and melted the snow around it. Before long, the grass was on fire. A circle of about five feet around the bonfire was engulfed in flames. At that time, Isabel returned to her fire. She shrieked and grabbed up snow to try to extinguish the inferno, but it was spreading too fast. Within ten minutes, the fire had spread to a nearby house. The poor construction job was perfect kindling for the hungry fire. The house was consumed within half an hour. Isabel screamed for her allies, but they were too far away to hear her. Though she tried her very best to put out the fire of her creation, it was an impossible task. Now, two whole houses were on fire.

Tori and Shark were quick to notice that a good chunk of the Seam was on fire. The air felt heavy with smoke, and a line of grey trailed its way into the heavens from behind them. Fire would spread fast in an environment like the Seam. Tori and Shark dropped what they were doing and bolted away from the fire, entering the forest after about ten minutes.

Back at the starting point of the blaze, Isabel gave up trying to put out the fire. She ran. Unfortunately, the buildings behind her were now on fire. On either side, fiery debris had fallen, blocking her path. The safest route would be to go to the left, but the grass beyond was engulfed in red fire. Could she go to the right? There was a single burning slum house in that direction, but it was, all considered, the safest route.

The air was so hot that Isabel felt as if she might melt. The smoke filled her lungs and made her cough, her eyes stinging red and welling with tears. She was mere feet from escape when the single burning house collapsed to smithereens. Isabel had quick reflexes and sidestepped, but she wasn't fast enough. A burning plank of wood landed on top of her and crushed her to the ground. She was sent unconscious immediately, only to die a few minutes later as the Seam burned away around her.

 _Isabel Carlos, District 1 Female: 7th, Killed by Fire, Day 8_

The careers had reached the woods, leaving Wiress and Ramona the only tributes left in the Seam. They were both sleeping when Ramona awoke to the smell of smoke. She roused her ally and said that they needed to leave soon. Wiress agreed, pointing out the trail of smoke far away. They managed to escape into the icy forest before the fire could even touch them.

On Day 9, there wasn't much excitement. With the underground mineshaft collapsed and the Seam a charred hell, the tributes were forced to go about the day in the freezing woods. Tori and Shark hunted for food. The forest was teeming with life even in the cold, and Shark was able to kill a fox. He wanted to roast it over a fire, but Tori was strictly against introducing more fire to the competition, pointing to the wreck of the Seam. Wiress and Ramona made it their goal to get as far away from the Seam as they could in the day. They fell from exhaustion beside a small cave. They threw rocks inside to make sure that the cave was empty before crawling inside.

Now to Undine and Stego. They had been sent out by the careers two days earlier to hunt for food, but had gotten lost in the woods. After seeing the burning of the Seam in the distance, they figured that their career allies had all perished. They were left alone in the cold woods to live by themselves. They had no supplies other than their weapons.

The two tributes were glumly trudging through the snow, teeth chattering, when Undine tripped. She fell face-first into the snow and began sliding downhill. Stego tried to grab her and keep her from falling, but she was already sliding down the snowy slope on her stomach like a penguin. Undine screamed for help, but as she travelled down the hill she dug herself deeper and deeper into the snow. By the time she reached a stop at the bottom of the hill, she was completely buried in the snow. Stego ran down to help her, but he chickened out about halfway down the slope. He turned around and abandoned the District 4 girl.

Down in the snow, Undine had no idea which way was up. She fought to escape her snowy prison. To prevent snow entering her mouth and choking her, she made an airspace around her mouth and nose with her hands. She spat into her hands to keep them warm, and the direction the droplets of saliva slid down was, well, down. She knew which way was up! Her hope was rekindled. Undine summoned up all of her strength, but the layer of snow on top of her was too heavy for her to go anywhere.

She couldn't feel her fingers or toes. Her teeth were chattering profusely, and she was shivering with cold. The skin on her face was turning blue. She kept calling for Stego and trying to burrow out of the snow, but her efforts were futile in the end. She died from hypothermia after about ten hours of misery.

 _Undine Goldfish, District 4 Female: 6th, Killed by Hypothermia, Day 9_

The remainder of the day trickled past without any additional deaths. With Undine dead, Stego was afraid that he might be alone in the woods to survive with only his wits. After several hours of combing through the wilderness, he saw his allies on the horizon. "It's me!" Stego called out so that they wouldn't think he was an outlier and attack him. Stego was grateful to be back with his allies, and they worked together to build a shelter underneath a sturdy oak tree. Wiress and Ramona were comfortable in their cave home and only left it to use the bathroom and such throughout the day. Just before nightfall, Wiress ventured out and cut down a squirrel with her knife. Ramona helped her to prepare the meat for consumption.

A cannon shot shattered the peaceful silence of the wood the morning of Day 10, awaking most of the tributes and mutts. However, some of the mutts were already awake. A pack of three silvery wolves stalked through the woods and stumbled across the camp of the sleeping careers. They attacked so suddenly that the careers didn't have time to react. With a single snarl, the largest wolf pounced. Tori was startled awake with a scream. She grabbed her pickaxe and screamed for her allies to wake. They scuttled to their feet and grabbed their weapons, and a fight began. It was man against beast.

A smaller wolf charged toward Stego. He threw out his sword and managed to lop off part of its snout. The monster whimpered and faltered for a bit. While it was still off-kilter, Shark took initiative. He buried his dagger into the back of the wolf's neck. It howled and stumbled backward into the snow, gurgling. One ugly beast down, two to go.

The larger of the two remaining wolves was zeroing in on Tori, who was nervously pacing backward with her pickaxe. At the same time, the other wolf was creeping toward Shark. Stego arced around Shark's wolf and plunged his sword into the back of its neck. The wolf was immobile from the pain, but not for long.

Shark sped off to assist Tori in defeating her wolf predator, with Stego joining them soon after. The two parties lunged at each other. The careers dealt minor cuts and scrapes, but nothing big. The most successful blow was dealt by Shark, who managed to leap forward and slice his dagger across the wolf's back, opening up a gash as long as his arm.

They though the wolf was done for, but it was really just bidding its time. Shark shared a high five with his fellow careers, and the wolf pounced. He was so startled by its sudden burst of energy that he couldn't sidestep fast enough. Its teeth glistening like titanium, it bit down so savagely into Shark's left leg that it was able to pull off the entire limb the second after. Shark screamed and collapsed to the snow. His allies ran to help him, but the wolf had already dragged him a bit closer and was digging in. The District 4 boy was a goner. Tori and Stego, having no desire to become dog chow, turned around and ran before the wolf could finish devouring their dead ally.

 _Shark Cosima, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Wolf Muttations, Day 10_

For the rest of the day, peace reigned supreme over the arena. Stego and Tori had no objective in mind other than to place as much distance as possible between them and the no doubt hungry-again wolf. They were pleased to find that the day was much warmer than those before it. Melted snow dripped from the rustling leaves overhead, and the level of snow on the ground was growing lower and lower as the day wore on. Pleased by the newfound warmth of the arena, Stego and Tori made the decision to create their home in a more sunlit area. After much scavenging, they discovered a clearing about thirty yards in diameter, empty of trees. On the edge of the clearing, they unrolled their supplies and got to work. Wiress and Ramona left their cave in a hurry once they figured out that it had not been empty all along. In fact, they had been sharing the cave with a massive spider with the legspan of a dinner plate. Wiress awoke to the horrible tingling sensation of its fine legs scuttling across her face. She swatted the spider away and sped out of the cave, Ramona trailing behind. They weren't eager to go back into the cave, so they travelled about a hundred yards due south and settled down in a steep valley area.

On Day 11, Wiress and Ramona went out hunting together. Ramona managed to capture a squirming beaver from a burbling river, and Wiress seduced the squirming animal with her knife. The two allies travelled back to their home and decided to start a fire to cook the meat. Ramona helped to gather dry wood, whereas Wiress collected stones to line around the fire in order to contain it. Learning from Isabel's mistake, they never let the fire out of their sight.

They had kept the fire from burning down the woods. But, the trail of smoke had caught the eyes of Stego and Tori. The careers were heading toward the outliers, and fast. There would no doubt be a bloody encounter in the near future.

Tori and Stego kept travelling until long after the sun dipped below the west horizon. Knowing that they needed their rest for the fight of the next day, they were asleep by one in the morning, clutching onto their weapons like they were made of gold.

Day 12 finally arrived, and it didn't take many minutes of travel before Tori pointed out the trail of smoke wafting up from the allies' charred fireplace. Wiress and Ramona were soundly asleep nearby, lying against a pair of willow trees about five yards from the fire. The two careers snuck forward, as quietly as mice. Tori accidentally stepped on a stick, arousing Wiress, a light sleeper.

Wiress groggily opened her eyes and nearly screamed when she spotted Stego and Tori less than thirty yards away, wielding their bloodstained weapons and hungry for more battle. Fortunately, she was a quick thinker, and she developed a plan.

"Ramona!" Wiress peeped. The careers were too far away to hear her at that point, so it was okay to whisper. Ramona opened her eyes and was about to speak when Wiress shushed her and nudged her foot in the direction of the advancing careers. Ramona and Wiress readied themselves and then pretended to be asleep.

The careers were thirty feet away. Twenty feet. Ten feet. Then, they pounced.

Tori dove for Ramona, whilst Stego chose Wiress. The two outlier girls burst to life and grabbed their weapons. They had the element of surprise on their side, as the careers hadn't been expecting them to already be awake. Wiress was able to kick Tori squarely in the face. She reeled, but she was ultimately able to regain her footing and charge once more.

Meanwhile, Stego had Ramona cornered. His sword moved closer and closer to her throat, and, since Ramona was standing with her back to a cluster of trees, she had nowhere to run to.

Wiress glanced over and noticed her ally crying in despair. Wiress leapt toward Ramona and knocked Stego away from her. The career was sent spiraling to the ground. Wiress looked at the dying fireplace, then down at Stego, and hatched yet another clever plan.

Wiress urged Ramona to keep Tori busy. While Stego was still on the ground, she used her foot to kick him several times, about one-hundred eighty degrees around. Before he fell, his back had been to the fire. Now, if he stood up, his back would be away from the fire and toward Wiress.

Wiress took her time, waiting for Stego to get back up. The second he was on his feet, Wiress shoved her knife into his back with all of her might. Stego toppled forward like a domino… right into the fire.

Stego let out a bloodcurdling scream as his face landed in the hot material. The impact had stirred up many of the dying embers of the fire, and his skin was charred and melted away with seconds of contact. Before his death, Stego managed to look upward at his killer. The last anyone ever saw of Stego Knox was his hideous face, charred and black, blood pouring forth and mixing in with the other horrible colors, skin falling away like sheets of paper, and an unmistakable look of fury in his eyes that nobody watching would forget, no matter how long they would live.

 _Stego Knox, District 2 Male: 4th, Killed by Wiress, Day 12_

Tori ran to Stego's side to see if he was okay, but instantly pulled away. There was no way he could be saved, and his cannon shot confirmed her worst suspicions. As a career, Tori was obligated to avenge the death of her district partner, and she lunged toward Wiress so quickly that she didn't have time to react. Tori wrestled Wiress to the ground and smashed her pickaxe into her head. Wiress screamed and clawed at the wound. For several seconds, her entire world was nothing but pain. Pain so bad her vision was blurry and she couldn't think straight. Tori shouted, "That was for Stego," and readied herself to attack again. Wiress considered giving up trying to fight when a force suddenly shoved Tori off of her. Wiress looked up and saw her faithful ally Ramona with her hand clapped to her side.

What had happened was this. Ramona had seen Tori about to kill Wiress and shoved her off of her. The District 2 girl rolled to the side, but slashed her pickaxe through the air at the perfect time that she buried the sharp tip of the weapon into Ramona's side. Ramona's form went limp and collapsed next to Wiress.

Tori had fallen down into a ditch nearby and banged her head on a rock, so she wasn't a concern at the time being. Wiress rubbed her head where Tori had hit her and felt her fingers wet with warm blood. She fought with all of her strength to get up, only to collapse the second later with a groan.

After a few minutes of recovery, Wiress finally managed to make eye contact with her dying ally. Tears welled up in the District 3's girls eyes as she raced over to her supplies. She had no medicine and ran back in despair with her head in her hands.

Wiress began tearing off pieces of her clothing to place over Ramona's wounds, but the dying girl shook her head back and forth, a definite "no".

The first tear fell from her eyes, and that was what brought on the waterfalls of tears that poured down her cheeks like two waterfalls. Wiress leaned in toward Ramona and felt for her pulse. It was there, but uneven and faint.

"Goodbye, friend," Ramona rasped, managing a smile. Then, her body went completely limp and her cannon shot shattered the calm of the forest.

 _Ramona Seed, District 11 Female: 3rd, Killed by Tori, Day 12_

After Ramona's death, Wiress fled the scene. She tore through the wood and leapt over rocks, trying to place as much distance between herself and her final opponent as possible. After several hours of travel, she arrived in a clearing laden with berry bushes. With a good place to make her base camp, Wiress' priority was preparing for the inevitable finale. She sharpened her knife using a stone. Once it was as sharp as she could get it, Wiress practiced with the blade, lodging it into trees and chopping down the shoots and leaves. After a few minutes of unconsciousness, Tori awoke to the realization that, while she had succeeded in killing Ramona, Wiress had escaped. The knock against the hard stone had taken a toll on her body. For the first few minutes, her movement was wobbly and her vision wasn't quite straight. But, all in due time, she recovered. A sponsor delivered her a note urging for her to keep going strong, along with a package of dried pineapple. After eating half of the pineapple slices and saving the rest for the next morning, she made camp approximately a mile away from the site of the conflict earlier that day.

The morning of Day 13, the weather took to a drastic change. It was warm for once. Not warm as in "not freezing cold", but warm as in "warm". For the first time in as long as anyone could remember, green showed through from underneath the melting snow that was becoming thinner and thinner. Buds blossomed on the trees, and wildlife was more plentiful than ever.

The two remaining tributes made good use of the morning hours. Tori began trekking in the direction she believed Wiress had travelled in. However, she was going the wrong way, and her mentor sent her a note telling her so. Tori turned around and kept on hiking through the forest to meet her final opponent. Wiress was all that was left between her and the Victor's Crown, and she was confident that she could take her down.

Wiress tried to make a splash to impress the sponsors by expertly killing a deer that wandered near her living quarters. Knowing that the final battle was on the horizon, Wisp wanted the two tributes to be more balanced, and he delivered Wiress a chest plate made of a stretchy material that covered most of her torso. It was able to deflect most blows, but there were some weak spots in the armor so that she wouldn't be too overpowered.

Later that day, Wisp lit the world ablaze. Blazing fires started in the east and west, spreading quickly. Wiress was in the east, and Tori was in the west, and they were driven together by the spreading fires.

They both spotted each other around two o'clock in the afternoon. They were in a flat clearing with sparse trees and several small plants. To their left and right was burning forest, and with fire spreading from behind there was nowhere for the two girls to go but toward each other.

The two tributes clashed in the middle of the meadow, and at first it seemed that Tori had the edge. Her years of academy training, coupled with her determination to win these games, really fired her up and made her a killing machine. Her first few blows were powerful. One of them nearly disarmed Wiress of her knife. Tori managed to knock the blade out of the hand of the girl from District 3, but she managed to snatch it back with her other hand before it could fly away. She was now fighting with her non-dominant hand against a bloodthirsty girl who had been trained for this moment her entire life. Victory seemed hopeless.

Wiress was playing a defensive game rather than an offensive one. She was only barely able to hold off Tori. Because of her armor, she sustained very few injuries. About two minutes into their duel, Tori managed to hit one of the weak parts of Wiress' armor. The plasticky material broke, and the entire chest plate peeled away like a sticker. Tori reveled in her victory, and Wiress took the instant to switch her knife from her left hand to her right (dominant) hand.

Tori's next move was the most effective yet. She raked her pickaxe across Wiress' stomach. Blood drizzled forward like water from a leaky water balloon. Wiress keened in pain and bent over to quell the bleeding. For several seconds, it really did hurt like the devil. Once the pain went away, she pretended to still be in agony. Wiress pretended to be completely immobile from the physical torment, but really she just needed more time to think. Tori walked toward her, smiling. She had these games in the bag.

Suddenly, so quickly that Tori couldn't lift a finger in protest, Wiress hurled herself at the career girl and knocked her pickaxe out of her hand. The weapon flew for about a yard before plunging to the grass. Tori had no weapon but her bare hands, and Wiress had her knife.

Wiress grabbed Tori by the hair and pulled her head back, revealing her empty throat. As if there were no tomorrow, Wiress hacked away at the exposed flesh. After about ten good slashes, Wiress let go. Tori wobbled back and forth. Finally, she fell to the ground. The thud of her body against the dirt fired in perfect synchronization with her cannon shot.

 _Tori Comstock, District 2 Female: 2nd, Killed by Wiress, Day 13_

"Wiress Freid of District 3, you are the victor of the forty-ninth annual Hunger Games!" Wisp shouted across the arena of his creation.

Wiress sighed and backed away from Tori's mangled corpse, waiting patiently for the hovercraft to come and retrieve her.

 _Wiress Freid, District 3 Female: Victor of the Forty-Ninth Hunger Games, Day 13_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

With Miss Freid added to their growing lineup, District 3 had an astonishing eight victors, placing them securely ahead of all the other outlying districts. Wiress was praised in District 3. After so many years of watching their tributes die, they were elated to receive another victor. The Capitol loved Wiress for her ingenuity. It turned out afterward that she had a knack for machinery, and she would go on to wow the Capitol with many of her own inventions.

She and her family moved into the Victor's Village of District 3.

Wiress' victory tour went rather well. In District 11, she was well-received because of how loyal she had been to Ramona while she was alive. District 2 was absolutely furious. They had been looking forward to gaining a thirteenth victor, and they had been so close with Tori.

Wiress would live to the respectable age of eighty-eight, dying a natural death from cancer around the time of the one-hundred twenty-second annual Hunger Games. She would marry fellow District 3 victor Beetee Latier, and the couple would adopt one son. She opened her own machine shop in District 3 as a hobby, and she also took up the violin as a side thing. However, her musical talent blossomed into a whole world of possibility for Wiress. She became a member of a famous Capitol string ensemble and put on thousands of performances in the many years of her life. As Wiress grew older, she also developed a love of gardening and turned the backyard of her Victor's Village home into an enchanted garden. She had an exciting life that she enjoyed thoroughly.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Wiress moves into the Victor's Village of District 3, the eighth victor to do so.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)

* * *

 **A/N: New chapter! It was a bit of a struggle to get it out by the end of today, but I'm very glad that I did. I hope you've enjoyed Wiress! I personally found her alliance with Ramona super cute, but maybe that was just me. When dealing with canon victors, I try not to get super attached to any tributes other than the eventual victor, but sometimes it happens and I feel super sad when I have to kill them off D:**

 **Stay tuned for the next chapter of… what, 47 Cannons? That's right, the second quarter quell is up next, with Haymitch, Maysilee, and a ton of others that you'll get to know soon-ish! I've been looking forward to the quell for a while, and my mind is exploding with so many great ideas that I can't wait to get started. Of course, because there are twice as many tributes, it'll take a lot longer to get out. Furthermore, Haymitch is among my favorite victors, so even with forty-eight characters instead of twenty-four I don't want to write his games averagely.**

 **I know I've said this a billion times, but I love to hear your reviews! They really help me grow as a writer on this site and sustain the motivation to keep posting more chapters, so please consider leaving one if you can. Until next time! :D**


	51. The 50th Hunger Games

**The 50th Hunger Games: The 2nd Quarter Quell:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The people of Panem crowded around their old, decrepit television sets in their houses that were falling apart. Everybody over the age of twenty-five remembered the last time that there had been a quarter quell, and many of them still had nightmares to that very day. Parents held their children closer than ever before as their televisions lit up. They lit up a face. The face of a snake. Their "president". A young boy dressed head to toe in white, Snow's nephew, walked forward and held out a small wooden box. It was a box filled with paper envelopes, yellowed with time, created by that despicable Snow himself, outlining the twists for each of the quarter quells to come. Snow took the box and set it down on the podium. He produced a key from his pocket and unlatched the box with a _click_ that chilled the entire nation to the bone. There were gasps from around the country. How many envelopes were there? Thirty? Forty? The Hunger Games would not be over until they were long dead and long discarded, far beneath the ground. A wild, childlike glint showed in Snow's eyes. His fingers hovered over the box of envelopes. They were beautiful. Made from paper that must have once been a brilliant gold color, they were masterfully folded and trimmed with ornate white lace. A circle of sealing ink perfectly bound each envelope closed. In many ways, these gruesome creations of the Capitol were not unlike the Capitol itself. Beautiful on the outside, yet filled with horror and death on the inside. Snow glanced up at the thousands of cheering Capitolites before plunging his hand into the box and pulling out the second envelope in the first row. It was labeled with the number "50" in shimmering red calligraphy. Snow broke the seal and carefully removed the piece of paper inside. He cleared his throat. "On the 50th anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that two rebels died for every Capitol citizen killed, each district will reap twice the number of tributes!" Parents around the nation cried out in despair. How dare they? They were all already strangled in the noose of poverty, with twenty-three of their children taken from them each year. This year, there would be forty-seven. Twice the number of families left broken. Twice the number of windows boarded up in grieving. Twice the number of tears shed. Half as much hope. Some clung onto the hope that the twist would not actually play out as stated. They couldn't really pick double the tributes, could they? But they could. The reapings came one by one, and in each district four tributes were called up. Name after name after name was picked by the hands of those stupid escorts with enough makeup to paint a house. Many tears were shed. Many, many tears. Parents and children cried as their loved ones were carried to the stages by peacekeepers, with nothing they could do to stop them. The Capitolites cheered as these children were taken to their deaths. With twice as many tributes, there needed to be a whole load of adjustments to the pre-games festivities. For one, more chariots and horses were required for the chariot rides. Even Snow turned away from poisoning his enemies to help design the renovated, jumbo-sized training center. Claudius and Caesar had to split up the interviews into two days, with tributes from Districts 1 through 6 interviewed on the first day and those from 7 through 12 on the second day. In the tributes' private sessions with the gamemakers, each tribute was given only ten minutes to present their chosen skill instead of the usual fifteen, simply because of how many competitors there were.

As for the arena, Head Gamemaker Wisp Glasgow had no choice but to make it absolutely massive. It was the only way to hold forty-eight players, and it was the largest Hunger Games arena to date. He and his team really outdid themselves for the quell. The arena was the most beautiful place imaginable. The cornucopia stood in a picturesque meadow of fuzzy green grass. Colorful flowers dotted the meadow, and beautiful butterflies fluttered overhead. Cotton candy pink birds flew around and sang their sweet songs across the azure blue skies. Puffy white clouds hung overhead. The cameras showed that the meadow stretched on for miles. In one direction, there was a woods. The forest was absolutely beautiful, with murmuring streams and crystal-clear ponds that smelled sweet. Golden squirrels scampered across the ground, and bright songbirds roosted in the trees. In the other direction, there was a snowcapped mountain. Its even slopes looked absolutely gorgeous, reflecting the light of the sun and appearing a million different colors at once. But there was a catch. Everything natural was poisonous. The pink birds in the meadow were extremely dangerous, with their skewer-shaped beaks. The butterflies attacked in swarms, their bites inducing venom that would cause extreme pain if not death. Even the flowers could cause swelling in the throat if inhaled too directly. Of course, the forest was deadly as well. The bright-colored fruit that hung from the trees was incredibly acidic. The water from the streams was poisonous enough to kill, and the gold squirrels were carnivorous. The mountain (which was, of course, a volcano waiting to blow) was covered with snow that was extremely toxic if eaten. The only trustworthy food was from the cornucopia. The rainwater was edible as well, but that was it. It was a style of arena that was more common in the earlier games but was dying out in recent times: one-hundred percent natural.

The career districts were absolutely thrilled by the quell. There was some of the most intense competition yet between aspiring youngsters for the position of tribute in these games. All twelve spots were filled with well-trained career tributes, surprisingly enough. Overall, District 1 produced the strongest batch. The first male was one of the best swordsmen that District 1 had seen in a long time, though he could really fight with anything. The Capitol loved him for his looks and his all-in-in-for-the-honor career attitude, and with his impressive ten in training he became a favorite. The second male was much more of an easy-breather, level-headed and without much popularity. He could work magic with weapons like knives and swords. Though these two folks were certainly impressive, it was the first female from District 1 that really stole the show. This Katoptris Parker girl wowed the Capitol with her beauty and mastery of weaponry. Bows, axes, knives, swords: you name it, she could cut down the most experienced trainer in the academy with it. Though her partner was not as gifted as she, the second female was still a greater in offensive tactics with most projectile weapons. District 2 offered up a bundle of careers that wound fight hard until the very end. The first male was a very conventional career, getting a solid point across that _he_ would be the victor and didn't know what those other inferior career kids were talking about. Ironically, he only walked home with a nine in training. The second male was a vicious career. Fighting roman-style and stabbing with whatever blade he had on hand, he was enthusiastic in his art in a cute way. The two females from District 2 were neighbors, actually, and very close friends. The first female was a charismatic girl and highly popular among the members of the audience. The second female was more soft-spoken and beautiful, a valuable quality of careers. These two girls went everywhere with each other, and they would no doubt have a close-knit relationship during the games. The first District 4 male was probably the weakest career, as his battle techniques were adulterated by germaphobia. He was still a formidable fighter, but he felt a bit uncomfortable around the scenes of gore that the other careers seemed to enjoy. The second male was openly transgender. Fully transitioned, he hoped that the pack would embrace him. His knack for tridents earned him a warm welcome. The first female was breathtakingly beautiful, and was likely the most powerful tribute this year other than Katoptris from District 1. She had an exotic allure to her that caught the eye of many a Capitol citizen. The second female was certainly a place filler, as she wasn't the best with weaponry. In fact, she spent most of her time in the Capitol crushing on Copper from District 5 instead of training. She was deemed rather childish by the sponsors. Overall, the training scores of the careers this year were outstanding. Seven tens, three nines, and two eights were scored this year. Keeping order and staying organized would be nearly impossible in a group of careers so large, so they split into three different groups. The first group became known as the Standards. This was the largest group, consisting of Barnaby, Gladius, Voyage, Brackish, Imogen, and Scotia. These were all of the tributes that preferred the conventional career strategy. They were headed by Imogen. The second group consisted of the four District 1 tributes: Lavish, Cognac, Katoptris, and Estelle. Their group was called the Paragons. They were the tributes with the highest scores. Under the vicious Katoptris, they vowed to play an offensive game, weighing attacking outliers over protecting themselves. The last group was the smallest and consisted only of Megara and Gypsum, the two females from District 2. They would travel day and night, never keeping a permanent home and instead choosing to move around regularly.

There was an incredible batch of outliers this year, as many of the reapings had been rigged to bring some strong contenders into the mix. Three eights were earned outside of the career pack. Marshall Kuldell from District 10 stood out to the gamemakers because of his skills in setting up snares and the like. Haymitch of District 12 also managed an eight with his knife skills and his looks. One of his district partners, a petite girl named Maysilee, was able to match his score by showing off her skills with bows. There was also a multitude of sevens earned. In fact, nine sevens were earned! They were scored by Barker from 7, Nyssa from 7, Helix from 8, Cashmere from 8, Buck from 10, Marilou from 10, Clementine from 11, Basc from 11, and Steer from was an incident outside of the career pack as well. Marilou Deer from District 10 chose an ornate metal hairpiece as her tribute token. Upon inspection, it was discovered that the hairpiece would unfold into a sharp blade when part of it was twisted. Marilou claimed that she didn't know it could do that, but it was confiscated anyway. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: the thirteen year-old Camden Larfarello from District 6. Camden volunteered out of desperation; his brother was diagnosed with terminal cancer a few days earlier, and he knew that the only hope of getting him treatment was to win the games. Here are the tributes:

District 1 Males: Lavish Bianchi, 17, (10) 16-1 and Cognac Favre, 18, (10) 15-1

District 1 Females: Katoptris Parker, 16, (10) 8-1 and Estelle Adams, 16, (9) 17-1

District 2 Males: Barnaby Capra, 15, (9) 17-1 and Gladius Sturman, 18, (10) 14-1

District 2 Females: Megara Pearden, 18, (10) 14-1 and Gypsum Shale, 18, (9) 15-1

District 3 Males: Router Elliot, 14, (4) 67-1 and Solomon Mayre, 15, (4) 62-1

District 3 Females: Socket Olaf, 16, (6) 36-1 and Porter Primini, 12, (3) 94-1

District 4 Males: Voyage St. Paul, 15, (8) 20-1 and Brackish Samuel, 17, (10) 16-1

District 4 Females: Imogen Sands, 18, (10) 13-1 and Scotia Yackle, 16, (8) 19-1

District 5 Males: Volt Rosario, 17, (5) 36-1 and Copper Kent, 18, (6) 33-1

District 5 Females: Bethany Corzett, 12, (4) 73-1 and Teagan Saetren, 12, (4) 74-1

District 6 Males: Camden Larfarello, 13, (5) 42-1 and Raven Abe, 18, (6) 33-1

District 6 Females: Dakota Scandura, 18, (5) 40-1 and Holly Harper, 18, (5) 39-1

District 7 Males: Barker Luce, 17, (7) 28-1 and Arlo Calkins, 13, (4) 69-1

District 7 Females: Nyssa Oliphant, 18, (7) 27-1 and Magnolia Hilsbury, 15, (6) 31-1

District 8 Males: Helix Johnson, 14, (7) 29-1 and Afghan Schimell, 17, (6) 30-1

District 8 Females: Chenille Meyers, 18, (5) 40-1 and Cashmere Torantella, 18, (7) 28-1

District 9 Males: Quinoa Indigo, 18, (6) 28-1 and Kenneth Sorghum, 16, (6) 28-1

District 9 Females: Pearl York, 18, (5) 30-1 and Hope Fawcett, 16, (5) 29-1

District 10 Males: Buck Valliance, 17, (7) 36-1 and Marshall Kuldell, 18, (8) 23-1

District 10 Females: Marilou Deer, 13, (7) 39-1 and Fontana Gold, 12, (6) 42-1

District 11 Males: Clementine Applegate, 18, (7) 33-1 and Basc Yuletide, 15, (7) 38-1

District 11 Females: Lady O'Malley, 17, (5) 40-1 and Mirabelle Brady, 17, (4) 43-1

District 12 Males: Steer Peterson, 18, (7) 35-1 and Haymitch Abernathy, 16, (8) 23-1

District 12 Females: Maysilee Donner, 16, (8) 25-1 and Valentina Silver, 17, (5) 40-1

HGBO Bets: 6% on Katoptris, 5% on Lavish, Cognac, and Megara, 4% on Estelle, Barnaby, Gladius, and Gypsum, 3% on Voyage, Brackish, Imogen, and Scotia, 2% on Barker, Nyssa, Helix, Cashmere, Buck, Marshall, Marilou, Clementine, Basc, Steer, Haymitch, and Maysilee, 1% or Less on Router, Solomon, Socket, Porter, Volt, Copper, Bethany, Teagan, Camden, Raven, Dakota, Holly, Arlo, Magnolia, Afghan, Chenille, Quinoa, Kenneth, Pearl, Hope, Fontana, Lady, Mirabelle, and Valentina.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Disbelief reflected on the faces of the tributes as they rose up into the arena atop their pedestals. It was the most breathtaking place imaginable. They sniffed deeply, inhaling the sweet smell of the flowers that were strewn around the meadow and savoring the cool breezes that invited them to curl up and sleep without a care. Many of them stood with their mouths hanging open in awe until the second the gong rang. The bloodbath this year would host eighteen deaths, breaking the record for largest bloodbath in history. In the hundreds of games to come, this record would only be broken a few times. This number was actually lower than expected. On proportion, one would have expected anywhere between twenty and twenty-six bloodbath deaths. But eighteen was still a good number that gave Wisp lots of survivors to work with.

Katoptris was off of her pedestal before any of the other tributes, racing toward a hatchet that lay in a cluster of pink blossoms twenty yards from her pedestal. She scooped up the small axe and turned sharply on her heel, hurling the hatchet with all of her might at a nearby girl who was zigzagging away from her pedestal. With a crunch, the axe buried itself into her skull. Katoptris ran to her side and tore her hatchet out of her head as the bloodbath began in earnest.

 _Mirabelle Brady, District 11 2nd Female: 48th, Killed by Katoptris, Bloodbath_

Barnaby, another speedy runner, had run all of the way into the cornucopia to receive a sword, three feet of deadly metal that glistened dangerously in the gem of the sun overhead. He whipped around and stabbed the sword into the neck of a boy who was trying to off him with a sword of his own, hoping to eliminate competition early and impress the sponsors. The boy gurgled and clawed at his throat, but there was ultimately nothing he could do. The boy's bloody form went limp and slowly slid off of a grinning Barnaby's sword.

 _Quinoa Indigo, District 9 1st Male: 47th, Killed by Barnaby, Bloodbath_

Seconds earlier, Brackish had locked his fingers around a three-pronged trident and was now running back toward his pedestal. The girl whose pedestal was stationed to the right of his hadn't moved an inch since the start of the games, her eyes and mouth wide open, under the spell of the arena. One swipe of Brackish's trident across her stomach, and she was dead. She didn't even flinch.

 _Porter Primini, District 3 2nd Female: 46th, Killed by Brackish, Bloodbath_

Lavish gritted his teeth as he dueled with the well-trained Basc from District 11. The two tributes danced around each other. Lavish occasionally lashed out with his sword, just warming up for the real battle. Basc made his best effort to fight back. He had an axe, and managed to deflect most of Lavish's blows. About twenty seconds into their duel, Lavish charged forward and raked the tip of his knife across his enemy's cheek. Basc was petrified by the pain for a moment, and Lavish took the opportunity to seal his kill. With all of his strength, he cast his sword forward, worming it through the farmer boy's torso. The blade lodged itself between two of his ribs. He had done a significant amount of damage, but it still took a few moments for his life force to be drained away completely.

 _Basc Yuletide, District 11 2nd Male: 45th, Killed by Lavish, Bloodbath_

After wrenching her hatchet out of Mirabelle's skull, Katoptris fluidly attacked her next victim, a nearby girl who was trying to sneak past her with a backpack of rope. Some sixth sense told the girl that she was being watched, and she broke into a run when she saw Katoptris' cold eyes trained on her. The girl was a fast runner, but Katoptris was faster. With one swipe of her arm, she planted her hatchet directly between the girl's eyes. Blood squirted forth. The girl screamed, but no matter how much she begged, the career girl continued to hack away mercilessly at her head and neck with her hatchet.

 _Valentina Silver, District 12 2nd Female: 44th, Killed by Katoptris, Bloodbath_

Imogen had armed herself with a bow and zeroed in on her first prey: a nearby boy with dark hair signature of his hailing from District 6. Imogen let the arrow fly. It sang through the air and landed perfectly in the boy's back. He howled and flew his hands to his back to remove the arrow, but his fingers were slippery with blood. He fell forward onto the ground, his mouth digging through grass and dirt, and bled to death within minutes.

 _Raven Abe, District 6 2nd Male: 43rd, Killed by Imogen, Bloodbath_

Estelle had a fist full of shurikens and quietly crept toward the back of a nearby girl. She heard Estelle's shuffling behind her and turned around just as the shurikens entered her chest. The girl screamed and dropped what she was carrying. She ripped one of the throwing stars out of her chest and tried to hurl it at Estelle, but she missed by a breadth of several feet. Her vision was growing blurry. By the time she fell to her knees with a loud noise, she was dead.

 _Dakota Scandura, District 6 1st Female: 42nd, Killed by Estelle, Bloodbath_

Nimble Gypsum, knife in hand, sped toward an overweight girl who was running away from the cornucopia with a pack. Gypsum hurled herself at the girl. In response, she threw out a fist toward Gypsum's face and yelled for her to go away. Gypsum plunged her knife into her shoulder, and the girl began crying. Gypsum's close friend Megara was at her side in no time, finishing her off by stabbing a dagger that sat in a cluster of yellow flowers near her into her chest.

 _Teagan Saetren, District 5 2nd Female: 41st, Killed by Gypsum and Megara, Bloodbath_

Gladius armed himself with a sword and grabbed the nearest boy by the shoulders, slamming him against the wall of the cornucopia. The boy's mane of red hair sprayed out over the wall of the cornucopia. Gladius pressed the tip of his sword into the boy's throat. He cried for help and squirmed to escape, but Gladius' clutch on him was too strong. He was seduced as the career boy slid his sword all of the way through his neck. The tip of the sword clanged against the wall of the horn behind him after working its way through his neck and spearing his throat.

 _Copper Kent, District 5 2nd Male: 40th, Killed by Gladius, Bloodbath_

Scotia had run all of the way into the cornucopia for a belt of throwing knives, and she started throwing as soon as the belt was clipped around her waist. A nearby girl screamed as two of the knives dug into her chest. Her knees buckled, and the last thing she saw was Scotia running to her side to retrieve her two knives.

 _Pearl York, District 9 1st Female: 39th, Killed by Scotia, Bloodbath_

A few moments later, Megara and Gypsum were able to corner a weeping boy against the cornucopia. Megara hurled herself toward him and buried her knife into the boy's head. Gypsum followed closely behind, finishing off the boy with a swipe of her knife across his lower abdomen.

 _Afghan Schimell, District 8 2nd Male: 38th, Killed by Megara and Gypsum, Bloodbath_

With eleven tributes dead, things were really starting to organize in the career pack. The standards were standing their steady ground in front of the cornucopia, warding away the droves out oncoming outliers. Meanwhile, the Paragons were weaving through the crowds and cutting down tributes whenever they saw it necessary. Cognac had a sword and thrust it toward his target: a close by girl's left calf. His sword was almost instantly lethal at that close range.

 _Hope Fawcett, District 9 2nd Female: 37th, Killed by Cognac, Bloodbath_

The duo of Megara and Gypsum each had knives and valuable packs of supplies, so they left the bloodbath to head to the forest early. About halfway through the meadow, they crossed paths with another tribute: the willowy Kenneth from District 9. Gypsum jumped toward the boy and skewered her knife through his arm before he could utter a word of protest. By the time Megara caught up to get in on the action, Kenneth was already dead, his blood mingling with the earth underfoot and staining the fuzzy green grass.

 _Kenneth Sorghum, District 9 2nd Male: 36th, Killed by Gypsum, Bloodbath_

At the cornucopia, Katoptris made two more kills. Two girls about her age but much weaker had run into the center of the clearing and were now hiding together in a large chest, trying to wait out the bloodbath and come out when it was all over. Katoptris threw open the lid of the chest, and the two girls were easy prey from there. Katoptris buried her axe into the first girl's head with a crunch, splattering the other with blood. The second outlier leapt out of the chest, but Katoptris was on her like a hound, swinging her axe into her stomach and crunching the bone underneath.

 _Holly Harper, District 6 2nd Female: 35th, Killed by Katoptris, Bloodbath_

 _Lady O'Malley, District 11 1st Female: 34th, Killed by Katoptris, Bloodbath_

The Standards made another kill when one boy came squirming toward them, trying to get to a cart of knives that sat behind them. He tried to crash between Voyage and Imogen. Imogen immediately pulled back her bowstring, with Voyage snatching a weapon of his own, a spiked club. Imogen let her arrow fly. Her aim was true, and her arrow landed in the boy's knee with a hollow sound. Voyage finished her off, bashing in her skull with her club and scaring away a nearby swarm of baby-blue butterflies.

 _Arlo Calkins, District 7 2nd Male: 33rd, Killed by Imogen and Voyage, Bloodbath_

Barnaby ran a few feet away from the cornucopia to meet up with a small girl who was sprawled out on the ground, slowly bleeding out from a sword wound inflicted by Cognac. Barnaby sealed the girl's doom with a slice of his sword before returning to the horn.

 _Marilou Deer, District 10 1st Female: 32nd, Killed by Barnaby, Bloodbath_

The last death of the bloodbath occurred nearly two hours after the gong, officially breaking the record for longest bloodbath yet. A minute or so into the games, Router had been stabbed in the side by Gladius. He had then collapsed to the ground and lost consciousness. All of the careers assumed that he was dead, but he was still alive, slowly dying. About three minutes after Marilou's death, Gladius found him quietly shaking in the grass. Gladius finished the job he had started hours prior, flinging his sword into his gut. The boy was mere seconds away from death anyways, and he barely felt it.

 _Router Elliot, District 3 1st Male: 31st, Killed by Gladius, Bloodbath_

The cotton candy pink birds squawked in an aggravated tone as eighteen cannon shots rolled across the arena. With thirty tributes spreading across the arena, it was difficult to cover them all. The cameras mostly focused on the fractured career pack as they broke away from each other. At the cornucopia, the Standards spent the light hours of the day aimlessly strolling around the meadow and leafing through their supplies. They quickly became bored with this task, and they were soon ready to go hunting. All of their glances upward were drawn toward the mountain as if it were a magnet. They all agreed to go on an expedition to the picturesque snowcapped mountain, planning to leave the next day at noon. The Paragons wandered through the woods without any solid goals in mind, just to find a place to make their camp. The Paragons dropped beside a crystal-clear pool of water and set up their home. Lavish prepared to drink the water, but a lemon-colored canary bird approached and drank the water before him. The bird instantly toppled over and died, evidence enough that the water was deadly. Lavish warned his allies to steer clear of the pond, a valuable piece of advice. Megara and Gypsum engaged in casual conversation as they trudged through the thick wood. Around noon, a swarm of the golden squirrel mutts chased them to a clearing where there were so many flowers on the ground that the grass underneath was barely visible. The squirrels retreated, and the two young ladies took this as a sign. They sat down and unrolled their supplies, preparing for the night ahead.

The outliers this year had three choices: stay in the meadow, go the forest, or go the mountain. Those that stayed in the meadow were taking a big risk, but there were several of them. Bethany from 5 and Camden from 6 had allied prior to the games. Their small, tired bodies were unable to make the trip to the forest in a single day. Bethany, deathly afraid of the careers, made Camden travel about halfway across the meadow. Camden collapsed from exhaustion, and Bethany looked like she was close herself. With the last ounces of their strength, the diminutive duo dragged themselves into an area veiled by tall, rustling grass and passed out. Helix's body was capable of traveling the whole distance of the meadow, but he stayed in the grassland by choice. After a few hours' time, he sat down beside a tree bearing fuzzy orange fruit. Helix reached out to touch the fruit and cursed. The acidic fruit made his fingers tingle upon contact, and even though he wasn't a rocket scientist he could deduce that the fruit was poisonous as well. Helix had managed a bowl and knife from the bloodbath, and he carefully retrieved the fruit with his knife. He then sliced the orange death bringer into small square pieces in the bowl. Maybe they would come in handy in the future. Steer had a small pack, but it was his only possession. He didn't look inside until he had found a good hiding spot, the sloped land beside a swiftly flowing creek. Inside, he found a knife and a bottle. Steer walked down to the river and scooped up some of the water in the bottle. Parched, he took a sip. Steer immediately collapsed as the burning water travelled down his throat. He hadn't drunk enough to kill him, but it was certainly enough to send him into a world of hurt. Steer dragged himself back to his base and tried to quiet his moans of pain as he trembled and cried, willing the highly acidic poison to work its way out of his body.

Those in the forest had the most cover, but they also faced the most dangers, particularly muttations. Solomon moved quietly through the trees, breathing steadily in and out to keep himself calm. In a thick area of the forest, he set up his home, though he made sure to cover himself with leaves afterward to hide him from sight. The two girls from District 7, Nyssa and Magnolia, bumped into each other in the forest. Instead of killing each other, they proposed an alliance. The girls shared their supplies with each other before building a shelter atop a tall hill. The sun was setting below the horizon, and they were just about to go to sleep when a swarm of bright orange songbirds swooping down from the trees and started jabbing at them with their beaks. The two allies both were armed, Nyssa with a hatchet and Magnolia with a sword, and they managed to kill most of the birds and scare away the rest. One of the birds had skewered its beak through Magnolia's shoulder and laced her blood with its poison. A sponsor sent a tight piece of cloth that Nyssa wrapped around her ally's shoulder to put pressure on the wound, hopefully preventing the spread of the poison throughout her body. Cashmere had travelled ten feet into the woods when a swarm of poison yellow wasps came flying after her. Her heart rattled in her chest as she chased away from the insects. Cashmere eventually found herself in front of a lake. She had a headstart, but the wasps were catching up to her, and fast. She leapt into the lake, the only save haven from the deadly wasps. Cashmere immediately screamed as the poisonous water entered through the various cuts and bruises all around her body. The burning sensation was agonizing. Cashmere tried to hoist herself out of the lake. She finally managed to paddle to shore, and the instant her head protruded above the water she was overwhelmed by the bees. A hundred stingers in her body finished off nature's deadly, yet beautiful cake, and the wasps flew away. The poor girl was left floating in the water, spinning in circles atop the current until she died. She was the first tribute to experience how the beautiful wildlife of the arena could be deadly. She would not be the last by any stretch of the imagination.

 _Cashmere Torantella, District 8 2nd Female: 30th, Killed by Poisoned Water and Wasp Muttations, Day 1_

Many things transpired throughout the remainder of the day, but there were no more deaths. Buck had a bow and quiver of ten arrows, and he shot a brown hare straight through the eye. This impressed the sponsors so much that he received a sleeping bag and pack of jerky. Buck wondered why the sponsors gave him food when he had just killed something, but he wasn't going to pass it off. Buck realized why the second he put the rabbit's meat into his mouth. The stuff was absolutely disgusting, leaving him retching and quivering for minutes afterward. He threw the rabbit away and settled for the jerky. Clementine settled into the forest and camouflaged himself and his brightly-colored pack by smearing dirt. He lay against a large rock. His dark skin blended in well to the rich soil, and he was easy to miss if you were just walking by. Haymitch had a bountiful turnout from the bloodbath. For weapons, he had a cleaver and a dagger, which he wielded in either hand as he walked. He also had a pack of dried berries and a bowl filled with wire. Haymitch jogged through the woods and set up his camp at the base of a sturdy oak tree. Maysilee loved the smell of the forest. After delving a substantial distance into the woods, she picked up a handful of bright flowers and sniffed them deeply. Her lungs and throat immediately began to close up. She coughed and dropped the flowers. It took hours for the effects of the venomous pollen to wear off fully. She rested in the bough of a sturdy tree, hidden above the layer of rustling leaves, with her supplies: a blowgun, a backpack of rope, a bowl, and a bit of dried beef.

The mountain, which was really a volcano, attracted a huge number of tributes to its gorgeous slopes. As they walked, the volcano's fiery inner hell churned underneath them, the top waiting to blow. It was also covered with spiny black burrs that would cling to anything they touched like living velcro. The tributes didn't know that, though. They were just looking for a safe haven where the careers couldn't reach them. Socket travelled about halfway up the mountainside, where there was a layer of frost underfoot but no snow yet. She ducked into a crevice and wrapped herself in her only pack, shivering to keep warm in the icy cold. Volt had walked less than a hundred feet up the side of the feature when he slid on a slippery panel of rock and fell face-first into a field of the burrs. They hooked onto his skin and clothes. It took an hour to remove them all. A spray of red dots littered Volt's face and hands where the seeds had once been. Many of them dripped blood, and Volt tried to ignore the agony as he built himself a crude shelter of scrap material. Barker had an axe, the weapon of his district, and because of that his confidence was boosted significantly. He trekked up the mountainside, and was only a few hundred yards from the top when he decided to stop for the night, vowing to keep up his walk in the morning. Chenille had chosen the mountain as her home because of the unobstructed view of the sky she thought it would have. In industrial District 8, the sky was always thick with fog and there was barely a blade of grass in sight. On the mountain, Chenille had a perfect view of the robin's egg blue skies. Every time a gust of wind blew past she was invigorated. The beauty of the scene drove her to keep going. Chenille settled down in a patch of squishy moss and fell asleep to the sunset on the opposite horizon. Marshall and Fontana, allies, were so deathly afraid of the twelve careers that they vowed to reach the top of the snowcapped mountain at any cost. Of course, they weren't able to make it, and they gave up when it began raining. The rain was so cold that their teeth chattered, so Marshall and Fontana staggered toward an area sheltered from the sky and huddled together to keep warm.

The morning of Day 2 came in the form of two cannon shots. In the forest, the Paragons were up bright and early and ready to go hunting. Katoptris travelled at the head of the group, swinging her hatchet at her side. The sun reached its peak at the sky, and Estelle pointed out the forms of Nyssa and Magnolia moving soundlessly over the earth. Nyssa was walking normally, a pack bumping between her shoulder blades, but Magnolia was walked funnily, with her hand clapped over her shoulder. The pack of four District 1 kids bowled through the woods toward the two girls and cracked their knuckles.

As the Paragons burst out of the trees, the two outliers screamed and split up, fleeing downhill. Katoptris ordered Cognac and Lavish to run after a fleeing Nyssa, whereas she and Estelle went after Magnolia. Magnolia wasn't a fast runner, and with her hand pressing down on her shoulder wound she was even slower. She ran down the hill very carefully and therefore slowly, and Katoptris and Estelle caught up to her in no time. Estelle leapt forward and grabbed Magnolia by the neck. Magnolia produced her sword from its leather sheath and shakily held it out, warning the two girls not to come any closer. Katoptris just laughed and kept stalking forward. Trembling, Magnolia lied that she was an excelled swordsman and that they would be sorry if they dared to attack her. She tried to put confidence into her words, but she was unable to convince the careers. Katoptris hurled her hatchet toward Magnolia's head with perfect form. She didn't have time to duck under the weapon, for she didn't notice it until it buried itself into her upper abdomen. The girl staggered down, coughing up blood, and her cannon shot was heard.

 _Magnolia Hilsbury, District 7 2nd Female: 29th, Killed by Katoptris, Day 2_

Meanwhile, about a hundred feet away, Cognac and Lavish were busy trying to corner Nyssa. Nyssa was a much better warrior than the dead Magnolia; she managed to fend off her attackers for a very long time. With her axe, she was able to do enough damage to Cognac that he had to retreat and care for his wound. That left only Lavish to take down the District 7 girl. Nyssa was remarkably talented with her weapon, but Lavish was more so, and in the end she stood no chance against him. After less than thirty seconds into their duel, Lavish got close enough to grab Nyssa by the neck and slam her axe out of her hand. Now disarmed, Nyssa could only squirm helplessly as Lavish scored up her chest with his sword. Estelle and Katoptris came into sight the instant that Nyssa's cannon shot rang, and the Paragons regrouped, reveling in their victory over the two District 7 allies. For the rest of the day, they saved up their medicine to help Cognac out with his injury, and by the end of the day he was up and running again. They were one united group of four once more, galloping back to their headquarters to prepare for more hunting.

 _Nyssa Oliphant, District 7 1st Female: 28th, Killed by Lavish, Day 2_

The rest of Day 2 wasn't greatly eventful. The Standards began their journey to the lovely mountain and finally began to climb it. About six hundred feet up, they spotted a stocky boy, Barker from 7, and they chased after him. Barker was agile, and the Standards lost him about five minutes into the chase. They all wanted to keep going up the mountain, but Scotia kept complaining that her feet were killing her. She wanted to rest, rest, rest, and the others wanted to hunt, hunt, hunt. Scotia was the weak link in their group, a very bad place to be. The other Standards kept refusing her annoying requests. Around noon, Imogen broke. She whipped out her trident and screamed to Scotia that she was a member of their group and that she'd better act like one. Scotia was taken aback, but, never wanting to see the glint of Imogen's trident ever again, stayed quiet for the rest of the day. Megara and Gypsum found that it wasn't safe to lounge around in the field of flowers, as the pollen was getting to their lungs and giving them scratchy throats and itchy eyes. They broke camp and kept combing through the woods in search of prey. They passed right under a snoozing Maysilee around two in the afternoon, but didn't see her. Gypsum spotted a tree of fuzzy yellow fruit and suggested that they build their shelter there, but Megara objected, wisely pointing out that the fruit was likely poisonous due to its bright coloring. Just to make a point, Megara touched the fruit. She hissed as the poison tingled away at her fingertips, causing the layer of skin to peel off whenever she moved too suddenly. They knew to steer clear of the fruit trees, though they hadn't yet caught on that literally everything in the arena was just as deadly.

Another cannon shot fired a few minutes before sunset. In the meadow, Helix was out and about, not wanting to stay in one place for fear that he would fade into the background. Helix discovered a lonely tree standing near the outskirts of the meadow, with a large nest in its lower bough. By the way the nest was falling apart, it looked abandoned. Helix sensed that it was dangerous, but curiosity got the best of him and he climbed up the tree to investigate. He peeked into the nest and jumped out of his skin at an earsplitting squawk. Three candy floss pink birds were roosting in the nest, and he had angered them. Helix slid down the tree trunk like a fireman's pole. The three carnivorous birds flew down to meet him. Helix screamed as one of the birds speared its beak through his neck before dragging him nearer to its comrades. He tried to swat away the birds, but one of them had shoved its sharp beak into his stomach. He was now bleeding out from two key points in his body, and the third bird finished him off, shoving its beak through one side of his head and out the other.

The birds backed away and waited in anticipation. The second his cannon shot faded away fully, the birds swarmed over him and went to town, chowing down on his mangled corpse and splattering his organs everywhere. Wisp had to draw the birds away with strong electrical pulses so that there would be some recognizable form of remains to send to Helix's family back in District 8.

 _Helix Johnson, District 8 1st Male: 27th, Killed by Bird Muttations, Day 2_

The morning of Day 3, those on the mountain began to hear faint rumbles from deep within the earth. They all had different explanations for these tremors, but none of them involved the mountain that was so breathtakingly beautiful turning lethal. Marshall and Fontana dismissed them as the grumbles of their hungry bellies and took up a search for food. When they found nothing, they were forced to eat the squishy moss that clung to the side of the feature. It was disgusting, though not poisonous, and it was the best sustenance they had had since the start of the games. Since Day 1, Socket had moved out of her little crevice and built a shelter of scrap wood. She was closer to the core of the volcano than any other tribute. Thus, she felt the rumbles the strongest, and her shelter collapsed around her. That couldn't be a good sign, Socket reasoned, and the grumbles from the earth were giving her the creeps. After an indecisive while, she packed up her meager possessions and began heading down the mountain. Socket had underestimated how long it would take, and she couldn't make it all the way down in just one day. Volt seemed to be a magnet for those spiny burrs. A particularly loud rumble shook him with fear so much that he fell straight into a bush of the horrible things. Once again, Volt was forced to pick them out one by one whilst the audience watched the disgusting process. Barker, close to the top of the mountain, was too caught up in a kind of arrogance to care about the rumbles. They probably didn't mean anything, right? Chenille was so engrossed in admiring the natural scenery of the mountain to care about the rumbles. From her little nest in the mountainside, nothing could hurt her.

The gem of the sun rose in the sky the morning of Day 4, and the duo of Marshall and Fontana were the first to wake. They awoke to loud rumbles, far too loud to be pegged as tummy problems now. They got up and walked the rest of the way up the mountain to investigate. The first plume of ash was mere feet from Marshall's face. Fontana watched by, dumfounded, as the top of the mountain rattled back and forth, breaking up and melting into liquid. The top of the mountain was liquefying under Marshall's feet, and there was nothing that he could do. He said a quick prayer that Fontana would be okay before dropping like a stone into the heart of the mountain, the first of many to be claimed by its evil, death-bringing hands.

 _Marshall Kuldell, District 10 2nd Male: 26th, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 4_

For a few seconds, Fontana stood, paralyzed with shock, as lava burbled from the top of the mountain, swirling across the ground and rushing down the sloped sides. She was startled out of the trance when a piece of red-hot lava came rushing toward her. Fontana turned around and sped down the side of the mountain that had once been so beautiful. She was a couple precious strides ahead of the lava, but she was zigzagging downward carefully and therefore slowly. She didn't travel ten meters before a plume of ash and smoke came billowing out of the mountain and blasted into the back of her head. Fontana was knocked forward, sent skidding down the mountainside. She came to a stop on a flat shelf of rock. Too tired and beaten up to carry on, Fontana was helpless as the lava consumed her, killing her in due time.

 _Fontana Gold, District 10 2nd Female: 25th, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 4_

The hungry lava flow kept speeding downward. Barker heard the vicious growls of the lava and had time to get a headstart, but not by much. Barker wasn't even a quarter of the way down the mountain when a plume of lava shot through a nearby rock and engulfed his left arm. Barker dropped his hatchet and toppled backward into the lava just as the first true eruption was about to begin.

 _Barker Luce, District 7 1st Male: 24th, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 4_

It was only a matter of time before the lava reached the camp of the Standards, who were contentedly snoozing away their morning with their weapons in their hands. Gladius was the first to wake, hastily rousing his allies and pointing out the ash that was billowing into the sky in all directions. Taking nothing but the bare necessities, the Standards raced down the slope as fast as their legs could carry them. Suddenly, so suddenly that nobody had time to react, the volcano screamed louder than ever before and blasted a column of lava nearly a mile into the sky. Evil black smoke spread everywhere, blocking out the sun for a scary moment. Ash rained down. The Standards breathed through their clothes, hoping to filter out some of the deadly particles in the air. A few minutes into their descent, Brackish collapsed. He had insisted on bringing his pack down the mountain with him, as it contained his tribute token, a family heirloom and his most prized possession. With the weight of the pack on his back, he was running much slower than the others. He was so exhausted that he collapsed into a heap. Soon, the careers were just specks running downward, abandoning him to save their own skins. Brackish fought to get out from under the pack's weight. His pupils as big as quarters, he slowly turned his head around to see a splash of lava and smoke flying downward toward him. The terrifying sight finally gave him the power to get back to his feet, but his victory didn't last long. The lava met up to the stumbling boy in to time, burying him under its molten surface.

 _Brackish Samuel, District 4 2nd Male: 23rd, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 4_

A few hundred feet downhill, the Standards kept zipping downward without looking back. They were nearly halfway down the mountain now. Imogen screamed when her foot fell into a small hole. She fell forward onto her face, immobile from the pain. Imogen called for the other Standards' help. All of them kept running… except Scotia. Scotia turned around and ran toward Imogen. She lifted her up out of the hole and let her use her body as a support as they hobbled downhill together. They were district partners, after all. What kind of honor was it if she was willing to leave Imogen behind to save herself? In all actuality, it was a big mistake. The duo had travelled about ten steps when an arm of lava came shooting out of the ground behind them. They didn't even flinch as the lava splashed over them and incinerated their bodies immediately.

 _Imogen Sands, District 4 1st Female: 22nd, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 4_

 _Scotia Yackle, District 4 2nd Female: 21st, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 4_

On the other side of the erupting volcano, Chenille received quite the shock. She was reclining in her safe little crevice when a plume of smoke came spiraling down from the sky and crashed into the earth in front of her. The force of the blow was enough to cause the ground under her to start liquefying. Chenille cried as she got to her feet and fought desperately to evade the oncoming tide of lava. She wasn't fast enough, though, and she plopped down into the volcano's fiery heart without a single word of goodbye to her loved ones back home.

 _Chenille Meyers, District 8 1st Female: 20th, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 4_

The three living Standards—Barnaby, Gladius, and Voyage—were speeding away from the lava when they spotted Volt thumping downhill a few yards ahead. Always the good career, Voyage hurled his spiked club toward Volt. The weapon crashed into his back and tore open a hundred tiny holes from which blood spouted. The spines from the burrs had been bad, but the ones from Voyage's club felt a million times worse. Volt keened in pain and careened sideways into a channel of flowing magma. He was swept away by the current and burned to a crisp.

 _Volt Rosario, District 5 1st Male: 19th, Killed by Voyage and Volcanic Eruption, Day 4_

Voyage kept running along with his two career friends. All of the sudden, his foot caught on an unseen rock and he was sent flying. He landed a few feet from the edge of the channel of burning lava. His body weight was unbalanced, and he was slowly sliding down into the red-hot molten rock. Voyage cried and grabbed onto his ally Gladius' shirt, begging him to hoist him upward. Voyage was pulled over the edge of the channel by Voyage's weight. Gladius was swallowed up by the lava, Voyage on top of him. Barnaby was all that was left of the once-powerful Standards now.

 _Gladius Sturman, District 2 2nd Male: 18th, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 4_

 _Voyage St. Paul, District 4 1st Male: 17th, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 4_

Socket from District 3 was a fast runner, but the lava was catching up to her fast. She was exhausted from running miles nonstop, and she knew that ultimately she could not outrun the lava to safety. Out of desperation, she ducked into a small fissure and placed her hands over her head as if it would bring her safety from the evil lava. The lava swirled down into the crevice, scorching her and her supplies. She was the second to last tribute to be killed in the eruption of the volcano.

 _Socket Olaf, District 3 1st Female: 16th, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 4_

The ground came into Barnaby's sight. He was so close to safety that he could taste it. In the volcanic eruption, a tree had been knocked over by a splash of lava a few hundred feet above where Barnaby was standing. The tree was now speeding down the side of the volcano toward the career boy. Barnaby glanced behind him and opened his mouth to scream, but he didn't have time. The tree smashed into him, flattening him against the rock like dough under a rolling pin.

 _Barnaby Capra, District 2 1st Male: 15th, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 4_

No more deaths occurred that day. Using new technology, the gamemakers did a good job of containing the ash from the volcano in the sector of the arena occupied by the mountain. In the forest and the meadow, there were still blue skies and sunshine. In the meadow, Steer's body fully recovered from the harm done to him by the poisonous water. Scared that the lava from the volcano might reach him, he decided to make the journey to the forest. Steer was unable to do this one day, settling down in a field of dandelions at nightfall to form his camp. Bethany and Camden ducked behind their only pack as if it could offer them protection from the horrific natural disaster on the other side of the arena. Bethany and Camden stuck like glue to the ground, their little bodies shaking fiercely with horror. It was a long time before the two allies spoke after that.

In the forest, there was a whole lot of movement stirred up by the distant eruption. Solomon wanted to get as far away from the volcano as possible, and after a few hours of travelling he sat down beside a bush of luscious red berries. Solomon laughed. He had caught on to the tricks of the arena. He didn't have to look twice to know that the berries were deadly. He turned himself away from them, instead feeding on a pack of bacon delivered to him by a sponsor. Around noon, Buck's foot got tangled in a bush covered with horrible spines. After a scary second of struggling to escape, he managed to tear his foot out of the bush, taking half of the spiny branches with it. It took hours to pick everything out. By the time he had finished with his work, Buck was sweating profusely. His hands were stained with blood. He wrapped his foot with a cloth to help quell the bleeding and prevent any infection. Clementine kept travelling around the arena, never staying in one place for long. A trio of the carnivorous gold squirrels chased him to a hill overlooking a swampy marsh, where he set up camp in an area of damp earth. The Paragons watched grimly as the faces of Barnaby, Gladius, Voyage, Brackish, Imogen, and Scotia were projected into the sky. All six of the Standards, killed by the volcano. The four District 1 tributes had a run-in with Solomon earlier that day. They had chased him through the trees but eventually lost him, and they were angrier than ever before. On Day 4, Haymitch began preparing to hunt down some of the other tributes. He was a strong boy; with his pack full of supplies and his two knives, he was an effective hunter. Haymitch didn't find any tributes in the entire day, though, and had to resume his hunt the next morning. Maysilee was incredibly resourceful with the few materials she had at hand. Putting her shirt over her hands to act like gloves, she found a highly poisonous pink fruit and squeezed its juice into her bowl. She dipped the tips of her darts of her blowgun into this poisonous solution, making them super-deadly.

Day 5 was greatly eventful, with two deaths. Maysilee, carrying her few supplies, was wandering through the wood, her blond hair rippling behind her. She stopped for a lunch break when the sun had reached its peak in the sky. That was when she noticed something peculiar. Maysilee could make out the form of Buck's camp a few yards away. He had laid out a tarp and put his supplies on top of it, including a pack and thermos of cool water. Buck himself was away hunting for food.

Maysilee crept forward to loot Buck's camp. Working swiftly, she picked up Buck's pack and swung it over her back. On one corner of the blanket, Maysilee found a package of medicine, half-empty. She pocketed the package, thinking it might be useful later. Maysilee produced her bowl of the poisonous pink fruit juice that she had been dipping her darts in. She unscrewed the cap of Buck's thermos and poured about half of the juice into the thermos. The juice sizzled upon contact with the water. Maysilee shook the thermos heavily a few times to mix in the poison and then ducked behind a copse of bushes.

Buck returned around an hour later, drenched in sweat. He had been attacked by a swarm of the golden squirrels, only barely surviving, and he had gotten no food. Buck was too exhausted to notice that his pack was gone. He knelt down and picked up the thermos, splashing the water over his face to cool down.

He immediately collapsed, the highly acidic solution eating away at his face and mouth. He staggered backward, retching and shaking. Within minutes, he was dead, and Maysilee fled into the forest.

 _Buck Valliance, District 10 1st Male: 14th, Killed by Maysilee, Day 5_

Haymitch kept up his hunt, striding silently through the trees with his knives in hand. Haymitch was just about to stop for the day when a softly flowing creek came into view. Kneeling on one side of the creek was Solomon. He set up his camp by the riverside. Haymitch had to admit that it was pretty smart. The clearing alongside the river was almost completely veiled by trees. Haymitch slowly pressed onward, the rocky sand of the riverbank crunching under his feet. Solomon heard him and looked upward. For a second, he was frozen with terror. Then, he got to his feet and ran.

Haymitch chased after him, lashing out with his cleaver and serrated dagger. About twelve minutes into the chase, Solomon collapsed with exhaustion, unable to run any further. Haymitch caught up to him and flipped his cleaver in his right hand, ready for battle. Solomon held out his hand, begging Haymitch not to kill him, but he wasn't listening. Haymitch thrust out his cleaver and raked a gash nearly a foot long across Solomon's torso. Solomon used the last ounces of his strength to scramble away, but he was getting slower and slower, his vision growing blurry due to the huge amounts of blood he was losing. Haymitch sealed his kill with a swipe of his dagger. Solomon's cannon sounded, and Haymitch treaded in the opposite direction, a torrent of emotions attacking him after making his first kill.

 _Solomon Mayre, District 3 2nd Male: 13th, Killed by Haymitch, Day 5_

The rest of the day passed in serenity, without any more deaths. In the meadow, Bethany and Camden had a run-in with a swarm of brightly colored butterflies. The delicate creatures chased after them with their stingers. The butterflies finally gave up, and the two were left glumly walking back to their home base half a mile away. In the forest, Clementine encountered one of the candy floss pink birds, expertly killing it with a large stone to impress the sponsors. The minute after, one of them sent him a dagger. He played with the weapon for the rest of the day, flipping it around and cutting up shoots and leaves to occupy himself. Gypsum and Megara lost each other around noon. They were separate for about two hours before finally finding each other again.

A few minutes before six in the evening that day, the Paragons faced a loss. They wanted to get a good night's sleep for the long day of hunting they had planned for the day after. Katoptris waited for her allies to be asleep. Then, she got to her feet, lofted her hatchet, and ran. She was always planning to split off from the alliance at the final twelve, wanting to go solo and pick off the last few outliers one by one. Once Katoptris placed a substantial distance between herself and the other Paragons, she settled down to rest amidst the chirping of the forest crickets.

The Paragons had a relatively mild reaction when they woke on Day 6 to find that Katoptris was missing. Cognac in particular was tired of her always bossing them around. Estelle was a little disappointed, as she had developed a good friendship with Katoptris. Lavish had been secretly hoping that Katoptris would break off from the alliance, as he actually kind of feared her.

Haymitch was drilling through the forest when he spotted movement in the corner of his eye. It was the Paragons. The Paragons were engaged in conversation and didn't see him. Haymitch had time to duck behind a rock, not wanting to be attacked. The Paragons went right past. Realizing how vulnerable he was on the ground, Haymitch climbed up a nearby willow tree and set up his home in its lowest bough.

It was about two hours before sunset that the Paragons began walking back to their camp for the night. Lavish shushed his allies and used his sword to point out Haymitch, snoozing in the willow tree's embrace. Lavish ran to the tree and scurried upward, clutching onto his sword so he didn't drop it. Estelle came up behind him, with Cognac staying on the forest floor to deal with Haymitch if he fell out of the tree.

A leaf crunched under Lavish' foot, and Haymitch's eyes bolted open. He turned his head slowly to the side and witnessed the terrifying sight of Lavish reaching his sword toward his throat. Haymitch unbuckled himself and dropped out of the tree. Lavish and Estelle cursed and dropped down after him. Haymitch ran a few yards into the wood, zigzagging to disorient his predators. Once he had a significant distance, he turned around, ready for battle.

Lavish hurled himself at Haymitch, slashing at his abdomen with his sword. Haymitch managed to sidestep, but only just in time. His sword grazed his shoulder, drawing a few drops of blood. In response, Haymitch lashed out and raked his dagger across Lavish's arm. He crumpled to the grass, out of the way for now. Haymitch hissed in agitation as Estelle and Cognac came galumphing forward. Estelle hurled a throwing star, which Haymitch batted out of the way with his cleaver. He could keep his attackers at bay, but not for long.

Lavish was back on his feet in no time, zipping toward a heavily sweating and shaking Haymitch. Lavish swung his sword, but Haymitch deflected his blow. Sparks flew between his cleaver and Lavish's sword as their weapons scraped against each other. Finally, Haymitch managed to disarm Lavish, expertly twisting his sword out of his hand. The sword dropped to the ground. Haymitch kicked Lavish down. He staggered to the ground, coughing up blood. In his descent, Haymitch slashed his serrated dagger across his throat. He hit the ground, gurgling. Blood pooled up in his mouth. One Paragon down, two to go.

 _Lavish Bianchi, District 1 1st Male: 12th, Killed by Haymitch, Day 6_

Estelle was charging, swirling her throwing stars through the air at incredible speeds. Haymitch was intimidated, but he had no choice but to keep fighting. His life depended on it, after all. Haymitch swiped his two knives in front of him in an attempt to deflect any blows that Estelle might deal. Estelle got a little carried away on her second hit. Caught up in an attempt to impress the sponsors, she spun around on her foot to gain momentum before tossing her next shuriken. In that moment, Haymitch managed to plant his cleaver between her shoulder blades. She went toppling down toward Haymitch, screaming, but he managed to sidestep. Haymitch had pierced one of Estelle's vital arteries; by the time she hit the ground with a loud noise, she was dead.

 _Estelle Adams, District 1 2nd Female: 11th, Killed by Haymitch, Day 6_

Haymitch didn't even have time to scream when a strong hand grabbed onto the back of his neck. In all the commotion, he had completely forgotten about Cognac. Cognac had arced around Haymitch. Cognac wrestled Haymitch to the ground, putting in every ounce of strength he had. Haymitch pushed upward with all of his strength as well. Cognac unsheathed his sword and pressed it into a shaking Haymitch's neck. He was about to slit his throat when Haymitch rolled out of the way. Cognac cursed and leapt back on top of him. This time, he wouldn't let him escape. Haymitch fought to escape, but Cognac had his bloody wrists and ankles pinned down. Cognac forced his sword further and further into Haymitch's neck. The skin broke. Blood promptly burbled forth.

Nearby Maysilee perked up at the commotion. She went running toward the sounds and hid behind a beech tree, watching the scene. Haymitch was straining as hard as he could. Blood was splashing down either side of his neck. Cognac smirked, confident that he had Haymitch in the bag. Maysilee raised her blowgun. She put one of her poisonous darts into the gun and put the pipe to her lips. Maysilee blew as hard as she could. The projectile zipped through the air.

Haymitch was just about to give up fighting against Cognac when his form suddenly went limp. Cognac reached for the back of his neck and pulled out Maysilee's dart, covered in cloudy pink liquid. Cognac's eyes widened with surprise. He never figured out where the dart came from, because his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed on top of Haymitch, dead.

 _Cognac Favre, District 1 2nd Male: 10th, Killed by Maysilee, Day 6_

Maysilee stepped out of the trees, her mouth set into a solid line. "We'd live longer with the two of us," she said, gesturing toward Cognac's corpse, still clutching the dart that ended his life. She reached out and grabbed his hand before helping him to his feet. The two were both dirty, and Haymitch was splattered in blood. Maysilee and Haymitch sat down on a rock and discussed how the games had been going so far. In doing so, they had formed an alliance. With two eight-scoring District 12 tributes working together, they got an incredible amount of work done. They shared their supplies with each other, and a nice sponsor delivered Haymitch treatment for the wound Cognac had inflicted on his neck. He couldn't speak well for the rest of the day, so he had to use hand gestures to communicate with Maysilee. They discovered an area where four trees had fallen around a hole, creating a hidden area inside. They crawled inside of it. In their fortress with wooden walls, Haymitch and Maysilee recounted their lives back home and got to know each other.

The rest of Day 6 wasn't greatly eventful. Katoptris was attacked by a swarm of butterflies, but managed to evade them by swatting them away with her hatchet. Clementine was moving through the forest when he saw the duo of Megara and Gypsum about twenty feet away. Clementine turned tail and ran away, only stopping after he had run several miles. The duo kept on dutifully hunting, though their day was trailing more toward conversation than hunting. They were basically goofing off. Gypsum's sponsor Brutus sent her a note that they needed to get back on track, and from then on they did their best to heed the warning.

In the meadow, Steer began to set up a series of snares to garner food and keep himself healthy. He was very resourceful, creating a mechanism in which the pulling apart of two sticks by the leg of an animal caused of of the sticks to fly into the air, bound around the animal's foot. He worked feverishly for the entire day. He had set up a total of twenty snares by sunset. This far into the games, Bethany and Camden were beginning to grow more and more distrustful of each other. They wanted to work together, but each tribute knew that they'd have to either kill each other or split up at some point. It was only a matter of time. They weren't hurting each other, but they were growing reluctant to turn their backs to each other.

Day 7, 8, and 9 passed deathless, the most boring and lifeless days that the second Quarter Quell had seen yet. Progress slowed to a crawl. Clementine kept up his wandering aimlessly through the woods with his dagger. Whilst fidgeting with the weapon, he accidentally cut himself at one point, the razor sinking nearly a centimeter into his skin. Seeder sent him a pot of cream to help the wound along, but only time could really heal it completely. Megara and Gypsum kept on hunting. After over a week of finding no prey, they gave up hunting in the forest and resorted to the meadow. The two girls reached the meadow on Day 9 and settled down at the long-abandoned cornucopia. For those outliers living in the meadow, there was now another threat. Bethany and Camden finally split apart, Bethany heading north and Camden heading south. It was already too far into the games for an alliance like theirs to keep going, and many were relieved to see them split up. Bethany had an encounter with a fuzzy yellow songbird, which she cut down with her knife. Camden settled down beside a small pond surrounded by heavenly reeds. He absentmindedly began crunching on the reeds and immediately spat them out. They were extremely poisonous, and the inside of his mouth was severely damaged. Haymitch and Maysilee were the only outliers actively hunting, and they struggled to find the two other tributes in the forest.

On the morning of Day 10, Megara and Gypsum finally got around to hunting through the meadow. Megara jumped as she stepped into one of Steer's snares. The contraption gave a little snapping sound underfoot. She pointed it out to Megara. The two girls found an obvious trail of snares, and they followed them, wherever they may lead.

After a few minutes of running down the line of snares, Megara and Gypsum spotted Steer. He was drenched with sweat. He was bent over, working to set up yet another snare trap. He didn't even notice the duo charging toward him until it was too late. Gypsum's knife crashed into his back. Steer screamed and prepared to run in the opposite direction, but he turned around just as Megara's knife entered his torso. The blade lodged itself between two of his ribs and pierced his heart. He was left blubbering nonsensically and clawing at the air. Steer was dead within seconds. Megara and Gypsum didn't destroy his snares, as they planned on using them in the future.

 _Steer Peterson, District 12 1st Male: 9th, Killed by Gypsum and Megara, Day 10_

That left the final eight: Katoptris Parker from District 1, Megara Pearden and Gypsum Shale from District 2, Bethany Corzett from District 5, Camden Larfarello from District 6, Clementine Applegate from District 11, and Haymitch Abernathy and Maysilee Donner from District 12.

Little of consequence filled the latter portion of Day 10. Haymitch and Maysilee (their alliance fittingly nicknamed "Haysilee" by viewers) went to scouting the outermost reaches of the forest, close to the force field. Wisp, not wanting them to discover the force field, drove them back into the woods with a pack of the golden squirrel mutts. One of them had bitten Maysilee in the ankle, and the allies stayed still for the rest of the day to rinse the injury clean. Katoptris was the only active hunter throughout the day. The only outlier on her radar was Clementine. He was less than a mile away from her, scavenging the forest for food. Clementine cut down a deer with his dagger and sliced up its meat into little cubes for later. In the meadow, Camden began heading for the forest. He was out looking for a drink of water when he saw Megara and Gypsum about a hundred yards away, treading lightly over the fuzzy green grass. With the mountain a forsaken wasteland and the meadow being patrolled by the duo, Camden decided to head for the forest. He couldn't make the trip in one day, however, and had to stop for the night. Bethany had an encounter with one of the pink bird mutts. She managed to kill it without any injuries. It was somewhat impressive. A sponsor sent her an axe along with a note cryptically warning her to evacuate the meadow as soon as possible. Wisp wanted every tribute in the forest for a satisfying finish to the games. Other than the District 2 duo, she was the only one left in the meadow. Bethany simply discarded the note, too enraptured by the concept of the axe. She practiced with it all day, having no idea how much danger she was in.

Day 11 was filled with little but Camden's arrival in the forest. He broke camp at dawn and trudged through the tall grass, avoiding swarms of butterflies and pink birds. Just on the edge of the forest, he fashioned a shelter and prepared to hunt for food. The duo of Megara and Gypsum received a note warning them to travel back to the forest. They heeded the warning, reaching the first line of trees just before sunset. Katoptris was strolling through the wood with her axe in pursuit of more prey. She crested a large hill overlooking a field of birch trees and leaned against a sturdy tree. Suddenly, the ground gave way beneath her and she went tumbling down the hill. In her descent, her axe scraped across her leg. A sponsor sent Katoptris a bandage to help staunch the blood flow. She dragged herself into a more hidden location and fell limp onto the ground, trying to quiet her moans of agony.

Day 12 came about with a single death. In the forest, Camden was out hunting for food when he arrived at the base of a steep crag. At the same moment, Haymitch and Maysilee reached the top of the cliff and pointed out his body, as small as an ant, moving below them. Maysilee ran around to where the land was more level and went sprinting downward toward Camden. Haymitch was right behind her, and the two parties clashed in the middle of the field of grass.

Maysilee immediately loaded a dart into her blowgun and started aiming for Camden. The boy screamed with panic and ran away as fast as his feet could carry him. Haymitch and Maysilee sprinted after. Haymitch tried to cut open his back with his cleaver, but he missed by several inches. This gave Camden the false impression that the two allies were bad shots, so he decided to take a foolish risk.

Camden veered off of his straight course and headed for a steeper hill. He zigzagged up the grassy slope, making himself a harder target to hit. However, his small body got tired of running uphill before long. The backs of his legs burned like they were on fire, and he was so exhausted, his was worried he could black out. He crumpled to the grass in a heap. He was only halfway up the steep hill, and he had done little to disorient his attackers.

Maysilee fired at the boy's pathetic form, her dart landing in the back of his hand. Haymitch dove forward ahead of his ally and went in for close-range with his two knives. A slice of his dagger was all it took to draw a huge amount of blood. The sticky red liquid splattered over the terrain like water. Camden couldn't scream out for help, only wept quietly and shook. The allies took a quick moment to pillage Camden of his meager supplies before marching off to look for more prey.

 _Camden Larfarello, District 6 1st Male: 8th, Killed by Maysilee and Haymitch, Day 12_

The remainder of the day wasn't very eventful. Megara and Gypsum walked past Clementine's shelter around noon. He did a great job of keeping quiet, and the duo didn't see him there. Time and a whole lot of sponsored help got Katoptris back into shape, and she was her usual self again before long. Her top priority was to hunt down Megara and Gypsum, the only two surviving careers besides herself. Knowing that they liked hit-and-run tactics, Katoptris searched the low-lying areas of the woods. Wisp sent a flock of blue songbirds to chase her toward the two allies. She was less than a hundred feet from them when she decided to stop hunting for the night.

Dawn broke on Day 13, and Katoptris kept on actively hunting. Her effort paid off. A smile plastered across her face, she used her finger to follow the two forms of Megara and Gypsum travelling soundlessly over the earth. Katoptris charged, her axe lofted overhead.

Gypsum screamed as Katoptris burst into sight, racing through the wood. She unsheathed her sword and prepared to battle. After over ten days without using her sword, Gypsum was extremely out of practice. Even with the help of her friend Megara, she ultimately stood no chance against Katoptris. The girl from District 1 lunged forward and clanged her axe against Gypsum's sword. The sword was sent flying away. Now disarmed, Gypsum couldn't find back. Katoptris lunged forward and slammed her hatchet into her skull, nearly cleaving it completely in half. Megara jumped backward, a newfound anger festering every vein in her body as she watched her ally take on a mangled, blood-lathered shape on the forest floor.

 _Gypsum Shale, District 2 2nd Female: 7th, Killed by Katoptris, Day 13_

Megara backed a few feet away before charging toward a grinning Katoptris. Seeking to avenge her friend's death, Megara danced around the skilled warrior, preparing for an attack. Megara thrust out her sword, almost managing to draw blood from Katoptris' shoulder. The blade was an inch from piercing her skin when she reached up her hatchet and slammed it out of the way, bending the tip of the weapon by an angle of a few degrees.

Megara leapt backward, shocked at the amount of force Katoptris was dealing with. In her moment of surprise, Katoptris took initiative. She leapt toward Megara and tackled her to the ground. The two rolled around together, each one trying to pin the other down. They were both very strong, and after two minutes they were both covered with grass, bugs, and dirt.

After nearly ten minutes, Megara managed to fire the tip of her sword into Katoptris' cheek. A waterfall of blood poured out, drizzling down her chin and into her mouth. Katoptris flooded with adrenaline. Her looks were where she got most of her sponsors from. With her pretty face scratched up, her look was ruined. Out of the blue, Katoptris clutched her hatchet and thrust it down into Megara's torso stronger than should have been humanly possible, stronger than usual from the anger. Katoptris tore her hatchet out of her body and staggered away, savoring every moment of watching her bleed to death. Her cannon shot awoke much of the forest wildlife. Katoptris marched away smugly, the only remaining career in the second Quarter Quell.

 _Megara Pearden, District 2 1st Female: 6th, Killed by Katoptris, Day 13_

The rest of Day 13 passed without any more deaths. Clementine kept walking through the woods. He was getting closer and closer to the force field. The gamemakers drove him back into the forest with a swarm of carnivorous bunnies. He found that the only way to escape them was to climb the trees. He pulled himself up into the bough of an oak tree, the rabbits clawing at the trunk below him. He could do nothing but wait for the rabbits to leave. Haymitch and Maysilee were getting closer and closer to the edge of the arena. They were less than a mile from the force field when they set up their new camp. They were dangerously close to the force field. Wisp could have smote them right then. But, he wanted to mix in some action to the competition. He decided to sit back and let the rest of the games play out as they may. This mistake would prove costly for him in the future.

The morning of Day 14, Haymitch insisted that they keep on trekking in the same direction. Maysilee refused, asking why they would have any reason to. He replied that he wanted to see what was at the edge of the arena. Maybe something they could use.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, the land dropped off into a deep chasm. On the other side of the chasm was a simple green field, seemingly stretching on forever.

"That's all there is, Haymitch," Maysilee said. "Let's go back now."

Haymitch shook his head, wanting to stay put and investigate further. That was when Maysilee turned around and strolled away. "It's best that we split up now. I don't want it to come down to the two of us." Before long, Maysilee had disappeared into the thick woods with her blowgun and pack of supplies.

Haymitch groaned with frustration. He had been expecting something exciting to be at the edge of the arena! In anger, he kicked a stone off the side of the chasm. The stone sailed downward into the mist. Haymitch turned around and started walking back when the stone hit the forcefield, bounced off, and came shooting back. The stone hit Haymitch in the back of the head. He laughed and turned back around, experimentally tossing another rock. This rock had the same result, hitting the forcefield and landing at his feet the moment after.

This could be useful, Haymitch thought. He was so fascinated that all thoughts of Maysilee had disappeared from his mind.

He went running the moment he heard her screams.

He broke through the trees and found Maysilee less than thirty feet away. A swarm of the fluffy pink birds were stabbing her with their razor-sharp beaks. Haymitch shooed the birds away. Several of them squawked at the sight of Haymitch's two knives and fluttered up into the canopy of leaves above. He ran forward and tried to help Maysilee cut down the remaining birds, but one of them skewered its sharp beak through her neck before flying away.

Maysilee tumbled backward. Haymitch caught her and slowly helped her down the ground. She clutched her throat, blood pouring out between her fingertips. Haymitch felt completely helpless when he realized there was nothing he could do to help her. She kept on crying and shaking on the ground, and Haymitch held her hand and whispered her words of comfort until she died.

 _Maysilee Donner, District 12 1st Female: 5th, Killed by Bird Muttations, Day 14_

Haymitch knelt beside the dead Maysilee for a long time before getting to his feet. If he wanted to make sure she didn't die in vain, it was his duty to win the games, not just lay around and grieve. Realizing that her death had been a punishment for their getting too close to the force field, Haymitch retreated and moved toward the center of the arena to look for more prey. With so few tributes remaining, Clementine had no choice but to start hunting for real. Clutching his dagger at all times, he travelled due east. Knowing that prey was unlikely to be hiding in the meadow, he combed through the forest to the best of his ability. Katoptris travelled silently over roots and the carpet of grass in pursuit of the few remaining tributes. The closest tribute to her was Clementine, and it was likely that the two would meet up before long. In the meadow, Bethany was going about her business when a whole flock of poisonous green songbirds swooped down from the sky and chased her into the woods. She set up her camp just into the trees, not ready to get into the thick of the action quite yet.

The morning of Day 15 came with a bang in the form of a cannon shot from the woods. Katoptris was drilling through an area of uneven terrain when she spotted Clementine about thirty yards away. Holding her axe above her head, Katoptris charged toward the boy.

Clementine noticed Katoptris coming early and had time to react. His first instinct was to hide, just as he had done throughout the entire games up to that point. The problem was, there was nothing to hide behind. The closest thing was a nearby tree, and that was far too slender to shield his entire bulky frame from view. He shakily unsheathed his dagger, unsure of what lie ahead.

Katoptris was an extremely talented fighter. At first, it seemed that Clementine had no hope of victory. Her first swing caused the blade of her hatchet to slide across his hand, literally chopping off one of his fingers. He screamed and realized just how unfit he was for this battle. Clementine had no choice but to run. He was a fast runner, even faster than Katoptris. With the pain radiating from the stump of his missing finger, his movements weren't very coordinated, thus leveling the playing field. Clementine collapsed from exhaustion beside a small stream, unable to move any further.

Katoptris caught up to him and slammed the butt of her hatchet into his head. He yelped and tried to drag himself away, nearly blacking out. Katoptris seduced him by slicing off his right arm with one clean swipe of her hatchet. The poor boy was in ribbons by the time that the wildly grinning girl was done.

 _Clementine Applegate, District 11 1st Male: 4th, Killed by Katoptris, Day 15_

That left only three surviving tributes. Katoptris and Haymitch were two of the strongest tributes of the year, and Wisp was looking forward to a thrilling final battle between the two. That left Bethany, standing several miles away from the other tributes. Her odds were the worst of the three. Since she wasn't notable for anything much, she was standing in the way of much grander things. By the next morning, it was clear that Wisp had made a decision regarding Bethany. It was rare for gamemakers to pick out a final two, but in a games as precious and critical as these they couldn't take any chances.

Bethany was out and about when she heard scuttling from nearby. She drew her hatchet and ducked behind a small bush, waiting to attack until she knew more information about her pursuer. Bounding toward her was a trio of the golden squirrel mutts. They could see her clearly through the bush. The largest of the squirrels bared its buck teeth and bit onto her leg. Bethany screamed and tried to pick it off of her skin. A second squirrel quickly caught up. In its approach, the shimmering golden squirrel got its foot stuck in a patch of moss, and Bethany cleaved it in half with her hatchet. The third squirrel leapt toward her and clung onto her stomach, tearing open a hole just right of her navel. The two squirrels were now gnawing away at her flesh. The pain was indescribable, but Bethany fought her hardest to keep going strong.

She went for the one hanging onto her leg first. The squirrel had bitten through her tribute uniform and was now gnawing through her flesh, slurping down her blood in a rather disturbing manner. Bethany reached down with her hatchet and prepared to kill the creature, but it began scuttling up her leg. She was so distracted trying to take down that squirrel that she forgot about the one feeding on her torso.

Bethany was overwhelmed by the two squirrels. Before long, she was rolling around on the forest floor and thrashing wildly in hopes of knocking away the squirrels. They always managed to jump away from her hatchet. The carnivorous rodents kept nibbling away at her until nothing was left but a pile of scraps. Bethany's remains were unsightly, and the gamemakers cleaned them up quickly.

 _Bethany Corzett, District 5 1st Female: 3rd, Killed by Squirrel Muttations, Day 16_

The crowd of forty-eight players had been whittled down to the final two. It contained the two most beloved tributes of the year. Katoptris was one of the most skilled warriors that District 1's academy had seen in its history. If she won, she would have a total of nine kills, which only Molly, Magnet, and Brutus had beaten. She would bring District 1 its seventh victor, another step toward overtaking District 4 in terms of victor count. Haymitch, though, was the true underdog. Living with his mother in the slums of District 12 after his father perished in a mine collapse, he certainly had a much harsher backstory than Katoptris. He had much of District 12 cheering for him, however. They had their hopes up for a second victor, the first one in forty-five years. Haymitch had perservered through the two week-long games, and it wasn't too remote of a possibility that he could pull out the win.

On Day 17, the world was lit ablaze. Fires started behind each of the tributes, forcing them in toward each other. The two clashed in a clearing laden with flowers and small stones, with a perfect view of the glittering sun. Katoptris hoisted her axe into the air, letting the sun glisten across its polished blade, and brought it down toward Haymitch. He was doing his best to fight back, but he quickly became overwhelmed by the speed of her attacks.

About three minutes into their duel, Haymitch's aim was true. He thrust forward his knife and gored it through her eye. Katoptris screamed as the slimy ball plopped to the ground. Pain exploded through her face, but she kept on fighting, angrier than ever. Her very next blow sent Haymitch's dagger spiraling away, and the one after disarmed him of his cleaver. He was defenseless.

Katoptris was on a roll. Haymitch was too startled to react when she landed her hatchet squarely into his torso. Haymitch keened in pain, both of his hands clapped over his body to keep his organs inside. Katoptris smirked, blood drizzling into her mouth from the gaping hole where her left eye once was. Victory was so close that she could taste it.

Haymitch had no choice but to run. Leaning forward to keep the flow of blood from his body to a minimum, he crashed through the trees, having no objective in mind but to escape his pursuer.

After nearly ten minutes of running, Haymitch arrived at the edge of the chasm that he had discovered all those days ago. The pile of rocks that he had thrown into the force field still sat, untouched, at the edge of the gorge. Haymitch reached the edge of the chasm and turned around to face a charging Katoptris. She had one hand clapped over her face to staunch the flow of blood from her empty eye socket, but her other hand was gripping her hatchet.

With all of her might, Katoptris hurled the hatchet toward Haymitch. With the last ounce of energy he had, Haymitch ducked below the hatchet. The throwing axe sailed over his head, singing off a few of his stray curls. The weapon flew on its path before disappearing over the chasm. Katoptris just giggled, imagining herself wearing the victor's crown. She no longer had her weapon, but she didn't need it. Haymitch would die from his wound soon enough. All she had to do was wait…

…Or so she thought. The axe that Katoptris had thrown mere moments prior hit the forcefield and was sent rebounding back. The weapon went flying back over the chasm toward an unsuspecting Katoptris. The girl was too shocked to sidestep before the axe buried itself perfectly into her skull. Katoptris fell to her knees beside a heaving Haymitch, gasping.

The two tributes lay beside each other for several minutes. It was a competition of who could last the longest. Katoptris had been so close to victory, but, in the end, her wound was far more severe than that of her final opponent. The symphony of trumpets began blaring their festive melody the second that her cannon shot faded away fully.

 _Katoptris Parker, District 1 1st Female: 2nd, Killed by Herself, Day 17_

"Haymitch Abernathy of District 12, you are the victor of the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, the second Quarter Quell," Caesar cried.

Haymitch only managed a weak smile as a team of medics began pouring out of the hovercraft to put back together the mess of a person that was the nation's newest victor.

 _Haymitch Abernathy, District 12 2nd Male: Victor of the Fiftieth Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell, Day 17_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 12 welcomed their second victor with open arms. Since he was their only living victor, tributes from the mining district would finally have a mentor, a fact that offered hope for a bright future. However, he was also a source of great controversy in the districts and in the Capitol. Snow was absolutely furious. He had never intended for the force field surrounding the arena to be used by the tributes. By using the force field to kill Katoptris, he had publically outsmarted the Capitol. The week after his victory tour, his mother and girlfriend mysteriously disappeared. This was no coincidence. It was a warning from Snow. He couldn't keep testing his luck the way he had in his games. Wisp Glasgow received the severest of penalties for allowing such a defiant act to take place under his watch. Snow ordered his most trusted assassin to execute the man.

His victory tour was rather great. It pleased the districts immensely to see their Capitol humiliated. Therefore, many had a great respect for the District 12 boy. The only district that showed him hardship was District 1. The people of the luxury district literally shouted curses and threw things at him to show their fury.

Haymitch settled into the Victor's Village of District 12.

Haymitch would live to the age of sixty, dying from liver disease around the time of the ninety-fourth annual Hunger Games. He developed a dependence on alcohol, finding that getting black-out drunk was the only way to quiet his demons. He wasted away the years at the bottom of a bottle, and he developed into a poor example of a victor. He made good friends with fellow alcoholic victor Chaff, one of the most beneficial relationships he would make in his life. Haymitch would never marry nor have children, fearing that Snow would take out his wrath on anyone new he learned to love. He went down in history as one of the more rebellious thinkers to survive the games. If nothing else, he proved that there was a flaw in the Capitol's ways. To this day, Haymitch remains a source of controversy and conversation amongst Hunger Games fans across Panem.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Haymitch moves into the Victor's Village of District 12, the second victor to do so.

Lana Voltaire has her first and only child with her husband, a boy named Maximillian.

Nolan Wrack marries his fiancée Silt after two years of dating.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)

* * *

 **A/N: Here it is! This is the longest chapter by a wide margin, over 2,000 words longer than the second longest games! 16,000 words, a two week-long games, and I'm, well, exhausted. This is likely my favorite chapter to date, and I sincerely hope you've enjoyed.**

 **Who did you like besides Haymitch and Maysilee? Speaking of the duo, what'd you think about my rendition of them? Any scenes you liked or disliked? I'd love to hear your thoughts. These words are probably getting really old by now, but please review if you have the time! It's what I want to entertain all of you dutiful readers and grow as a writer on this site, and I try my best to take each piece of criticism to heart. In reflection of the eight months I've been writing this story, it's been a long but thrilling ride. I've made so many relationships with users on this website and grown so much as a writer. I can't thank you guys enough for sticking with me through this journey. You're all amazing!**

 **Expect the fifty-first games soon, when we get to see yet another familiar face, Lyme. I've got a really unique arena planned for that one, and I can't wait to share it with you all! One last time, thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time! :D**


	52. The 51st Hunger Games

**The 51st Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

With the mysterious disappearance of Head Gamemaker Wisp Glasgow, the nation of Panem was in turmoil. Despite President Snow's best efforts to control the frequent Capitol riots, he was nearly powerless against a tide of thousands of angry citizens. The Capitolites were absolutely furious. Over the several years he had served as head gamemaker, they had grown to love him and his personality. They urged Snow to investigate Wisp's disappearance. He sent out a search party to hunt day and night for the man for weeks until they simply gave up, all while Snow smugly knew that Wisp was dead, with a bullet in his head. With the Capitol left with no choice but to embrace the unexplainable disappearance of their Wisp Glasgow, Snow turned to his signature strategy. Bread and circuses. Give them entertainment and the most luxurious things money could buy, and they'd forget about what the real problems were. After sifting through the thousands of auditions for new Head Gamemaker, Snow couldn't decide between three final candidates. To add a little something unique, Snow instilled a rule. Each of these three talented people would serve as head gamemaker for two years. After that, a vote amongst Capitol citizens would decide which of the three would take the full-time job. The first candidate was a lanky and clever man named Feodore Elliot. He was the youngest candidate, scarcely thirty. Feodore was a huge history buff and preferred games based on real-life events from the past. His favorite kind of games were those that were short and sweet, starting small and quickly crescendoing into action-packed finales. The second candidate was Reyna Bayer, the CEO of a very popular Capitol fashion brand. Her artistic eye was the chief reason she caught Snow's eye. Reyna enjoyed Hunger Games with a wide crop of strong fighters and large supplies of weapons at the cornucopia. She also liked big, messy bloodbaths. The third and final candidate was fifty years of age, the oldest of the trio, though he fared remarkable well for his age. This James Stradivarius fellow loved games with harsh arenas, where the victor emerges by outlasting the others in rough natural conditions. With Feodore, Reyna, James, and their teams of supporting gamemakers feuding to create the grandest arenas and muttations the games had ever seen, the next six games were sure to be among the best yet.

Mr. Feodore Elliot, candidate number one, took his turn as head gamemaker this year. As a big history buff, he started by brainstorming a list of famous events from the past that would make for exciting games when recreated in the modern day. He wanted the arena to be unparalleled by anything that would come before or after it. Unparalleled. Undefeatable. _Unsinkable_. The arena of the fifty-first Hunger Games was an exact replica of the RMS Titanic, a massive ship build by the White Star Line in 1912, just over two-hundred years prior. The ship was so grand that many dared to call it unsinkable. However, one cold April night on its maiden voyage, the ship scraped against an iceberg in the north Atlantic ocean. Within three hours, the ship had completely sunk, plunging its thousands of passengers into the dark, freezing ocean. It was a disaster that had always fascinated Feodore, and he couldn't wait to get ready. Feodore read all of the books and websites he could find and consulted hundreds of experts to make his recreation of the great ship as authentic as possible. Just like the original Titanic, the ship's length from bow to stern was 882 feet. It had ten decks in total. The highest deck was known as Boat Deck. The one below that was A Deck, then B Deck, then C Deck, and so on. G Deck was the lowest deck used by passengers. Below G Deck was a space used for cargo, and below that were the boiler rooms. The cornucopia was located at the base of the grand staircase, undoubtedly the most famous part of the Titanic. The elegant staircase ran from E Deck all the way up to Boat Deck. Almost every room on the ship was breathtakingly beautiful. The liner ran by itself, chugging across the sparkling ocean as if nothing could stop it. But everyone knew what stood directly in its path…

This year had one of the stronger career packs. District 1's tributes were both neighbors, and in fact good friends. The male was the weaker of the duo this year, a lesser in weaponry but a mischievous trickster. He was dangerously clever and mysterious. The female was more dainty and passionate, a beauty as always, and a master of close-range combat. District 2 produced the strongest pair this year. They weren't to the level of Stego and Tori from the forty-ninth Hunger Games, but they were close. The male was as fast as an arrow and nearly impossible to catch. He was also a great multitasker and confident warrior, a formidable swordsman. The female was tall, muscular, and rather masculine in appearance. She was up to the challenge of ramming against the toughest of opponents in the games. District 4's tributes, as usual, were the weakest duo. The male had a lack of training compared to the others, though he did have a knack for knives and a charismatic persona that made him one to remember. His district partner scored the lowest this year, with a meager eight. She was somewhat clumsy, but in a cute way. Their training scores were of note, with two tens, three nines, and a single eight.

The fifty-first Hunger Games also had a strong crop of outliers, guaranteeing that this would be a roller coaster of a Hunger Games. The shrewd Bonsai from District 7 scored an astonishing eight. She blew the other outliers out of the water with her mastery of the axe and her skills with snares and other traps. Hemlock of 7, Organza of 8, Paloma from 10, and Tristan from 12 all earned sevens. The rest of the tributes earned between six and three in their private sessions. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Lotion Wiles, 16, (9) 8-1 and Chiffon Janecki, 17, (9) 8-1

District 2: Pumice Badnersh, 18, (10) 4-1 and Lyme Mabbett, 16, (10) 5-1

District 3: Buzzer Magubane, 14, (4) 36-1 and Bonnie Toole, 16, (5) 23-1

District 4: Hull McKay, 17, (9) 8-1 and Melanie Hazlitt, 17, (8) 9-1

District 5: Hestor Sekimofto, 14, (5) 31-1 and Ixabel Centore, 13, (3) 44-1

District 6: Stanley Dupioni, 18, (6) 22-1 and Ariel Vermeule, 17, (4) 33-1

District 7: Hemlock Milsosz, 15, (7) 15-1 and Bonsai Davenport, 18, (8) 10-1

District 8: Suede Wynn-Jones, 12, (3) 43-1 and Organza Indigo, 14, (7) 16-1

District 9: Dinkel Paulson, 17, (6) 22-1 and Cider Lake, 17, (5) 24-1

District 10: Jonah Allaway, 18, (6) 21-1 and Paloma Reagan, 18, (7) 18-1

District 11: Waverly Brown, 13, (4) 39-1 and Peony Atil, 12, (3) 40-1

District 12: Tristan Luckacher, 18, (7) 15-1 and Laurel Yanny, 17, (6) 21-1

HGBO Bets: 8% on Pumice and Lyme, 7% on Lotion, Chiffon, and Hull, 6% on Melanie and Bonsai, 5% on Hemlock, Organza, Paloma, and Tristan, 4% on Stanley, Dinkel, Jonah, and Laurel, 3% on Bonnie, Hestor, and Cider, 2% on Buzzer, Ariel, and Waverly, 1% or less on Ixabel, Waverly, and Peony.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Sunlight streamed in through the sparkling glass dome high above the grand staircase. The tributes inhaled deeply and sighed, savoring the sweet smell of polished mahogany that wafted around them. The smell of fresh blood would soon replace it.

The flashing numbers above them reached zero. Tributes burst forward and backward. Seeing the lavish splendor of the floating palace around them, a number of tributes fled immediately. They were Hemlock and Bonsai from District 7, Cider from District 9, and Peony from District 11. The rest of the tributes decided to fight it out at the bloodbath.

Pumice was one of the few tributes that didn't let the breathtaking beauty of the grand staircase distract him. He was the first off his pedestal, thundering toward the supplies like there was no tomorrow. He swooped down and swept up a sword that sat about ten yards from his pedestal. Turning sharply on his heel, Pumice grabbed the nearest girl and threw her to the ground like nothing. The girl slid across the linoleum floor for a few feet before coming to a stop. Pumice raced to her side and thrust his sword into the back of her neck. She fought to drag herself away, but Pumice finished her off by severing her right arm. Sprawled out on the floor in a pool of her own blood, the girl swiftly died.

 _Paloma Reagan, District 10 Female: 24th, Killed by Pumice, Bloodbath_

Lyme was more than delighted at the glint of a pair of wolverine claws right at the base of her pedestal. She tried on the claws. They fit on perfectly, ten blades of steel firing out from between her fingers. Eager to test the unique weapons, Lyme tacked the boy whose pedestal was next to hers. The boy screamed as the chorus of talons raked across his leg. Blood burbled forth. Lyme stamped her foot into the back of the boy's leg, trapping him in place, and continued to slash away mercilessly at the back of his neck.

 _Suede Wynn-Jones, District 8 Male: 23rd, Killed by Lyme, Bloodbath_

Lotion armed himself with a hatchet and took off after a girl who was racing up the grand staircase, having changed her mind about participating in the bloodbath after seeing the first few kills made. The girl gasped when Lotion threw his hatchet. The blade of the throwing axe buried itself perfectly into her back. The girl fell backward and slid down the steps to Lotion's feet. She looked pretty dead to Lotion, so he retrieved his weapon and raced back down the flight of stairs to regroup with his allies.

 _Ixabel Centor, District 5 Female: 22nd, Killed by Lotion, Bloodbath_

Hull wove through the crowd of scrambling outliers, looking for prey. He had a wicked looking hunting knife strapped into his right hand and had his eye caught by a young boy who was staggering to the ground, his face having been slashed open by Lyme a few seconds earlier. Hull polished the boy off with a stab of his knife. He was seconds away from death in the first place, though, and barely felt it.

 _Dinkel Paulson, District 9 Male: 21st, Killed by Lyme and Hull, Bloodbath_

Pumice rammed the butt of his sword into the nose of a nearby sniveling boy. The boy groaned and staggered to the ground. Pumice flipped around his sword and went in for the kill. He carved out a good portion of his torso. In a rather disgusting manner, his body was literally falling apart, organs tumbling every which way and spreading out like a puddle. Pumice quickly turned tail and fled, as he didn't want to spend any more time near the boy's unsightly remains than he had to.

 _Waverly Brown, District 11 Male: 20th, Killed by Pumice, Bloodbath_

Lyme grabbed a nearby boy by the neck and slammed him into the banister of the grand staircase. He let out a mewl of pain before sliding to the ground at Lyme's feet, too tired and battered to fight back. Lyme dug her wolverine claws into his abdomen and opened ten gashes as long as her arms. A dark pool swirled around her feet as she continued to score up his body with her titanium claws.

 _Hestor Sekimoto, District 5 Male: 19th, Killed by Lyme, Bloodbath_

Melanie was one of the few careers yet to make a kill, but she was determined to do so before the end of the bloodbath. She picked up a pair of spiked tonfas, fit them into her arms, and ran toward Organza from District 8. Organza was armed with a knife and prepared to fight back, and Melanie got much more than she had bargained for. Organza heard Melanie's shuffling behind her and jumped to her feet, not wanting a fight but prepared for it nonetheless. Organza lashed out with her knife and opened a slice at the base of the District 4 female's neck. Melanie scurried out of the way, ran around her, and went for her back. Organza managed to slash her knife across Melanie's cheek, drawing a few drops of blood. She was stunned for a few moments, and she was easy work for Organza. Organza drilled her knife into her heart, killing her almost instantly. She staggered backward, both fascinated and horrified by the career's mangled body. Deciding she had enough trouble for a bloodbath, she spun around and fled down one of the passenger hallways.

 _Melanie Hazlitt, District 4 Female: 18th, Killed by Organza, Bloodbath_

Chiffon armed herself with a dagger and zeroed in on her first kill: a pudgy boy, trying to escape the bloodbath with a backpack of wire. Chiffon tore after him, and his little feet couldn't run fast enough to evade her. She sank her knife halfway into his arm, nearly severing it but leaving it hanging on by an inch of flesh. Suddenly, Chiffon was on top of him, pinning his ankles against the floor. Blood and flesh flew everywhere as Chiffon twisted her knife around inside the pitiful boy.

 _Buzzer Magubane, District 3 Male: 17th, Killed by Chiffon, Bloodbath_

Lotion made the final kill. A few moments earlier, one girl had thrown herself underneath a crate in the middle of the room, only wanting to come out when the bloodbath was all over. Lotion spotted her anxiously writhing form through the netted edges of the crate and kicked the barrier off of her. Lotion lofted his axe overhead and brought it down, cleaving the girl's skull completely in half and going all the way down to the base of her neck. Her cannon shot was instantaneous, though coupled with eight others that would soon follow.

 _Laurel Yanny, District 12 Female: 16th, Killed by Lotion, Bloodbath_

Cameras were fixed everywhere on the ship. As the tributes spread farther and farther apart, the Capitol began giving each their share of coverage. The careers spent about an hour repairing their weapons, and then they were ready to go hunting. They mostly stayed on E Deck, wanting to cross the easy hunting ground off of their checklist early on. The middle deck largely consisted of passenger cabins for all three classes, and hunting grew quite monotonous before long. Knowledgeable of ship design, Hull suggested that they head to the front of the ship, where the kitchens of large ocean vessels usually were. Sure enough, the elegant wooden floor changed to shining porcelain tile. A kitchen came into view. They raided the pantry and crashed in the food preparation room behind a rack of chef hats.

The outliers this year had two choices: go up, or go down. Going up was the most common choice for tributes from the upper districts. Several of them recognized the grand staircase from history books and knew that they were on the Titanic. They wanted to be up high when the fateful night arrived that the Titanic would sink. Hemlock and Bonsai had allied prior to the games. Hemlock had a seven and Bonsai a cool eight. On the move, they would probably be the biggest threat besides the careers. It took them an hour or so of wandering through the maze of ornate passageways until they hit open sunlight. On the Titanic's main deck, Hemlock and Bonsai admired the sight of the vast ocean, sparkling far underneath them like polished glass. Bonnie had a bountiful turnout from the bloodbath. Well-stocked with a backpack of barbed wire, several knives, and several jugs of clean water, she didn't have much to worry about as far as survival was concerned. Bonnie emerged into the outside world around noon, but turned back around and delved back into the ship, preferring the warmth of the ship's interior to the biting wind and annoying whirring of the seawater. Bonnie made her home in one of the first class cabins. She had a beautiful bed and cabinet filled with several changes of clothes. Everything in the cabin was exquisite, and it wasn't hard to imagine that a king or queen could have lived there. Stanley was desperate for a shower. His shirt was soaked with sweat from the bloodbath, and a couple of cuts and scrapes left his arms and legs caked with dried blood. Stanley settled into one of the second class cabins on B Deck. There wasn't a shower in the cabin, so he scrubbed himself off with a wet washcloth. Afterward, he tried on some of the sharp-looking outfits from the wardrobe to occupy himself.

Travelling downward was a much more popular choice amongst the outliers. Ariel had gone down to G Deck when she chose to stop walking for the day. G Deck was one of the few decks with no passenger cabins. Ariel made herself at home in a somewhat claustrophobic low-ceilinged room where bags of fruit were being stored. The aroma of the food was too strong to resist. Ariel used her nails to break open one of the bags of oranges and ate six of them in one sitting, left sucking her fingers. Cider dared to travel as far down as she could on the great ship, wanting to place as much distance between herself and the careers as possible. The ship was beautiful. If she could, she would walk through it with her mouth hanging open with awe all day. However, she had to sleep. She had gotten down to F Deck when she decided to sleep for the night. Cider stumbled into one of the third class cabins and fell into the bed. Jonah hadn't gotten much from the bloodbath: just a stubby little pail, and even that he had risked his life to obtain. Jonah went down to G Deck and found himself in the mail storage room. It was an intriguing sight to behold. The mail room was small. It was only about twenty feet long on each side. The walls were lined with shelves, and the shelves were covered with crates and sacks of letters and packages. A desk stood at the far end of the room, cluttered with letters. Jonah sat down in the wheelie chair just for a short break and passed out, having left the door of the mailroom open. Organza had a kill under her belt, which was one more than all of the other outliers combined. Most of the sponsors that weren't interested in the career pack sent their money toward her; as such, she had a massive assortment of supplies. Her collection included several knives and a tomahawk, as well as a small vial of burn cream, a package of dried pork, and a rolled-up sleeping bag. Organza planned to go hunting the next morning, but she took the entire remainder of Day 1 to settle down and get situated. Organza bounced around the ship for a while before barricading herself into one of the second class passenger cabins on F Deck. The door had no lock, so she cut out a piece of carpet with her knife and wedged it under the door, hopefully keeping it closed. Organza spent the day practicing with her weapons and organizing her supplies, occasionally peeking out the window at the sparkling waterline. Peony was a hard-working girl. Despite her young age and seemingly minute chances of winning, she would stop at nothing to organize herself and be prepared for the difficult games ahead. She wormed her way down a series of staircases to G Deck, and then down to the cargo hold. She closed the trapdoor behind her and climbed down the ladder into the storage room. Huge wooden crates lined the walls, with one big catwalk overhead. Peony pried open one of the crates and took out its contents: a bit of spare cloth and sewing needles. She threw the supplies up onto the catwalk and then climbed up the ladder after them. Up there, Peony bundled the fabric into a big cozy blob for her to sleep in. The only downside was that she was right above the boiler rooms, and the whine of machinery was always present. Fleeing the bloodbath with a bowl and juice box, Tristan was on F Deck when a mouth-watering aroma caught his attention. Tristan followed the smell to one of the bathing rooms. The room was made out of black tile, with an ornate golden countertop. Beside the countertop was a big bathtub on four legs. A table sat beside the bathtub, cluttered with shampoos and other cleaning products. The scent was coming from a rack of sweet-smelling bath bombs that leaned against the wall at the far end of the room. Tristan plopped one of the bath bombs into the tub and then turned on the hot water, watching the shining colors cloud the clear liquid. Leaving his clothes on for decency, he sank down into the hot water and sighed. It was so luxurious; he almost forgot he was in the Hunger Games. He was enjoying his stay on the ship of dreams. But the peace would not last long. Blood would soon stain the walls and floor of the ship.

The careers were up bright and early the morning of Day 2. They got hunting straight away. Thinking that prey was more likely to be hiding below them in the depths of the beautiful ship, they climbed down a couple stairwells to F Deck. The careers were absorbed in conversation when Chiffon silenced the others. She was picking up on a faint, pleasant aroma. One by one, the other careers noticed the scent. They didn't think twice before following it. It wasn't long before they found themselves in front of an dark-colored wooden door. Chiffon turned the handle and walked inside. She tiptoed into the dark room and heard a piercing scream off to her left. Tristan had fallen asleep the night before in the bathtub, and he awoke to the terrifying sight of the five strong careers galloping toward him with their weapons.

Tristan hoisted himself out of the tub. His sopping-wet clothes trailed water over the ground. He didn't make it three steps before he slid across a puddle of warm water and fell forward onto the tiled floor. The careers sped to his side, and he was dead in no time. Chiffon drove her dagger into the side of his neck, clouding the water on the floor with red. His cannon shot seemed to shake the whole Titanic. The careers all tramped around the room in pursuit of Tristan's supplies. Lyme found his bowl and juice box underneath the bathtub. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. The five all tramped out of the room in triumph, having whittled down the crop of outliers by one.

 _Tristan Luckacher, District 12 Male: 15th, Killed by Chiffon, Day 2_

The rest of Day 2 passed without any extra deaths. The careers kept drilling dutifully around F Deck in search of prey, but their hunting efforts were fruitless. When night fell, they returned to the cornucopia at the base of the grand staircase. Taking inspiration from the careers of the forty-ninth Hunger Games, Pumice stayed up after all of his allies were asleep. He grabbed a paper and pen and explored much of the deck, drawing a map on the paper as he travelled. Pumice had mapped nearly the entire deck when he grew too tired to continue. He made the trans-arena trek back to the cornucopia, set the map beside his sleeping bag, and fell asleep.

Atop B Deck, Hemlock and Bonsai got a lot of work done. Bonsai, armed with an axe, delved down a few decks into the ship to gather supplies. She raided the first class dining room of food. Bonsai found a jug of water in the fridge and stole it as well. By the time she met up with Hemlock on top of the great ship, he had found a great place to live. Hemlock had laid out the alliance's supplies on the first class promenade, sorted into three categories: weapons, survival, and convenience. Hemlock and Bonsai feasted on chocolate mousse and chicken from the dining room and talked about their lives back in District 7. Bonnie slept in until noon before she finally lugged herself out of the first class cabin. She packed up her supplies, gripped a knife in each hand, and left the room without a plan to ever return. Bonnie took up a search for food. She found herself in the second class lounge. Bonnie gathered as much food from the pantry as she could and lounged on the fat sofa. Stanley woke up surrounded by inside-out suits and costumes that he had tried on the day before. He stuffed the clothes under the bed and paced around the second class cabin aimlessly. Ariel stayed put in the cargo hold, feasting on oranges. Her mentor Beatrice delivered her a note saying that she should get moving if she wanted to stay a relevant character in the games. Ariel foolishly discarded the note, not wanting to leave the security of her safe space below the waterline. Cider left her third class cabin around eight in the morning to use the bathroom. She travelled up one deck when her heart nearly stopped. Cider saw a figure moving toward her down the hallway. Though Cider didn't know it, that figure was Organza. Cider flew in the opposite direction and collapsed in one of the reading and writing rooms. The carpet on the floor and soundproofed walls made everything eerily silent. Cider was alone, kept company only by her heartbeat. Jonah kept put in the mail room on G Deck. He refused to get up for any reason, and spent the entire day in the green wheelie chair with the door of the mail room wide open. Organza kept up her hunt, wanting to thin the crowd of tributes and impress the sponsors. After several fruitless hours of hunting, Woof sent a suggestion to travel upward, where the hallways were less claustrophobic. Up there, she would have more space to move around and a wider point of view. She was happy to comply, running up the stairwells until she reached B Deck. By that time, she was too exhausted to hunt, so she took a rest on the couch in the first class smoke room.

Peony experienced an epiphany on Day 2. She was on an expedition through the cargo hold when she noticed words stamped on the side of one crate. RMS Titanic. Suddenly, Peony let out a cry. School lessons and history books flew back to her, like pieces of a puzzle crashing down into place. April 15, 1912. The freezing water. The iceberg. Everything crashed onto her like a pile of bricks. Her feet were running before her brain could catch up. She scurried up the ladder to G Deck and raced across the third class promenade, bawling to herself. Peony climbed the stairwells all the way up to A Deck, wanting to be as high as possible when the ship hit the iceberg. Peony crumpled to the brightly-colored carpet in the first class lounge and cried until there were no tears left in her. It was a pathetic display of cowardice as far as the games were concerned, but it felt amazing for Peony to let out her tears.

The morning of Day 3, Peony woke up in the same spot. Was it just her imagination? Or did she hear a whimpering sound? Peony got to her feet to investigate. Her face was raw from scratching against the carpet, and dried tears stained her cheeks. She followed the sound to a large metal cage. Three adorable little puppies were inside of the cage. Their ears flopped around and their tails wagged. They panted at Peony, asking to be released. Peony laughed and sat down on the floor. With all of the stress she was going through, she thought it would be great to play with the cute puppy dogs. She reached out and unlatched the cage.

The three dogs immediately bolted out the cage and opened their mouths, revealing teeth as sharp as steak knives. Peony screamed and staggered away from the dogs. They unfurled claws like daggers. Their breath stank of bad meat. Peony fumbled around for a weapon and picked up a lovely wooden chair. She leapt onto the couch, holding the chair in front of her. The dogs snarled and crept forward.

Peony lashed out with the chair, knocking one of the puppies in the face. It careened sideways and smashed into a coffee table. It was out of combat, at least for now. The dogs leapt onto the sofa and pounced toward her, their claws puncturing the couch and tearing up the stuffing. Peony jumped off of the sofa and ran for the door. The brown puppy dog that she had knocked out first was back to its senses. It leapt in front of Peony, blocking her path to the door. She turned around and found herself trapped between the carnivorous canines. Out of desperation, Peony tried to crush them with her feet. She lashed out with her right foot, but two of the puppies sank their teeth into the ankle. She screamed and fell onto the floor. She tried to drag herself away, but the dogs were on top of her, savoring the taste of flesh after so long trapped in their cage. Her blood stained the carpet an evil shade of red. The second her cannon shot faded away fully, the puppies ran for the exit, ready to search the Titanic's decks for seconds.

 _Peony Atil, District 11 Female: 14th, Killed by Puppy Muttations, Day 3_

The dogs would have been incredibly cute if not for the fact that they were vicious in virtually every fashion imaginable. Their tiny little feet scampered across the ground, tails wagging behind. The largest puppy, who must have been the leader, travelled in front, flanked on either side by its two friends.

They hadn't travelled far before they heard Hemlock and Bonsai's soft snores. After a hard day of work the day prior, they were rewarding themselves by sleeping in. The dogs curiously crept forward. The smallest of the three dogs began licking Bonsai's face. Bonsai awoke from a pleasant dream and laughed. She had a dog of her own at home, and she was glad to feel his warm welcome to the new day.

Within seconds, Bonsai was screaming at the top of her lungs. The dog's saliva was extremely poisonous. The highly acidic solution was burning away her face. The skin burned like fire all the way through, and papery layers of burned skin were falling away from the poison.

Her screams awoke nearby Hemlock. Hemlock rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands. His eyes widened with horror when the largest of the three puppies lashed out at Bonsai. It raked its chorus of sharp claws across her face. Hemlock sat, dumbfounded, as the puppy's two comrades joined in on the cause, turning Bonsai into the world's largest doggie biscuit.

 _Bonsai Davenport, District 7 Female: 13th, Killed by Puppy Muttations, Day 3_

While the puppy mutts were engrossed in Bonsai's mangled corpse, Hemlock turned sharply on his heel and sprinted away. He raced a few hundred feet down the promenade and sighed when he saw a door. Seeking refuge inside of the ship, he threw open the door and ducked inside.

Hemlock slammed the door behind him and sprinted down a few stairwells. He felt like a million bricks had been lifted off of his back. He was back inside the safety of the ship, where the dogs couldn't reach him. He looked around to get an idea of where he was. He was at…the base of the grand staircase. All five of the careers, preparing for their morning hunt, were glaring at him and grinning.

Hemlock didn't even flinch before the nearest careers, Lyme and Pumice, were on top of him. Pumice flung his sword into Hemlock's wrist, piercing one of his veins. Blood spouted out of the wound like a waterfall. Hemlock screamed and made a desperate attempt to scramble away, but Lyme stood in his way. He was too tired and battered to protest as Lyme swept her wolverine claws across his face and neck mercilessly. Lotion, Chiffon, and Hull gathered around to watch Hemlock die. His cannon shot was their cue to get back on schedule, and they left for their hunt less than a minute later.

 _Hemlock Milsosz, District 7 Male: 12th, Killed by Pumice and Lyme, Day 3_

Few things of note transpired throughout the rest of Day 3. No more deaths occurred. Bonnie realized just how vulnerable she was lying on the couch in the second class lounge. Not wanting to move so quickly after setting up her base, however, she hatched a plan. Bonnie unzipped her backpack of barbed wire and lined the doorways with the stuff. She also bunched up the spiked wire around some of the pillows. That way she could throw them like weapons if needed. Stanley was from District 6, and he wanted to take a little peek into the boiler rooms. He knew that many ships were built in the district of transportation, but he had never seen a boiler room up close and personal. Stanley ventured downward and climbed down a small hatch into one of the boiler rooms toward the bow of the ship. He instantly clapped his hands over his ears. The whining of machinery and scream of the self-powered coal engines rang in his ears. Stanley tried to climb back out of the room, but his foot got lodged between the rungs of the ladder. In his struggle to free his foot, he tumbled backward. Stanley fell ten feet down the ladder and landed on his left arm with a thump. A crack soon followed. He had snapped the bones in his left arm, and he was unable to do anything but cry and shake as the pain bolted through his body. Ariel was a stubborn girl; despite constant warnings from her mentor to evacuate the cargo hold and move to higher decks, she stayed as still as a statue and munched on oranges. Cider gathered herself and left the reading and writing room. After getting so close to Organza the day before, she travelled as silently as she could through the ship's elegant hallways. Cider found herself in the first class dining room, undoubtedly the most beautiful room in the ship. Hundreds of tables were placed evenly throughout the room, with sweet-smelling wooden chairs surrounding each one. Elaborate leather placemats and shining silverware were cluttered around every table. Every table held a vase of breathtakingly beautiful flowers seemingly stolen from a dream. Cider ducked down behind the serving desk and occupied herself by counting the number of tables through the crack at the bottom of the desk. Organza kept on hunting, but she was growing disheartened at her inability to find prey. Her mentor Woof sent her a note encouraging her to keep going, that she was closer than ever before to striking lucky. She was completely drained of energy, though, and snoozed away in one of the first class cabins. Jonah kept lazily lolling around in the mail room on G Deck. One of his sponsors urged him to get up and moving, so he walked about two steps and crashed into a pile of mail sacks. In any other games, Feodore should have sent some mutts to kill him off. However, he wanted to have lots of tributes when the real climax of the games took place—the sinking of the great Titanic.

The light hours of Day 4 came about completely lifelessly, empty of conflict or movement. The outliers were all well-stocked and where they needed to be. The only movement was in the career pack. They hunted down the first class promenade up until about nine in the morning, when Lyme suggested they travel upward as far as they could. She started up the nearest stairwell. Her allies followed behind, and it wasn't long until they emerged onto the deck of the ship. Pumice and Chiffon were sent out to hunt while Lotion, Lyme, and Hull set up their home. Pumice and Chiffon came back a few minutes before sunset and proudly reported that the deck of the ship was clear of outliers.

As all five of them sat down to eat dinner, they noticed small chunks of ice passing by in the water underneath. Weird.

The careers all went to bed at their usual time, with one exception. Hull decided to stay up late. He had always been fascinated by huge ships, and he wanted to explore the deck of the Titanic. After investigating a good fourth of the deck, he decided to head back to their camp. It was almost midnight, after all.

Hull was about halfway to his allies when his heart stopped. A horrible screeching sound filled the air. It was the loudest sound he had ever heard. It was like a jarring symphony of a million hideous nails being scraped against brick. Hull sped all of the way back to the camp to warn the others. They were already up, having been awoken by the sound.

They all peered over the side of the ship together. The Titanic had scraped against a chunk of ice about the size of a small house. It didn't look large enough to cause any damage to the mighty ship, but Hull warned that icebergs were often larger than they looked because so much of them was underwater.

Below decks, it was a scene of absolute chaos. The iceberg had torn a hole through a good portion of the ship. The boiler rooms were now flooding with freezing seawater. Over the course of several hours, Stanley had begun to get used to the sound of the ship's engines. But the sound of the iceberg was a million times louder. Within minutes, water began creeping into the room he was in. Stanley let out a mewl of panic and started for the ladder. Suddenly, Stanley turned around.

Behind him, the wall of the boiler room was wobbling back and forth. It was as if a great weight were pressing against the other side, and the wall was fighting with all of its might to hold strong. Stanley turned back around. He hadn't even laid a finger on the ladder's first rung when the wall burst. An explosion of green foam came rushing into the room. Stanley tried to scurry up the ladder, but the water consumed him first.

The water was colder than ice. It was so cold it felt like fire. It was so cold that his entire body was suddenly paralyzed. The churning of the water forced Stanley to the bottom of the room. No matter how hard he fought to swim upward, he was crushed against the floor. Panicked, he inhaled an entire breath of seawater, and it was all over from there. He drowned to death within minutes, the first to die as the ship sank into the icy sea.

 _Stanley Dupioni, District 6 Male: 11th, Killed by Drowning, Day 4_

Ariel was a heavy sleeper. The sound of the Titanic striking the iceberg didn't wake her. However, her eyes bolted awake a few minutes after. Her foot felt very cold. She groggily looked around and jumped to her feet. Now she knew what Beatrice was warning her about. A good portion of the cargo hold was flooded with water. Hundreds of wooden crates and sacs of cargo bobbed on the surface, and it was rushing quickly toward the exit. Leaving all of her supplies behind, Ariel sped for the exit. Ariel thundered up the nearest stairwell and sprinted randomly through the third class hallways in pursuit of another staircase.

Nearby Organza was fortunately able to notice that the ship was taking on water before it was too late. She was lying around in her third class cabin when she noticed water creeping in through the bottom of the door. She was paralyzed with shock for a few seconds. Organza threw off the covers, walked to the door, and peeked in the hallway. She couldn't believe her eyes. Water was spilling into the hallway. The rooms toward the end of the hall looked completely submerged. The water was up to her cabin. Organza rushed back into her cabin, shut the door, and gathered up her supplies. On the bed, she threw her weapons into her backpack. Cold ocean water was now spraying in through the sides of the door. The level of water looked to be about a foot high. By the time she had packed everything up, the door looked like it was about to burst. The water outside the hallway was almost four feet high. Inside the cabin, the water was up to Organza's knees.

Organza swallowed hard and treaded to the door. The second she turned the knob, the door flew open. Water came rushing in, scattering the bedspreads and knocking over the dressers in the cabin. Organza was crushed against the back wall of the room, and she quickly realized that she couldn't make haste carrying so many supplies. She took only the bare necessities from the pack and then fought her way to the door. Once she was in the hallway, her lungs were screaming for air. She swam opposite the direction the sea water had come and tumbled out of the mess of icy water. She retched onto the ground, shaking. Organza finally got to her feet and continued running toward safety, the lights flickering above her as the Titanic began its plunge into the ocean.

Organza and Ariel, the only tributes in third class, crashed into each other a few minutes after midnight. Ariel yelped at the sight of her knife, but Organza calmed her and said that she wasn't going to hurt her. They both locked arms as they ran down the hallway, allies. Organza and Ariel soon came to a wooden gate. On the other side of the gate was a stairwell leading upward. The two girls laughed with relief. Ariel reached out to open the gate. Their joy soon turned to dread. She rattled the gate back and forth. It wouldn't budge. It was locked.

Shaking, Organza produced her knife and tried to pick the lock. It was a useless effort. The tip of the blade was too fat to fit into the keyhole. She whirled around at the sound of Ariel's screams. A splash of water was rushing down the hall to meet them. If they didn't come up with an idea soon, the hall would flood and they would have no chance of survival.

"I've got to cut a hole in the gate!" Organza screamed over the sound of rushing water.

"That won't work! The wood's too strong!" Ariel protested.

"But it's the best chance we've got. Help me!" Organza cried.

Organza lodged her blade into part of the wooden fence. She and Ariel sawed the blade back and forth. After a few painful seconds, they had cut through the wood. They worked together for several minutes to cut a gash in the gate about two feet long. The two girls kept sawing until they had cut a perpendicular line two feet long. They were trying to cut a square that they could then fit through.

By the time they had cut the third side of the square, the water reached them. The water was so cold that Ariel crumpled to the ground with agony. Organza pointed toward a nearby pile of crates and instructed Ariel to retrieve two of them. She came back with the two crates. The girls stood on the crates as they worked, a few feet out of the quickly rising water.

They finished the third side of the square. By the time they were in position to cut the fourth side of the square, the water was up to their ankles again. Organza suggested that they stack the crates on top of each other to get more height. Ariel objected, reasoning that there wouldn't be enough room for the both of them on top of one crate.

Ariel and Organza were sweating with panic. They were a few inches into the fourth side of the square when the water was up to their knees. The pain was so bad that both girls screamed as they worked. They had no choice but to put in their all. It was their only hope of survival. They were a few inches from finishing the last side of the square, and the water was up to their shoulders. They literally had to keep their mouths pressed to the ceiling in order to breathe.

The partners urged each other to saw the material as hard as they could. They still had hope, however faint. At that point, they were less than an inch from completing the square and escaping. They both took the deepest breaths they could. Just in time, too. It wasn't two seconds later that the waterline met with the ceiling and no air remained.

Organza and Ariel sawed and sawed at the wood. They sawed for all of the reasons they had to survive. They sawed for their friends and family back home. They sawed with the last ounces of strength they had. Finally, they completed the square. Ariel pushed out the square of wood. If they could fit through the square, they would be free.

The two lunged for the hole, trying desperately to fit through. Ariel's small size allowed her to slip through without much trouble. She swam up the staircase and gulped air gratefully when she stepped out onto dry tile. A few feet down, however, Organza was struggling. Her broad shoulders could not fit through the hole she and Ariel had carved. She sank to the floor. Every muscle in her body felt like lead. A sort of peace washed over Organza. The bite of the freezing water on every square inch of her body was nothing. She silently prayed that Ariel would find safety before her body gave up fighting and she died.

 _Organza Indigo, District 8 Female: 10th, Killed by Drowning, Day 5_

Ariel ran up one more stairwell (this one unlocked). She then ducked into one of the third class cabins that hadn't yet been consumed by the chilling black ocean and wrung out her clothes. Now dry and much warmer, she continued her hunt for solace in the higher decks of the ship.

The next tribute immediately at risk was lazy old Jonah. He was awoken by the rumbling of the iceberg against the side of the ship. Suspecting it was the growling of a nearby muttation, he crushed himself even harder into the pile of mail on the floor. One would think he was stupid for staying still and ignoring constant warnings for the whole games, but one can't really blame him. In a situation as stressful as the games, his brain only thought what it wanted to think. Used to a relatively comfortable life back home, the chaos of killing other district children was alien to his conventional brain.

That all changed when the first tide of foamy water washed into the mail room.

Jonah screamed when the water splashed into the pile of letters he was sitting in. The envelopes and parcels scattered, bobbing around the room. Jonah waded through the freezing water, hissing with pain. He used the wheelie chair to climb up onto the mailman's desk. Up there, he had some time to think. The water was rising fast. He tried to remember the path he had taken to the room, but the information was missing from his brain. The water finally splashed overtop the desk, and he had to either move quickly or die.

Jonah dove into the water and swam for the doorway. It was hard to make any sort of coordinated movement in the bitter chill of the swirling water. By the time Jonah reached the door, the water was nearly up to the ceiling. He dragged himself down the flooded hallway. The water was moving down the hall faster than he was. He was running out of oxygen, and scarily fast. He had no hope of escape, and the icy water claimed his life before continuing to swallow down the once-beautiful ship of dreams.

 _Jonah Allaway, District 10 Male: 9th, Killed by Drowning, Day 5_

That left the final eight: Lotion Wiles and Chiffon Janecki from District 1, Pumice Badnersh and Lyme Mabbett from District 2, Bonnie Toole from District 3, Hull McKay from District 4, Ariel Vermeule from District 6, and Cider Lake from District 9.

Up on the boat's cold deck, there was mayhem. After the ship scraped against the mighty iceberg, the careers stayed up for about an hour and paced around nervously. Pumice suggested that they go back to sleep, saying that there was nothing to worry about. He probably wasn't thinking straight and just wanted to go back to sleep.

Lotion woke up screaming about thirty minutes later. The freezing seawater was sloshing over his legs. The others careers bolted awake. They frantically gathered their supplies and high-tailed toward safer areas of the ship. The Titanic was jutting out of the ocean at a twenty degree angle. It looked like at least a fourth of the ship was underwater. Their hearts sank at the thought of the beautiful kitchens, parlors, and cabins being swallowed by the glassy black sea.

The careers all reached the stern of the ship within five minutes. Out of desperation, they tried lugging as much weight toward the stern as they could, as if they could weigh the stern back down and correct the angle of the ship. It was hopeless, and they were left clinging onto the rail of the Titanic as it slid down into the sea.

Cider had awoken hours earlier from the hideous screech of the ship against the iceberg. Too scared to move from underneath the serving desk of the first class dining room, she eventually fell back asleep. Cider woke up around one in the morning. A horrifying idea squirmed in her stomach like a black worm. Was it just her imagination? Or was the floor… tilting?

Cider shakily stood up, and her heart skipped a beat. The rising water had reached the first class dining room now. On one side of the room, water was flooding in. It splashed around the feet of the chairs and tables. It just rose and rose. Cider stood dumfounded for several minutes. The foaming green ocean water was now flooding overtop of the tables. China bobbed on the surface of the water. Silverware floated to and fro.

Her eyes landed on the entrance to the room. There was only one problem. The path to the door was blocked by at least a yard of water. She swallowed hard and stepped into the water. She instantly pulled back her foot. The water was so cold that her foot and ankle felt like they were engulfed in flames. She could not go in that water.

She frantically looked around before grabbing a serving tray. To her surprise, the tray was buoyant. She experimentally set it on the surface of the water that was creeping slowly through the dining room. Cider sat down on it like a sleigh. Cider kicked off with her foot and she was off.

Cider rode over the water atop the tray. A whole cluster of dishes floated her way, and she had to bat them aside to keep moving. A pair of salad tossers drifted past. A chair made of glossy dark wood rushed past.

Groans and creaks called out from within the ship. Cider finally reached the door. She reached out and turned the handle. Cider cursed. Locked. She began to panic. She threw her entire body weight at the door, but it didn't budge.

Cider needed a change of plans. She paddled back to dry land and dismounted the serving tray. Cider raced to the kitchen and snatched up the first knife she encountered. She ran back out into the dining room.

Cider went up to the nearest window and stabbed the tip of the knife into the glass. It created a tiny crack. The second class promenade was on the other side of the window. If she could reach it, she would be able to race to the stern of the ship. She cursed and scratched into the strong glass. She let out a yelp as chilly water splashed over her feet. It wouldn't be long before the entire room was flooded.

Walking back a few feet, Cider readied her knife. She lunged forward and smashed the window with her knife. Shards of glass flew every which way. They embedded themselves into the carpet, into the ceiling, and, unfortunately, into her eye.

Cider screamed and dropped the knife. One of the shards of glass had implanted itself into her left eye. A strange pus-like orange liquid was dripping out. Her entire world was consumed by pain. Cider staggered to the ground, gasping and shaking, as bolts of agony rang through her body.

The pain was so bad that she couldn't stand. She could only drag herself away from the slowly creeping water and pray that help would come. When the entire room flooded, she had no choice but to retreat to the kitchen. She snatched up all of the knives and tossed them into the dining room so that they wouldn't float around on the water and cause additional danger. The water was climbing up into the kitchen now. Tables toppled over. Cooking ingredients dissolved in the sea water.

Within a minute, the water was as high as Cider's waist. She waded through the icy water. Suddenly, the Titanic lurched suddenly to one direction. The ship was now tipping up thirty degrees. All of the closet and pantry doors fell open.

One cupboard directly above Cider held a case of knives. Cider was too stunned to react as the knives all tumbled out of the cupboard and flung down into her skin. Cider screamed, her blood painting the water around her red like food coloring.

With so much blood lost, she couldn't survive long in the cold water. Cider couldn't find the energy to move any further as the icy sea water reached her shoulders, then her neck, then her chin. Finally, it covered her head, and she slid to the floor like a sock puppet.

 _Cider Lake, District 9 Female: 8th, Killed by Knives and Drowning, Day 5_

Above deck, it was becoming harder and harder to hold onto the ship as it slid down into the icy sea. The Titanic was now jutting out into the air at a forty-five degree angle. Tables and chairs slid down and crashed into the sea. At the stern of the ship, the five careers were holding onto each other in one big circle to keep from falling off of the sinking ship. Pumice and Chiffon were clutching onto the rail, with Lyme, Lotion, and Hull hanging onto them and digging their heels into the wooden deck to keep still.

Chiffon's hand was growing super sweaty. Her district partner Lotion was holding onto it, and, all at once, their grip slipped. Lotion screamed as he slid down the deck of the ship on his bum like a bobsled run. Chiffon scrambled to help him, but she wasn't fast enough. Lotion went _ker-sploosh_ into the ocean. The force of the churning water tore him to a pulp almost instantly.

 _Lotion Wiles, District 1 Male: 7th, Torn Apart by Water, Day 5_

The only two remaining tributes below deck fought their hardest to escape, with varying degrees of success. Ariel sprinted up several stairwells and found herself on B Deck, in the practice room of the Titanic's orchestra. The music room was extravagantly decorated, with chairs elegantly carved from ebony and music stands fashioned from metal as dark as the night.

Ariel sprinted into the music room. She heard a clicking sound and whirled around. The door had closed, and locked, behind her. A whimper tumbled from her lips as she shook the door handle. It wouldn't budge. Panic began to set in as water crept in from underneath the door. She had seen that demon of water once before, downstairs with Organza. It was coming for her again.

Ariel ran to the far edge of the room, where it was as dry as a bone. The water was now pouring into the room. It seeped in through the edges of the door and splashed across the carpet. Ariel climbed up the conductor's podium, the highest point in the room. She needed time to think.

With so much of the ship filled with water, it was sinking faster than ever. In less than two minutes, the water had reached the base of the podium. In one minute more, it was up to her ankles. Stands and music instruments crashed to the floor. A violin with frayed and broken strings sailed past. A cello rode the current. Hundreds of pages of sheet music, now slimy rags, bobbed atop the water.

Ariel only had so much time to hatch a plan. She waded through the freezing water toward the door. Ariel grabbed the nearest music instrument—a French-style viola—and slammed it into the door. The instrument shattered, its fingerboard snapping off and the strings splitting and fraying. She had made a dent about a millimeter deep in the strong door.

Ariel swam back into the music room. The sea water was now up to her knees, and it was so cold that she had a hard time thinking. The freezing water seemed like it was draining away part of her identity with every shiver. Ariel felt as if the water would consume her before it even reached her waist.

Something peculiar caught her eye. In the corner of the room, there was a little station cluttered with nails and fine screwdrivers. It must have been some sort of instrument repair station. Ariel snatched up as many screwdrivers as she could and swam back to the door. With all of her might, she shoved a screwdriver into the edge of the door. It wedged itself between the door and the wall. That was a step. She repeated this with five more screwdrivers. By the time all six were wedged in, the water had covered her head. Ariel needed to swim up for breaths every couple seconds.

It was now or never. With all of her strength, Ariel pressed against the screwdrivers. She heard a slight creak, then a groan. Then, the door popped open. Ariel swam out into the hallway. The sea water was nearly up to the ceiling. It took her a few seconds to figure out which direction the dry area of the ship was, but she was on track once she figured it out.

Ariel dragged herself out into the air. She spit out foul sea water and took a gulp of fresh air. Fortunately, a stairwell was nearby. Ariel scurried up the staircase. Cold night air washed over her. She was on the deck of the ship. Ariel laughed with relief. Her smile faded when she saw the black sea creeping toward her. After a few seconds of running, she collapsed to her knees. The ship was so steep that running up it felt like running up a mountain.

After a few hundred feet of running, Ariel collapsed to the ground, unable to move any farther. Within ten minutes, the water reached her once more. She tried to run, but just didn't have the energy. The fire of her exhausted muscles and the fire of the freezing water morphed together into the worst pain Ariel had felt in her life. She was sucked down with the sinking Titanic, so close to safety yet so far.

 _Ariel Vermeule, District 6 Female: 6th, Killed by Drowning, Day 5_

That left only one tribute below decks. It was Bonnie from District 3. With all of the chaos going on, Bonnie had been forgotten by most of the audience and by Caesar. Bonnie was on A Deck when the water reached her. She was on one of the highest decks of the ship, and she didn't seem to be concerned until the water actually reached the room she was in, the first class smoking room. Knowing it was time to go, Bonnie sprinted out of the room up toward the stern.

Bonnie saw the four careers clutching the ship's rail, holding on for dear life. She herself could feel that the ship was getting steeper and steeper. The Titanic stuck out of the sea at a fifty degree angle. It was a huge struggle to reach safety. The lights flickered behind her as she dragged herself to the stern.

In any other instance, the careers probably would have killed her, but they were too absorbed in trying not to fall off of the sinking ship that they didn't bother her. Bonnie clutched the rail beside them and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping for the best.

The ship was sinking faster than ever before. It was now jutting nearly fifty-five degrees out of the ocean.

The lights on the Titanic flickered. Then, suddenly, they all went dark. The entire Titanic was bathed in darkness. It was so dark that none of the tributes could see more than three feet in front of their faces.

The great ship cried out louder than ever before. Walls and ceilings were bending and snapping. Areas of the ship close to the waterline were unable to hold up the rising stern's weight.

 _Crack!_ The Titanic snapped in half like a toy. Like God's boot heel, the stern came crashing down into the water. The careers and Bonnie screamed as they plummeted down hundreds of feet. Water rushed in to fill the gap where the split had occurred. The bow was now gone, sinking down into the icy black sea.

It was a huge relief to finally be parallel to the water once more. The burden of having to hold onto the rail was lifted off of them, for a brief time. It wasn't long before the stern began raising itself into the black sky. Titanic was now completely vertical, forming a right angle with the black ocean. It began its final plunge.

Bonnie and the careers were now struggling to get up onto the rail. The rail, once vertical, was now horizontal, creating a flat platform on which to stand. Within a few minutes, they all managed to get up onto it. They were now riding the Titanic down into the water like an elevator. Within minutes, the entire ship would be under the waves.

Now that they were in a safer position, Pumice lunged at Bonnie. Bonnie was knocked off of her feet and crashed down onto the rail. Her feet were dangling over the edge, hundreds of feet into the air. It seemed a bit dishonorable to be fighting in a time of such peril, but Pumice wanted to put on an action-packed finale for the Capitol. Bonnie felt the bite of Pumice's sword in her gut. She groaned and tipped sideways. Bonnie tumbled off the rail and free-fell down into the ocean. The splash she made into the sea was barely noticeable amidst the violent churning of the water.

 _Bonnie Toole, District 3 Female: 5th, Killed by Pumice, Day 5_

"Hey!" shouted Hull, Lyme, and Chiffon as one. Evidently, they didn't agree with the order of his priorities. In such a chaotic situation, they were super mad at him for killing off Bonnie. Hull lunged at Pumice and lashed out with his knife. Pumice stumbled backward as blood spurted from his wound. Lyme quickly joined, slashing her wolverine claws across his face. Pumice went limp on the metal rail, and Lyme did the honors of kicking him off into the sea.

 _Pumice Badnersh, District 2 Male: 4th, Killed by Hull and Lyme, Day 5_

The angry black monster of the sea was flying upward now. The stern section of the once-beautiful Titanic was a rumbling monolith against the stars. Hull, Chiffon, and Lyme scrambled toward the highest part of the rail, able to do nothing but wait for the worst.

The drone cameras flying overhead rode the Titanic down into the water along with the three careers. Far beneath them, pockets of air in the rapidly sinking bow section were exploding, rattling the world back and forth.

The roaring, foaming demon of the water was less than a hundred feet below them. Chiffon, Hull, and Lyme quietly wept, scared of the churning black water and their fate. In its descent, an underwater pocket of air in the stern imploded. A burst of air came rushing to the surface, shaking the vertical ship. The iron of the ship bent and twisted like taffy. Chiffon and Lyme were clutching the rail hard enough to stay still. Hull, however, was not. He was thrown off of the stern. Hull screamed and flailed his limbs as he dropped like a stone into the water.

 _Hull McKay, District 4 Male: 3rd, Killed by Drowning, Day 5_

Chiffon and Lyme bit their lips in anticipation. They were fifty feet above the water. Thirty feet.

"Best of luck, friend," Lyme said to Chiffon.

"You too," Chiffon replied in a shaky voice, nodding.

The ship screamed beneath the two career girls. The force of the churning water was tearing the iron ship apart. They squeezed their eyes shut. The final stretch of the RMS Titanic was tugged down into the freezing sea.

Where the grand Titanic had once been, there was nothing. Only the black ocean.

Chiffon and Lyme rocketed to the surface. The ocean water was so cold that it felt like fire. The freezing cold pressed into every square inch of their bodies and crushed their bones. It was so dark that they couldn't see a foot in front of their faces. The girls' limbs felt as stiff as titanium, but they paddled for all they were worth. Lyme was the first to find safety. She found a beam of wood that must have broken off of the ship during the sinking. Lyme dragged herself onto the beam and waited. She couldn't bear to look at the black ocean, so she looked at the stars. Stars like she had never seen before in her life. A glorious band from horizon to horizon. It was as cold as a meat locker.

About thirty feet away, Chiffon reached safety. She dragged herself onto a plastic lawn chair. It was extremely difficult to stay on, as the ocean waves were constantly trying to throw her off. Just like the finale of last year's games, it was a contest of who could last longer. Chiffon and Lyme both fought hard. After nearly ten minutes, though, lady luck had to choose one to die and one to live. Chiffon's body went limp from hypothermia. She plopped down into the ocean as Lyme clung onto her life, the sole survivor of the fifty-first Hunger Games.

 _Chiffon Janecki, District 1 Female: 2nd, Killed by Hypothermia, Day 5_

"Lyme Mabbett of District 2, you are the victor of the fifty-first annual Hunger Games!" Caesar called.

Lyme didn't respond. She remained motionless on the floating beam of wood as the hovercraft rushed down to whisk her away to the fame and fortune that would engulf the rest of her life.

 _Lyme Mabbett, District 2 Female: Victor of the Fifty-First Hunger Games, Day 5_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

The people of District 2 welcomed their thirteenth victor with wild applause. As their thirteenth, the district of masonry now had more than a dozen members in their growing lineup of victors. The Capitol couldn't get enough of Lyme, as she was a confident and powerful young woman. Of course, she made the other career districts furious, and there were many rude remarks thrown her way.

Lyme settled into the Victor's Village of District 2.

Her victory tour was average, and nothing of note transpired throughout it.

Lyme would live to the age of sixty, dying from a stroke around the time of the ninety-fifth annual Hunger Games. After her games, she developed an intense phobia of dark water. Despite the best psychological treatment the Capitol had to offer, she would become anxious around rivers and lakes at night for the rest of her life. She would marry twice, once to a man and once to a woman. She would have three children in her lifetime, but, sadly, only two would survive to adulthood.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Lyme moves into the Victor's Village of District 2.

Woof Dozier has his second child with his wife, a girl he calls Fleece.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Wowza! This chapter was a whirlwind to write. I've had the idea of the games taking place on the ill-fated RMS Titanic for several decades now, but I've never gotten around to writing it because I had so many other ideas. I hope you've enjoyed my rendition of Lyme! The careers didn't get a whole lot of spotlight because so much was going on below decks as the ship took on water, but I tried my best to make Lyme a victor to remember.**

 **The reason this chapter took a long time is because I wanted to make the sinking as real and scary as I could. It must have been more terrifying that anyone can imagine to have been trapped below decks as your room filled with water or to be clinging onto the stern knowing that, no matter what, you were going to die. I was kind of a mess watching Cameron's film as research for this chapter D:**

 **I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and hopefully the wait for the fifty-second games won't be as long. See you all later! :D**


	53. The 52nd Hunger Games

**The 52nd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Reyna Bayer knew that she had her work cut out for her. Her competitor, Feodore Elliot, was the talk of the Capitol. The nation was heartily applauding his masterpiece of the year prior. Reyna was up to a big challenge, for it seemed nearly impossible to create a games more unique and spectacular than that which took place in Feodore's RMS Titanic arena of the fifty-first. After the cheer died down a bit, Feodore handed over the steering wheel of the games ship. Now able to tailor every element of the arena to her will, Reyna and her team worked tirelessly on what they hoped could overshadow Feodore's arena. The competition amongst the candidates for head gamemaker pleased Snow immensely. It was one of his cleverest tricks to date. The Capitol was so wrapped up in games fever that they had forgotten completely about the poverty in the districts and all of the other horrible things that were going on right under their noses.

The arena of the fifty-second Hunger Games was modeled after a high school. However, it was an old-fashioned high school, one from the twenty-first century. The cornucopia was in the center of the cafeteria. Its weapons were sharp and sleek. Beyond the cafeteria, the first floor of the high school sprawled out like a maze. There was a swimming pool, several gymnasiums, nearly a hundred classrooms, and much, much more. Closets and cabinets in some of the classrooms held useful supplies, so that tributes could stock up on necessary equipment even if they had a meager turnout from the initial bloodbath at the cornucopia. The second floor of the school largely consisted of classrooms. There were four different stairwells from the first floor to the second floor, two for each wing of the school. The third and final floor was mostly for the performing arts. It had a theater, band and orchestra rooms, choir room, and art rooms. The tributes wore school outfits, with jeans and loose-fitting t-shirts. Every tribute also had an empty backpack to carry things in.

This year's careers had average training scores. In recent years, the average training score for careers had increased significantly. Therefore, a high-scoring career of early games might not be different from a low-scoring career of the later games. District 1 offered up two dazzling young people. Apart from their shared beauty, however, the two tributes from the luxury district could not be more opposite. The male was outspoken, confident, and very boastful, a master of swords. He had the highest odds of winning, only tied with one other career. The female was level-headed and soft-spoken and not widely known through her district, though the axe, a typically grand and mighty weapon, was her specialty. District 2 produced a pair that were as intimidating as always but lacked as far as combat was concerned. In fact, they had the lowest scores. The male claimed to be a descendant of the first emperor of Rome, hence him being named after the Roman god of war. This claim was dispelled, though, after a simple ancestry test was administered to him. He was your typical career, though he did fancy bows, a weapon that usually suits districts like 1 and is rarely used by tributes from District 2. The girl was more violent than anything, sometimes lashing out at inopportune times and not thinking before she acted. Much like District 1, District 4's tributes were polar opposites. The boy was a master cook, and many of his recipes were highly demanded in Capitol homes and even in posh Capitol restaurants. It was no surprise that he chose the knife as his weapon-of-choice. The female was perhaps the only tribute that challenged the boy from District 1. She was tall and bulky and an excellent user of bows. She also had breathtaking beauty to her that might have even overshadowed him. The careers' training scores weren't remarkable, as two tens and four nines were earned.

This year's group of outliers had been tailored to meet Reyna's needs for the arena; several of the reapings had been rigged, certainly many more than in your average Hunger Games. Seven sevens were scored in these games! They were earned by Ryam of District 3, Rosalind of District 5, Clara of District 7, Madras of District 8, Rocco of District 10, Sommer of District 11, and Cinder of District 12. Clara was quite possibly a literal genius, working with math and science like she worked with an axe. In her interview, she requested a deck of cards. Caesar read out the order of the deck to Clara. Afterward, Clara was able to perfectly recite the order of the deck back to him. She had memorized the mathematical constant pi to nearly five thousand decimal places and could multiply four digit numbers in her head in the blink of an eye. Cinder was another standout. He was the cousin of Haymitch Abernathy, victor of the fiftieth Hunger Games. He managed his seven with brute force weapons like pickaxes and maces. There were two volunteers outside of the career pack. Plate from District 6 was dared by three of his friends to volunteer into the games. At the reaping, he jokingly raised his hand and snickered, pleased that he had won the dare they thought he would chicken out of. The second the escort made eye contact with him, he zipped his hand down. He insisted that he didn't mean to and that it was only a joke, but all that went right through the escort's ear and out the other, and Plate claimed his spot as a tribute in the Hunger Games. Richelle from District 9 had been abandoned by her parents at an early age and lived her life jumping around the streets, hiding from the community home. After nearly two decades of hardship, she took the hint that she wasn't wanted and volunteered into the games believing her life had little worth to it. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Ruby Rayfuse, 18, (10) 3-1 and Tiara Shimada, 17, (9) 7-1

District 2: Mars Hargraves, 16, (9) 8-1 and Scoria Clippert, 16, (9) 8-1

District 3: Ryam Bing, 17, (7) 12-1 and Ravyn Crane, 15, (4) 25-1

District 4: Coast Macksey, 17, (9) 5-1 and Icesula Zevadra, 18, (10) 3-1

District 5: Electron Clerke, 15, (6) 21-1 and Rosalind Chrome, 16, (7) 14-1

District 6: Plate Rosewell, 18, (6) 18-1 and Guega Matthews, 12, (5) 22-1

District 7: Joey Amodeo, 12, (4) 29-1 and Clara Twells, 18, (7) 11-1

District 8: Madras Xu, 17, (7) 13-1 and Delaine Trip, 16, (3) 32-1

District 9: Amadeus Kreugler, 14, (6) 22-1 and Richelle Bird, 17, (5) 24-1

District 10: Rocco Zaldivar, 18, (7) 11-1 and Jolynn Fig, 18, (5) 20-1

District 11: Plum Talen, 13, (5) 26-1 and Sommer Fiorina, 18, (7) 11-1

District 12: Cinder Josey, 18, (7) 10-1 and Pyra Cervova, 15, (4) 28-1

HGBO Bets: 8% on Ruby and Icesula, 7% on Tiara and Coast, 6% on Mars and Scoria, 5% on Ryam, Rosalind, Clara, Madras, Rocco, Sommer, and Cinder, 4% on Electron, Plate, and Richelle, 3% on Guega, Amadeus, and Jolynn, 2% on Plum, 1% or less on Ravyn, Joey, Delaine, and Pyra.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Even from the launch rooms, the tributes could tell that this was no ordinary arena. The air was void of natural sound, and was in fact eerily still. When they rose up into the high school cafeteria, they understood why. The arena was entirely indoors, a style of arena that was rarely used and difficult to pull off. Reyna was confident that she could make these games one to remember, though.

When the flashing numbers projected on the ceiling of the lunchroom reached zero, a number of tributes fled immediately. They were mostly tributes from the upper districts with nice schools that had an idea of how to navigate the building. By name, they were Ravyn from District 3, Electron from District 5, and Plate from District 6.

Ruby was off his pedestal the millisecond the mines were deactivated. His heavy footsteps echoed around the room like thunder. He pulled a sword out of a pile of weapons just inside of the horn and fit the snug grip into fist. Ruby spun around and zeroed in on his first prey. Less than twenty feet away, a boy had tripped over a black suitcase and was sprawled out on the floor, unable to move because of the pain. Ruby skewered his sword through his neck. The boy's blood poured out of his body, staining Ruby's sword, and he was dead within seconds.

 _Madras Xu, District 8 Male: 24th, Killed by Ruby, Bloodbath_

Icesula was pleased to find the sleek bow that she requested from the gamemakers right at the foot of her pedestal. She threw the accompanying quiver of arrows over her back and notched the weapon in her grasp. She fit one arrow into the bow and aimed for the nearest girl, a natural blonde trying to fit a coil of rope into her backpack. The arrow landed in her shoulder. The girl screamed and struggled to escape the wrath of Icesula's arrows. A volley of three projectiles all flew true, landing squarely in her head, shoulder, and ribcage. Her arrows were almost instantly lethal at that close range.

 _Rosalind Chrome, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Icesula, Bloodbath_

Scoria, another fast runner, was quick to arm herself with a razor-sharp dagger as long as her arm. Scoria was about to go in for the kill on a nearby boy when she was knocked to the ground. Cinder from District 12 had thrown his weight at her in an attempt to kill her and eliminate competition early on. Scoria wrestled out from under the bulky boy's massive weight. She rolled out underneath him and lashed out with her dagger. Cinder screamed and dropped his weapon as the serrated knife gored itself straight through the eye. Jiggly orange liquid began pouring out of Cinder's eye. He clawed at his face and struggled to see. Scoria didn't wait any longer to finish him off. One more slice of her dagger and he was dead.

 _Cinder Josey, District 12 Male: 22nd, Killed by Scoria, Bloodbath_

Heavily armed and thirsty for more blood, Coast and Icesula of District 4 decided to team up to make their next kill. Icesula, a menace with her bow, fired a barrage of three arrows at a nearby girl in rapid succession. One of the arrows wormed its way into the back of the girl's hand, and a second one landed in her hip. The girl hadn't taken enough damage to die, but her world was consumed by pain so intense it was nearly indistinguishable from death by fire. The girl dragged herself under one of the cafeteria tables in an attempt to hide, but Coast was on her like a hound. She held out her backpack to shield her face from Coast's dangerous weapon: a dazzling silver knife. The backpack did little to fend off Coast, though. The career boy smacked the pack out of the way and proceeded to carve out the poor girl's chest. Icesula ran to her district partner's side and finished the girl off with one more arrow.

 _Delaine Trip, District 8 Female: 21st, Killed by Icesula and Coast, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Ruby was sword dueling with a sturdily-built boy from District 9. The outlier boy had a sword of his own. Even though he was a much better warrior than one would expect from a District 9 tribute, he couldn't last long against the well-trained Ruby. Ruby managed to twist the boy's sword out of hand within thirty seconds, disarming him. He turned tail to flee, but couldn't escape in time as Ruby dug his sword into his back.

 _Amadeus Kreugler, District 9 Male: 20th, Killed by Ruby, Bloodbath_

Tiara of District 1 was as dainty and delicate as her name suggested. She leapt over the linoleum floor with stellar grace and precision. It wasn't long before a long-handled throwing axe caught her eye. She scooped up the weapon. Tiara spun sharply around and found herself before two district partners. The two tributes were on the ground, violently wrestling over the contents of a silver package. Tiara waltzed forward and cast the blade of the axe into the head of the taller of the two district partners. The weapon sliced through her head like butter and cleaved it in half all the way to the base of her neck. Tiara prepared to attack the girl's unlucky district partner.

 _Sommer Fiorina, District 11 Female: 19th, Killed by Tiara, Bloodbath_

On the other side of the cafeteria, Scoria chased after a boy whose skin was extremely sunburnt. The boy managed to slip out of the cafeteria. Scoria pursued him, racing him down one of the hallways, past classrooms and student lockers. The boy sought refuge in a math classroom and ducked under a shelf of scientific calculators. He could not hide from the girl's keen eye, though, and Scoria sliced him to ribbons with her dagger before racing back to the cornucopia for more blood.

 _Rocco Zaldivar, District 10 Male: 18th, Killed by Scoria, Bloodbath_

Sommer's district partner gasped and staggered backward as Tiara split him through with her axe. He tried to get up, but he wasn't fast enough. Tiara leapt on top of him and quickly severed his left arm. The torn-off limb sailed through the air and came to a rest atop a shelf inside of the cornucopia. Tiara grabbed him by the scruff of his neck like a kitten, a move that seemed out of place given her standard delicateness, and rammed her axe into his torso, shattering several ribs. Sticky blood flew everywhere, and Tiara dropped the boy onto the ground before speeding away with her trusty axe.

 _Plum Talen, District 11 Male: 17th, Killed by Tiara, Bloodbath_

Ruby made his impressive third kill. He targeted a girl that was sprawled out on the ground. Her hand was clapped to her neck, and blood was pouring out between her fingertips like water. A few seconds earlier, Coast had slashed her open with his silver knife. Ruby quickly finished her off, ramming the butt of his sword into her nose. The cartilage crunched underneath. The girl just moaned, unable to protest due to lack of energy. Ruby drew a heavy line across her arm with his sword to seal her fate.

 _Pyra Cervova, District 12 Female: 16th, Killed by Coast and Ruby, Bloodbath_

Mars was the only career that hadn't made a kill yet. Hoisting a shimmering crossbow into the air, Mars aimed for the nearest tribute. The crossbow dart zipped through the air and landed in the back of his neck. Confused, the boy pulled the dart out of his skin. He looked around in a panic to see who had thrown it his way. He never found out, for Mars fired a volley of two darts mere seconds later, and they both landed in his torso. One of them even speared his heart.

 _Ryam Bing, District 3 Male: 15th, Killed by Mars, Bloodbath_

Icesula finished off the bloodbath. A few seconds earlier, she had cornered a girl against the back end of the cornucopia, and she had nowhere left to run. So quickly that the girl didn't have time to react, Icesula fit an arrow into her bow and released it. The master archer's aim was true. The arrow drilled through her forehead and out through the back of her head. The bloodbath cannon shots fired instantly, earnestly denoting the eleven souls silenced in the bloodbath.

 _Richelle Bird, District 9 Female: 14th, Killed by Icesula, Bloodbath_

At that, the exhausted careers regrouped at the cornucopia. They sent out Ruby to scout the areas just around the cafeteria for prey. He came back within twenty minutes reporting that the nearby hallways were empty of prey. After sharpening their weapons, they moved on to setting up camp. Scoria grabbed a lunch table and instructed Icesula to hold onto the other side. The others moved out the way as the two girls dragged it in front of the cornucopia. Ruby caught on to what they were doing. He rummaged through the supplies and came out a few minutes later with a screwdriver. He knelt down and screwed off all of the seats on the side of the table facing away from the cornucopia. If they needed to escape from the inside of the cornucopia, they could simply jump onto the stools, then onto the table and away. However, no tributes could easily come in from the outside because the seats had been removed. It was a clever plan, and the sponsors sent them a bit of food. Leaving Icesula to guard the cornucopia, they ventured out into the high school.

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the several surviving outliers scattered across the arena. With cameras mounted every few feet, it was easy to cover them all. After exiting the cafeteria, Ravyn bolted up the first stairwell she came across. She was tempted to go to the highest floor of the school, but she decided not to since that was where the careers would likely hunt first. Ravyn jogged through the second level hallways in pursuit of a good spot to hide. The school didn't have windows, so Ravyn had to use the clocks to judge what time it was. When it became time for bed, Ravyn ducked into a reading classroom. She found a pile of bean bags in the storage closet. Ravyn closed the door of the closet and lounged around on the comfortable bean bags, quickly falling asleep. Electron was one of the few tributes to stay on the first floor. Reverse-psychology was on his side; since most tributes would likely go to the higher floors, that was where the careers would be, leaving the lower level safe for Electron to thrive in. As it turned out, there were twenty-four drinking fountains scattered around the school, the only sources of water for the tributes. Every time a tribute died, one of the water fountains would stop working. They would produce water for up to five seconds at a time. After each use, it would be several hours before they could be used again. Electron took a quick sip of water from one of the fountains just outside a science classroom. Thirst quenched, he could focus on preparing for the night. Electron shifted the teacher's desk so that he could crouch under it and be hidden from the sight of any other tributes that entered the room. He anxiously peeked at the clock every few minutes until he passed out. Plate was beginning to seriously regret accepting that dare. In the games, every waking moment was filled with terror. He jumped at the slightest sound. He peeked over his shoulder every few seconds as if a muttation or other tribute would be there. After a few hours of nervous pacing through the halls, he barricaded himself into the teacher's lounge on the first floor, got himself a cup of water, and forced himself into the cabinet under the sink. Guega had managed a rope and pail of barbed wire from the horn. She ventured all the way to the highest level of the school. Before long, Guega found herself in a choir classroom. Rows of plastic risers marched neatly from wall to wall. The door opened outward, so Guega tied one end of her rope to the interior handle and held the other end down with the pail of barbed wire. That would hopefully prevent the door from being opened. Joey had felt the bite of Ruby's sword in the bloodbath. About half of his left arm had been sliced open by the career's blade, and Joey had just managed to escape with his life. He stayed on the first floor and hunted for a nurse's office the whole day. A few hours before it was time to sleep, he found a pack of first aid supplies tucked behind a chair in the main office. He used them to the best of his ability, following the instructions on the box. He was able to staunch the bleeding and hopefully prevent infection. It still hurt horribly, though, and he spent the night recovering in the main office. Clara's feet moved as fast as the wind. She sped up and down stairways and came to a stop on the second floor in front of a small conference room. Clara closed the door to the room and laid out her supplies. Throughout the bloodbath, she had managed to stuff a rope, a bell, a couple of rubber bands, and a few knives into her backpack. Clara had exactly what she needed for her contraption. She opened the door and placed an outstretched rubber band between it and the wall before finally closing it. She then tucked the other end of the rubber band under a heavy book. She placed the bell right beside the book. She had created an alarm system. If anyone opened the door, the rubber band would contract. The force of the door's end of the rubber band slamming into the book would knock it over on top of the bell, causing it to ding in warning. Clara tested the creation a few times. With the peace of mind that she was safe from attackers, she slithered underneath the conference table for the night. Jolynn spent the bloodbath stocking up on a mix of weapons and other supplies, unlike many of the other tributes that seemed to favor one or the other. She had a stubby, metal sword and a pack of three throwing knives. Jolynn had also gotten a couple pieces of bacon and a peach. The peach was a good source of liquid, so Jolynn never got thirsty and never bothered to find a water fountain to use in the future. She just climbed up to the third floor and made herself at home in one of the soundproof practice rooms behind the band room.

Day 2 came about, deathless. There was a whole lot of movement but little action. The careers had camped out the night prior in the storage closet behind the gymnasium. In the morning, they cleaned their weapons and hunted feverishly through the first floor. They were ravenous to clear it of outliers early on so that there wouldn't be anyone close to their precious stock of supplies. They didn't find anyone, but they would soon. Amongst the outliers, there was lots of unease. Clara regularly checked her burglar alarm to make sure it was still working. Jolynn paced nervously around the practice room. She was tempted to try the instruments, but she didn't want to make any noise that would attract attention. The room was soundproof, but she didn't want to take any chances. Under the desk in the front office, Joey's arm was coming along well. The gash hadn't healed, but the flow of blood had ceased almost completely and the pain was slightly less intense. He allowed himself a bit more medicine and took the day to rest. Ravyn lounged in the closet on the pile of bean bags for several hours, occasionally robbing the bookshelves of their contents to fill the long hours with anything other than lolling around aimlessly. And, of course, the always-anxious Plate stayed huddled under the sink in the teacher's lounge, terrified to make any sound for fear of attracting the careers.

In the early hours of Day 3, the careers were out on their daily hunt when Ruby shushed his allies. He pointed out the thin form of Electron moving quietly through a nearby classroom. Electron had grown enormously bored of lying around, so he had gotten up to go to the bookshelf and get something to read. Big mistake. Ruby charged into the classroom. His allies followed. Electron screamed and looked around frantically for a weapon. He tore a yardstick off of the teacher's desk and held it out, warning the careers not to come any closer. Ruby just laughed and batted the yardstick aside. It clattered to the carpet. Ruby unsheathed his sword.

The lights overhead gleamed across the iron blade of the sword, and that moment was the most terrifying of Electron's life. It jolted him out of his fit of shock. He turned around and ran. The other careers were running around the room, though. He was trapped between Ruby and Mars on one axis and by Scoria and Tiara on the other. Coast stood in front of the door, ready to take down Electron if he had any ideas about escaping. Electron looked frantically around and made the decision to bolt for the door.

Tiara leapt in front of him with her usual breathtaking grace and lashed out with her axe. Electron was too startled to duck underneath the swinging blade. It buried itself into the base of his neck, nearly decapitating him. He staggered backward and blacked out. Tiara wiped off her axe on the carpet. Electron's cannon shot rattled the tins of pencils on the desks. They quickly evacuated the room, not wanting to be around when his remains started to stink.

 _Electron Clerke, District 5 Male: 13th, Killed by Ruby and Tiara, Day 3_

The latter portion of Day 3 was even more eventful than the former. Two more tributes were to fall. Ravyn delicately stepped out of the closet in the reading classroom and took a look around. She felt a raging thirst and might crumple to dust if she didn't find any water soon. Her throat feeling like sandpaper, she took up a search in the second floor hallways. After about an hour, she stumbled across a tall drinking fountain. She sighed with relief and pressed on the button. Her smile faded. It wasn't working. In fact, it was Electron's water fountain; upon his death, it no longer worked. It took her nearly four more hours to find water. When she finally did, though, the taste was heavenly. After all that searching, she was too tired to go back to the reading classroom, so she passed out in a history room nearby. Plate was as paranoid as ever, scrunched up under the sink in the teacher's lounge. About halfway through the third day, his behavior began to grow out of control. He burst out of the closet and raced around the room, trying to "kill" pencils and pens and even knocking over the refrigerator. Plate couldn't handle the circumstances of the games. He had no idea what he was thinking when he raised his hand at the reaping. He hated his friends for getting him there. Joey's arm had healed enough that he was able to move around without much constraint. He took up a search for water. In a cupboard in the main office, he found a peanut butter sandwich in a plastic baggie. Joey munched on the sandwich and delved deeper into the office, walking back into the nurse's room and the counselor's office. It couldn't hurt to be close to the nearly boundless supply of medicine, so he crashed in the nurse's office. Jolynn finally gave into the temptation of all the instruments that were jumbled around her. She picked up a trumpet and buzzed her lips into the instrument. To her surprise, a decent tone came out. Jolynn laughed; she was glad she finally had something to occupy herself. She discovered a book of songs for beginners and spent the whole day teaching herself the trumpet. Little did she know that the career pack was just nearby…

The pack of careers, minus Icesula, tramped back to the cornucopia. They wanted to swap out the supply guard and restock on supplies. They were about halfway to the cornucopia when Ruby perked up. He pointed out a faint sound to his allies. Was it his imagination? Or was it trumpet music? Ruby burst up the nearest stairwell. His allies followed. They drew their weapons and kept searching. They were about to give up when Scoria pointed upward. The sound was coming from directly above them. One more stairwell upward and they burst into the band room. If the trumpet music wasn't just their imaginations, it would be coming from here, no doubt.

They followed the sound to the back of the room. Scoria threw open the door of one of the practice rooms and saw Jolynn inside. Jolynn screamed and threw the trumpet aside. She ran to the back corner of the room and scooped up her three throwing knives, warning the careers not to come any closer. Scoria and Ruby prowled closer, with Coast and Mars following behind. Tiara stayed in front of the door in case Jolynn made a break for it.

Jolynn threw her first knife. It clattered harmlessly against Scoria's body armor. Whimpering, she tossed her second knife. Ruby placed his sword in front of him and knocked the projectile out of the way, sending it crashing into a stack of violin cases. Jolynn only had one knife left, and she had better make it count.

With all of her might, Jolynn hurled the throwing knife into the air. By the merest happenstance, the knife buried itself straight into Coast's heart. The boy fell backward, gurgling and moaning nonsensically. He was dead within seconds. Good news. Jolynn had made a kill and attracted the entire nation. Bad news. She was now being swarmed by five angry careers.

 _Coast Macksey, District 4 Male: 12th, Killed by Jolynn, Day 3_

There was no way she could have escaped. The five careers were on top of her, abandoning all forms of coherent strategy and just wanting to kill her. Ruby grabbed her and slammed her into the wall. She slid to the ground like a torn paper doll. Scoria and Mars were onto her so quickly that she didn't have time to cry out. The two District 2 tribute's blades chopped her to ribbons. Reyna actually had to draw the careers away with electric pulses so that she'd have some form of remains to send home to District 10.

 _Jolynn Fig, District 10 Female: 11th, Killed by Ruby, Scoria, and Mars, Day 3_

With that, the careers sulked back to the cornucopia. One of their members was dead. Their confidence had plummeted tenfold. They regrouped with Icesula at the cornucopia. She was thrilled about the two cannon shots that had sounded and wanted to know the stories of their two newest kills. Tiara informed her that one of the deaths had been her district partner. Icesula was taken by shock. After a few minutes, they had to get back on track. The careers set up their home inside the cornucopia and left Mars to take the first shift as guard.

Mars stood in front of the cornucopia long after his allies fell asleep. As guard, he had the most important job of them all, but it was incredibly boring. He was incredibly tired. It was midnight when he decided to take a little power nap. His eyelids felt like they were being tugged down by bowling balls. He leaned against one of the cafeteria tables and fell asleep. _I'll be up and running again in ten minutes,_ Mars promised himself.

On the morning of Day 4, Icesula was furious. Mars had fallen asleep less than halfway through his shift and slept the whole night away. Scoria grabbed Mars by the shoulders, startling him awake.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, her voice as sharp as daggers.

Mars was groggy and not yet fully awake. "Just took a little nap. I'll be back up in ten… woah!" he looked at the clock. It was eight in the morning.

"Do you have any idea what you've done? You idiot!" She didn't say idiot though. She said several things that would justify a thorough mouth washing back home. Icesula drew her bow.

Tiara ran forward and tried to restrain Icesula. It was too early for career infighting, and they all knew that. But Icesula was blinded by fury. She knocked Tiara aside. "Go away, stupid princess." But she didn't say go away. And she didn't say stupid.

Mars readied his crossbow, shaking.

"So you want to fight me, eh? I'll show you why I earned that ten!" And Icesula charged.

She released her first arrow so quickly that Mars didn't have time to react. The arrow grazed his shoulder and broke on the ground behind him. Icesula readied her next arrow. Mars moved back and forth, hoping to disorient her. When that didn't work, he fired a dart from his crossbow. The dart impaled Icesula's wrist. Icesula screamed and staggered backward. She landed in Tiara's arms. Mars fled the cafeteria and raced away into the high school.

The careers all gathered around Icesula. They tried to heal her, but Mars had pierced a major vein. They fetched a few rags to wipe up her blood, but were ultimately helpless as she slowly died over the course of four hours. After her death, they didn't know how to feel. She was a rebel. She tried to kill her ally. But, then again, Mars could have been the culprit. He had shot and killed Icesula. But it was in self-defense. Who was at fault? Not Mars. Not Icesula. They could only try not to think about it as they continued to go about their day as three.

 _Icesula Zevadra, District 4 Female: 10th, Killed by Mars, Day 4_

The rest of Day 4, and the entirety of Day 5, passed without any deaths. There had been a plethora of deaths in the first four days, and Reyna wanted to take a break to let things settle down. The careers leapt between floors of the high school, wobbling over the carpet with their weapons and armor. The arena was the smallest in Hunger Games history up to that point. Ironically, it was harder than ever to find prey. The classrooms had so many places to hide that it was nearly impossible to track anyone down. The careers were hunting on Day 4 when Ruby pointed out Ravyn about fifty yards down. A long chase ensued. It took Ravyn nearly half an hour to lose the careers. She staggered into a math classroom and shut the door behind her. Ravyn grabbed a calculator, pencil, and math worksheet from the countertop and ducked under one the desks, solving the algebra to occupy herself and to calm down after the stress of the chase. Plate was only getting crazier and crazier as the days continued. He alternated rapidly between a destructive maniac and a sobbing mess. His mentor Markus sent him a note to keep strong, to power through the games no matter how hard they seemed. Plate tried to control his mood swings, and he managed to calm himself by six in the evening. Guega was very antsy. She started anxiously around the choir classroom, fidgeting with sheet music and stepping up and down the risers. Guega was itching for some kind of action, but she was also terrified of contact with any other tributes. The stress of the games was getting to her. It was getting to her just like it had gotten to Plate. Joey's arm was beginning to flare up once more after several days of inactivity. Bolts of searing pain fired through Joey's arm, more intense than any other pain he had felt in his life. He tried his best to treat the wound using the supplies in the nurse's office. Clara stayed in the conference room, leaving every few hours to sip water from a nearby water fountain. She had kept track of the cannon shots with a marker on her arm. There were only nine tributes left. Clara knew it was time to get hunting, but she was nervous about leaving her safe space in the conference room. After splitting away from the career pack, Mars raced through the school. His only mission was to find a safe haven where the vengeful careers couldn't reach him. He frequently hopped between classrooms, making him harder to be tracked. He held his crossbow in hand at all times, wanting to be prepared if his ex-allies came to kill him.

In fact, that was just what happened. Mars' worst fears were justified when he peeked out of his classroom and saw Tiara and Ruby walking alongside each other. He ducked back into the classroom and squeezed himself into the first cabinet he saw. The two District 1 tributes had seen him, though, and they bolted into the classroom just as he pulled the cabinet door closed. Tiara and Ruby searched around. It wasn't five seconds before Ruby threw open the cabinet. Mars came tumbling out, an aching, sored mess. He landed on the floor and Ruby's feet, nearly knocking him over.

Tiara ran to his side. "What do we have here?" She grinned and drew her axe. Tiara lofted the heavy axe into the air. She was about to kill him when she pulled back. It was Mars. Their ex-ally. Tiara stepped back. It hadn't really been his fault that he'd run away, had it? He didn't deserve to be killed.

"We should leave him alone. That or…" The last part of Tiara's sentence was never heard as Ruby loped off Mars' left hand with his sword. "Don't kill him!" Tiara begged. But he kept dicing away at the screaming boy. Before long, she was having a break down. Her heart hurt terribly for the poor boy. Seeing her ally being killed made her realize just how unprepared she was for these games. Mars' cannon shot sounded. Tiara stood in place, crying to herself.

"Come on!" Ruby demanded. Tiara nodded and followed, holding her head low and regularly wiping away her tears.

 _Mars Hargraves, District 2 Male: 9th, Killed by Ruby, Day 6_

That left the final eight: Ruby Rayfuse and Tiara Shimada from District 1, Scoria Clippert from District 2, Ravyn Crane from District 3, Plate Rosewell and Guega Matthews from District 6, and Joey Amodeo and Clara Twells from District 7.

Day 7 passed with no deaths. Ruby and sulking Tiara found their way back to the horn. Scoria and Ruby did most of the work that night. Tiara refused to do much, so traumatized by watching Mars' death that she couldn't even form coherent words. Ravyn kept grabbing math worksheets from the counters whenever she got bored. By the end of the day, Ravyn had a whole stack of them. Guega finally built up the nerve to leave the choir classroom for more than just a few minutes at a time, but she returned within an hour due to paranoia. Joey's arm was only getting worse. He was in constant agony, and he could do nothing but try to quiet his throes of pain as he rocked back and forth and willed the wound to seal up. Clara finally made a move, changing her camp from the conference room to a nearby science classroom. Clara searched through the cupboards and found a pot and cooking stove. Her eyes jumped from the pot to several jars of potted plants sitting in a corner. Clara boiled the water and chopped up some vegetables into it. She stirred the vegetable soup but fell asleep before she could eat it. The stove automatically turned off after a while, and the soup grew cold.

After tossing and turning for hours, Joey finally managed to fall asleep. He awoke at seven in the morning on Day 8. Joey looked around for a few minutes, debating whether he should get up. Joey dragged himself out of bed and groggily looked around. He heard muffled voices from behind the school's front door. Intrigued, Joey peeked out from the main office door and kept listening. It seemed like a big crowd was right behind the door.

Joey didn't have time to breathe. The door burst open and hundreds of students came stampeding through. Their voices rose up in a deafening roar. Joey stood wide-eyed for several seconds. Afterward, he ran into the main office and shut the door. It had no lock, so he barricaded it with a chair. The swarm of students broke through the door faster than Joey could run away.

The students crushed him to the ground, seemingly taking no notice of him. As they talked about news and crushes and schoolwork, Joey was being flattened by their feet. His arm, which was almost healed, was torn open, bringing forth sloshing fresh blood. The stampede flattened his lungs and trachea. He was helpless against the tide of humanity, the first to die as the stampede rushed through the high school.

 _Joey Amodeo, District 7 Male: 8th, Killed by Student Muttations, Day 8_

The teenagers filled up the hallways and classrooms. They seemed like harmless school-aged kids. In reality, they were carefully engineered muttations that could smell humans from hundreds of feet away. A tide of the students burst up one stairwell. Before long, nearby clusters had the same idea, and they trickled from the ground floor to the second floor in their quest to trample every square inch of the arena.

Ravyn set down her calculator and algebra worksheet and stood up. She could hear voices, and they were getting closer and closer. Ravyn peeked out the door. She couldn't believe her eyes. The rout of student mutts was closing in on both sides. To the left, a group of ten boys was about fifty feet away. To the right, a much bigger group of kids was rushing toward her. Ravyn closed the door and pushed a desk in front of it. She stepped up onto the teacher's desk, wanting be high up if, heaven forbid, the stampede broke in.

Within two minutes, the students closed in on her. They pushed on the door and slid away the desk like it weighed nothing, pouring into the room like the seawater in last year's arena. Ravyn didn't have time to move as one stocky boy laughed and pushed her off of the desk. She banged her head against a closet and slid to the ground. Behind the math classroom, there was a narrow hallway leading the neighboring classroom. Ravyn crawled toward it, but was overtaken in seconds. One student stepped on her head and sent her world spinning.

Ravyn tried as hard as she could to get up, but the stampede of students seemed endless. She suffered the same fate as Joey, flattened against the carpet as she was unable to call for help.

 _Ravyn Crane, District 3 Female: 7th, Killed by Student Muttations, Day 8_

The careers had woken up a few hours earlier. Ruby and Scoria were hunting on the third floor, while Tiara was left guarding the cornucopia. Tiara was sharpening her axe on the leg of one of the tables when she heard the stamping of feet and the roar of voices from nearby. Tiara ran toward the sounds to investigate.

She peeked through the doorway and was instantly knocked backward onto the ground. A wall of schoolchildren stretching down the hall as far as she could see was flooding into the cafeteria. Tiara walked backward on her hands and feet like a crab. She ran to the back of the cafeteria. The stampede overturned tables and crushed packs of supplies that were strewn around on the floor.

Tiara stood her ground. Swinging the blade of her axe with breathtaking grace, she managed to mortally injure the first mutt. Black muttation blood burbled from the wound. Tiara kicked him out of the way, prepared to do whatever she must to survive. The next mutt was a group of three giggling girls. Tiara was quick to figure out that they didn't have very good since of direction. She managed to injure one of them by standing in front of the wall and diving to one side just as it was about to hit her. The mutt crashed into the wall and fell at the feet of its two comrades. The other two girls were shocked, and they were quick work for Tiara and her trusty axe.

She swung the blade of her axe rapidly back and forth, knocking down students as they came. The bodies of the mutts were strewn everywhere. One mistake, though, led to her downfall. She was swinging her hatchet at a stocky black-haired boy when her elbow clanged into the wall behind her. Her arm buzzed, and she dropped the axe. Without means to kill the mutts, she was overwhelmed. Tiara fell backward as one kicked into her shins. The student mutts swarmed around her and threw her up and down. She screamed and thrashed as hard as she could. As they beat her up, she could feel her energy drained little by little. When she was finally unable to move, paralyzed from exhaustion, she was toast. Tiara was stomped on and torn up like a welcome mat as the stampede continued on in their rampage.

 _Tiara Shimada, District 1 Female: 6th, Killed by Student Muttations, Day 8_

Only one more tribute would die as the students swarmed the high school. Reyna didn't want the entire crowd of tributes to die; she needed a decent number remaining for a satisfying conclusion to the games. After completely filling the second floor, the mutts rose up to the third and uppermost floor.

In the choir classroom, Guega was huddling behind the conductor's podium and shaking. The crowd of students was banging at the door. It took all of Guega's worldly strength, and she couldn't have done it without loads of adrenaline, but she had dragged the compact piano in front of the door to keep the mutts out.

One fist managed to break through the brittle wood of the door. More and more strong blows were dealt to the door until it split in half like a cookie, chunks of wood flying everywhere and impaling themselves into the carpet. The mutts flooded into the choir room and overwhelmed Guega. Music stands and chairs crashed to the floor. Plastic risers tipped over. Guega fought to climb up onto the whiteboard to escape the crowd, but she wasn't fast enough. Two students crashed into her, knocking her to the middle of the crowd. As she was crushed under their feet, she screamed at the top of her lungs. There were no tributes nearby to help her, and her voice was barely audible over the roar of the crowd anyway.

 _Guega Matthews, District 6 Female: 5th, Killed by Student Muttations, Day 8_

No more deaths occurred that day. After Guega's death, the students all filed out of the school the way they came. The tributes that had survived were left shaking in the silence of the school. The mutts had left a scene of absolute chaos behind them. Most of the classrooms weren't even recognizable. Ruby and Scoria had leapt on top of a desk and held onto each other as they knocked away the students that tried to climb up as well. They didn't bother to go hunting after that. The stampede had caused too many deaths already, and they needed a rest anyway. The duo walked drearily back to the horn. Most of their supplies were completely destroyed, and those that weren't were almost all damaged beyond normal wear and tear. Plate was horribly beaten up. The mutts had thrown him up and down. He might have died if he hadn't have found solace in a locked bathroom stall that the mutts couldn't get into. Plate stayed in the stall for the whole rest of the day in silence. Clara was the only one that was completely unscathed. She heard the voices of the students early and had time to hide. Clara raced back into her science classroom home and shifted several desks in front of the door. Thinking the muttations could smell her, she moved toward the vegetables, hoping to drown out the aroma of her blood. After they cleared away, Clara went back to chopping up carrots and peas for her vegetable soup.

Scoria and Ruby decided to hunt on the morning of Day 9. Ruby's sword swung at his side, and Scoria fidgeted nervously with her dagger. Their hearts weren't with the hunt, but it was something to occupy themselves. They were up to the second floor when Ruby pointed out a smell. Carrots, he said it was. It took a few moments for Scoria to pick up on the scent. It was faint, but it definitely was there. The careers followed the smell and found themselves in front of a science classroom. The smell was stronger than ever.

Scoria pushed open the door and made eye contact with Clara inside. The girl was finishing off her vegetable soup. She had brought the water to a boil. Steam rose from the pot, and vegetables bobbed on the surface of the water. Clara screamed and stumbled backward. The two careers rushed in. Scoria was in front, with Ruby flanking her on the left.

Panicked, Clara looked around. She grabbed the pot of vegetable soup and threw it at Scoria. Scoria screamed and staggered to the ground, gasping and shaking. The boiling water was sizzling away at her skin. Flesh fell away like paper as her face and neck swelled like a balloon. She was dead within minutes, sprawled out on the ground in a pool of the hot vegetable soup.

 _Scoria Clippert, District 2 Female: 4th, Killed by Clara, Day 9_

There are times in one's life where one is so horrified yet so mesmerized by something that one cannot look away. That was what Clara was experiencing. Her eyes were glued to Scoria's face. In death, her eyes were staring off into the distance. Her face was forever frozen in an expression of sheer terror. Ruby charged toward Clara in pursuit of revenge. Clara had nothing to fight back with this time, so she grabbed a chair and held it in front of her, warning Ruby not to come any closer.

Ruby laughed and held out his sword. He stepped forward, forcing her to tiptoe backward. Clara screamed when her back hit the wall. She had nowhere left to run. Ruby had trapped her in the corner of the room and was closing in. Clara whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut, praying that her death would be quick. Of course, it was everything except quick. Her screams echoed around the room for hours as Ruby danced around her and inflicted small scrapes and cuts. It wasn't until she was practically begging for death that Ruby leapt forward. Clara held out her hand to stop him, but Ruby's sword went right between her fingertips and landed in the base of her neck. Clara gurgled and retched up blood. Her cannon shot sounded. Ruby marched away, having earned himself a spot in the finale of the fifty-second annual Hunger Games.

 _Clara Twells, District 7 Female: 3rd, Killed by Ruby, Day 9_

As the two remaining tributes delved into their hiding spots for the night, the finale was beginning. Ruby was one of the strongest tributes that District 1 had seen in ages. He was strong and resilient. He fought beside his friends even when his life was at risk. He was the perfect example of a valorous career. Plate, however, was the true underdog. He had volunteered into the games upon dare by his friends. At first, he was hopeless. But, he had managed to power through the games. With most of District 6 cheering him on, it wasn't completely impossible that he could pull out the win.

Of course, the two finalists were not ready to clash just yet. Plate had absolutely nothing to fight with, and all Ruby had was a sword and body armor. Each tribute was delivered a package by parachute. Plate's package contained a sword and spear, a set of stretchy body armor, and a thermos of water. Ruby's package contained a tool to sharpen his sword, a wicked-looking sickle, and a thermos of water.

Mere minutes later, however, each tribute received a second package. The tributes eagerly opened them up and were a little let down. A simple pair of white tennis shoes was inside. Ruby tried them on and yelped. At every slight movement, he slid forward, almost as if he was floating over the ground. He was like an ice skater. Curious, Ruby jumped into the air. He giggled as he was able to leap and jump through the air without ever touching the ground. He zoomed back and forth across the room at a ridiculous speed. These rocket shoes would be mighty helpful in the finale.

Plate's journey to discovering the powers of the shoes was much more awkward. He figured that it was just a change of shoes in case his pair broke. The morning of Day 10, he tried them on, figuring it couldn't hurt to stretch them to his size in case he needed them. Plate screamed and fell onto his back. He got back to his feet and travelled five steps before falling on his face like an idiot. It took hours of practice to use the flying shoes properly. The freedom Plate felt zooming around the room was indescribable.

On the morning of Day 11, the finale began for real. Plate left the classroom to practice with the flying shoes in the long hallway. Suddenly, he felt the shoes pulling him backward. No matter how hard he tried to move the other way, the shoes would not stop dragging him in one direction. He grabbed onto a door handle and fought with all of his strength to hold on, but the shoes had a mind of their own, tearing him away easily. It looked like he was fighting against a strong wind, and the wind was winning. The shoes dragged him down several stairwells and deposited him at the wreck of the cornucopia. Ruby arrived carrying his weapons less than a minutes later, equally as battered and confused. The shoes were programmed to draw themselves to the cornucopia once the tribute count dwindled to two. A clever trick of the gamemakers.

Ruby made the first move. He charged into the cafeteria with surprising speed, utilizing his rocket shoes to hover about an inch above the ground. Plate zipped all of the way up to the ceiling and took a few seconds to ready his weapons. His sword in his left hand and spear in his right, he was ready to fight Ruby.

Ruby's first few blows were powerful. With his sickle, he managed to lope off Plate's little finger. He moaned in pain. Quickly, Ruby was able to stab the sickle through his left hand. The blade poked through and shot out the other side. Blood drizzled twenty feet to the floor and splashed against the linoleum.

Plate eventually found the energy to fight back. Readying his spear, he lunged at Ruby's shoulder. The spear hit the skin and immediately bounced off. He cursed. He must have received the same protective body armor that he had. Plate did a scan of his opponent's body for any chinks in the armor, and Ruby did the same.

So quickly that he didn't have time to roll out of the way, Ruby lunged forward with his sword. Plate screamed as the blade drew a heavy line across his wrist. Plate fell to the ground and immediately passed out. Ruby sat down at a nearby cafeteria table and waited patiently for the boy to bleed out, a smile plastered across his face.

 _Plate Rosewell, District 6 Male: 2nd, Killed by Ruby, Day 11_

"Ruby Rayfuse of District 1, you are the victor of the fifty-second annual Hunger Games!" Reyna shouted through the arena of her creation.

The ceiling of the cafeteria unfolded and revealed the hovercraft overhead. As the electrical pulses pulled him upward, he cast one final glance at the high school that would be the source of his fame and fortune for the rest of his life.

 _Ruby Rayfuse, District 1 Male: Victor of the Fifty-Second Hunger Games, Day 11_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 1's citizens were cheering wildly from the second Ruby exited the games with a toothy grin. Their quest to catch up to District 2's astounding count of thirteen victors had seemed hopeless. With the addition of Ruby, however, the district's motivation was re-kindled. Investments in new combat academies nearly tripled in the year that followed as more and more District 1 kids aspired to follow in Ruby's footsteps.

Ruby moved into the Victor's Village of District 1, the seventh victor to do so.

His victory tour was a work of art; Ruby turned out to be a fantastic public speaker. The only district that showed him hardship was District 6. They were sour about their loss because it had been many years since one of their tributes had come as close to victory as Plate had.

Ruby would live to the age of one-hundred, dying on his one-hundredth birthday from pneumonia. He would marry and adopt two baby boys with his wife. Ruby would also develop a hunger for fierce piano, and he often played at local pubs and bars because of his talent.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Ruby settles into the Victor's Village of District 1, in the house across the street from Radiance's.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's the new chapter! I decided to split up each candidate's turns as head gamemaker instead of blocking them together in back-to-back games. I just thought it would be boring to have the same head gamemaker two years in a row. So the cycle goes: Feodore, Reyna, James, Feodore, Reyna, James. Just something I thought I should point out early so that there isn't any confusion later on :D**

 **This chapter is actually one of the shorter ones in terms of word count. A short length but tons of action seems like something Reyna would like. I know some of you will probably be mad that I had two career victories in a row, but it's something that'll inevitably happen. Haymitch says that careers win the games most of the time, and I'm trying to stay true to the books as much as I can.**

 **The fifty-third games will hopefully be out soon! School is almost out, and with summer vacation I'll have loads of time to write, so chapters will probably get out quicker in the summer months. Please tune in!**


	54. The 53rd Hunger Games

**The 53rd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Despite the enormous popularity of the Hunger Games just as they were, the gamemakers were never finished poking at and perfecting their formula. Knowing that the Capitolites loved nothing more than some bread and circuses to spice things up, Snow insisted that Head Gamemaker James Stradivarius modify the traditional games recipe this year. Traditional games involved a crop of strong careers, with furious fighters sprinkled amongst the outlier group. This year, though, James had to try something different. James rigged the reapings of several districts this year. He wanted an even blend of strong and weak careers, with an exceptionally strong batch of outliers. Sound like a normal group of tributes? Wrong. They were all in the extremes. The tributes were either incredibly powerful or hilariously weak, with very few tributes standing in the middle. This could lead to one of two results: a long and thrilling games in which the more skilled tributes must outsmart the lessers to find them and kill them, or a short and sweet games in which the strong ones rat out the weak ones very quickly. Both paths would lead to a successful games in James' eyes.

Of course, this atypical batch of tributes needed an atypical arena. James had his heart settled on an arena with little natural bounty. Thus, the tributes would be forced to track down and kill one another quickly, lest they starve to death. This year's arena had no trees or houses. A dark gray sky held wispy, faint clouds. The cornucopia, made of moss-choked stone, stood in the heart of the circular arena. Its weapons and tools were almost all stone. Beyond the cornucopia, a seemingly endless field of ice and snow stretched out into oblivion. Rocky cliffs were sporadically placed here and there, with many caves inside to provide shelter to the tributes. Several frozen lakes dotted the arena. A layer of frost about a foot thick covered the top of the water. Below it, the liquid water was so cold it was like fire to touch. Snowdrifts looked like giant white sculptures. Frost was mottled over everything. The arena's few sources of food included mold, lichens, and a few mutts, though these creatures could also be deadly if angered. The temperature of the arena largely paralleled the temperature of an actual tundra in autumn or winter. The orange sun could warm days up to as much as forty degrees Fahrenheit. During icy, windy nights, temperatures could drop as low as twenty degrees below zero. Hypothermia would be a big player in this year's games. It was as if Death himself were hovering overhead, waiting to snatch up anyone who didn't quickly find shelter and food.

This year's career pack was one of the weaker ones. Although there were several strong ones, there were also many speed bumps. Both of District 1's tributes refused to take on the sexy and beautiful District 1 persona that was so often used by tributes that came before them. The male didn't give a crap about looking nice. He was a menace with brute force weapons like clubs, and he was the hardiest and most resilient career the academy had seen in a long time. The female fell behind as far as weaponry was concerned due to a lack of training. She was a stellar wilderness survivalist, though, and could find food almost anywhere. District 2 had the weakest pair. The male tried to be comical and easy-going but ultimately failed, coming off as clunky and awkward with his bad puns. The girl was much more natural than him. She came off as a somewhat mysterious person; one side of her was a bloodthirsty career girl, whereas the other side was a calm and easy-going fellow. District 4 offered up the strongest bunch. The male was the spawn of one of the academy's top trainers. Having trained since early childhood, he certainly had the edge over his allies. He speared cloth dummies with his trident like he speared fish at work. The female from District 4 was always excited and anxious for action, though she did feel burnt out after short periods of strenuous training scores weren't the best. They earned two tens, two nines, and two eights.

This year's group of outliers had many standouts. Incredibly, three tributes scores eights outside of the career pack! Fender from District 6 had worked with machinery all of his life; he was a whiz with technology and physics. In his interview, he allotted that he hoped to win the games like Beetee Latier. Dorris of District 9 was a menace with sickles and scythes, the two weapons of the grain district. Dorris was muscular and broad-shouldered, and she was intimidating to many of the smaller tributes. Lily from District 11 was an expert survivalist. She worked her magic to start blazing campfires in minutes and set snares that caught wagonloads of prey in mere hours. Lily also knew a thing or two about weaponry, though she was a little awkward in armor. A meager two sevens were scored, and they went to Coyote from 7 and Orson from 10. The two tributes from District 10, Orson and Beverly, had a very close-knit relationship. In fact, they had been dating for years and were even engaged to be married! After Beverly was reaped, Orson volunteered into the games to protect and keep her safe in the arena. Nori of 5 was yet another volunteer, volunteering in place of her eighteen year-old schoolteacher Miss Mary. Thay from District 12 wasn't a volunteer, but he managed to capture the audience's heart. His father was a music teacher, and Thay spent the entire three minutes of his interview playing a complicated fugue on a violin (they kept weirder things backstage). Despite these high-earners, though, there were many tributes that fell short. Three fours and five threes shone amongst the outlier pack. But who knows? It wasn't impossible that one of these tributes could stomp the laws of probability into the ground and emerge victorious from the tundra arena. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Noble Harvey, 18, (10) 3-1 and Relish Ainsworth, 17, (8) 7-1

District 2: Ventus Cranshaw, 18, (8) 8-1 and Lorna Isaievych, 16, (9) 5-1

District 3: Orbit Lytle, 14, (3) 33-1 and Zinca Leonard, 16, (5) 20-1

District 4: Lamprey Seltzer, 17, (10) 4-1 and Clamma Waters, 17, (9) 4-1

District 5: Darrel Manuel, 18, (6) 17-1 and Nori Lane, 12, (3) 36-1

District 6: Fender Maurios, 16, (8) 9-1 and Zoe Carney-Moore, 18, (5) 20-1

District 7: Coyote Fletcher, 17, (7) 13-1 and Diamond Willow, 17, (6) 14-1

District 8: Fustian Johnson, 18, (4) 25-1 and Poplin Kimkhwab, 14, (3) 35-1

District 9: Anton Gilley, 17, (4) 26-1 and Dorris Magenta, 18, (8) 9-1

District 10: Orson Thomas, 16, (7) 14-1 and Beverly Grass, 18, (3) 28-1

District 11: Till Puntanen, 12, (3) 31-1 and Lily Eckel, 17, (8) 8-1

District 12: Thay Webster, 16, (6) 15-1 and Peatia Chung, 17, (4) 26-1

HGBO Bets: 11% on Noble and Lamprey, 9% on Lorna and Clamma, 7% on Relish, Ventus, and Lily, 6% on Fender and Dorris, 5% on Coyote and Orson, 3% on Darrel, Diamond, and Thay, 2% on Zoe and Fustian, 1% or less on Orbit, Zinca, Nori, Poplin, Anton, Beverly, Till, and Peatia.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The tributes were shivering from the second their pedestals rose up into the frozen tundra. Gusts of icy wind blew daggers of snow into their eyes. Snowflakes were already building up on their pedestals. Before long, they would be completely covered with frost.

When the gong sounded, every single tribute headed into the cornucopia. The terrain around them was possibly the most unforgiving in games history. They all knew they had no chance of survival if they went into the tundra without supplies to help them. The first footprints were made in the snow as the faster tributes bolted toward the horn.

Noble was the first career to find a weapon. He used his hand as a visor to keep out the snow as he navigated the landscape. He came to a stop in front of a spiked stone club that lay in a snowdrift about ten yards from his pedestal. His icy fingers wrapped around the weapon. Noble looked around and made eye contact with nearby Beverly from District 10. Beverly was paralyzed with terror as Noble began to bring down the club.

Beverly's district partner Orson was only a few feet away, and, as one could imagine, he wasn't very happy to see his fiancée in the face of death. Orson tackled Noble to the ground. Beverly staggered backward, too dumbfounded with shock to cry out, as the two boys wrestled each other on the ground. Orson's blood was replaced with adrenaline, and it wasn't long before he managed to pin Noble to the ground. He tore the career's club out of his grasp and beat him senseless with the weapon. Noble died from head trauma before a single minute was up. Orson stumbled backward and grabbed onto Beverly, and they continued their search for supplies in the icy winter.

 _Noble Harvey, District 1 Male: 24th, Killed by Orson, Bloodbath_

They didn't travel five steps before another career appeared out of the blizzard. A few seconds earlier, Clamma had picked up a pair of tomahawks. Orson and Beverly turned around and fled. They zigzagged back and forth, hoping that they could lose Clamma in the snowstorm. She had a keen eye, though. In the end, they were toast. A vicious Clamma buried her first tomahawk into Beverly's back. She fell backward into the snow. The frost melted almost immediately at the kiss of her hot blood. Seeking revenge, Orson hurled himself at her. She sidestepped, though, and Orson just collided with the snow a yard past like an idiot. Orson struggled to get to his feet, to help Beverly, but he was dead in seconds when Clamma thrust her second tomahawk into the back of his head, cleaving his brain cleanly in half.

 _Beverly Grass, District 10 Female: 23rd, Killed by Clamma, Bloodbath_

 _Orson Thomas, District 10 Male: 22nd, Killed by Clamma, Bloodbath_

Ventus and Lorna from District 2 locked arms as they walked. It was difficult to see through the freezing gale, and having a buddy system kept them from getting lost. They were both armed with swords, holding them out to feel their way over the snow. Suddenly, Lorna's sword bumped into something. She jumped toward it and found herself wrestling a terrified outlier girl to the ground. Lorna used her sword to draw a heavy line horizontally across the girl's neck. Her screams were choked by a bloodcurdling gurgle, and Ventus finished him off, thrusting his sword into her chest.

 _Peatia Chung, District 12 Female: 21st, Killed by Lorna and Ventus, Bloodbath_

Lamprey, wielding a tombstone-grey trident, sprung toward a boy who was kneeling in the rime, rummaging through a couple of crates. The boy screamed as Lamprey's trident dug into his back, carving out tissue and muscle. Lamprey made his first kill as he drove the prongs of the trident into his forehead and pounced away to look for more prey.

 _Fustian Johnson, District 8 Male: 20th, Killed by Lamprey, Bloodbath_

After wrenching her sword out of a limp Peatia's chest, Ventus fluidly attacked his next victim, young Till from District 11. Till had fallen face-first into the snow a few seconds earlier and was now motionless, unable to move any further in the icy chill. Ventus drove his sword into his neck. The boy didn't even flinch as all blood flow to his brain ceased and he died.

 _Till Puntanen, District 11 Male: 19th, Killed by Ventus, Bloodbath_

Relish had run all of the way into the cornucopia for a whip. Its vicious stone teeth neatly marched down the strap of waterproof leather. She spun sharply on her heel and slammed the whip down upon the nearest girl. The girl screamed as the whip wrapped around her torso and strangled her left arm. Relish yanked back the leather strap. Her entire arm was torn off. Following behind it was the skin on her abdomen, peeling off of her muscle like a sticker. The girl briskly passed away after that.

 _Poplin Kimkhwab, District 8 Female: 18th, Killed by Relish, Bloodbath_

Clamma made the final kill. Using her bloodstained tomahawks, she cornered a weeping boy against the cornucopia. She dashed through the snow and went in for the kill. Clamma landed one of her tomahawks into his shoulder. She tore the weapon out and hit the same mark again. All at once, the arm fell off of his body and landed with a thud in the frost. The dismembered boy crumpled like a sock puppet. Clamma used her other tomahawk to polish him off.

 _Anton Gilley, District 9 Male: 17th, Killed by Clamma, Bloodbath_

The bloodbath of the fifty-third Hunger Games had sixteen survivors, five of whom were careers and eleven of which were outliers. It took the careers a while to find each other in the blizzard. Huddling together to maintain precious body heat, they got to work. District 1's Relish, hailing from a cold district, suggested that they find sleeping bags and blankets and hang them over the entrance to the cornucopia to keep out the cold. It would take a huge amount of effort, but none of them had anything better to suggest. Lorna and Clamma rummaged through crates and packs and came back with dozens of warm blankets. Relish instructed Lamprey to gather a bunch of rocks. He returned an hour later with as many stones as he could carry. After climbing up on top of the cornucopia, Relish draped the blankets over the entrance and held the tops down with the stones. It was much warmer inside of the cornucopia without the wind blowing in. In fact, their bodies warmed up the interior to as warm as fifty degrees Fahrenheit by nightfall! They didn't hunt, as the storm was too harsh for them to see more than twenty feet in front of them. They decided to wait until the storm quieted down a bit before going out to look for prey.

The outliers scattered across the tundra. Orbit found that by holding his shirt over his eyes, he could keep out the snow. He navigated his way to a series of rocky cliffs. Orbit climbed about thirty feet up one of the rock hills and laid out his supplies: a blanket, a package of jerky, and a capsule of burn cream. Zinca had managed a flashlight and pack of batteries from the cornucopia. Using the light of the flashlight, she slowly trudged through the storm. After several hours, she found herself in front of a yawning hole in the earth. Zinca crawled down into the cave and huddled up into a ball, holding onto her flashlight for dear life and grateful for the shelter the cave provided. Darrel spent the entire day on a hunt for firewood. His only possessions were a knife and a little bit of clean water. Wanting to impress the sponsors, he cut down a small white fox that roamed into his shelter at the base of a snowy hill. Impressed, a sponsor sent Darrel a lemon-flavored cookie. It wasn't the firewood he had hoped for, but it was better than nothing. Nori was one of the luckiest tributes. From the horn, she had snatched a jacket and well-insulated sleeping bag, as well as a stubby stone javelin. Nori trekked through the tundra and collapsed under a high snowdrift, unable to go any farther. Promising herself she would hunt for food the next day, Nori quickly fell asleep. Fender sustained a minor injury a few minutes into the games. He had grabbed a pair of curved hunting knives and was dashing away from the cornucopia when he tripped and fell. Fender wiped out in the snow, and in his descent one of the hunting knives raked across his forehead. A generous sponsor delivered him a vial of cream to seal the wound and help prevent infection. Fender kept on powering forth, and made shelter in a pitch-black cave in the stony cliffs. Coyote and Diamond from District 7 had allied prior to the games. They both had axes, and Diamond had a small heating pack. They passed the pack back and forth as they ventured across the arena. Silver dusk arrived, and Coyote and Diamond made camp in a fissure in the frost-molded earth. They huddled together all through the night to keep warm. Dorris' games began with a sour start. Despite her best efforts, her only reward of the bloodbath was a handheld trowel. Figuring she might as well put it to use, Dorris dug out a small field of snow with the trowel. She hoped to find solid ground underneath, but gave up after digging down about four feet into the frost. Dorris slept in the small hole she had dug herself, waking up every few minutes from the cold. Lily was probably the most well-stocked outlier. Lily had a stone sword, a pack of three matches, and a bag of firewood. After venturing about two miles away from the cornucopia, Lily set up for the night in a small cave. She arranged the firewood and managed to light it on her first try. Content and warm, she practiced with her stone sword for as long as she could stay awake. Thay hummed musical tunes to himself as he trouped on through the snow. As the orange sun began its descent, Thay decided to set up a shelter. He settled down in the bottom of an ice-filled ditch and pulled in his limbs to keep warm.

Zoe was undoubtedly in the worst situation. Zoe had absolutely no supplies from the bloodbath. Her only souvenir was a gash halfway down her left arm. The wound was administered to her by Lorna during the bloodbath. After walking a few miles, Zoe sat down and prepared to sanitize the wound. She washed it out with the chunky snow and then bound a few extremely rare dead leaves over it as a bandage. Zoe kept on her odyssey through the tundra. Before long, she found herself beside a medium-sized frozen lake. She was incredibly thirsty. Zoe was tempted to eat the snow, but she didn't trust it, as she remembered how the mountain snow was poisonous in the fiftieth Hunger Games. Wanting to get to the liquid water in the lake, she grabbed a rock and hammered into the ice. Her first blow created a dent half a centimeter deep.

It took nearly half an hour of banging the ice for her effort to succeed. Zoe was just about to give up when the ice all around her shattered and cracked. She pushed it down and was pleased to find that her hand sank into cold liquid water. She built up a mound of snow behind her and stuck her feet into it. This would anchor her to the land as she leaned her weight forward. Zoe bent forward and touched her lips to the cold lake. The lake water was too cold to swallow, so she swished it around in her mouth for about a minute to warm it up before swallowing it.

Zoe sat back up, invigorated by the new drink. She leaned forward again for another sip. Suddenly, the snow mound behind her slipped. She didn't have time to breathe before falling forward into the lake. Zoe's head sank below the ice water in a millisecond. In the freezing lake, she couldn't use her limbs. Her entire body was numb. The cold was so intense it was nearly indistinguishable from death by fire. She paddled for the surface, but her head banged into solid ice. She couldn't find the hole she had entered through. Zoe was running out of oxygen fast.

Her lungs screamed for air. Black spots dotted her vision. Finally, Zoe found the hole she entered through. She rocketed to surface and took a massive gulp of air. Teeth chattering, she struggled to hoist herself out of the water. Her fingers landed atop the ice above. She only pulled herself up a few feet before her fingers slipped and she was dunked back into the freezing water. Frustrated, she tried again. Zoe dug her nails into the ice to gain a better hold. Her nails just broke off a piece of the ice. She fought for all that she was worth. The jaws of hypothermia were closing around her. Her entire body was blue with cold. This year's natural landscape was among the deadliest yet, and Zoe was the first tribute to die inside of it without a single drop of her blood being spilled. Of course, she would not be the last…

 _Zoe Carney-Moore, District 6 Female: 16th, Killed by Hypothermia, Day 1_

Day 2 passed, deathless. A few minutes before noon, the snowstorm began to lighten up. Now able to see into the snowy cold, the career pack got around to hunting. Hailing from chilly District 1, Relish had a tolerance for the chill. The others needed to dress in layers to keep themselves warm in the tundra. They were miserable for the entire day, and their hearts weren't in the hunt. At sundown, they made camp in a field of cracked boulders overshadowed by a looming snowdrift. Orbit travelled further up the rocky cliff that was his home. Orbit took up a hunt for food and found out the hard way that the moss on the cliff was edible. He closed his eyes when he ate it so that he wouldn't have to see the fuzzy black mold and bugs. Zinca stayed put in her safe little cave. Throughout the day, she built up a wall of snow around the entrance. This brushed up the wind before it could blow into Zinca's cave, making it substantially warmer. Darrel finally gave into the temptation of a fire. He cleared out an area of snow and arranged the firewood in a teepee pattern. Using a sponsored match, he lit the wood. It took hours to get the fire going, but Darrell was grateful to feel the warm tongues of heat curling down into his bones. Nori asked for a cup from the sponsors. She filled the cup with snow and held it between her legs to melt it before drinking it. Fender's forehead wound hadn't yet healed, so he stayed as still as a statue in a fissure in a hillside and willed the wound to close. Allies Coyote and Diamond searched for food. By sunset, they had gathered a small tin of bugs that they found clinging to some mold. The bugs squirmed horribly in their mouths, but they were Coyote and Diamond's only way to sustain themselves. Dorris was low on food, and she didn't trust the snow to be sanitary to drink when melted. She picked up a sharp stone as her weapon and trudged through the snow, looking for prey and a way to impress the sponsors. Thay broke camp at dawn and walked up and down the rolling hills of snow. Thay was looking for another outlier to ally with, but it was hard to see much in the snow and he was forced to set up camp once more in a frosty ditch. Lily set down her stone sword in the snow and got to work on a strange new project. Lily carved out a rectangular hole in one of her firewood logs and packed the hole with snow. She then flipped it over. The block of packed ice and snow fell out of the mold. She lined several dozen blocks in a circle and began building upward. An igloo! Lily's sponsors sent her a better mold to make the blocks. In no time, she was setting the very top block of snow in place. She had no good way to make an entrance and exit to the igloo, so Lily just knocked out a few blocks and packed them back with snow once she and her supplies were safely inside.

Similarly, Day 3 passed without any deaths. Not much progress was going on in the games. The careers were a little apprehensive about hunting any longer, as they were almost out of supplies already and wanted to go back to the horn to warm up. They arrived at the mossy stone cornucopia before noon and spent the remainder of Day 3 inside sharpening their weapons and warming up their hands. They didn't dare to start a fire. Not yet, at least. They weren't that desperate. Orbit kept on eating moss and bugs and drinking the melted snow. His stomach was not agreeing with the germs that were in the moss, and he lost his lunch twice throughout the day. Zinca crawled out of her cave to look for food and ended up catching and killing a small white hare. Zinca skinned and prepared to eat the rabbit, but she didn't touch its meat yet, instead waiting until she was more desperate. Darrel spent the day hunting for flammable things to keep his bonfire going. A sponsor sent him advice that sometimes the soil near the frozen lakes had chunks of sod and driftwood hidden inside of it. Darrel found his way to a lake and pawed through the snow until he reached solid ground. It took several hours of painful searching, but he came up with a handful of brown grass and wood chips. With them, Darrel was able to keep his fire going. Nori was beginning to face serious problems with food. By melting snow in her cup, she had a virtually infinite supply of water, but food was a whole different animal. Nori's vision wasn't great, and she couldn't see any of the white wildlife in the snow. She asked the sponsors for help as loud as she dared, but none was sent. Nori spent the whole day with a growling tummy, hope draining away from her gradually. Fender's forehead wound had finally sealed up completely. After several hours of food hunting, Fender collapsed with exhaustion in a field of boulders and quickly fell asleep. Coyote and Diamond clutched their axes in their cold hands as they stalked over the windswept snow. They had been forced to cut down to one meal a day due to lack of food, and they were so cold they could barely move. Coyote and Diamond had to make a kill soon to impress the sponsors, or they would be toast. Dorris kept on hunting with her sharp rock. None of her hunting plans came into fruition, because she didn't find any tributes. Halfway through the day, Dorris switched over to hunting for food, and stroked lucky after she killed a snowy owl a few minutes before nightfall. Lily added reinforcements to her igloo. Lily exited the snow house and used chunks of snow to line the cracks between individual blocks. By the time she was finished, almost no snow could get inside besides through the entrance. Thay was experiencing hypothermia worse than ever. He collapsed against a tall snowdrift, so cold and so tired that he couldn't even lift a finger. His body temperature was dangerously low. Unless a miracle happened, Thay would die from hypothermia sooner than later. There was peace in the arena. But that peace would not last. The white virgin snow would soon be dyed red.

In sharp contrast to the two days prior, Day 4 came about with a whole new load of excitement. A whopping three deaths would occur between sunrise and sunset. Allies Coyote and Diamond from District 7 were growing more hopeless than ever before. The hours slipped away as they trudged through the snow, leaving footprints that were covered up within minutes by newly-fallen snowflakes. The allies were about to give up hunting when their hearts stopped. About fifty yards away, stepping carefully down a tall snowdrift, was Dorris. Coyote hid his axe behind his back, and Diamond did the same. Although it was despicable indeed, their plan was to befriend the freezing Dorris and then kill her. The duo waved their hands in the air. Dorris slowly approached. Her skin was blue with hypothermia, and the growl of her stomach almost masked the wind's ghostly howl.

"I haven't eaten in days," Dorris rasped. "Please help me."

Diamond reached into her pocket and pulled out their only food. A pack of nuts. Diamond shook out a few nuts into her palm and handed them to Dorris. She chewed each nut into a paste before she swallowed it, wanting to savor each one as much as possible. When she was finished, the trio took up a hunt for shelter. Around six in the evening, they stumbled across a narrow cave in the wall of a tall, rocky cliff. Dorris crawled inside first. Diamond and Coyote followed. The two District 7 tributes felt terrible about themselves. They were building up the poor girl's hopes just so that they could be crushed. They tried not to think about it as the day wore on. Finally, when they were all too tired to continue working, they went to bed. At least, Dorris though they were all in bed. Coyote and Diamond both stayed up until they heard her soft snores.

All at once, so swiftly that she didn't have time to scream, the sevens lunged at Dorris with their axes. Coyote made first contact, swinging his axe into the base of her neck. Dorris tried to scream, but she couldn't make any sound. Her senses were so foggy that she couldn't do anything but twitch her limbs. Diamond was on her like a hound, severing her left leg with her axe. The girl was dead within seconds, leaving the sevens to pillage her of her supplies and move her body far away where they wouldn't smell her.

 _Dorris Magenta, District 9 Female: 15th, Killed by Coyote and Diamond, Day 4_

The careers weren't hunting on Day 4, as it was simply too cold and they wanted to stock up on supplies. No matter how many rocks they used to nail down the blankets at the horn's mouth, the wind kept knocking them to ground. The careers actually had to send somebody out every half hour or so to set the fallen blankets back up. Even with the added protection from the bitter chill, they were all freezing. Their breaths fogged up in the air. They had no choice but to start a fire. They would freeze to death otherwise.

Out in the clearing, Lorna and Ventus took up a search for kindling. Relish called them back a few minutes later. She had found out that the pages of the wilderness survival guides in the cornucopia were flammable. Arranging them in a bundle, the allies asked for matches. A sponsor delivered them a packet of three matches.

Clamma did the honors. She ground the first match across the face of the matchbox. It flickered to life, flame dancing over the red-hot tip. Suddenly, a gust of wind came. The flame was extinguished. Clamma discarded the match. Hands shaking, she scraped the second match across the matchbox. She had used too much force. The head of the match broke off and plopped down into the snow. The third and final match, Clamma was lucky. She got a flame going, and she instructed her allies to stand between the fire and the wind. Carefully, she set the match into the bundle of paper. Within minutes, it was all on fire, and she placed the firewood in a cone shape around it. Before long, they had a raging bonfire.

As the careers were bringing out the animals they had killed on the days before to be cooked over the fire, Clamma stayed out to tend to the hearth. Using her tomahawks, she prodded the fuel around and blew into it to keep the fire going. After the bonfire was securely underway, she took the time to enjoy it.

Clamma stood on the edge of the fire and leaned slightly in, savoring the warmth of the flame. Just then, Lorna came out of the cornucopia. Wanting to compliment her on starting the fire so well, Lorna gave Clamma a friendly pat on the back. Little did she know, though, that she was leaning into the fire. Clamma went toppling forward into the fire. She flailed around her limbs and screamed for help. Lorna rushed forward to help her, but she had already landed in the middle of the fire. Her skin immediately turned black and began crumbling away upon contact with the flaming hot logs. Blood poured out of her skin and instantly turned to vapor. Lorna tugged her out of the fireplace and threw snow over her face and abdomen to put out the flames. It was no good. The fire was spreading over Clamma's clothes. Before either of them knew it, Clamma was a column of flame. The icy wind just fanned the flames and made them taller. She was dead within a minute, and her ugly fried corpse wasn't one that the gamemakers spent much time showing on television.

 _Clamma Waters, District 4 Female: 14th, Killed by Lorna, Day 4_

The careers were strangely unaffected by Clamma's death. In fact, most of them saw it as a good thing. They were short on food and weapons, and with one less member everyone was able to get a second helping at meals. Lorna was the exception. She felt awful about accidentally shoving her into the inferno, and she cried quietly to herself as she worked until her bedtime a few minutes before midnight.

Only one more death occurred that day. Poor Thay from District 12 was huddling against the rocky cliff, his only pack wrapped around him. With snow up to his waist, his body temperature was horribly low, at temperatures that are nearly always fatal. With icy blue lips and purple skin, Thay was not looking his best. Unable to lift a finger, he was forced to sulk against the rock and wait for the end. He died from hypothermia less than a minute before midnight, eliminating District 12's hopes of victory.

 _Thay Webster, District 12 Male: 13th, Killed by Hypothermia, Day 4_

Day 5 passed without any deaths. After Day 4, which saw three kills, it was only natural for the next few days to pass in peace as James allowed things to simmer down. The careers finally got around to hunting in the cliffs. They left Ventus behind to guard the cornucopia and the bonfire with his sword, while Relish, Lorna, and Lamprey set out to go hunting. Temperatures began to rise about halfway through the day, giving the trio the strength they needed to keep on hunting. Orbit was beginning to get a bad case of diarrhea from eating the moss and bugs. They were his only source of food. Even though they put him through horrible agony, Orbit had no choice but to eat them. Zinca finally gave into temptation and ate the hare than she had killed two days prior. Afterward, she moved her shelter about a hundred feet so the gamemakers would leave her alone. Darrel was finally unable to find more fuel for his bonfire, and went out on an ultimately fruitless hunt for more firewood. Nori was weaker than ever, shivering terribly in the snow and slowly starving. A sponsor sent Nori a thin blanket to replace the one she had misplaced, which offered some protection against the icy wind and snowflakes. Fender took up a hunt for tributes. It was the only way to impress the sponsors and get food. Fender didn't find any tributes. Coyote and Diamond felt awful with themselves. They had befriended Dorris and turned against her just like that. However, they were able to rake in the payouts of drawing blood from another tribute. Sponsors sent them several nutritious granola bars and tools to sharpen their axes. Lily left her firewood and matches behind in the igloo and left to go hunting with her stone sword. Around five in the evening, Lily turned around and made the trip back to her igloo after finding no prey.

Just like Day 5, Day 6 was deathless. Luckily for the tributes, temperatures in the arena were rising higher than ever before. In some areas of the arena, it was as warm as forty degrees! Despite the newfound warmth of the arena, one tribute was still at severe risk of hypothermia. Nori was able to move around slightly in the snow, but other than that she was completely immobile. Her mentor sent her a blue pill that would take away the pain and help to ease her out of the world, but Nori couldn't even move her fingers to place the pill in her mouth.

The grim reaper descended in the early morning of Day 7. Pitiful Nori was as thin as a skeleton and about as alive. She clung onto her life using her last ounces of energy, but, in the end, she couldn't survive long into the day. Her death was one of the less spectacular ones of the games as her body slowly shut down from the awful cold.

 _Nori Lane, District 5 Female: 12th, Killed by Hypothermia, Day 7_

No more deaths occurred that day. Orbit's condition was only growing worse and worse. As he kept eating the bug-infested moss, he was defecating every few minutes. He had to keep melting snow into his mouth to keep hydrated. Zinca was persistently killing more animals. In the middle of the day, Zinca even managed to shoot down a snowy owl. Darrel kept on hunting for firewood but didn't find any. Coyote and Diamond went tribute hunting with their axes and stumbled across Fender around noon. A long chase ensued, but Fender finally was able to lose the District 7 alliance. Lily went out hunting once more with her sword, returning to her igloo a few minutes before nightfall. Her mentor Seeder sent her a note that she should stay put in the igloo and wait for tributes to come to her. Lily heeded the advice, promising herself that she wouldn't move more than twenty feet away from the igloo the next day unless there was an emergency.

Days 8 and 9 came about with no deaths. In an effort to shake things up, James released more mutts into the arena. In one of their hunts, Coyote and Diamond had an encounter with a fierce seal muttation. After twenty minutes, the allies managed to kill it with their axes. They were pretty sure that the seal meat was edible, but they didn't want to take any chances, so they discarded the body and kept on hunting. Lily stayed still in her igloo for the whole of Day 9. On Day 10, she left the snowy house on yet another hunt. She got into a fight with Fender around noon. Each tribute escaped with cuts and scrapes, but nothing major. Zinca's knack for hunting down and killing animals attracted several sponsors. A silver parachute floated down into Zinca's arms containing a bow with two arrows, for her to hunt with. Orbit's diarrhea was getting more and more severe. He was growing immensely thirsty and hungry, and he was no longer able to move every time he made a bowel movement. Orbit was miserable, smelling horrible and unable to find any sources of food other than the bug-infested moss.

Noon on Day 10, Orbit slowly passed away. The diarrhea from eating the bug-infested moss had dehydrated him so much that he couldn't talk or stand. He was dizzy and had a pounding headache, and his skin was as dry as a bone. No matter how much snow he placed into his mouth to hydrate himself, he couldn't counteract the amount of fluid he was losing from defecating so often. But he had been such a brave boy, his mentor Beetee would later tell the press.

 _Orbit Lytle, District 3 Male: 11th, Killed by Diarrhea, Day 10_

The rest of Day 10, as well as the entirety of Days 11 and 12, passed without any deaths. Progress in the frozen tundra arena had slowed to a crawl. Zinca continued traversing the uneven snowy hills of the tundra, shooting down animals for food. She lost one of her arrows, and it took her hours to find it again. Darrel was doing a lot of the same stuff he had been doing previously. On Day 11, a sponsor sent him a pack of bacon. Darrel carefully rationed the meat throughout the three days. The lack of food was giving him a headache and making him nauseous, so he decided to rest and keep looking for food the next morning. Fender was on a hunting trip when he spotted the forms of the three careers about twenty yards away. Fender fled the scene. The careers hadn't seen him, as they were absorbed in conversation. They had left Lamprey to guard the cornucopia and were hunting through the tundra, sticking to the frozen lake regions so that they would have clean water when they needed it. Lily kept up her strategy of going away from and back toward her igloo base. Her hunting efforts weren't paying out at all, but she was a determined girl and kept on hunting with her sword swinging at her side. Coyote and Diamond's supplies of food were great after their killing of Dorris, and hunger wasn't a problem for them at the time. They worked to seal off the entrance to their cave home, creating a layer of snow to surround the entrance and keep out the wind and storms. Having some work to focus on helped them to forget about Dorris. Days 11 and 12 came about with much of the same. If James didn't come up with something spectacular soon, the games would be a massive flop.

At nine in the morning on Day 13, James released a crowd of muttations into the tundra. There were ten tributes left in the games after nearly two weeks, and James hoped to thin down their numbers and get the ball rolling toward a satisfying conclusion. The muttations were polar bears with fur so white they were almost invisible surrounded by the white snow. Zinca was waking up after hearing the cries of the polar bears as they trudged through the frost and ice. She wasn't fully to her senses yet. Groggily, Zinca pushed out a hole in her makeshift shelter of snow and peeked through. Her hand raced for her bow at the sight. She couldn't believe her eyes. A massive white polar bear nearly twice her height was merely twenty feet away. Zinca let out a yelp and slapped her hand over her mouth. She scrunched herself against the ground and squeezed her eyes shut. If she was still, the polar bear would hopefully go away.

Things did not go as planned. The hungry bear muttation smacked the structure of windswept snow with its mighty paw. The snow crumpled into a thousand pieces and was carried away by the icy wind. The polar bear let out a roar so loud that the earth seemed to shake. Zinca took the hint. She sprang to her feet and ran.

Zinca started toward the rocky cliffs in the distance. Carefully sprinting up and down the hills with the polar bear at her six, she grew exhausted extremely quickly. By the time she reached the base of the cliffs, she was sweating bullets and panting like mad. Zinca slowly turned around. The bear snorted and crawled toward her. She fit her first arrow into the bow. Hands shaking, Zinca aimed for the bear's eye. All was quiet. Zinca released the arrow. The polar bear roared and moved suddenly to one side, smashing the arrow out of the air. It snapped in half. The bear dove at her.

She was too dumfounded with shock to run as the bear slapped her bow out of her hand and crushed it under its foot. Her chief weapon now useless, Zinca resorted to Plan B. She ran like there was no tomorrow in hopes of losing the muttation.

Of course, there was no way in the world that a teenager could outrun a fully-grown polar bear in two feet of snow with no help. The polar bear tackled her like a football player and drove its razor-sharp claws into her flesh. Zinca screamed for help and struggled to escape up the next cliff. The polar bear roared once more, bathing her in disgusting bear slobber. She struggled to drag herself away, but she could not escape the bear as it continued to tear apart her body with its silvery claws.

 _Zinca Leonard, District 3 Female: 10th, Killed by Polar Bear Muttation, Day 13_

On the other side of the arena, far away from the stone cliffs, another twin polar bear smelled blood. The polar bear mutt's keen sense of smell led it to the camp of the careers at the cornucopia. After several hard days of labor, the four careers were rewarding themselves by sleeping in as long as they wished.

Relish awoke to the sensation of a rough tongue across her face. She laughed. It was just the tongue of her cat from District 1, giving her a warm welcome to the new day. Relish opened her eyes. Her smile faded and was replaced by screams. Her allies scrambled awake and grabbed their weapons, prepared to take down the polar bear.

Relish screamed as the polar bear sank its claws into her chest. Ventus, Lorna, and Lamprey rushed to help her, but it was too late. The bear dragged her out into the snow and gashed open her arm, splattering blood across its pristine white fur. Relish was dead almost instantly after the bear started tearing out her organs, and the monster turned toward the other careers for a second helping.

 _Relish Ainsworth, District 1 Female: 9th, Killed by Polar Bear Muttation, Day 13_

That left the final eight: Ventus Cranshaw and Lorna Isaievych from District 2, Lamprey Seltzer from District 4, Darrel Manuel from District 5, Fender Maurios from District 6, Coyote Fletcher and Diamond Willow from District 7, and Lily Eckel from District 11.

Lamprey screamed and rolled out of the way as the polar bear mutt pounced toward him. The muttation expertly changed direction and went charging toward him. Lamprey ran out into the clearing. The other careers followed behind as the mutt chased him to the field of boulders. Lamprey hoped that the polar bear would have a harder time moving around with so many obstacles. He lashed out with his trident and managed to spear the points through the bear's snout. The monster roared and stamped its feet, charging toward Lamprey.

At the last minute, Lamprey leapt backward over a rock. Venus and Lorna went in from behind with their swords. Ventus went for the polar bear's rear. He drilled the blade of his sword into the bear's backside. Ventus tore his sword out of the mutt and found it stained with black muttation blood. The bear growled and spun around.

Ventus didn't have time to breathe as the polar bear wrestled him into the frost. Lamprey and Lorna ran to his side and tried to fend off the bear, but they weren't fast enough. Over the course of less than two minutes, the bear devoured the injured boy. Satisfied, it crawled away. The careers hurled their weapons at it as it tramped away, but they all missed.

 _Ventus Cranshaw, District 2 Male: 8th, Killed by Polar Bear Muttation, Day 13_

No more deaths occurred that day. Lorna and Lamprey earnestly walked back to the horn, and, fearing the beast would return, set up a system in which they would guard the horn twenty-four hours a day. Lily was scared of the roars of the mutts and hid in her igloo, sharpening her stone sword. In an effort to rack up more valor points, Coyote and Diamond set out with their axes to track down and kill the mutts. They didn't find them, as they had seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. Coyote and Diamond couldn't make their way back to their shelter in one day, and they stopped to rest in a flat snowy plain open to the stars. Darrel finally found what he had been looking for nearly a week: firewood. After hours of travel, he found himself at the edge of the arena. An icy ocean so cold he couldn't bear to touch it stretched out in all directions, trapping the tributes in the tundra as an alternative to a force field. At the edge of the rocky beach, several chunks of drift wood sat. Darrel gathered the driftwood and set up a fire, grateful to feel its warmth. Fender strolled aimlessly through the arena so that the gamemakers wouldn't bother him.

Days 14 and 15 were much of the same: lifeless, boring, and filled with little to no blood and gore. Lorna and Lamprey seldom hunted, instead spending time guarding the horn. When they did hunt, they only sent out one person. It was inefficient, but it guaranteed that the cornucopia would never be unprotected. Hypothermia was getting to Fender. The sweat on the handles of Fender's hunting knives was frosting over, and he was so cold he couldn't think. Fender hunted feverishly for warmth, but he couldn't find any forgiveness in the harsh, freezing, icy tundra. Darrel spent each day collecting drift wood in his arms and then placing it over his fire as more fuel. It was the warmest he had felt in weeks. Coyote and Diamond found their way back to their shelter and warmed themselves up before going hunting once more. Lily spent nearly ten hours a day hunting for food and other tributes. Her red hair kept getting in her vision, so she tied it back in a knot to see well. Lily made temporary camp on the evening of Day 15 in a small cave near the edge of the arena. She awoke on the morning of the sixteenth day to the smell of smoke…

Lily curiously left the cave, her sword at the ready. She walked along a row of snowy hills to investigate the smoke smell. Lily crested a tall snowdrift and found the source of the smell. Darrel was sleeping a few feet beside his drift wood fire. Lily carefully and quietly slithered down the snowdrift and came to Darrel's side.

Lily moved quickly, using her stone sword like a drill to drive it through Darrel's torso. He woke up screaming as blood splashed down either side of his body. Darrel flopped around like a dying fish, struggling to think of a plan. Without thinking, he rolled into the freezing ocean. He hoped that the girl from District 11 wouldn't be able to swim.

He was right. Lily didn't dare follow Darrel into the freezing ocean, so she just stood on the beach. Darrel was trapped out in the icy water. If he ever came back to the shore, Lily would be waiting with her sword. What had he been thinking? Darrel fought to keep his head and chin above the water, but he couldn't survive long in the intense cold. After his death, Lily took it upon herself to put out his fire and rob him of his supplies. They could be useful in the future. Lily made the trek back to her igloo and arrived at two in the morning. She threw her supplies down and collapsed onto the snowy floor to rest.

 _Darrel Manuel, District 5 Male: 7th, Killed by Lily and Hypothermia, Day 16_

The very next day at dawn, another death occurred. Fender had been stalking through the arena for days, desperately searching for something to keep himself warm in the freezing arena. However, the morning of Day 17, a snowstorm started up. Fat snowflakes filled the air and blocked out his vision completely. In the white-out, Fender couldn't make out anything more than a meter in front of him. Low temperatures resulted in his inevitable demise from hypothermia. Now, only five tributes remained.

 _Fender Maurios, District 6 Male: 6th, Killed by Hypothermia, Day 17_

The remaining hours of Day 17 were deathless. The five remaining tributes stirred uneasily, all knowing that the finale was on the horizon but wanting to be prepared when the big day arrived. Lorna and Lamprey donned body armor and sharpened their weapons at the cornucopia. The careers got into a big fight about what strategy they should use, and they were to the point of screaming. The fight didn't get physical, though, as electrical pulses were used to draw them away from each other and sedatives were issued to calm down Lorna and Lamprey. Coyote and Diamond stayed in their cave home and practiced with their axes. About halfway through the day, they went outside to practice. Swinging their axes into the snowdrifts and seeing how accurately they could hit the marks again was an efficient way to hone in on their skills. Lily was the only loner. After weeks of living off of its warmth and safety, Lily finally abandoned her igloo. Not wanting any of the other tributes to use it, she demolished it. It was actually kind of fun to kick in the walls and tear out the snow bricks. She even practiced moves with her stone sword at times, pretending that the igloo was a monster that she was trying to kill. Once it was completely flat, Lily ventured toward the cornucopia, where the finale would likely take place.

Day 18 came about with the worst snowstorm the games had seen yet. The dark grey tundra sky sent down snowflakes in heaps, piling several feet of snow over the icy earth. Anything light was blown away by the breaths of horrid wind that tore up the snow and swept aside the lichens and moss. The orange sun was blocked out, bathing the earth in stormy darkness. Temperatures plummeted to as low as twenty degrees below zero. Lorna and Lamprey huddled together in the cornucopia for warmth. The cold was still able to seep through the several layers of blankets bundled around the career allies. Out of all the tributes, Lily was the most miserable. With no ally to help her keep warm, her body temperature was almost deathly low. A sponsor sent her a pill to warm up her body temperature. It worked to keep Lily from perishing from hypothermia, but it did little to make her feel any warmer. The cold was awful, crushing her bones and seemingly tearing up her flesh. She got a combined total of possibly half an hour of sleep that night.

Poor allies Diamond and Coyote were in a really tough situation. Coyote was out hunting for food when the first sharp howls of wind came. He rushed back to camp to alert Diamond. As it turned out, Diamond had ventured a few hundred feet away to hunt for food herself. It took Coyote hours of searching through the blizzard to find his ally. They hobbled back to their cave shelter and collapsed, teeth chattering and shivering like mad. They searched for their weapons, but they were buried in newly-fallen snow. They couldn't find them no matter how hard they looked. The horrible snowstorm continued for hours, and the bodies of the two allies couldn't keep warm enough. Their entire bodies felt numb from the cold. Coyote and Diamond had fought well throughout the nearly three-week long games, but the cold was too intense for their bodies not to give up fighting.

 _Coyote Fletcher, District 7 Male: 5th, Killed by Hypothermia, Day 18_

 _Diamond Willow, District 7 Female: 4th, Killed by Hypothermia, Day 18_

Slowly but surely, the snowstorm began to die down. By the morning of Day 19, the snow had stopped. The glorious sun shone in the sky, kissing the earth with its warmth. The tributes laughed and spread out their limbs to absorb as much of the heat as they could. They were saved! Lily continued her journey toward the cornucopia. She took breaks every hour or so to practice with her weapon.

There was only one problem. A finale couldn't happen with three participants. James needed to knock off either Lamprey or Lorna. As soon as day broke, the two surviving careers set up their fire. There was no point trying to hide from the outliers anymore, seeing as the finale was so close. They started a roaring bonfire using sponsored firewood and then got to cleaning their weapons.

Lorna stayed behind to guard the horn, whilst Lamprey went out hunting for the evasive Lily. Lamprey had been hunting for about four hours when he heard a snarl from behind. He whirled sharply on his heel and found himself face-to-face with a slobbering wolf. Lamprey held out his trident and slowly backed away as the wolf crept forward. When it pounced, he rolled out of the way. He got to his feet, spit out a mouthful of snow and sod, and ran in the opposite direction. The wolf pursued him for nearly two hours.

Lamprey finally managed to lose the wolf mutt. Everyone thought it was some random trick of the gamemakers, it but served a very important purpose. Lamprey looked around and held his breath. Lily was less than fifty yards away, at the bottom of a large, billowy snowdrift. Thirsty for the sight of blood, Lamprey raced across the frost-molded earth to meet her.

Lily noticed the career boy charging toward her and ducked behind the snowdrift. Her hand reached for her sword. She hoped that he hadn't seen her, but he had. Lamprey ran around the side of the snowdrift and clashed into her. The two rolled on the ground in a heap, each tribute trying to hold down the other. After nearly half a minute, it seemed as if Lily was hopeless. Lamprey had her pinned to the ground. His trident was pressed into her neck. Lily made a strained noise as he drove the prongs into her neck. The skin broke, and blood burbled from the wound.

Using all of her earthly strength, Lily managed to roll out from underneath him. Lamprey cursed and chased after her. Quickly, Lily flipped around her sword and slammed its stone butt into his head. The stone clanged against Lamprey's skull and instantly caused him to black out. The career dropped his trident and fell backwards, creating a Lamprey-sized snow angel. Lily dug her sword into his chest, carving out tissue and muscle. Once she had dealt a significant amount of damage, she ran away and left him to die. Two hours later, he bled out, one place short of the finale.

 _Lamprey Seltzer, District 4 Male: 3rd, Killed by Lily, Day 19_

The morning of Day 20, James tried a trick that had been in his imagination for years. Lily awoke from her makeshift snow shelter to a rumbling sound. Suspecting an earthquake or some other natural disaster, Lily raced for about half a mile in one direction. The ground behind her was rising up out of the ground as though a giant finger were pushing up from underneath. A massive snowy hill was rising out of the ground. Lily tried to outrun it, but was overtaken in seconds. She rocketed into the air along with the earth all around her. She rode the edge of the raised piece of earth like a tidal wave toward the cornucopia. She was knocked up and down like a ball in a pinball machine being manned by a maniac. After mere minutes, she was deposited in a snow-covered mess less than a hundred feet from the cornucopia.

Lily groaned as she got to her feet. Good news: her sword hadn't been damaged except for a few small chips and scrapes. Bad news: Lorna was racing toward her! The career girl had been tending to the roaring bonfire that morning when she noticed the earth rolling up and down like a tsunami. She rushed to the scene and met up with Lily.

The girl wiped the sod off of herself, ready for a fight. Lily was so tired that she couldn't fight very well. At first it seemed as though there was a clear winner. Lorna's first few blows were powerful. With her sword, she was able to slice about half an inch into Lily's left arm. It only took a few seconds for Lorna to disarm Lily. Lily's sword went spiraling away. It landed with a thud in the snow about twenty feet behind her.

Lily's feet were moving before her brain had time to catch up. She reached Lorna's bonfire. Lily pulled out a piece of firewood from the end of the fire and held it out like a flaming sword. Lorna screamed as Lily hurled the flaming log. It knocked her in the chest. Lorna toppled backward like a domino. Within three seconds, the fire spread to her clothes. She was a column of flame. Lorna screamed and rolled to and fro over the frost, throwing snow over herself to extinguish the flame.

Lily approached the groaning girl and tore her sword out of her hand.

"There can only be one victor of these games, and I'd feel bad if it was you sorry imbecile," said Lily. The next moment, she plunged the sword into Lorna's heart. Her cannon shot fired immediately.

 _Lorna Isaievych, District 2 Female: 2nd, Killed by Lily, Day 20_

"Lily Eckel of District 11, you are the victor of the fifty-third annual Hunger Games!" James shouted over the howl of the icy wind.

Lily lurched away from Lorna's cooling corpse. Relief flooded through her as she realized that she had survived the games and that she was going home to the warmth of District 11.

 _Lily Eckel, District 11 Female: Victor of the Fifty-Third Hunger Games, Day 20_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

After all of the post-games festivities, Lily didn't have much to go home to. Just a drunkard father who terribly misused her and mother who had died five years earlier suffocated in a silo. She spent the year following her victory in relative misery. The day she turned eighteen, she moved into the Victor's Village and abandoned her abusive father for good. District 11 was overjoyed to receive their third victor. Chaff and Seeder were getting a little overwhelmed caring for so many tributes, and they were glad to have Miss Eckel to lend them a helping hand.

Lily moved into the Victor's Village of District 11, across the street from her mentor and mother-figure Seeder.

Her victory tour went well, and was one of the better ones. District 2 was the only district that gave her a hard time, as its citizens had their hopes up for a fourteenth victor in Lorna.

Lily would live to the remarkable age of ninety-one, passing away peacefully from brain cancer in her home, surrounded by friends and loved ones. After her games, she developed a strong aversion to cold temperatures, though several therapy sessions in her adolescence were able to soothe this significantly. She would devote the rest of her life to painting and drawing, often taking inspiration from the landscapes of the agricultural district she loved. Her paintings often sold for high prices in the Capitol. Many private art collectors would spend their lives clawing for her work. She would marry and have six children.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Lily moves into the Victor's Village of District 11.

Beetee Latier and Wiress Freid take the ultimate vow of love and get married. Several other District 3 victors attend.

Brutus Cordley becomes the mayor of District 2.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)

* * *

 **A/N: Great to see a victor from an outlying district after two career victories in a row! I, for one, am rather fond of Lily. In case you're wondering, this is the games Katniss mentions in the first novel as the freezing arctic tundra games. I went into this chapter with the intent of making this the blandest thing ever, but it was super fun to write anyway XD**

 **I hope you've enjoyed. Please stay tuned, as many more games and victors are coming soon! Next chapter we see another cannon victor, Blight from District 7. I hope you've enjoyed so far, and please review if you have the time :D**


	55. The 54th Hunger Games

**The 54th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Feodore Elliot, Reyna Bayer, and James Stradivarius had all served one year as head gamemaker. They would each pilot the games ship once more before the Capitolites would vote on which talented person would take the full time job. The second round of campaigning was much rougher than the first. Each candidate had served once already, and their teams were under immense pressure to meet and surpass the grandeur of those games on their second turn. Snow was looking for more elaborate arenas, mutts, and tributes than ever before. After resting for two years, Feodore was up to the bat. His Titanic arena of the fifty-first games was still one of the Capitol's favorites, and it would be difficult to create a games of equal might.

This year's arena was one of the most stunning that the nation had seen in a long time. Feodore really outdid himself for the arena, and the mayhem that would take place inside of it was sure to be spectacular. The tributes this year found themselves in ancient Roman outfits. The girls wore tasteful white tunics with gold waistbands. They wore crescent-shaped silver amulets. They donned jeweled bracelets and anklets. The boys wore sleeveless draped shirts that went down to their knees. The shirts were held up by leather belts. The two tributes from District 2 wore elaborate draped tunics with royal red velvet cloaks. All around them, the ancient city of Pompeii sprawled out. Merchants yelled out prices and advertised new deals. Children played ball. Crowded apartment buildings circled the city. The cornucopia was in the city forum. Columned buildings surrounded the rectangular clearing in the jungle of civilization. Stands were set up everywhere in the forum. Citizens bustled about. The tributes' pedestals were stationed at the base of Jupiter's temple. Inside of the temple, the cornucopia was made of solid stone. Most of its weapons were short, stubby swords— _gladiuses_ , and javelins— _pilums_. Crossbows, longer swords, and other weapons were also provided, but in fewer numbers. Far beyond the temple, the grand Mount Vesuvius towered over Pompeii. Billowy white clouds surrounded the picturesque mountain. Hikers trekked up its slopes.. To the east of Pompeii, there was a breathtakingly beautiful olive grove. To the south, rolling green hills spread out. The sparkling blue sea was due west. Olive trees and colorful flowers lined the shore. This would be a beautiful place to die. No two ways about it.

The three career districts were once again up to the challenge of offering up three boys and three girls to fight valiantly in the games. After an outlier victory the year prior, the academies were more determined than ever to produce the games' victor. District 1's tributes were as beautiful as always. The male was particularly dreamy, whipping up an incredible amount of sponsors before the games even started. He could work magic with knives, but could fight well with virtually any bladed weapon, from katanas to shotels. The female was one to get a little cocky at times. It was a great quality of a career to possess leadership skills, but she went over the top, acting bossier than was necessary. In combat, she was a stellar with bow and arrows. District 2's tributes were undoubtedly the strongest this year. The boy could fight with virtually any weapon placed in front of him. He also had looks to match and managed to pull a few sponsors away from District 1. He was a conventional all-in-it-for-the-honor career. The female liked to ambush her prey, a unique strategy that was seldom seen in career tributes at the time. Time would tell how this would turn out in the arena, as she fancied swords, weapons that were typically used for up-close-and-personal fighting. The District 4 tributes had decent skills, but were ultimately overshadowed by their flashier peers from 1 and 2. The boy was the lowest scorer, earning a meager eight due to a lack of training compared to his allies. He was somewhat stubborn as well. The female was more solitary and quiet, though she was a formidable fighter with throwing knives. Their training scores were average, with three tens, two nines, and an eight.

This year's crop of outliers didn't have many standouts, but only time would tell as the games wore on. Blight and Finch of District 7 earned incredible tens in their private sessions, displaying their skills with battle axes and wilderness survival. The two sevens allied prior to the games and aimed to have a similar strategy to the career pack, hunting for outliers and having one camp to return to at the end of each day. Sevens were scored by Vary from 5, Madaline from 6, Bette from 9, Thomas from 10, and Peat and Clover from District 12. Peat and Clover were pretty close relatives, second cousins in fact. They allied prior to the games, going down as the first District 12 tributes to ally in ages. Vary almost scored an eight, but was held back by an unexplainable fear of fire. She did fight well with whips and bows, though. Cosima from 3, Oiler from 6, and Ursula from 10 earned sixes. The rest of the tributes scored between five and three in their private sessions. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: the girl from District 8. Her name was Reticella, and she volunteered to escape dastardly living conditions and abuse in her home. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Silver Cellant, 18, (9) 6-1 and Harpsichord Spillane, 17, (9) 7-1

District 2: Torcall Thurmond, 16, (10) 4-1 and Alsalla Phillips, 17, (10) 5-1

District 3: Geordi Sclocco, 15, (4) 28-1 and Cosima Netter, 16, (6) 23-1

District 4: Mussel Wescott, 18, (8) 8-1 and Amrita Dibb, 18, (10) 5-1

District 5: Ronan Bickell, 12, (3) 60-1 and Vary Tailor, 17, (7) 12-1

District 6: Oiler Wompanog, 13, (6) 25-1 and Madaline Kramer, 12, (7) 17-1

District 7: Blight Holzer, 18, (10) 7-1 and Finch Sycamora, 17, (10) 7-1

District 8: Serge Black, 17, (5) 24-1 and Reticella Klotz, 18, (5) 20-1

District 9: Ezra Greenwood, 13, (3) 49-1 and Bette Cotton, 16, (7) 13-1

District 10: Thomas Pawlaczyk, 18, (7) 11-1 and Ursula Stringer, 18, (6) 21-1

District 11: Quice D'elia, 13, (3) 45-1 and Cerise Hye, 16, (5) 22-1

District 12: Peat Turner, 18, (7) 15-1 and Clover Etna, 18, (7) 14-1

HGBO Bets: 7% on Torcall and Alsalla, 6% on Silver, Harpsichord, Amrita, Blight, and Finch, 5% on Mussel, Vary, Madaline, Bette, Thomas, Peat, and Clover, 4% on Cosima, Oiler, and Ursula, 3% on Serge, Reticella, and Cerise, 2% on Geordi, 1% or less on Ronan, Ezra, and Quince.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The second the tributes could see, they were overwhelmed by the deafening roar of the crowd that surrounded them. Roman citizens (mutts, of course) bustled about, talking and shopping their mechanical lives away. They all curved around the ring of pedestals, programmed that way so that they wouldn't step too close to the tributes and blow them up. Mount Vesuvius loomed overhead like a guard over the city, and its presence made some of the tributes feel weirdly unnerved.

As the countdown ticked away, Torcall from District 2 squirmed his way out of his elaborate Roman outfit, not wanting it to impede his movements once the games started. He threw the velvet cloak aside. The garment landed at the base of a nearby boy's pedestal. In an instant, the boy was blown-sky high. After the bloodbath settled down, his remains literally had to be scraped off of the stone ground.

 _Thomas Pawlaczyk, District 10 Male: 24th, Killed by Torcall, Pre-Bloodbath_

The gong rang. Tributes burst forward and backward. While the majority of the tributes decided to fight it out at the bloodbath, a few tributes turned tail instantly and melted into the crowd. They were Madaline from 6, Serge from 8, and Bette from 9.

Harpsichord sprinted up the steps of the temple and was the first tribute to reach the cornucopia. She grabbed a bow and zeroed in on her first kill, a brawny boy whose skin was burnt from years of work in the hot sun. Harpsichord's first arrow missed, sailing a few inches above his shoulder. She cursed and fired a second arrow. This time, her aim was true, and the arrow found its home in the base of his neck. The boy fell to the ground and slid down the steps of the temple, gurgling and moaning unintelligibly as he hopelessly clawed at his throat.

 _Quince D'elia, District 11 Male: 23rd, Killed by Harpsichord, Bloodbath_

Amrita quickly found her way to a crossbow and cornered a weeping girl against the cornucopia. She let the first dart fly from the crossbow. The girl stumbled to one side, but she wasn't fast enough, and the dart shot through her ear like an earring. She collapsed with pain, and Amrita finished her off, firing a second dart into her head.

 _Cosima Netter, District 3 Female: 22nd, Killed by Amrita, Bloodbath_

Seconds later, Torcall managed to trap Cosima's district partner between himself and Alsalla. Torcall dove forward with his gladius and sliced three of the boy's fingers cleanly off. Torcall slashed open his chest, and the boy leaned over, trying to contain his organs in his body. He whirled around to escape, but Alsalla was there, grinding open his torso with her sword.

 _Geordi Sclocco, District 3 Male: 21st, Killed by Torcall and Alsalla, Bloodbath_

Silver picked up a smaller boy and threw him to the ground like nothing. The boy skidded over the stone like a loose pebble before coming to a battered stop in front of the first column. Silver picked up a knife and ran toward the boy. He tried to escape by dragging himself into the crowd, but he wasn't fast enough, and he felt the bite of Silver's knife in his gut. The boy cried for help, but was a goner as the boy continued to hack open his body with his weapon.

 _Ronan Bickell, District 5 Male: 20th, Killed by Silver, Bloodbath_

Torcall spun on his heel and fluidly attacked his next victims: two girls who were fighting over a pack a few feet away. Torcall lashed out with his sword and gored it through the eye of the older of the two girls. The sword pierced her flesh and came out the back of her head. She was dead within seconds, and Torcall prepared to attack the other girl.

 _Ursula Stringer, District 10 Female: 19th, Killed by Torcall, Bloodbath_

Mussel gritted his teeth as he dueled with the clever boy from District 6. They both had pilums, or spears. After nearly five minutes, Mussel triumphed, sliding his pilum into his opponent's leg. The boy gasped and ran in the opposite direction, wanting to escape without any additional bodily harm. Mussel chased the boy into the crowd, weaving through groups of citizens and never letting the boy out of his sight. After a minute or so, the boy collapsed against a brick building, panting. He thought that he had lost Mussel, but he was wrong. Mussel burst out of the crowd an instant later. The boy didn't even flinch as he shoved his pilum straight into his heart.

 _Oiler Wompanog, District 6 Male: 18th, Killed by Mussel, Bloodbath_

Back at the temple, Torcall positioned to attack the second of the two girls. The girl was frozen in terror, unable to move a muscle and Torcall brought down his gladius. At the last moment, the girl threw out her hands to knock Torcall away. The sword simply glanced off of her fingers and went straight into her chest. She screamed and fell backward down the steps, landing with a thud in the crowd of busy citizens at the base of the temple.

 _Cerise Hye, District 11 Female: 17th, Killed by Torcall, Bloodbath_

District 7 allies Blight and Finch had armed themselves with roman battle axes, the weapons of their district. They had gathered several packs of supplies. They were just about to run away when Finch heard a shuffling sound behind her. She whirled around just in time to duck under Alsalla's sword. The District 2 girl cursed and lashed out once more with her sword, this time aiming for Blight. Blight would have died if not for Finch. Finch swung her axe in a wide circle and knocked aside Alsalla's gladius. The weapon flew out of her grasp and sailed through the air far away. Alsalla didn't have time to breathe as Blight buried his axe into her torso. Seconds later, Finch finished her off, severing the head of one of the strongest tributes in the games.

 _Alsalla Phillips, District 2 Female: 16th, Killed by Blight and Finch, Bloodbath_

Mussel and Amrita from District 4 teamed up to make the final bloodbath kill. After killing Oiler, Mussel raced back to the cornucopia. There, he got into a fight with another boy. The boy wasn't very skilled. Mussel was able to disarm him in seconds, sending his weapon clattering to the stones. Mussel kicked the boy in the stomach. He fell backward at Amrita's feet. Amrita quickly fired a dart into his forehead, ending his life for good.

 _Ezra Greenwood, District 9 Male: 15th, Killed by Mussel and Amrita, Bloodbath_

One would have expected the thousands of people milling about the town to be shocked by the ten cannon shots, but the opposite was true. They simply kept on going about their artificial lives, ignoring the louds booms as if they weren't there. The careers all regrouped at the cornucopia. It was a blazing summer day, nearly ninety degrees, and the careers were glad to be inside of the much cooler temple. They cleaned and sharpened their weapons and were soon off on their hunt. The career pack couldn't agree on where to hunt, so they split into two groups. The first group consisted of Silver, Harpsichord, and Mussel. The second group was Torcall and Amrita. The trio melted into the crowd and travelled for the crowded, smelly apartment buildings in the distance. Torcall and Amrita travelled the opposite direction, toward the mammoth Mount Vesuvius. Silver, Harpsichord, and Mussel were going about their hunting spree when Silver leapt at a teenage boy he thought he recognized as one of the tributes. After brutally murdering him, Silver was surprised at the absence of a cannon. Silver's mentor Gold sent him word that it hadn't been a tribute and in fact was a random citizen muttation. Afterward, he and Harpsichord got into a big fight about whether or not they should kill whatever citizens they saw or just kill the ones they knew were tributes. Silver insisted that killing random people from time to time would help them rat out the real tributes faster, whereas Harpsichord thought that it would just let all of the outliers know where they were and would ultimately accomplish nothing. Mussel put in the swing vote, agreeing with Harpsichord. Silver was angry that his opinion wasn't being heard, but he didn't want the fight to get bloody, so he reluctantly agreed. Torcall and Amrita couldn't make it to the mountain in one day. They rested on the outskirts of the city, near a cattle ranch. Amrita killed one of the cattle and cooked it over a fire for her and Torcall to munch on for dinner.

The outliers scattered. After the bloodbath, nine of them were still alive. Those tributes that stayed put in the bustling town faced the most cover, as they were hidden from sight by the crowd and had lots of options for shelter. Vary milled through the town for several hours, admiring the scenery. She had long been fascinated by Roman culture. When the sun started falling, Vary ducked into a pottery shop and hid behind a pile of urns. Blight and Finch didn't let the beauty of the bustling town distract them. After about an hour of searching for shelter, Finch climbed on top of a fruit stand and scouted the area. She pointed out a line of apartment buildings on the horizon. The duo walked briskly in the direction of the apartments. Blight insisted that they find one in a hidden location. The allies went down the line of brick buildings and found a rundown one near the olive grove. It looked like it had been abandoned for years. Several areas of the structure had caved in. The place looked like it might crumple to dust. Blight and Finch marched through one of the broken windows and walked up and down the dark, smelly hallways. They made their secret hideout in the nicest room they could find and laid out their supplies: two axes, a bowl of dried fruit, some rope, and a little cheese. Bette walked west toward the smell of the sea. The stone underfoot changed into sunbaked dirt, which changed into sand. Bette stepped into cool water. The picturesque ocean spread out as far as she could see. Bette set up camp in a shadowy place in a cluster of olive trees. Peat and Clover went east to the olive grove. They hadn't gathered much from the bloodbath, but, luckily, Peat had a bowl. The allies spent all evening picking luscious olives and gathering them in Peat's bowl. They had a feast in the cool of the night, and fell asleep covered in olive juice.

Only the more adventurous tributes decided to head to the mountain. It wasn't easy to leave the comforting crowd of the town and go out into the countryside. However, having the high ground would give these tributes an opportunity to pick up on incoming threats early. Young Madaline was too tired and traumatized to reach the mountain in a single day, so she made her home in the countryside. She picked dandelions and small flowers and munched on the leaves to satisfy her raging hunger. Serge had done a lot of running around in the bloodbath and was soaked with sweat. In his journey to the mountain, he found himself before a small pool of crystal clear water. Serge dunked himself in the water to cool off and slept away the cool night veiled by the tall reeds that surrounded the pool. Reticella was the only tribute to actually reach the mountain. She was deathly afraid of the careers and forced herself through sun and hot wind until she got to the mountain. Reticella was so exhausted she felt as though she might throw up. Unable to move any further, she staggered into a patch of roses and clover and fell asleep.

Day 2 passed, deathless. Silver, Harpsichord, and Mussel got up at four in the morning to hunt so that the element of darkness would be on their side. They had much more room to move around at that hour, since most of the citizens were asleep. Around five, Mussel's flashlight beam landed on Vary, illuminating her sleeping form. A leaf crunched under Harpsichord's foot, and Vary bolted awake. She sprang to her feet and ran. A long chase then ensued. Vary was nimble enough to escape the trio eventually. Once she was sure she was safe, Vary ducked into a bathhouse and took a relaxing hot bath. Blight and Finch spent the day on a hunt through the abandoned apartment building. Wanting to be able to escape their hideout at an instant's notice no matter where they were, they punched out several exits in areas of the building that were still intact. Bette scouted the shoreline and discovered that small crablike creatures dwelled in the sand. Bette collected a few of them and, using sponsored firewood and matches, roasted the scuttling creatures and ate them. Peat and Clover delved further into the olive grove for much of the day. Clover fashioned a sundial from a slab of wood and two sticks, a move that earned her a few more sponsors. They moved their camp to the bank of a murmuring creek. There, their voices would be drowned out by the sound of the water. Day 2 was also the day that many tributes reached the mountain. Madaline took the entire morning to sleep in and then continued her voyage. Madaline was about a hundred feet up the picturesque slope when the blue sky started to turn orange and she stopped. Serge splashed in the pool of water to clean himself off once more and then kept on for the mountain. Luckily, he had managed a gladius from the bloodbath, so he could fend off any attacking tributes or mutts. Reticella, still deathly afraid of the careers, tactfully made her way up the slope. She came to a stop on a flat shelf of rock about a third of the way up and stopped for the day. The duo of Torcall and Amrita made their way up Mount Vesuvius. The path they were taking up the mountain was like the lines of a barber pole. That way, they would cover all of the land on the mountain and be able to catch any outliers that were there.

On the morning of Day 3, a cannon shot startled most of the tributes awake. Silver, Harpischord, and Mussel were hunting when Mussel smelled something familiar: the sea. The others couldn't smell it, but, trusting him to recognize anything water-related because of his living in District 4, followed him. It wasn't long before the ocean came into view. The dawn sun cast golden lines over the rippling water. In the first light of dawn, the citizens of Pompeii were awaking. Sunlight kissed the tops of the olive trees, and it was spreading downward.

Silver moved down his arm in a flicking motion to turn off his flashlight. Just as he was about to flick the lever, the flashlight reflected off of something metal. A few minutes before, Bette had seen the careers coming her way and ducked into the sand. Her tribute token, a metal bracelet, spelled her doom. If Silver's light hadn't bounced off of her token, she might have had time to run away while the careers weren't looking and escape.

The trio all bowled toward Bette. Not having any weapons to fight back, the girl got to her feet and ran. Bette wobbled over the sand and entered the city. She didn't stop until she was lost in the crowd. The careers chased after, knocking aside citizens and struggling to keep her in their sight. After ten minutes, Bette stopped running, so exhausted that she couldn't move. She thought she was safe, but she was wrong. Not two seconds later, the trio burst into sight. Bette's gasps were cut short as Silver dug his knife into her chest, twisting it around to cut open more organs. Bette fell to her knees. She spun around, but Harpsichord was there. Bette couldn't escape the master archer as she fired a volley of three arrows in her direction. She was like a leaky water balloon. Blood splashed out of her body, running along the cracks in the stone ground.

 _Bette Cotton, District 9 Female: 14th, Killed by Silver and Harpischord, Day 3_

The rest of the day passed without any deaths. However, the tributes began to notice very strange things happening. Peat and Clover broke camp and got back to picking olives. Something was off, but they couldn't tell what. It was almost noon when Peat said that there weren't any birds. He was right. Where the merry chirping of birds in the olive branches had once been, there was only the rustling of fronds and leaves. Where had all of the birds gone? Wanting to get out of the stale air of the crowded town, Vary went to the outskirts of the town, only a few feet into the country. Vary stood up her thermos of water and went away to pick olives. When she returned, the thermos had been knocked over. Was it her imagination? Or was the earth… vibrating? Blight and Finch left the smelly apartment building to hunt for tributes. The expectations of high-scorers that the Capitol had implanted into their brains were not being met, and the pair from 7 were getting less and less sponsor gifts by the day. As they leapt between the shadows in the square, Blight and Finch noticed a faint humming sound from beneath their feet. They followed the directions of the vibrations with their fingers. Their fingers both landed on the peaceful mountain in the distance. The people on Mount Vesuvius itself felt it the worst of all. Serge had only gone a few hundred feet above the slope when one vibration threw him to the ground. He took the hint that it was time to leave. The slope was steep, and Serge had to be careful not to trip. He was making downward progress very slowly, and it looked like he might not reach the ground for several days. Little Madaline was too terrified to move an inch as loose pebbles flew around her. When the tremors began to die down, her mentor Markus sent her a note urgently warning her to get to the ground and far away from the trembling mountain as fast as possible. Madaline discarded the note and buried her face in her hands. The stress of the games was getting to her, and she was quivering with terror like a leaf. Reticella wasn't stupid. She'd watched the fiftieth Hunger Games more times than she could count. She knew for a fact that the mountain was a volcano waiting to blow. Reticella sprinted down the slope as fast as she could. Within minutes, she faltered. Her foot landed on a loose rock. Her entire weight slid on top of the rock, and she toppled forward. Reticella skidded nearly twenty feet down the side of the mountain. Too tired and battered to carry on, she lie still and waited for her body to build up enough energy to get moving.

The early morning of Day 4, the duo of Torcall and Amrita decided to head down the mountain. Torcall's mentor Brutus sent him a note clearly warning him that the mountain was a deadly volcano. They made haste down the side of the mountain. The two nimble careers were efficient enough to make it all of the way down in one day. They rested in a cluster of olive trees at the base of the mountain and sharpened their weapons. Amrita wanted to find Silver, Harpsichord, and Mussel and regroup with them. Torcall disagreed, and it didn't take much convincing to get her to side with him. They didn't want to have to go with less supplies to accommodate three more careers. Torcall and Amrita found their way back to the temple and restocked on supplies. Silver, Mussel, and Harpsichord were still hunting by the sea. They arrived at the temple to clean their weapons mere minutes after Torcall and Amrita left.

The peaceful quiet of the olive grove was shattered by two cannon shots in the early morning of Day 5. Peat and Clover woke up to a strangely beautiful sound. It was like music from a woodwind instrument. They got to their feet to investigate. The pair from 12 stayed so close they were practically touching as they stepped through the grass. They crested a grassy hill and couldn't believe their eyes. At the base of the hill was a trio of fauns. While they had the bodies of human men, they had goat's legs. Knobby horns twisted out of their wispy manes of hair. Each faun held a reed pipe and was blowing into it to create a lovely musical sound.

Peat was getting lost in the music, under its spell. His eyes had a dreamy looked in them. Clover reached over and shook him. One of the fauns was staring up at them, pointing them out with its reed pipe. The duo ducked down. It wasn't five seconds before the first faun came running over top of the hill. Its comrades followed.

The fauns put their lips to their pipes and blew. They danced in a circle around each other as though engaging in a magic ritual. Clover screamed. Long green strands of ivy were growing out of the ground faster than should have been possible, tangling themselves around her feet. Clover struggled to escape, but she couldn't get out no matter how hard she tugged. The fauns played faster and faster. Peat turned around to run, but his feet couldn't move. Bright green vines were tugging down on his feet and chaining them to the ground. Before long, the vines were up to their knees.

The cheery tune of the fauns got faster and faster. Peat and Clover wept and pulled upward with their feet as hard as they could. Still, they couldn't budge. The vines were stronger than steel. The vines had risen up to their belly buttons. Their necks. Their chins.

Suddenly, a plan popped into Peat's mind. He tore off his tribute token—a thin silver necklace—and hurled it at the nearest faun. The faun was so shocked that it dropped its pipe. The vines began to recede, sinking back down into the earth. Clover tore off the earrings from her tribute uniform and chucked them at another faun. It had bought them time, but minutes only. Before long, the vines were rising again, squeezing the life out of them. The two fauns picked their pipes back up in no time, and it was hopeless. The vines closed over their heads and crushed the pair to death.

 _Peat Turner, District 12 Male: 13th, Killed by Faun Muttations, Day 5_

 _Clover Etna, District 12 Female: 12th, Killed by Faun Muttations, Day 5_

The remainder of Day 5, as well as all of Day 6, passed, deathless. Vary travelled a little further into the countryside and set up her camp in a cluster of olive trees around a small pool of sweet-smelling water. Blight and Finch continued to hunt, returning to their secret hideout at the end of each day. Madaline was as terrified as always, huddling on the side of the mountain and never closing her eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. Serge finally made his way to the base of the mountain and jogged back to the crowd in the city. Reticella was losing dangerous amounts of blood. Still unable to move on the flat shelf of rock, energy was draining away from her faster than she was getting it back. Her wounds were becoming infected. They dripped thick yellow pus whenever the wind blew too suddenly. Reticella tried to ask for help from the Capitol, but she could only produce unintelligible groans. Silver, Harpsichord, and Mussel continued hunting in Pompeii. They found that, by hunting primarily at night, they could get more work done. It was cooler at night, so they didn't have to stop and rest as often. They also had the advantage of being able to catch tributes off guard. Torcall and Amrita decided to hunt through the olive grove. On Day 6, Amrita set down her crossbow and wandered away from it. It took the duo hours to find it, hours that they could have spent hunting.

The morning of Day 7, the mountain began to rumble again. This time, it was louder than ever. The only two tributes still on the mountain, Madaline and Reticella, were terrified. Madaline refused to move at all. Her mentor sent her several urgent notes demanding that she evacuate the volcano at once, but she just threw them aside and kept sniveling away. Reticella's infections were only getting worse and worse as time wore on. Dirt and bacteria was entering her body in huge amounts through the broken skin. Several of her injuries had ugly red streaks around them. The horrible thing was that, even though Reticella's world was gripped with agony every moment of the day, she was unable to move a muscle or to cry out in pain. There was no hope of recovery. Reticella had to simply wait for the end.

In the morning light, shoppers began strolling out into the forum and setting up their stands. Silver, Harpsichord, and Mussel stayed in the town for the entire day rather than going to the olive grove and the beach. Around noon, they were all extremely hungry for a snack. Suddenly, Harpsichord saw something that made her mouth flood with saliva. About ten yards away, a merchant was selling delicious snacks. Bread with honey drizzled perfectly overtop. Jars of vibrant purple grapes.

Harpsichord walked over to the wooden stand. She discretely slipped a cup of grapes and a loaf of bread into her pack.

"Hey!" the seller screamed. Harpsichord broke into a run. With superhuman strength, the merchant lifted the wooden stand into the air and hurled it at the girl. She screamed and covered her face. Her allies followed her. The merchant chased after her through the dawn air. Harpsichord slipped through the crowd, but the merchant was behind her, throwing objects her way. He was not happy that the girl had stolen from him.

The chase lasted nearly an hour. Harpsichord and Mussel collapsed in a heap. The man was right behind them. Mussel and Harpsichord gasped as he tore a wooden chair off of the ground and hurled it at them. The narrow leg of the chair knocked into Harpsichord's head and clanged against her skull. Her world grew fuzzy.

Harpsichord unzipped her pack and threw the bread and grapes his way, as if he would forgive her if he gave the food back. The man scowled and continued to beat the poor kids up with the chair. Harpsichord died from head trauma within minutes.

 _Harpsichord Spillane, District 1 Female: 11th, Killed by Merchant Muttation, Day 7_

Mussel struggled to get out from under Harpsichord's heavy body. His limbs were tangled with hers, and he couldn't get out of the way fast enough as the merchant brought down the chair upon him. He was toast just like Harpsichord.

 _Mussel Wescott, District 4 Male: 10th, Killed by Merchant Muttation, Day 7_

The rest of Day 7 passed uneventfully. Whilst the merchant was engrossed in the other careers, Silver managed to slip away into the crowd. He ran in one direction for about an hour, wanting to place as much distance between himself and the angry merchant as possible.

Torcall and Amrita were up bright and early on Day 8. They finally got around to hunting in the musty apartment buildings on the outskirts of town. It was so smelly and hot that the duo thought they might choke to death on the air itself.

Torcall threw open the door of one particularly rundown building. He coughed and waved his hands in front of his face. He and Amrita delved into the building. In mere seconds, they heard a scraping sound. Amrita and Torcall followed the sound to a small, crowded bedroom. And sitting on the bed was Finch from District 7, sharpening her axe.

Torcall threw himself at the girl. Finch screamed and rolled off of the bed, landing with a thud on the floor. She struggled for the door, but Amrita was there.

Amrita picked Finch up by the scruff of her neck and snatched her axe out of her hand. "You won't be needing this anymore," she said with a devilish grin, sticking the blade of the weapon into the wall.

"Don't kill me. Please!" Finch begged.

"Don't worry. We're not going to kill you." Amrita made eye contact with Torcall and smiled a despicable smile. "We want you to tell us where Blight is."

Finch made a small noise and pointed to a nearby stairwell. Amrita carried her upward, with Torcall following behind. They didn't bother to gag her. Perhaps they thought that there wouldn't be any other humans in the smelly, musty abandoned building to hear her.

Finch kept on pointing her captors around. Just as they were beginning to suspect she was pointing in random directions, the two careers spotted a figure at the end of the hallway—Blight. Torcall ran forward. Sword clashed against axe. Blight struggled to fend off Torcall. The fight was mismatched from the start. Torcall had the element of surprise on his side, and he had trained for nearly a decade for these exact moments. Within a minute, Torcall had Blight pinned to the ground.

Amrita was so distracted that she loosened her grip on Finch. Finch struggled free. Amrita cursed and chased after her, but she was too fast. Finch smacked Torcall in the back of the head. She underestimated his strength. Torcall grabbed her by the neck and slammed her to the ground right beside her ally Blight.

"I'm sorry, Blight. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," Finch cried out. Tears burned the backs of her eyes. She felt like a traitor. If she had refused to show Amrita and Torcall the way to Blight, only one life would have been lost. Now, because of her stupidity, they were both on the chopping block.

Torcall didn't hesitate. He brought down his sword. Blight and Finch squeezed their eyes shut, praying that their deaths would be quick.

Suddenly, a loud cawing sound filled the air. With a crash, a huge claw broke through the ceiling. Another claw poked through to the right. Both claws had talons as sharp as steak knives. The massive creature tore the ceiling off like the roof of a dollhouse. It was a griffin. The bird was like an eagle, but much, much bigger. It was twice the size of a pickup truck. From the head down, it had the body of a lion—furry torso, strong legs, talons, and all.

The griffin cawed and snatched Torcall off of the pair from 7. It lifted him into the sky. The boy screamed and struggled to escape. Blight and Finch stared up, dumbfounded, as the griffin sank its talons into his flesh. He made an ugly moaning sound as the griffin tore him to shreds with its talons.

 _Torcall Thurmond, District 2 Male: 9th, Killed by Griffin Muttation, Day 8_

Amrita screamed and fled down the stairwell. The griffin followed her, breaking through ceilings and walls until its claws wrapped around her body. Amrita was a sock puppet in a paper shredder.

 _Amrita Dibb, District 4 Female: 8th, Killed by Griffin Muttation, Day 8_

Blight and Finch couldn't believe it. Their lives had been saved. The griffin made a wide circle around the building and landed in front of them. It knelt.

Finch held out her hand. "Thank you," she said slowly, patting the giant on the back. It squawked contentedly as if she were an old friend.

"He wants us to ride him," Finch said.

 _Is she going crazy?_ Blight wondered. Nevertheless, he followed Finch on top of the griffin. The mutt kicked off of the floor with its strong legs. They were off. Blight laughed and screamed with thrill. The creature flew over the city. Citizens peered upward. It wasn't every day you saw a flying lion. It made a wide sweep left and flew over the ocean. It swooped down so low that Finch and Blight could feel the sea spray on their faces. It made one circle around the rumbling Mount Vesuvius. Then it deposited them on the edge of the town.

The griffin knelt. Blight and Finch slid off. The turned around to say goodbye, but the griffin was already gone, merely a speck in the far-away sky.

Day 9 came about, and the volcano Mount Vesuvius was more violent than ever. The rumbles were far too loud for any tribute to dismiss them as meaningless. The vast majority of the tributes were able to trace the rumbles to the mountain. Loose rocks and boulders tumbled down the slopes. In the town, anything not bolted down toppled over. Citizens and tributes fled for their lives.

Then, at exactly noon, the first true eruption occurred. The plate of rock at the top of the mountain began to soften, liquefying as if being bent by the strongest hands in the world. Then, it dropped down into the mountain and revealed its inner fiery hell. Lava and smoke boiled upward, exploding out of the crater.

Smoke filled the sky, spreading in all directions. Pumice and ash fell down like rain. Terrified little Madaline finally got up the courage to get up and investigate the rumbles. She hadn't travelled ten steps before a mass of ash came barreling down the mountainside toward her. It was going so fast that she couldn't outrun it. Madaline got on her stomach and slid down the side of the mountain. Even at that speed, she wasn't fast enough to evade the ash. It consumed her in seconds, seemingly crushing her lungs and her throat as it entered her respiratory system. It was horrible. When one is a child, one will often play games to see which person out of the group can hold their breath the longest. But, when one can no longer hold his breath, he can simply take a gulp of air and admit defeat. But poor Madaline was a different story. When she was out of breath, she couldn't take that refreshing taste of air. She could only scream deep down in her throat as the eruption consumed her.

 _Madaline Kramer, District 6 Female: 7th, Killed by Mount Vesuvius Eruption, Day 9_

In minutes, the ash reached the city. What had once been the beautiful Pomepeii was in a scene of absolute chaos. Citizens fled, holding onto whatever possessions they could carry. Chunks of rock from the volcano smashed down into the ground, some pieces as small as pebbles and some as large as trucks.

Vary used a weathervane on the roof a wind god's temple to learn that the wind was blowing southeast. So, she ran northwest, the opposite direction the ash would be heading. Vary held a pillow over her head as she ran so that her head wouldn't be damaged by the falling debris. Blight and Finch heard the loud rumbles early and had time to run away. Around eight in the morning, they delved into the olive grove. By the time the volcano erupted, they were nearly twenty miles away, a safe distance. It was horrible, but Blight and Finch could only stand in earnest and watch the beautiful Roman city crumble under the ash.

On the volcano, poor Reticella was next to die. Her infections had progressed so much that she couldn't move or think at all. The ash and pumice consumed her almost right away. The girl was mere hours away from death anyway, and she barely felt it.

 _Reticella Klotz, District 8 Female: 6th, Killed by Mount Vesuvius Eruption, Day 9_

After seeing the first plume of black ash, Serge turned sharply around and fled into the city. He dropped his supplies so they wouldn't weigh him down and ran past overturned fruit stands, past shops, past homes. He had no goal but to get as far away from the erupting volcano as possible. Once Serge was a good distance away, he ducked down low and hoped for the best. It was not to be. Less than a minute later, a rough black rock about two feet in diameter came crashing down and pinned him into the ground. He was dead instantly. He didn't even flinch.

 _Serge Black, District 8 Male: 5th, Killed by Mount Vesuvius Eruption, Day 9_

As ash continued to rain down upon the town, the final four fled to safety. Silver from District 1, the only surviving career, fled to the olive grove. The ground was coated with crumbly ash, and he fell over on the wobbly material multiple times. Blight and Finch didn't speak. They sat beside each other and grimly watched as the volcano destroyed the beautiful town.

Vary fled to the rolling green fields due south after realizing that her route northwest was blocked by a collapsed building. She was less than a hundred feet from her target when an obstacle stood in her way. What had once been a flowing creek was now dried up. It was filled about halfway up with scorching hot volcanic rock. Vary stepped in the rock and screamed. Her leather shoe immediately melted away at the touch of the rock. The bottom of her foot was burned black. There was no way she could escape.

Vary ran alongside the channel for a good half hour. The air was getting dustier and more polluted by the minute. Hopelessly, Vary collapsed the ground, shaking and gasping. It was hopeless. She had no chance of survival. But she had at least some control over her death. Vary picked up one of the pieces of volcanic rock and scraped it across her arm. The heavy line split open, and blood came splashing out. She repeated this for the other arm. Vary collapsed forward as blood seeped from her veins and pooled on the hot stone around her. She died from blood loss three hours later. Now only three tributes were left.

 _Vary Tailor, District 5 Female: 4th, Killed by Herself, Day 9_

In the real life eruption of ancient Mount Vesuvius, something nearly impossible to recreate happened the day after the eruption. A hot wall of dust, a pyroclastic flow, went rushing down the mountain, instantly annihilating everything in its path. Of course, it wouldn't do for this to happen in the Hunger Games. It would be impossible to recreate without also destroying most of the land around the arena, and it would kill all of the tributes instantly, leaving no victor. Feodore needed to end the games quickly.

Silver was exhausted after his trans-arena trek and collapsed near a sullied pond in the olive grove, coughing out dust. He slowly turned his head around at a whirling sound. Silver screamed and scrambled to his feet. A huge fireball was coming his way! Silver dodged the fireball, rolling sideways behind a nearby olive tree. He thought he was safe, but he was wrong. Less than thirty seconds later, the second fireball hit. Silver tried to stumble away, but he couldn't. The fireball landed in his exact location, killing him instantly and frying his remains black. Now, only two tributes were left in the arena.

 _Silver Cellant, District 1 Male: 3rd, Killed by Fireballs, Day 9_

On the other side of the olive grove, Blight and Finch jumped at Silver's cannon shot. They looked at each other and frowned. They were the only two tributes in the arena. They had both been hoping that one of them would die before they would have to kill each other.

The allies picked up their weapons and walked about ten yards away from each other.

"Good luck, friend," Blight said.

"Good luck," Finch repeated.

The two District 7 tributes clashed. All of the cameras in the area focused on them. Metal screamed against metal. Sparks flew between their axes. At first, Finch seemed to be winning. She managed to plant her axe into Blight's hip about three seconds into their duel. Blight keened in pain, and, with the last ounce of his energy, threw up his axe. Finch was too shocked to sidestep as the blade of the weapon landed in her chest. Finch crumpled to the pumice-strewn grass, gasping and shaking. Shaking a bit himself, Blight crawled toward his dying ally.

"Goodbye, friend," he said, and closed Finch's eyes.

 _Finch Sycamora, District 7 Female: 2nd, Killed by Blight, Day 9_

"Blight Holzer of District 7, you are the victor of the fifty-fourth annual Hunger Games!" Feodore shouted, though his voice was barely audible over the roar of the volcano and the screaming of Pompeii's citizens.

Blight didn't do anything spectacular to celebrate his victory. He simply closed his eyes and let the hot summer wind blow against his battered face.

 _Blight Holzer, District 7 Male: Victor of the Fifty-Fourth Hunger Games, Day 9_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 7 was overjoyed to receive their second victor. After Grover's death a few years prior, they had no mentors to guide their tributes. But now, with Blight to mentor future District 7 tributes, countless new opportunities were opened.

Blight moved into the Victor's Village of District 7, across the street from the house that once belonged to Grover.

His victory tour was normal, and nothing out of the ordinary transpired during it.

Blight would live to the age of sixty-six, dying a premature death from alcohol poisoning around the time of the one-hundred second annual Hunger Games. He would become an alcoholic in his late thirties, and the addiction would continue until his death three decades later. He would never marry nor have children. Blight would become one of the nation's more solitary victors, staying to himself whenever possible and making public appearances only when it was mandatory. Much of his life story continues to be unknown to this day.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Blight moves into the Victor's Village of District 7.

Mags Flanagan adopts her sixth child, a young boy named Gully.

Woof Dozier has his third and final child, whom he calls Scarf.

Brutus Cordley marries his fiancée of five years, a woman named Masana.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)

* * *

 **A/N: Ugh, I finally got through this. I had so many great ideas for Blight, but they all fell flat as soon as I put my fingers on the keyboard. But I decided to push through and finish the chapter, no matter how frustrated I was. So here it is :D**

 **Expect the fifty-fifth games soon! We get to see yet another familiar face: the District 5 Female from Catching Fire. I've started on that chapter, and it's going a lot more smoothly than this one. So stay tuned!**


	56. The 55th Hunger Games

**The 55th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Reyna Bayer returned for her second year as head gamemaker, powered onward by the hearty applause of the nation for her previous arena. She had served before for the fifty-second annual Hunger Games, and those games had been one of the Capitol's favorites. Reyna had a lot to beat, and, with Snow peering down from overhead like the snake that he was, she and her team worked quickly. But Reyna might have worked a little too quickly. The arena for the fifty-fifth games was officially completed in March, nearly four months before the games were set to start. Because of this, there was a four-month span where the gamemakers had nothing to do but change tiny details of the arena. Snow often liked to keep the Capitol citizens in suspense by revealing tiny portions of the arena to the audience before it was finally revealed fully on the first day of the Hunger Games. Take the ancient Roman arena of the fifty-fourth games for example. Snow might first reveal an olive branch, the symbol of the Roman people. Two months later, he might reveal a small tablet with roman inscriptions. The nation could make their best guesses, but no one could be sure until the cameras showed it for the real deal. However, this year, that was impossible, because the arena was already completed. Snow's revealing of tiny portions of his games' arenas helped to show the progress of the gamemakers in forming it. For example, if a particularly part of the arena took ages to complete but is finally finished, Snow would likely unveil an element of that part of the arena next. Since he was unable to do that this year, he was expecting one roller-coaster of a games from Reyna in exchange.

This year's arena was modeled after an ancient Japanese garden. The cornucopia was shaped like a small red pagoda, with entrances on all four sides. The first floor of the pagoda held only simple supplies, such as hair ties, sheets of plastic, mirrors, and so on. The second floor held small food items and a few small weapons like knives. The first and second floors had little to no medicine. The third level had better weapons and tools, as well as some medicines. The weapons were things like larger knives and a few bows, and there was also lots of rope and wire and burn sprays. The fourth level largely held survival supplies like nutritious food and fresh water. But it also held a lot of weapons, from knives to tridents to axes. The fifth and final floor was the ultimate treasure. It held crates of knives, jugs of water, whole boxes of just-add-water meals to last for days, and the sleekest and sharpest weapons of the lot. Around the pagoda, a peaceful and beautiful garden sprawled out. Trees with pink blossoms lined the slowly murmuring crystal-clear brooks. Light green banana leaves rustled overhead. A gentle breeze caused the surface of the koi-inhabited waters to wobble slightly. Low-lying wooden bridges traversed the burbling streams that were lined with peaceful white reeds. Other than the rustling of leaves and the whispering wind, it was absolutely silent. However, there were also dangers. Ninja mutts dressed head-to-toe in black lived all over the arena. They carried two long swords and had the super senses of spiders. They were typically peaceful, but could turn hostile if one of the tributes invaded their territory.

The career pack this year was one of the stronger ones, and each tribute had something unique about them. District 1's tributes were as gorgeous as always, and also stellar warriors. The male was more laid-back and unconventional, but he was a ferocious fighter with knives. The female was much more outgoing and extroverted. In fact, she was probably the most powerful tribute this year. She blew her allies out of the water with her beauty and her mastery of weaponry, particularly knives and bows. District 2's tributes were actually very similar. They were of almost identical weight and height. However, the female was a much more of a determined and fierce fighter. The boy preferred broadswords, and the girl liked rapiers. The pair from District 4 wasn't as spectacular as it was in years past. The boy seemed a bit indecisive about volunteering and was hesitant to enter the games, but he didn't seem to be against killing in the games. The female had a very vibrant personality that made everyone instantly like her, although she wasn't the best warrior in the world and had a small range of weapons she could use well. Their training scores were superb: three tens and three nines.

This year's crop of outliers had only a few standouts. The boy from District 11, named Valerian Damon, earned an impressive eight by displaying his skills with brute force weapons like maces. There were only two tributes that scored sevens this year. Emily from District 5 was a clever trickster and was a little mischievous at times, and overall had a charismatic persona. Poplar from District 7 specialized in axes, the weapons of his district, and, like many District 7 tribute before and after him, he could work magic with them. Four sixes were scored. They were earned by Elma from 7, Houston from 10, and Hewitt and Annabelle from District 12. The rest of the tributes scored between five and two in their private sessions. In the three days of training, a lot went on in the training center. Brites, the mischievous male from District 5, took Hosanna's knife from her while she wasn't looking and hid in a closet a good fifty feet away. He eventually returned it, but Hosanna was so furious that she promised to kill him first in the arena. There were also issues with accidental self-harm in the training center. One of the tributes, Silas from 9, accidentally cut open two of his fingers while practicing with his scythe on the third and final day of training. Despite access to the best medicine, the wound would not heal fully before the games started. After that, there would be medically trained peacekeepers surveilling every tribute during training to prevent injury. There weren't any volunteers besides the six careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Carmine Mannes, 17, (9) 6-1 and Hosanna Blessing, 17, (10) 4-1

District 2: Gauss Lanzotti, 18, (10) 5-1 and Tisiphone Richter, 18, (10) 4-1

District 3: Silicon Cao, 14, (4) 31-1 and Diandre Claudel, 16, (5) 26-1

District 4: Cargo Sailer, 16, (9) 7-1 and Zarabella Kinsley, 17, (9) 6-1

District 5: Brites Ingham, 16, (5) 24-1 and Emily Pollick, 18, (7) 15-1

District 6: Octavius Gates, 13, (4) 32-1 and Valda Shore, 18, (4) 30-1

District 7: Poplar Carbone, 18, (7) 14-1 and Elma Jose, 18, (6) 19-1

District 8: Camlet Perlman, 17, (5) 22-1 and Terry Salustio, 12, (3) 53-1

District 9: Silas Twombly, 15, (4) 28-1 and Johnetta King, 16, (5) 24-1

District 10: Houston Lancelot, 17, (6) 21-1 and Kimbra Golden, 14, (5) 27-1

District 11: Valerian Damon, 18, (8) 9-1 and Petunia Crews, 13, (2) 62-1

District 12: Hewitt Landry, 16, (6) 23-1 and Annabelle Gwinn, 18, (6) 22-1

HGBO Bets: 7% on Hosanna and Tisiphone, 6% on Carmine, Gauss, Cargo, and Zarabella, 5% on Emily, Poplar, and Valerian, 4% on Elma, Houston, Hewitt, and Annabelle, 3% on Diandre, Brites, Camlet, Johnetta, and Kimbra, 2% on Silicon, Octavius, Valda, and Silas, 1% or less on Terry and Petunia.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The moment they were in the arena, the tributes were assaulted by the aroma of cherry blossoms and summer rain. The Japanese garden arena really was a majesty of a place, and the carnage within was sure to be spectacular. One would have expected a good number of tributes to flee immediately. But, surprisingly, this was not so. Every single one of the twenty-four tributes decided to fight it out at the bloodbath.

Within seconds, the six careers were in the pagoda. They started gathering weapons and preparing to kill the droves of outliers when Cargo yelled that there was a staircase nearby. There was a second floor! And a third floor! And a fourth floor! And a fifth floor! Carmine and Hosanna from District 1 stayed on the first floor. Tisiphone (pronounced tis-if-o-nee, she informed the others) patrolled the second floor, and Gauss and Cargo the third. Zarabella was responsible for both the fourth and fifth floors, a much more difficult job but not an impossible one.

On the first floor of the pagoda cornucopia, Hosanna and Carmine were trying their best to cut down the incoming swarms of tributes. Hosanna armed herself with a kukri knife and scouted over the pack like a hawk, looking for one tribute in particular. Aha! She leapt toward Brites from District 5. Hosanna slashed the knife across his chest. The boy clapped his hands over his body, refusing to let any blood escape through the injury. But he started coughing up blood in an instant. To finish him off, Hosanna slit his throat quickly. She killed him first just like she had promised.

 _Brites Ingham, District 5 Male: 24th, Killed by Hosanna, Bloodbath_

The second that Brites was dead, Hosanna leapt toward another tribute: a small girl that everyone knew wouldn't survive long anyways. Hosanna drilled her kukri knife into her stomach and twisted it around, slicing open organs and veins. The girl spasmed and twitched on the ground. Carmine, armed with a knife of his own, finished the girl off, firing the weapon into her forehead.

 _Terry Salustio, District 8 Female: 23rd, Killed by Hosanna and Carmine, Bloodbath_

Hosanna hurried away, and Carmine zeroed-in on his next kill, another weakling girl who was crumpled up in a heap on the ground, having a panic attack from the stress of the games. Carmine dug his knife twice into her back before finally planting it firmly between her shoulder blades.

 _Petunia Crews, District 11 Female: 22nd, Killed by Carmine, Bloodbath_

Now that a few minutes had passed, the more adventurous tributes began to trickle up the stairwells to higher levels of the pagoda. On the second floor, two district partners clashed. They were fighting over a knife and kept trying to escape with it. Nearby Tisiphone came charging toward them as quick as a flash, and the two partners couldn't move out of the way fast enough. Tisiphone had snatched a rapier from the fourth floor a few minutes earlier and thrust it into the boy's torso. He fell to the ground, never to rise again, and knocked down the girl in his descent. The girl couldn't wiggle out from under her district partner's weight, and Tisiphone's sword speared through her neck like it was made of butter.

 _Silas Twombly, District 9 Male: 21st, Killed by Tisiphone, Bloodbath_

 _Johnetta King, District 9 Female: 20th, Killed by Tisiphone, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, a particularly daring boy managed to climb all the way up to the cornucopia's third floor. The second he emerged from the stairwell, Gauss swung his sword his way. The boy ducked under the sword and sped the other direction. Gauss chased him up one more stairwell and onto the fourth floor. Zarabella was there with a spear. Zarabella skewered the narrow spear through his torso. He opened his mouth wide as if to scream, but he couldn't find the energy. The boy slumped to the ground at Zarabella's feet. Gauss was a little mad that she stole his kill, but it was far too early for career infighting and he had much more important things on his agenda.

 _Silicon Cao, District 3 Male: 19th, Killed by Zarabella, Bloodbath_

All the way down on the first floor, Hosanna made another kill. One boy turned around just as Hosanna's knife entered his chest. He slid to the floor, gasping and shaking, and he was dead in minutes as his heart was too damaged to keep functioning.

 _Hewitt Landry, District 12 Male: 18th, Killed by Hosanna, Bloodbath_

Brave Poplar from District 7 decided to head as far up the pagoda as he could to get the best supplies. Poplar nearly died multiple times but finally made it to the fifth floor. He grabbed a pack of medicine and a few good weapons. He hurried back to the stairwell. Poplar was less than ten feet from the first step when Zarabella jumped out from behind a crate and leapt in front of him. Poplar dropped his supplies and pulled an axe out of the crate. He swung the axe at Zarabella, nearly decapitating her, but she sidestepped and thrust her spear into his chest. The spear pierced his lungs, and he collapsed, wheezing.

 _Poplar Carbone, District 7 Male: 17th, Killed by Zarabella, Bloodbath_

Seconds earlier, Tisiphone had managed to corner a crying boy against the wall of the building. She lashed out with her rapier and speared the boy's wrist. He threw out a fist and tried to fight back, but he was no match for the heavily armed and trained 2 girl. She skewered her sword through his neck, killing him in mere moments.

 _Houston Lancelot, District 10 Male: 16th, Killed by Tisiphone, Bloodbath_

The dust was beginning to settle, and there were only a few outliers left at the cornucopia. That was when Carmine pointed out a familiar tribute about fifteen yards away. The highest scorer, Valerian. Carmine leapt forward and aimed for Valerian's throat with his sword. The boy that scored an eight sprang to his feet. Carmine was more surprised than he should have been to see that Valerian had a weapon of his own: a long-handled throwing axe. Their duel lasted for several minutes. The tributes danced around each other, inducing cuts and scrapes but no major injuries. Hosanna heard the hullabaloo and came over to investigate. She briskly approached Valerian and stabbed him in the shoulder with her knife. The boy staggered backward, and Hosanna was shocked to see that it wasn't Valerian she had killed; it was Carmine. They looked so similar when they were fighting! Hosanna felt immediately guilty that she had killed her district partner, even if she was trying to do something noble.

 _Carmine Mannes, District 1 Male: 15th, Killed by Hosanna, Bloodbath_

Hosanna didn't let her guilt discourage her from killing the actual Valerian. She whirled around and saw him just as he exited the pagoda. She chased after him, across bridges and under rustling banana leaves. It was beautiful, but that was the last thing on her mind. Once she was close enough, Hosanna hurled her weight at Valerian. She tackled him to the ground and slid her knife into his gut before running back to the cornucopia nearly half a mile away.

 _Valerian Damon, District 11 Male: 14th, Killed by Hosanna, Bloodbath_

Gauss finished off the bloodbath. He and Cargo were searching the supplies on the third floor when they discovered a shaking boy huddling in one corner of the room. The boy screamed as Gauss pierced his flesh with his sword, making the final bloodbath kill.

 _Octavius Gates, District 6 Male: 13th, Killed by Gauss, Bloodbath_

With the ten-piece bloodbath at its conclusion, the careers went about their business. Hosanna journeyed out to scout the lands around the cornucopia for prey. She returned to the pagoda about two hours later, confidently reporting that the radius of a quarter mile around the pedestals was empty of outliers. Meanwhile, Gauss stayed inside to sort their food rations. Cargo sat on the fourth floor and pretended to be sorting rations, though he was really just lolling around. He was beginning to second-guess his decision of volunteering into the games and needed some time to think everything over. With all of the important jobs taken, Tisiphone had nothing to do. So she acted as a living shopping list. Her allies kept telling her to fetch things for them to do their jobs. She was fed up with acting like their servant, but she didn't take out her anger, as she didn't want it to end in a nasty fight like career disagreements sometimes did.

Cargo wanted to stay back at the cornucopia to "sort supplies", but he really just wasn't ready to hunt yet and wanted some more time to think over his games strategy. They didn't really like him anyway and didn't protest when they left without him. Little did they know that one tribute was hiding about a hundred feet away from the horn. Anabelle was hiding in a cluster of pink blossoms just beyond the cornucopia. She planned to run into the pagoda and take whatever she could once the careers left to hunt. Anabelle held her breath as the careers walked past her. The second they passed her, Anabelle tore out of the bush, unable to bear the suspense any longer. The careers whirled around and all pointed at her. Anabelle broke into a run. She wanted to hide in the cornucopia, but the careers overtook her before she could even reach it. Tisiphone flung her rapier into Anabelle's back with so much force that the weapon protruded from her stomach. Anabelle crumpled to the grass in a heap. The careers were short on time and left her behind to die. The poor girl bled out three hours later.

 _Annabelle Gwinn, District 12 Female: 12th, Killed by Tisiphone, Day 1_

The rest of Day 1 passed, deathless. Diandre escaped the bloodbath with a cooking pot and stove top as well as a dagger and some iodine. The cooking pot came with instructions on how to make tea from the pink blossoms. Diandre ventured about two miles from the cornucopia and began collecting the cherry blossoms in her pot. Once it was nearly halfway full, she poured the cold river water over top. Diandre purified the water with the iodine and brought it to a boil. The cherry blossoms melted into the water and created a delicious creamy-pink tea. Emily managed a spear from the cornucopia. After several hours of travel, she came to a stop beside a crystal-clear lake filled with koi fish. Emily waded in the cold water and speared several koi. Her elegance was so impressive that a sponsor sent her some salt to preserve the fish. Elma dropped to the ground and smeared every inch of herself with mud. Once she was completely covered, she sprinkled grass and banana leaves overtop until she looked like she was smeared with the essence of Mother Nature. Elma hoped that this would camouflage herself, and it did, but it ultimately made her look stupid and made her the source of lots of laughs from the Capitol. Camlet rested in a small cave veiled by the branches of a banana tree. He told the audience corny jokes hoping to whip up sponsors, but his puns were so bad that his mentor sent him a note to stop. Kimbra explored the outermost reaches of the arena, and she had to be driven back by a pack of cherry-colored rabbit mutts so that she wouldn't get too close to the force field. In the bloodbath, Kimbra had managed a scythe, and she put it to good use by cutting out a bunch of vines and burying herself under them to shield herself from sight. Valda had jogged about three miles when she spotted a group of two ninjas moving quietly through the trees. A twig snapped under Valda's foot, and the ninjas stared up at her. She froze. The ninjas turned back around and moved on. They didn't see her as an invader. Valda moved as far away as she could and set up camp at the base of a sturdy banana tree. Most of the tributes had found shelter, food, and water in the bountiful Japanese garden. But this peace could not, would not last. Blood would paint the banana leaves and cherry blossoms red as the fifty-fifth Hunger Games continued.

On Day 2, the careers developed a unique hunting strategy. Gauss discovered that a series of rocky rivers flowed from east to west, stretching across the arena. By hunting along this line of water, they could not only keep track of where they had hunted more easily but could also find their way back to the any location they had been to before by using the rapids as a reference point. They rested in a clearing for their noon meal, but Hosanna wasn't hungry and was eager to thin the crowd of outliers. So, while her allies ate, Hosanna hunted. It wasn't ten minutes before Hosanna stumbled across the lake that Emily made her home. The girl fell asleep on the side beside the pile of fish she caught the day before. Hosanna approached Emily slowly, readying her knife. She was a measly ten yards from her target when she let out a small cough. Emily bolted awake and stared straight at Hosanna. Hosanna figured that Emily would run into the garden to escape her, but she leapt into the lake instead. The District 1 girl laughed. How stupid of her. Hosanna experimentally picked up a rock and tossed it into the water, aiming for Emily. Hosanna cursed as she realized there was more to Emily's plan than met the eye. Since her appearance was ripply and ill-defined under the surface of the sparkling water, she was nearly impossible to hit. The career didn't dare throw her knife in after the girl, so she followed her into the lake. Hosanna paddled through the water, looking for Emily. But she was gone. Under the surface, Emily swam as far away as possible and emerged on the other side, fleeing into the garden. Hosanna searched for hours but couldn't find her and was forced to trudge back sopping wet to the career camp in humiliation.

The careers continued their hunt all throughout Day 3. Zarabella and Gauss acted like scouts, walking ahead of Hosanna and Tisiphone. They were ravenous to clear the arena of outliers, and they were making fast progress. In fact, they were making progress too fast. By sundown, they were less than a mile from the force field. Reyna couldn't have a repeat Haymitch, and to avoid that it was best to just keep the tributes away from the force field whenever possible.

At the turn of some gamemaker's hand, a group of three ninjas sprang out from a nearby bush and leapt in front of Zarabella and Gauss. They started backward as the warriors clothed in black approached them. Zarabella reached for her spear, and Gauss followed suit, closing his hand around his sword. The ninjas produced swords of their own, duel-wielding slender katana swords.

The first ninja pounced at Zarabella. The girl rolled out of the way into a shrub, where the other ninja was waiting for her. It swiped at her with one of its swords, and the girl blocked the attack with her spear. Suddenly, the ninja let out a gasp. A horn began to grow out of its stomach. No—not a horn—the tip of a sword. The ninja mutt collapsed to the ground, and Gauss was standing there holding his sword, stained with black muttation blood.

The other ninja was much harder to kill. It was seemingly keener than its comrade. Its job wasn't to kill the careers, just to drive them away from the force field. Before long, the duo met up with Tisiphone and Hosanna. Even the skilled ninja warrior was no match for the four trained careers. Tisiphone and Hosanna worked as a team to trap the ninja against a tree. They couldn't believe their eyes as the ninja scurried up the tree like a squirrel. They tried to get it down for hours. Eventually, Reyna got bored of the whole ordeal and commanded the ninja to the ground. The eager quartet of careers was waiting for it, and they slayed the mutt with ease.

"How did it climb up the tree so fast?" Gauss asked. During training, he had been paying particular attention to the District 7 tributes. Even though they were fast climbers, they weren't nearly as fast as the ninja mutt.

"Easy," answered Hosanna. She approached the dead ninja and tore something off of its arm. It was a band covered with spikes.

"Like a cat," noted Zarabella. Hosanna nodded.

"No reason not to keep it," Hosanna said, slipping it into her pack. "It might come in handy in the future." She was right. It would come in handy. And it wouldn't be too long before they would use it themselves.

The early morning of Day 4, the career pack was hunting in the golden dawn light. They were all grouped together in one pack of four this time. Hosanna was eager to test out the spiked climbing bands she had taken from the dead ninja. Then, at seven in the morning, they trespassed on someone's land. That morning, Camlet received a note saying that the Capitol was growing tired of his inactivity and that he'd better move unless he wanted a mutt to do that for him. Too tired to move for real, the sleep-addled Camlet dragged himself up a nearby tree and fell asleep in the lowest bough. And, as the career pack put their hands over their eyes to shield out the sun, they spotted Camlet's snoozing form limp on the tree branch.

Hosanna broke into a run and stabbed the spikes of her left wrist into the trunk. The tree branch was so short that she could have easily reached it from the ground, but she just wanted to try out the new resources for real. She found that she could drag herself off the ground with ease.

"I'll knock him out the tree," Hosanna said softly. "Tisiphone and Gauss, you stay under him. Bella (Zarabella's nickname), be ready in case he makes a run for it."

Hosanna's career allies all nodded, in position. The 1 girl approached the snoozing Camlet. With all of her might, she cast her knife into the boy's back, opposite his navel. Camlet screamed and flailed around his limbs. He rolled to the right and landed with a thud on the ground. Tisiphone and Gauss were on him like hounds. Tisiphone thrust her rapier sword into his chest. He let out a little mewl of pain before blacking out. Zarabella rushed forward to get in on the action, but by the time she got there Gauss had already finished him off. Gauss' sword was lodged awkwardly into Camlet's skeleton. A cannon shot shattered the peaceful silence of the Japanese garden arena. The careers took a second to pillage the boy of his measly supplies before venturing off to search for more outliers.

 _Camlet Perlman, District 8 Male: 11th, Killed by Hosanna, Tisiphone, and Gauss, Day 4_

The rest of the day passed, deathless. Diandre's diet consisted virtually one-hundred percent of the cherry blossom tea that she was making. The pink flowers and the water needed to make them was in no short supply, and half of the name of the game was removed for her. On Day 4, Diandre got a bad batch of flowers infested with bugs and had tummy problems for the rest of the day. Fortunately, she was able to recover quickly. Emily was getting fed up of just eating koi fish and decided to raid the cornucopia for food. She had all of the confidence in the world, but the second she stepped into the pagoda all of that confidence faded away like a Hunger Games Cinderella. Emily fled back into the garden and somehow figured out that frying bugs on sticks was a good source of her nutrients. Elma found shelter in a cave veiled by vines. In the dark cave, she no longer had to worry about blending in with nature. Elma dunked herself in a nearby lake and cleaned off her smelly mud and leaf costume that she had been wearing for days. Valda decided to get moving so that she wouldn't fade into the background, but, deathly afraid of the careers, arced around the pagoda so that it was never less than a mile or so away. At nightfall, Valda came to a stop at a fast-flowing river that was so cold she couldn't step into it for more than a few seconds. She worked into the night to build a boat to carry her across, but she fell asleep onto the half-completed boat at one in the morning. Kimbra's inactivity was starting to bore the Capitol immensely, so Reyna sent a ninja mutt after her. It was one of the more stupid ones, and Kimbra easily managed to lose it. This made Kimbra much more cautious about being in the open, and she set out on a hunt for shelter.

On the morning of Day 5, dark-grey clouds started to roll in. By noon, a light sprinkle had picked up. It wasn't long before sheets of warm summer rain were pouring down into the earth. The warm rain brought up clouds of mist from the earth, shrouding the earth in a glorious fog. It made the landscape even more beautiful. The koi were a bit prettier. The cherry blossoms were a bit sweeter. But, once more, this peace could not last.

On Day 6, the careers decided that it was time to head back to the cornucopia. They packed up their supplies, cleaned their weapons, and were on the way to their pagoda home. Hosanna, Gauss, Tisiphone, and Zarabella were engaged in conversation when Zarabella perked up.

"Shhh!" Zarabella said, looking carefully around. She heard a strange sound. Human crying.

"I hear it too," Gauss remarked, a bit too loudly.

"Quieter," Tisiphone told Gauss. The second Tisiphone turned around, Gauss stuck out his tongue. He didn't like being bossed around.

The group of careers followed the sound. Zarabella pushed aside a curtain of blossoms and saw what was making the noise. Earlier that morning, the rain runoff from nearby areas of high ground flowed into Elma's cave, quickly flooding it. Elma almost drowned and barely escaped with her life, having collapsed to the grass, trying to gasp all of the water out of her lungs.

The careers approached, Zarabella and Hosanna in front, Gauss and Tisiphone in back. Elma looked up and gasped at the sight of Hosanna's knife. The gasp caused her to inhale a lot of the water that had built up in her throat and to suck farther down the liquid that was working its way out of her body. Elma fell forward, wheezing out droplets of water. Zarabella stabbed her spear into the girl's back. She let out a little snivel of pain. Hosanna's knife found a home in the wall of her stomach. It was one of the less exciting kills the careers made that year.

 _Elma Jose, District 7 Female: 10th, Killed by Zarabella and Hosanna, Day 6_

After Elma's cannon, the quartet of careers finished their trip to the cornucopia. In the six days that they were gone, they expected Cargo to get a lot more done than he actually did. In fact, Cargo had almost nothing done at all.

"What about all these knives?" Gauss said. "And what about this food? These cans? Those snack bars? You were supposed to organize everything!"

"Yes, well, I was just about to get started on those… and those… and those. It'll just be another day or two, I promise," Cargo shakily replied. There was no way Gauss believed him. He game him a venomous look and told him to get back to work.

Day 7 was greatly eventful, as it held two deaths. Emily went out hunting with her spear, wanting to make a splash and draw sponsors toward her. Fortunately, another tribute was nearby. Emily hadn't travelled half a mile when a girl's mane of dark hair and piercing green eyes came into sight. Emily dove toward the girl, Valda. She prodded at Valda's leg with her spear. Emily managed to bury the tip of the weapon into the flesh, drawing some blood. A look of horror on her face, Valda fled. In her hurry, she didn't have time to grab her weapons. She just ran, hoping to lose Emily.

The chase lasted hours and miles, up and down and up and down and across rivers and through clusters of pink blossoms. Eventually, Valda came to a point where she couldn't run any further. She grabbed onto a tree and tried to climb it. She scooched herself up inch by inch. By the time Emily caught up to her, she was barely three feet off of the ground. Emily grabbed Valda by her hair and peeled her off of the tree. She fell with a thud at Emily's feet. Emily closed her eyes, unable to watch the killing as she drove her spear into the girl's chest. The shaft of the weapon went farther and farther into her body, between bones and through organs and tissue. The second her cannon shot faded away fully, Emily tore the spear out of Valda's body and fled, a torrent of emotions overwhelming her after making her first kill.

 _Valda Shore, District 6 Female: 9th, Killed by Emily, Day 7_

That left the final eight: Hosanna Blessing from District 1, Gauss Lanzotti and Tisiphone Richter from District 2, Diandre Claudel from District 3, Cargo Sailer and Zarabella Kinsley from District 4, Emily Pollick from District 5, and Kimbra Golden from District 10.

The remaining outliers tried to go about their days as normally as possible after Valda's cannon shot woke them up. Wanting to spice up the games a bit, Reyna triggered a few of the trees with the pink blossoms to fall down at random times. Once, Diandre narrowly escaped one of the falling trees, and lost one of her shoes under it. Diandre was so traumatized that she dragged herself to the base of a banana tree and stood completely still, clutching her dagger in hand. The nation was getting more and more bored with Kimbra, and many urged Reyna to kill her off so that the real fun could start. Using a few additional ninja mutts, Reyna herded Kimbra onto one of the flat wooden bridges and then caused the bridge to collapse. Kimbra plopped down into the river. She could have been swept away and torn up by the current in minutes, but Kimbra grabbed onto a root on the riverbed. She grabbed onto nearby roots like a monkey bar course until she finally reached dry land. In the following days, Kimbra would grow a reputation of staring death straight in the face and laughing at it, just like she had when she escaped the bridge collapse that was meant to kill her.

The careers would lose one member before the sun set on Day 7. Cargo wanted to stay behind again while the others hunted, but Gauss refused to leave him behind. He hoped that bringing him on their next hunt would get some sense of the games back into him. A few hours into the hunt, the career pack came to a stop for their noon meal at the side of a short, swift river. Even the koi seemed to be avoiding the swiftly-moving region of water. As the careers set out their food, Hosanna walked to the edge of the river out of curiosity. Hosanna reached down into the riverbed and pulled out a rose-colored seashell that reminded her of the ones they sometimes used to make necklaces in District 1. Because it reminded her of home, she slipped it into her pocket.

"Come here!" Hosanna shouted. "There are so many shells!"

They were all busy in their work, and the only one that actually came was Cargo. Being from District 4, Cargo was good at identifying all the different types of shells and figuring out what animals might have once lived in them.

Tisiphone needed a helper and called Cargo back to help her. Hosanna was once again alone beside the swift river. Hosanna turned around to walk back when her foot slipped. She fell forward onto the grass and cursed. The ground under her was crumbling and falling into the river. The earth was breaking into clumps of dirt and then dissolving in the current. Hosanna screamed as loud as she could. Her allies rushed to help her, but it was too late. Hosanna ran out of earth to claw onto and was swept away by the river. She was so shocked that she inhaled two lungfuls of water right away. She struggled to see anything as she flew through the current.

Hosanna came to a battered stop in a small pool of water. She struggled to cough up all of the water that was in her lungs. Suddenly, a cluster of brightly-colored koi swam toward her. The second Hosanna touched the koi's scales, her entire body started burning as the poison that the koi were producing worked its way through her flesh. Hosanna was dying from suffocation and poison at the same time. It was hard to think of a nastier way to die.

 _Hosanna Blessing, District 1 Female: 8th, Killed by Drowning and Koi Muttations, Day 7_

After that, Days 8, 9, and 10 passed, deathless. The careers were hunting on Day 9 when they got to close to the force field once more and the gamemakers had to drive then away with a trio of ninja mutts. They all escaped virtually unscathed except for Cargo. They had killed two of the mutts when the third and final one cut open Cargo's shoulder with its sword. Blood poured out of the wound at dangerous speeds, and it was a miracle that Cargo survived the event. Because of his moans of pain, the whole angry alliance had to go back to the cornucopia to get medicine and tend to his shoulder wound. Zarabella was particularly unhappy because she had been looking forward to the several days of solid hunting that the alliance had planned. Emily, in a way, started her own little business. It started when she was sponsored some chicken and remarked that it was delicious. The company that "produced" the chicken (though it was really all done in District 10) experienced an increase in sales. In the next few hours, food companies were giving Emily their foods to review. She had more food than she could eat. Emily was considering throwing it all up so that she could fit in more, but she didn't want to in case there was a shortage of food afterward. Her mentor Porter sent her a note assuring her that there was loads more to come along with some vomiting tonic. Despite Reyna's attempts to kill her, Kimbra refused to die. When Reyna tried to swarm her with venomous koi, she wrapped her legs in plastic sheeting so that they couldn't touch her. When a whole cluster of trees came falling down on top of her, she survived with two fallen trunks both a few inches away from her. She was lucking out every single time. Of course, there was nothing stopping Reyna from blowing her sky-high at any moment, but doing that it the middle of the games is a move typically used only for emergencies that instantly makes the gamemaker responsible less popular.

Heavy rains came once more on Day 11, but one tribute died before the storm came on full-force. Cargo's shoulder wound inflicted by the ninja mutt a few days earlier was slowly killing him, no matter what the other careers did to help him. By five in the morning on the eleventh day, he was completely unresponsive. The pack of four careers was narrowed down to three as his cannon shot rolled across the arena.

 _Cargo Sailer, District 4 Male: 7th, Killed by Ninja Muttations, Day 11_

As unbelievable as it sounds, the career pack suffered yet another loss that afternoon. They had lots of work to do at the cornucopia and didn't want to go hunting, but Gauss did. He hadn't made a kill in a long time and was really eager to get more sponsors. Tisiphone and Zarabella said he could go out hunting if he wanted to, but he had to be back by dark because they had some jobs for him to do, particularly organizing areas of the pagoda that Cargo was supposed to, but didn't.

Gauss was so absorbed in his hunt that he completely forgot he was supposed to be back at the cornucopia by dark. With the first orangeish lights of dusk, Gauss started his trek back to the cornucopia. He froze when he heard shuffling from a nearby bush. Gauss saw two pairs of eyes staring at him, glowing in the last light of day like cats'.

Before he knew it two figures leapt out of bush and pushed him backward. Ninjas! Oh, no! Not now! Their black clothing blended so well into the darkening landscape that it was nearly impossible to see them. He felt the bite of one of their swords in his back. He whirled around and saw a faint sign of motion in the blackness, but it was soon gone. It was as if he was being stabbed at by the darkness itself. Gauss dragged himself in the direction of the cornucopia, but it was ultimately hopeless. How could he fight back when he couldn't even see his predators?

 _Gauss Lanzotti, District 2 Male: 6th, Killed by Ninja Muttations, Day 11_

Days 12 and 13 were deathless. The top five milled about. Tisiphone and Zarabella hunted very sparingly, as it was too risky to go out alone so late in the games. Tensions were rising in their alliance. Even for careers, it was too late in the games for an alliance of two to continue. Zarabella and Tisiphone tried not to turn their backs on each other. By Day 12, Reyna had to stop the flow of food going to Emily. It just wasn't in the spirit of the games and was swaying the odds unfairly in Emily's favor. Diandre practiced with her dagger. If she could be doing anything beneficial, it would be preparing for the final fight. By late Day 12 or early Day 13, it became evident that Reyna was intentionally trying to kill off Kimbra. The Capitol began crying out for her to stop and leave Kimbra be. Give her a chance, they said, and see how she fares for just a few more days. Reyna's heart was set on Kimbra's death, but she was forced to be flexible and give into the demands of the public. She let Kimbra live.

Day 14 came about with what was arguably the most significant peak of excitement the games had seen yet. Over the last two weeks, Emily had made herself stand out to the audience. First it was by leaping into the lake to escape Hosanna. Next it was by trying out the food samples from the Capitol. The finale of the games was approaching, and Emily knew that she couldn't let the Capitol's attention on her be diminished at all.

The new strategy that Emily had in mind would certainly be difficult. It would involve nerves of steel and tons of luck. If a single step went wrong, the entire plan would collapse on itself. But she was willing to do whatever she needed to get back to her family in District 5.

Emily clutched her spear as she prowled toward the cornucopia. She sat cross-legged behind a bush of pink blossoms and listened to Zarabella and Tisiphone's conversations. Emily predicted that only one of them would go out hunting. She was right. The duo sent out Zarabella to hunt by herself. The career girl took off into the meadow. As quiet as a mouse, Emily followed behind her and stalked her like a hunter hunts a deer in the woods.

Finally, nearly three hours into the hunt, Zarabella sat down to eat lunch and take a break. Emily crept up on her and then pounced! Emily did not want to kill the career. She only wanted to scratch up her face. Emily worked efficiently. Zarabella reached for her weapon, but Emily snatched it from beside her and tossed it away. Once her face was bloody and scratched, Emily whacked her in the head to make her pass out. Then, she raced off into the garden.

Zarabella woke up a few minutes later, blood drizzling from her face. The 4 girl staggered back to the cornucopia. She hobbled into the pagoda and fell at Tisiphone's feet.

"Oh my lord, what happened?" Tisiphone demanded, rushing to get bandages and medicine.

"I… I don't remem… member. Mem… memory… foggy," Zarabella shakily replied.

"This is going to burn a little," she warned, spraying a disinfectant spray all over Zarabella's face. She hissed and clenched her fists in agony. Finally, Tisiphone wrapped her ally's face in bandages until she was no longer recognizable. Emily's plan was playing out just like it had in her imagination.

Despite her wounds, Zarabella wanted to go hunting once more. She was an overachiever, after all. Tisiphone initially refused, saying she needed time to rest. But stubborn Zarabella wanted to kill the tribute who damaged her pretty face, and she argued with Tisiphone for nearly an hour on the matter. Finally, Tisiphone let her go. Zarabella zoomed off into the arena.

Once more, the District 5 girl was waiting just outside the pagoda. Emily saw Zarabella walking away from the cornucopia and followed behind her. The career was walking quickly, evidently seething with fury. Zarabella's main tool for getting sponsors wasn't only her combat skills, but also her looks. And she wasn't very happy to have her pretty face ruined.

Finally, after walking nearly two miles away from the horn, Emily pounced for real. Zarabella whirled around just as Emily's spear entered her neck.

"Y… you!" she gasped.

Emily nodded. "Me."

 _Zarabella Kinsley, District 4 Female: 5th, Killed by Emily, Day 14_

Emily knelt at the dead Zarabella's side and removed all of her bandages and some of her clothing. Emily removed her own clothing and put on Zarabella's. She wrapped the career girl's bandages around her face. By the time Emily was finished, she looked exactly like Zarabella.

Looking exactly like Zarabella, Emily hobbled back to the cornucopia.

"Back so soon?" said Tisiphone.

Putting on her best impression of Zarabella (which wasn't hard, because people's voices are almost indistinguishable when they are in extreme pain), Emily said, "Found that stupid girl from 5 that tried to kill me. Made her pay!"

And so Tisiphone went about her day completely unbeknownst to the fact that she was in the presence of an imposter. Tisiphone didn't question why "Zarabella" was talking so rarely. Most people don't talk much when they're recovering from injury.

That night, Tisiphone was working right in front of the pagoda when the national anthem blared. Emily froze. If Tisiphone saw that the real Zarabella was dead, her plan would be foiled.

"I need to get something from in the cornucopia," Emily said, and entered the pagoda. The second she was inside, she began screaming and begging for Tisiphone's help. Tisiphone rushed inside to help her. Emily rolled and thrashed on the ground, pretending to be in agonizing pain. The 2 girl instantly suspected poison and ran toward the rack of medicines. She grabbed the first one she saw and poured it in her ally's mouth.

"Ah, much better," said Emily.

"You need anything else?" asked Tisiphone.

"Nope."

By the time Tisiphone emerged from the cornucopia to resume her work, the death recap had ended. The imposter had avoided discovery yet again!

On Day 15, the duo of Tisiphone and "Zarabella" made a kill. Tisiphone wanted to get up early in the morning to hunt. Emily didn't want to, but arguing would require her to talk more so she just went with the flow. Kimbra was curled up under a peaceful banana tree when she bolted awake, the hairs on her neck standing straight up. Somebody was nearby. Kimbra slowly looked up and froze. Tisiphone was pointing straight at her.

The duo of Tisiphone and Emily charged. Tisiphone skewered her rapier through the 10 girl's hand. She screamed and wiggled around, but she couldn't escape with her hand pinned to the ground. Tisiphone tore her rapier out of her palm and skewered it through a flailing Kimbra's torso like a madwoman. After Kimbra died, Tisiphone urged "Zarabella" away so that they could get back to hunting.

 _Kimbra Golden, District 10 Female: 4th, Killed by Tisiphone, Day 15_

Excitement for the finale was rising in the Capitol as the final three tributes went about their days. After Kimbra's death, the duo of Tisiphone and Emily searched the beautiful garden for hours but were unable to find the elusive final outlier. At nightfall, they set themselves on course to the cornucopia, and arrived a few minutes after midnight. Diandre practiced feverishly with her knife, wanting to be as prepared as she could be for the finale. Wanting to even the playing field more, Reyna sent her an axe in a silver parachute disguised as a sponsor present. Diandre was glad to have a new weapon, though it required hours of practice to perfect the alien weapon.

The morning of Day 16, a cannon shot shattered the silence of the garden, waking almost all of the tributes and muttations. But, some of the mutts were already awake. Diandre's alarm clock that morning was an odd rustling sound from nearby. She sat straight up and looked around. In the first light of day, a single ninja mutt was nearby. Diandre lie back down and put her hand on her axe, just in case.

Diandre didn't have time to react as the ninja mutt came barreling toward her. It landed straight on her chest, pinning her into the ground with its swords. She screamed and rolled out from under the warrior with all of her might. Diandre rolled up and down hills like an unravelling mummy. In doing so, she picked up dirt and plants, which helped camouflage her into the landscape. After about five minutes, she got to her feet, thinking she was safe. Wrong. She felt a pinching sensation in her torso and crumpled to the ground like a torn paper doll. The ninja stood behind her, cleaning the blood off of its sword.

 _Diandre Claudel, District 3 Female: 3rd, Killed by Ninja Muttation, Day 16_

At the cornucopia, Tisiphone and Emily were preparing for their morning hunt when they heard and felt Diandre's cannon shot. They looked at each other.

"Well, I guess it's just us now, Bella," said Tisiphone. "A fair fight like ladies?"

Emily nodded and grabbed the spear that had been Zarabella's. The two tributes clashed. All of the cameras in the pagoda focused in on the scene. At what point would Tisiphone realize "Zarabella" was actually Emily? The thing was, Emily had the advantage. Throughout the games, Tisiphone had learned what fighting styles and tactics Zarabella liked best. But Emily fought completely differently. Why was Zarabella fighting like this?

With one move, Emily managed to catch Tisiphone off guard, and they were both on the floor. The girls rolled around, each one trying to pin down the other. Tisiphone was so confused and Emily was so strong that Emily managed to pin Tisiphone down.

"Bella! Zarabella!" Tisiphone begged as Emily pressed the point of her spear into her throat.

Emily tore off the bandages and revealed herself for who she truly was. "No. Emily." And she thrust the spear into her neck.

 _Tisiphone Richter, District 2 Female: 2nd, Killed by Emily, Day 16_

"Emily Pollick of District 5, you are the victor of the fifty-fifth annual Hunger Games!" Reyna shouted.

Emily bounced impatiently on the balls of her feet as she waited for the hovercraft to retrieve her, eager to leave behind the arena and go back home to the electrical district that she loved.

 _Emily Pollick, District 5 Female: Victor of the Fifty-Fifth Hunger Games, Day 16_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Emily was happy to bring District 5 its fifth victor. She was nice enough of a person but would ultimately be overshadowed by some of the flashier victors in years to come. Emily rarely had the spotlight on her, and that was the way she liked it. The fame-filled victor lifestyle wasn't for everybody, after all. But sometimes she had no choice in the matter. As one of the nation's more desirable victors, Snow spent the next few years regularly forcing Emily into spending nights in the posh Capitol hotels with the highest bidder. Her strategy was unique, though everyone had to admit it took more than her fair share of luck to escape the games alive.

She moved into the Victor's Village of District 5 as Porter's next-door neighbor.

Emily's victory tour wasn't much. District 2 was furious, as Emily crushed their hopes of a fourteenth victor into the ground by killing off Tisiphone.

Emily would live to the respectable age of eighty-nine, dying after a long battle with ovarian cancer a few weeks before the one-hundred twenty-sixth annual Hunger Games. Since she no longer had to go to school or work, Emily would devote the rest of her life to helping the needy, often volunteering at local soup kitchens on weekends. She would marry but would never have children.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Emily moves into the Victor's Village of District 5, the fifth victor to do so.

Beetee Latier and Wiress Freid adopt a baby boy named Router.

Nolan Wrack has his first child with his wife, a girl named Boulder (after his district partner in his games).

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)

* * *

 **A/N: That was quick, wasn't it? I had a whole day of no plans so I decided to write and edit a full 10,000 word long chapter in less than 24 hours. I hope you've enjoyed! I'm trying to include more and more dialogue in these chapters because, as some of you reviewers have said, it makes the characters more unique.**

 **Emily wins by disguising herself as a career! It's an idea I've had in my head for a long time now but have never gotten around to writing until Emily. I mean, she went into the 75th games, so there has to be something unique about her that would entice Snow to pick her. I assume that all twelve of those reapings were rigged, as there's no way Snow would leave the cast of characters up to chance in a games as pivotal as those!**

 **After two canon victors in a row, I finally get to write a victor from my own brain instead of Suzanne's next chapter. As always, please review on your way out if you have time. Even if I don't reply, rest assured that I read every review and take each one into consideration :D**


	57. The 56th Hunger Games

**The 56th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

It was the final year of campaigning amongst the three candidates for head gamemaker, and the competition was more intense than ever. The Capitol was divided into three groups: Team Feodore, Team Reyna, and Team James. James was falling short of his competitors, with about twenty percent of the Hunger Games audience on his side, whereas Feodore and Reyna each had about forty percent. Everyone had their favorite games: Feodore's RMS Titanic and ancient Pompeii games, Reyna's high school and Japanese garden games, and Feodore's frozen tundra games, but no official votes would be cast until the fifty-sixth annual Hunger Games came to a close. After his flop of a Hunger Games three years earlier, Head Gamemaker James Stradivarius was under more pressure than ever before to outshine his competitors. As a way of building anticipation, he released a Hunger Games "trailer" one-hundred days before the fifty-sixth Hunger Games was set to begin. The trailer showed a ghostly fog suspended over an island of crumpled grass and drooping plants. Then, a fierce growl pierced the silence, and the screen cut to black. The Capitol was sent into a full Hunger Games frenzy upon the short film's release. In the months that followed, countless internet sites claimed to possess "leaked footage" of the arena, supplies, and mutts.

This year's arena was a rather dismal place. It was a seemingly endless field of thick, soupy swamp water. The dirty water was chin-high, so the tributes could slowly slog through it even if they couldn't swim. In some places, islands rose out of the water, but almost none of them were bigger than twenty feet in diameter. Masses of mangrove trees were also abundant, good sources of shelter for the tributes that were nimble enough to climb up into their branches. Fierce crocodile mutts spun their way through the dark swamp, ready to gobble up any unsuspecting tributes. The crocodiles blended almost completely into the landscape, only recognizable in the darkness by their glowing red eyes. Swarms of gnats and wasps flew through the thick fog. Food was scarce, and, while water was abundant, most of it was dirty and undrinkable. It was James' favorite kind of arena: one-hundred percent natural. Even the cornucopia was natural, woven from the roots of several mangrove trees. The horn of plenty was situated on the largest island in the arena, about a hundred yards in diameter. The fog was substantially clearer in the immediate vicinity of the cornucopia just so that the cameras would be able to get high quality footage of the bloodbath. As soon as the bloodbath was over, the cornucopia region would become just as foggy as the rest of the arena.

This year had one of the weaker career packs. At the time of the tribute auditions, a rather nasty stomach flu was rampant in District 1. Therefore, several of the strongest academy students were too sick to go into the games, and the two that did weren't the best. The luxury district provided the weakest pair. The male had just recovered from a bout of the flu a few days before his audition and still had mild symptoms by the time he got to the Capitol. He had a whole lot of self-confidence, but he wasn't boastful by any means. The female was surprisingly muscular and masculine, and she specialized in brute force weapons like clubs. She was much more outgoing than her district partner. District 2's tributes weren't as intimidating as they had been in previous years. The male was a big history buff and nerd and said that he wished he had been chosen for one of Feodore's games. He was still happy to be in the Capitol, though, and whipped up quite a few sponsors with his looks. The female was the daughter of a District 2 millionaire. A few days after the reapings, the girl's father was caught bribing several Capitol citizens into sponsoring his daughter. The man was tried and sentenced to four months in jail. District 4 churned out its most menacing pair yet. The boy was a rather handsome young fellow who whipped up a good amount of sponsors before the games even started. He had only attended the academy for three years but still managed a ten and three-to-one odds of victory with his combat skills. The female was tall, muscular, and rather masculine in appearance and demeanor. She was actually not so different from her district partner. The career pack's training scores weren't the best: two tens, three nines, and one eight.

The crop of outliers this year did particularly well, and their training scores proved it. Two tributes scored tens outside of the career pack! The boy from District 3, Cipher Venne, astounded the gamemakers with his weaponry skills. He was a fantastic warrior with swords and spears and also a technological whizz. The other tribute to score a ten was Sally Vasilia from District 5. Sally was an extremely attractive young woman who was the niece of Victor Porter Tripp. She had been trained by her aunt on-and-off for the past few years and specialized in throwing knives. Sevens were earned by Kai from 7 and Conall and Daphne from 11. There were two volunteers besides the careers. Stunn, a boy from District 5, volunteered in place of his twelve year-old crippled brother. Quentina from District 7 volunteered for unknown reasons. Quentina had no association at all with the reaped girl, and, when asked why she volunteered in her interview, she shrugged off the question and quickly changed the subject. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Ace Baskin, 15, (8) 8-1 and Syrah Marston, 17, (9) 6-1

District 2: Excalibur Fonseca, 16, (9) 6-1 and Ophelia Stinn, 16, (9) 7-1

District 3: Cipher Venne, 17, (10) 5-1 and Chippa Maxwell, 13, (4) 32-1

District 4: Fisher Halibut, 18, (10) 3-1 and Ducksa Lincoln, 18, (10) 3-1

District 5: Stunn Tecar, 14, (5) 25-1 and Sally Vasilia, 17, (10) 6-1

District 6: Hadrien Supple, 17, (3) 45-1 and Damia Bird, 16, (6) 22-1

District 7: Kai Pinto, 18, (7) 12-1 and Quentina Oak, 13, (6) 27-1

District 8: Baize McCano, 12, (3) 55-1 and Crochet Simone, 17, (5) 24-1

District 9: Melvin Barbosa, 18, (6) 23-1 and Esther Zorn, 12, (4) 36-1

District 10: Taurus Dollar, 17, (6) 25-1 and Portia Bartell, 14, (4) 31-1

District 11: Conall Sykes, 16, (7) 13-1 and Daphne Jackman, 18, (7) 11-1

District 12: Inigo Libby, 14, (5) 27-1 and Dwyn Prima, 15, (3) 47-1

HGBO Bets: 9% on Fisher and Ducksa, 8% on Cipher and Sally, 7% on Syrah, Excalibur, and Ophelia, 6% on Ace, 5% on Kai, Conall, and Daphne, 4% on Damia, Quentina, Melvin, and Taurus, 3% on Stunn, Crochet, and Inigo, 2% on Chippa, Esther, and Portia, 1% or less on Hadrien, Baize, and Dwyn.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The arena this year was built in the vastly flooded southern region of District 11, a very long flight from the Capitol. One tribute, Inigo from 12, even vomited from the long ride in the hovercraft. Even in the launch rooms, the tributes could feel how sticky and humid the air was. Once they could see, they knew it was from the foggy swamp that spread out in all directions. Unsure of what lay around them, all twenty-four tributes decided to head into the bloodbath.

Ducksa was the first tribute to grab a weapon, a long-shafted spear that lay in the crumbly grass about twenty yards from her pedestal. In the fog, she could only see the tributes as faint signs of movement all around her. Ducksa lunged toward a larger tribute and planted the tip of the spear into his chest. The boy moaned and fell like a stone at Ducksa's feet. The 4 girl finished him off by spearing the weapon through his neck.

 _Melvin Barbosa, District 9 Male: 24th, Killed by Ducksa, Bloodbath_

Fisher picked up a mace and brought it down upon the nearest girl. The young girl squealed as the blow bashed in nearly a third of her skull and dented her brain. She was unconscious in seconds, leaving Fisher to polish her off with a blow to the torso that caused her lungs to swiftly fill with blood.

 _Crochet Simone, District 8 Female: 23rd, Killed by Fisher, Bloodbath_

Ophelia found her way to a sword. She swept the weapon in front of her, using it like a blind man's cane to feel through the fog. Suddenly, the blade of the sword knocked into something. Ophelia lunged toward it found herself tackling a young outlier boy to the ground. The boy tried to drag himself out from under the 2 girl's weight, but he couldn't move fast enough as she brought down her sword and carved out his upper abdomen.

 _Stunn Tecar, District 5 Male: 22nd, Killed by Ophelia, Bloodbath_

A few seconds later, Ducksa managed to corner a small girl against the cornucopia. She lashed out with her spear and planted it into her neck. The girl slid down against the wooden wall of the horn. She was losing blood so quickly that she didn't have the energy to try to escape.

 _Dwyn Prima, District 12 Female: 21st, Killed by Ducksa, Bloodbath_

Ace was searching around the cornucopia for a weapon when he stepped on something sharp. He reached down and picked up the sharp object—a crescent-shaped sickle as long as his arm. It wasn't the sword that Ace had been hoping for, but it would have to do. The career sprang toward the nearest tribute and slashed the sickle across her chest. Dark blood exploded forth, and the girl fell onto Ace, knocking him over like a domino. Ace wiggled out from underneath the dying girl and sprang back to his feet to look for more prey.

 _Daphne Jackman, District 11 Female: 20th, Killed by Ace, Bloodbath_

Fisher and Ducksa from 4 teamed up to make their next kill. Fisher picked up an outlier girl and hurled her to the ground like nothing. The girl's entire body weight was forcefully put down onto her left ankle, and a bloodcurdling snap followed as the ankle bone gave in to the pressure. Ducksa finished the girl off, sliding her spear into the girl's throat.

 _Portia Bartell, District 10 Female: 19th, Killed by Fisher and Ducksa, Bloodbath_

Sally from 5 had a belt of throwing knives around her waist. She was turning around to flee from the bloodbath when an enormous weight crashed into her back. It was Hadrien of 6, who had armed himself with a knife and wanted to kill Sally to eliminate competition early. Hadrien flew his knife toward her neck, but Sally turned around and punched him in the face. He cursed and fell off of her, and she got to her feet to finish him off. Hadrien crawled around, looking for his knife, but he couldn't find it before Sally went in for the kill, hurling one of her throwing knives into the base of his neck.

 _Hadrien Supple, District 6 Male: 18th, Killed by Sally, Bloodbath_

Excalibur, clutching a sword in his hand, leapt at the nearest tribute, a boy from one of the poorest districts of the nation, and hammered him into the ground. He let out a little snivel of pain, but his cries were cut short as Excalibur flung his sword into his back.

 _Taurus Dollar, District 10 Male: 17th, Killed by Excalibur, Bloodbath_

Syrah was the only career left without any kills, but that would soon change. The girl had a mace and used it to bash in the skull of a twelve year-old outlier boy. Due to the boy's small size and the force of the blow, he was dead from head trauma in seconds.

 _Baize McCano, District 8 Male: 16th, Killed by Syrah, Bloodbath_

Ophelia made the final kill, bringing the blade of her sword down onto the side of a girl's neck. The girl clapped her hands over the wound to keep in the blood. Ophelia quickly made another incision running all the way down her arm, and there was no way she could keep all of her wounds covered. The careers gathered 'round to watch her die, a process that took a little less than an hour.

 _Damia Bird, District 6 Female: 15th, Killed by Ophelia, Bloodbath_

The career pack, completely intact unlike some other years, prepared for their hunt. Fisher and Ducksa hunted on the island the cornucopia was situated on, wanting to be sure there weren't any tributes hiding nearby like Annabelle of the year before. Meanwhile, Excalibur and Syrah sorted food rations. They were all sweating bullets from the intense heat. Luckily, Syrah found a box fan in the back of the cornucopia. She affixed it on top of a pile of crates in the back of the cornucopia to keep the stale air circulating. Ophelia rummaged through the supplies for flashlights. Fortunately, they were plentiful, and there were at least two flashlights for every career. Ophelia laid them out on a table for any six of them to take if they needed one. Before long, they were just waiting for the pair from 4 to get back. Once Ducksa and Fisher returned reporting that the cornucopia island was empty of prey, they all took a quick moment to rehydrate and then started trudging through the thick swamp to hunt for outliers.

The outliers scattered, floating, paddling, or trudging through the thick swamp. Cipher had a sword, a watertight case of saltine crackers, and a metal bowl. He was holding onto his supplies with his hands, so only his feet were available to swim through the water with. Chippa, after several painful hours of floating through the sludge, came to a stop on a small island housing a single mangrove tree. Aside from a bit of food, her only supply was a backpack of wire. Chippa crawled under the roots of the tree and tried to find a way to win the games like Beetee. Sally paddled away from the cornucopia with her supplies: a watertight backpack, her belt of throwing knives, a thermos, and a tin of matches. Sally discovered that by blowing into the pack, she could inflate it with her breath. When Sally strapped the pack onto her back, she could float on the water without using her arms or legs at all. Kai wasn't a comfortable swimmer and had to walk across the slippery bottom of the swamp. Eventually, he found a group of two logs that were floating on the sludge and climbed on top of them. Kai fell asleep on his raft, leaving the directions he travelled up to fate. Quentina paddled through the thick soup until a small island came into view. The girl fell onto the island and collapsed from exhaustion, clutching the few supplies she had gotten from the cornucopia, like an axe and some firewood. Esther was one of the luckiest tributes. Right away, she found a floating log, so she was able to move across the swamp without laying a finger on the filthy water. Esther used a fallen mangrove branch as an oar to work her way over the swamp. Conall and Inigo travelled together, even though they hadn't spoken a word of alliance before the games. As the sun started to set, they climbed up into the branches of a cluster of trees. They were both ravenously hungry and thirsty. Curious as to how this outlier alliance would turn out, a sponsor sent them a slice of pork and thermos of water. Conall and Inigo planned to carefully ration the food and drink equally through the next few days. The eerie silence and stillness would not last much longer, and blood would mingle with the muddy water as the games continued.

Mere hours into Day 2, a bloodcurdling scream pierced the black night. The stress of the games was giving Esther horrible nightmares. Esther habitually moved a lot in her sleep, and, all in less than three seconds, rolled to one side, fell off of her raft, and landed in the thick swamp water with a splash. She bolted awake and rocketed to the surface. The girl spun around and searched for her raft, or anything to clamber onto for that matter. Suddenly, Esther's heart stopped. About twenty feet away, a pair of glowing red eyes was fixed on her. Esther slowly paddled away, not wanting to thrash around for fear she might alert the monster of her position. As the creature spun through the water toward her, she panicked and splashed away as quickly as she could. The mysterious creature chased after her, and, as it drew closer, she could make out its scaly back and pointed maw. The crocodile mutt let out a roar, and, even though the night was hot and muggy, a chill went down Esther's spine. That growl was eerily similar—almost identical—to the growl in the games trailer.

A trio of floating logs came into view, and Esther veered off of her course toward them. If she could climb on top of the logs, she might be able to grab a weapon to fend off the croc. She swam as fast as she could toward the floating logs, but she wasn't fast enough. Before she could yell out, the crocodile closed its enormous maw around her leg. Esther reached out and grabbed one of the logs just as the croc pulled her under. She swung the log through the water, hoping to hit the mutt. It let out another growl and pulled her farther under the surface. Her only hope of survival was to get to the surface, where she could use the light of the stars and the moon to see what the actual heck she was doing. The crocodile had other plans. With a snap of its jaws, it severed nearly half of the girl's torso just like that. The creature began munching on the chunk of flesh, and, finally free of its jaws, Esther floated up to the surface. Underneath her, the crocodile spiraled away, satisfied.

The girl floated in circles on the surface of the water. She couldn't bear to look at her bleeding body. She couldn't bear to look at the black crocodile-infested water. So Esther looked at the stars. Even through the fog, she could see them. The Milky Way was a glorious band from horizon to horizon. Not a bad final sight if you ask most folks today.

 _Esther Zorn, District 9 Female: 14th, Killed by Crocodile Muttation, Day 2_

Esther's cannon shot startled most of the tributes awake, most of whom were so exhausted that they fell back asleep in seconds or minutes. There was one exception, though. In the career pack, Excalibur couldn't sleep. It had taken him hours to fall asleep in the first place, and, now that he had been awoken, falling back asleep before the sun rose was out of the question. Excalibur's mind was cluttered with so many thoughts that he couldn't focus on anything for more than a few milliseconds. Wanting to unwind and clear his mind a bit, Excalibur wiggled out of his sleeping bag. Grabbing his sword just in case, he ventured away from the cornucopia for a walk.

The 2 boy walked a few laps around the cornucopia, breathing in a regular pattern to relax. It was getting repetitive after a while, so Excalibur headed further away. He had walked for a few minutes when he came to the edge of the island. He stepped into the swampy water and waded in a few feet.

So suddenly that he didn't have time to breathe, the mud under his feet began to give way. In moments, he was sinking down into the earth. Excalibur let out a cry of shock and dug his sword into the ground. Holding onto the hilt with all of his might, he pulled himself upward. He managed to drag himself a few inches upward, out of the quicksand. So far, so good. Excalibur pulled himself up a few more inches, and the sword slipped. He began sliding down into the ground once again.

Excalibur screamed as loud as he could, hoping to get the attention of his allies. Ace was the first to wake. He yelled that he was coming and ran in the direction of Excalibur's screams. By the time he arrived, the mud was up to the 2 boy's navel.

"I've got you!" Ace said. He frantically searched around and picked up a fallen mangrove branch. "Hold onto this!"

Excalibur grabbed onto the other end of the branch, and Ace tugged as hard as he could. Excalibur tried his hardest to hoist himself up out of the quicksand. It wasn't working, not by any definition of the word. The mud was up to Excalibur's neck within a few more minutes. Ace kept frantically searching around for something, anything, to help out his sinking ally. Finally, he had no other option. "Take my hand!" Ace yelled. Excalibur grabbed onto it, and, instantly, Ace was tugged over the side and into the mud. Ace scrambled to escape, but he was sinking before long.

The two sinking career boys' screams had awoken the other careers by that point. Syrah, Ophelia, and Ducksa came running toward their screams to help them. By the time they arrived, the mud was up to Excalibur's chin and Ace's waist. They all felt awful, but there was nothing they could do. If any of them tried to help one of the boys, they would be tugged in as well! They were completely helpless as the two boys sank below the surface and suffocated in the mud.

 _Excalibur Fonseca, District 2 Male: 13th, Killed by Suffocation, Day 2_

 _Ace Baskin, District 1 Male: 12th, Killed by Suffocation, Day 2_

In the "light" hours of Day 2 (though it was nearly as dark as night through the thick fog), the careers were reluctant to hunt. Worried as to what dangers the arena might hide after losing two of their members in the span of half an hour, they knew that there was no way on Earth they were swimming through those waters. So Fisher suggested that they build a boat. Strangely, none of them had thought about a boat before that point. They began construction within the next ten minutes, ravenous to finish the boat and get hunting to thin the crowd of outliers. Fisher oversaw the construction but also did quite a bit of the work himself. Syrah started building a sail, but Ducksa pointed out that there wasn't much wind in the arena and they wanted it to be controlled with oars, not the whims of the gamemakers and Mother Nature. So Syrah scrapped the half-finished sail and started fashioning the oars. Ophelia worked to smear sap from the mangrove trees into the cracks between pieces of the boat. By the time they were finished, the sun had set below the horizon. The careers dragged their do-it-yourself boat into the cornucopia for safekeeping and went to bed, planning to test her seaworthiness the next morning.

The careers were up bright and early the morning of Day 3, eager to test their new invention. Fisher grabbed the boat of their creation and used a flashlight to guide his allies to the shore. The 4 boy placed the vessel atop the water. Taking infinite care, he climbed onto it. To his pleasure, the boat managed to stay up, only dipping a few inches down into the water. Ophelia was the next to climb in. She sat cross-legged right behind Fisher. The boat was able to support her weight as well! There was room for one more on board. Syrah, the smallest of the remaining tributes, stepped onto the ship. The second her entire body weight was on the boat, it flipped over, dunking the three passengers into the swampy water. They quickly paddled their way back to shore, covered head-to-toe in mud.

"Hey!" said Syrah. "It's floating away!"

She was right. A slight gust of wind spurred by James was causing the careers' boat to drift away into the swamp.

"I've got it!" Ducksa proclaimed, diving into the water. As the daughter of a fisher, she cut through the water with breathtaking speed. She hoisted herself up onto the raft and used her hands as oars to swim back to shore.

"Next time," Ducksa said, spitting out mud. "Set a maximum capacity of two."

After being dunked in the muddy water, it took the career pack all day to clean themselves off. It took dozens of washcloths per filthy career and depleted their precious water supply, but it was worth it to be free from the clinging of mud on every inch of their bodies. They quickly lost track of time. Once they were all finished cleaning themselves, there was only an hour until sunset. They would get almost zero hunting done before it was time to come back home. So they said, "Tomorrow morning," for the second night in a row.

There was a surprising amount of argument amongst the careers on the morning of Day 4. Only two of them could go hunting, and everyone wanted a turn. After picking grasses, flipping coin-shaped stones, and several all-dictating games of rock, paper, scissors, it was determined that Ophelia and Fisher would have the first turn. They set out with their weapons (Ophelia her sword, Fisher his mace) and drifted away from the cornucopia on their boat, promising to be back before dark the next day.

With only two careers instead of the usual five or six, there was a lot less disagreement. The duo got a lot of work done. Whenever the boat started taking on water, Fisher bailed, while Ophelia took the oars and set out on a hunt. They headed toward the east and slowly looked around as they travelled. Their flashlights allowed them to see farther into the mist, but even so their sight was impaired. When night fell, they came to a stop on a medium-sized island and slept on the boat so that they would know if anyone tried to steal it.

Days 4 and 5 passed without incident as the tributes trudged through the hot swamp. Ophelia and Fisher tried to steer their boat back to the cornucopia, but particularly strong currents in the water (courtesy of James) caused them to get lost. A sponsor sent them some hard hats with flashlights affixed to the fronts, which helped them see better through the soupy fog. Still, they were unable to find their way back to the horn despite their best efforts. Syrah and Ducksa waited impatiently at the horn, eager for their turn to hunt. They attempted to assemble a second boat, but it went disastrously. It couldn't even support the weight of their weapons, let along their bodies and fighting gear. Cipher came into contact with a single crocodile mutt, but he was able to fend it away with his sword and move to dry land where it was safer. Chippa continued working on her electrical contraption. A sponsor sent her a bag of assorted mechanical supplies. Her plan was to run an electrical current through the salty swamp water, killing anyone and anything that came close. Chippa's contraption was coming along well. Sally continued floated through the arena for the better portion of Day 4. When she saw a tribute slowly trudging through the swamp nearby, she chased after him. The boy was Kai from 7. Sally chased him for nearly half a mile, but Kai managed to escape, ducking into the crook of a mangrove tree. Quentina felt a raging hunger. She had collected an armful of mangrove fruit over the past few days, but the fruit was too hard to bite into and tasted disgusting. Her mentor Blight sent her a note that the fruit was absolutely edible, but she needed to roast it over a fire to soften it. Quentina didn't care that lighting a fire would reveal her position to everyone. She just wanted to eat. She arranged her sponsored firewood in a teepee shape. The dry wood quickly caught fire with the help of a few matches, and Quentina began roasting the fruit. Conall and Inigo huddled together in a cluster of mangrove trees, too terrified to move as several crocodiles swam in circles around them. The crocs couldn't reach them, but they still screamed when they leapt out of the water and snapped their jaws. Unless they could fend the mutts off, there was no hope of being able to leave the island before they crumbled to dust due to starvation.

Day 6 arrived. Ophelia and Fisher were as lost as ever. By that point, they were paddling in random directions and hoping for the best. Around noon, they spotted the trail of smoke rising up from Quentina's fire. The careers used their oars to move toward the trail of smoke. Quentina saw the careers' boat coming toward her and doused her fire before moving to the other end of the island and paddling away into the water. At the front of the boat, Ophelia shone her flashlight across the island. They were about to give up and paddle away when Ophelia's light glanced off of the girl's tribute token, an ornate silver hairpiece. If the light hadn't hit her token, Quentina would have probably been able to duck under the surface until they were gone.

The careers moved their boat in Quentina's direction and lofted their weapons into the air. Docking the boat on the island, they disembarked and chased into the water after Quentina. It was hard to see through the murky water, but there was no doubt that the 7 girl was nearby. Fisher swung his club through the soup and bludgeoned Quentina in the abdomen, crushing several of her bones. Blood began pooling up in her lungs. Quentina rocketed to the surface, gasping for breath. The careers followed, and Ophelia finished her off by spearing her sword through her neck. Once her cannon shot sounded, Fisher and Ophelia stole the girl's supplies and then climbed into their boat to continue their search for the cornucopia and other tributes.

 _Quentina Oak, District 7 Female: 11th, Killed by Fisher and Ophelia, Day 6_

On Day 7, the careers finally found their way back to the cornucopia. The Capitol was getting bored with watching only Ophelia and Fisher hunt, so a sponsor sent them exact directions to the cornucopia. Before long, the antsy Syrah and Ducksa came into view.

"About time!" Ducksa called from the shore as Ophelia and Fisher prepared to dock.

"Yeah, we got lost. That fog is a real pain," replied Fisher.

"Killed off the girl from 7 though," Ophelia added.

Syrah and Ducksa, eager to get hunting, climbed into the boat and sailed away with their weapons. At the cornucopia, hunting partners Ophelia and Fisher continued organizing rations and weapons. Not the most exciting job in the world, but, to be fair, they had kept their allies waiting for far too long and deserved to have the boring jobs for once.

Syrah and Ducksa had sailed for less than an hour when a swimming tribute came into view. The two careers paddled toward the girl—Sally from 5. Sally saw the prow of the careers' boat coming through the water toward her and ducked under the water, swimming in the other direction. She had been swimming between islands all morning looking for food, and she knew that one particularly large island was less than fifty yards away. As Sally swam into the fog, Syrah and Ducksa followed behind.

Before long, the girl from District 5 stepped onto dry land and ducked behind a copse of dead bushes. She watched as the two career girls docked their boat and stepped out onto the island, their weapons gleaming in the little sunlight that was able to shine through the fog.

So suddenly that she didn't have time to breathe, Sally leapt out from behind the bush and tackled Ophelia. The two girls crumbled to the ground in a heap. They rolled around for minutes, each one struggling to pin down the other. Syrah followed them around with her mace. She was too scared to interfere; if she tried to hit Sally, she might accidentally hit Ducksa! After nearly five minutes, Ducksa was so exhausted that Sally managed to wiggle out from underneath her. Sally ran for the shore and got into the careers' boat.

"Hey! That's ours!" Syrah called. Sally didn't listen. She untied the boat from the shore and used the oars to drift away from the island, leaving Ducksa and Syrah behind.

Ducksa dove into the water and chased after her. The 4 girl's hope was to swim underneath the boat and push upward, capsizing the vessel and knocking Sally into the water. But Sally had her belt of throwing knives, and she threw one whenever the girl came up for breath. She succeeded on her third try, landing one of her knives squarely in Ducksa's forehead. She slid beneath the water right away, unable to find the energy to stay afloat. Sally's knife had pierced part of Ducksa's brain, and, no matter what she did, she was pretty much guaranteed to die within the next minute or so.

 _Ducksa Lincoln, District 4 Female: 10th, Killed by Sally, Day 7_

As Sally continued to paddle away on the boat she stole from the careers, Syrah was left abandoned on the island. She couldn't swim. The island had virtually no natural bounty, and the possibility of making some kind of raft was out of the question. Syrah could have just trudged through the swamp with her head above the surface, but she was terrified of what the waters might hold. For that moment, she was a prisoner on that tiny, lonesome island where she would be doomed to die unless a miracle came about.

Day 8 had no deaths. After seeing Ducksa's face in the sky, Ophelia and Fisher were crestfallen. Their once-mighty group of six had been whittled down to three before the final eight. When Syrah didn't return, they began to fear that she was trapped somewhere. Ophelia couldn't bear the thought of abandoning the poor girl to starve, and she desperately wanted to go out and rescue her. But Fisher objected. Neither of them had the slightest clue as to her location. Without a boat, they didn't dare swim through the likely mutt-infested waters. They were helpless, just like they were as they watched Ace and Excalibur sink down into the mud. Sometimes being helpless is even worse than having the power to do something and failing.

Days 9 and 10 passed without any major occurrences. Ophelia and Fisher were becoming more and more antsy as they waited for Syrah to come back. They tried to assemble a raft, but they had used up all of the decent boat-building materials to build their first boat and had virtually nothing to work with. Miles away, poor Syrah was helpless on the tiny island. She would sometimes spot the glowing eyes of crocodile mutts through the murky water. By the end of Day 10, Syrah was so hungry and thirsty she could barely move. Cipher floated between islands from time to time, fending off attacking croc mutts with his sword whenever it was necessary. Chippa continued work on her electrical machine. Progress was coming along well, and Chippa reported that she would be finished in just one more day. Sally floated over the water on the boat that she had stolen from the careers. Once, a swarm of tracker jackers attacked, and she had to duck down and wait for them to pass. A few of the mutts bit her, and Sally nearly rolled off of the boat acting out her hallucinations. Kai ran completely out of water, and his inactivity was doing anything but attract sponsors. He resorted to drinking the dirty swamp water. His stomach instantly rejected the filth, and it took hours to get enough fluid inside of him without instantly hurling it back up. Conall and Inigo were unable to move in their cluster of mangrove trees as crocodiles swam around them. They were both procrastinating the moment that they would either have to move or starve to death, but at that moment they were too scared to do anything.

Day 11 came about with two deaths. The first one occurred before the sun even rose. Despite Syrah's best efforts, she could not survive on the tiny island surrounded by crocodiles. All her attempts at finding food, all of her begs for the sponsors to save her, all of her cries for somebody to help her, were futile. Syrah passed away from dehydration around two in the morning.

 _Syrah Marston, District 1 Female: 9th, Killed by Dehydration, Day 11_

That left the final eight: Ophelia Stinn from District 2, Cipher Venne and Chippa Maxwell from District 3, Fisher Halibut from District 4, Sally Vasilia from District 5, Kai Pinto from District 7, Conall Sykes from District 11, and Inigo Libby from District 12.

Chippa was up bright and early, ready to finish her mechanical contraption. She had quite a lot to work on, but she didn't want to fall short of her promise to finish on Day 11. By the time the sun reached its peak in the sky, her contraption was finished. It was rather similar to Beetee's contraption from the fortieth games. The end of the on/off switch was connected to a coiled electrical wire which surrounded an electrically charged metal core. A long output wire sprouted from the core. When the switch was turned to the on setting, the coiled wire would rotate around the core and transfer some of the charge to the output wire. The output wire ran into the water surrounding Chippa's island. Since the water was salty, the current would be carried through the water and would create a force field of electricity surrounding the island.

Now was the moment Chippa had been waiting for nearly two weeks. Her mentor Wiress sent her a note that it was time, and she quickly got into position. Chippa flipped the switch and instantly screamed. She hadn't insulated the switch well enough, and her fingers were making contact with the live electrical wire. Chippa thrashed and contorted, her hair standing up on end as hundreds of volts ran through her brain and heart. She was dead in minutes, leaving behind her failed electrical contraption to rot away beside her body.

 _Chippa Maxwell, District 3 Female: 8th, Killed by Electrocution, Day 11_

After Chippa's death, Days 12, 13, and 14 were all deathless. They were the slowest and most lifeless days the fifty-sixth Hunger Games had seen yet, and many Capitol citizens were so put off by the lack of action that they turned off their televisions and radios for good. Ophelia and Fisher couldn't hunt without a boat, so they saw to making a second one. It took them all of Day 12 to build. The duo took Day 13 to rest, and their hunt on Day 14 was unsuccessful. Cipher continued jumping between islands with his sword, fending off tracker jackers and crocs. Kai discovered that the fruit of the mangrove trees was edible, but it had to be heated up so that he could bite into it without breaking his teeth. He started a fire to roast the fruit. Sally spotted the trail of smoke and began sailing toward it, but Kai doused the fire before she could reach him. Conall and Inigo requested politely that James draw away the crocodilians that were circling around their mangrove tree and trapping them there. James didn't think it was outlandish, so he pulled them away with electrical pulses. Conall and Inigo waded through the swamp water, hoping to find a clean source of food and water. So far, they had only been drinking the swamp water, but their precious water purifying supplies had run dry and they needed to find something else.

At noon on Day 15, it was as if every tribute had something they needed dearly. The careers needed a seaworthy boat. Cipher needed more kills. Kai needed clean water. Conall and Inigo needed food and weapons. So, naturally, there was only one thing to do.

James' voice boomed across the arena. All of the tributes could hear him. The acoustics of the arena were exceptional.

"My deepest congratulations to the final seven tributes of the fifty-sixth Hunger Games. There is something that each of you needs desperately. At precisely noon tomorrow, a feast will be held at the cornucopia. Think twice about showing up. This will be the only announcement."

The second his voice cut to silence, the cornucopia shot out a beacon of blazing light that shone through even the thickest parts of the fog. And, far off in the artificial sky, a countdown began. _24:00:00. 23:59:59. 23:59:58…_

It was no surprise that, the next day, every single tribute decided to go to the feast. Ophelia and Fisher wanted more kills, as did Cipher, who needed more sponsors. Conall, Inigo, and Kai all needed restocks of food and water. Sally didn't need anything desperately, but she didn't want to be the only tribute not to go the feast. She would come off as a coward if she was the only tribute not to show up.

The feast went as planned. At noon on Day 16, the tributes had all gathered around the cornucopia, which was restocked with piles of food, water, medicine, blankets, and anything else the tributes could need. Boom! A gong rumbled across the arena, and the tributes were off.

Fisher and Ophelia, of course were at the front. Ophelia scrapped her old, bloodstained sword and picked up a long katana sword that was about thirty yards from her pedestal. Fisher clung onto his trusty mace. The two careers frantically peered through the fog and spotted the duo of Conall and Inigo about thirty yards away, snatching up as much water and food as they could carry. The careers charged toward the duo and tackled them to the ground. Fisher took down Conall, and Ophelia went for Inigo. Fisher swung his mace through the air and whacked it into Conall's head, knocking out several teeth and bashing in a good part of his skull. He collapsed, knocking over Inigo in his descent like a bowling pin. Ophelia leapt toward the fallen Inigo and slid her katana into his neck. He gurgled and moaned as blood pooled up in his mouth. He tried to drag himself away but was ultimately dead within a few seconds.

 _Conall Sykes, District 11 Male: 7th, Killed by Fisher, Day 16_

 _Inigo Libby, District 12 Male: 6th, Killed by Ophelia, Day 16_

Cipher picked up a new sword and went in for the ultimate prize: Fisher from 4. He and Ophelia were engrossed in pillaging Conall and Inigo of their supplies, and he was easy prey for Cipher. Cipher dug his sword into Fisher's back. The boy staggered backward as the sword protruded from his stomach. Fisher's ally Ophelia stayed completely still, dumfounded with shock, as Cipher continued hacking away at Fisher's abdomen with his sword.

 _Fisher Halibut, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Cipher, Day 16_

Ophelia chased after Cipher, seeking to avenge Fisher's death. Cipher was quick, but not quick enough to escape the well-trained career. Ophelia slashed at the air with her katana, opening a huge gash from the base of Cipher's neck to his hip. He fell to the ground, blood sloshing from the wound like water. Cipher struggled to fend off Ophelia with his last ounces of energy, but his hope dissolved as the 2 girl thrust her sword into his abdomen.

 _Cipher Venne, District 3 Male: 4th, Killed by Ophelia, Day 16_

No more deaths occurred that day. The three remaining tributes were all well-stocked and began scattering. Ophelia had sustained several small injuries during the feast. She stayed still at the horn and tended to herself for the remainder of the day, wanting to be in the best condition possible for the finale. Sally managed a liter of water and a bit of dried pork; not a huge turnout, but still enough to power her through the next few days. Kai grabbed medicine to flush all of the filthy swamp water out of his body, and after that he fed himself on sponsor foods and clean water from the feast.

The morning of Day 17, a cannon shot shattered the silence of the swamp. Kai didn't want to stay on the same island for more than a few hours at a time for fear he might fade into the background. He didn't have a boat, so he had to swim through the water to get wherever he wanted. Kai had traveled about fifty yards into the water when he froze. Four piercing red eyes stared at him from under the surface. They were getting closer. Panicked, Kai turned around and swam back to the island he had come from, wanting to get to dry land where the crocs couldn't reach him. At first, he tried to move slowly, but he panicked as the mutts drew closer and closer and broke into a fast swim.

The first mutt overtook him in seconds, closing his left foot in its jaws. Kai struggled to escape, but he couldn't escape the crocodile's grip. It chomped off Kai's foot in one snap of its jaws. The boy screamed as a cloud of red spread around him. He turned to the left and tried to escape, but the second crocodile mutt was there. He had no hope of escape with two crocodile mutts on either side of him. As he let out a few quick goodbyes to his loved ones, the hideous reptiles pounced, tearing off ribbons of Kai's bloody flesh.

 _Kai Pinto, District 7 Male: 3rd, Killed by Crocodile Muttations, Day 17_

Day 18 was a beautiful sight. Starting as soon as the sun rose, the fog began to dissolve until it was completely gone. The heavy green clouds drifted away and revealed an azure blue sky filled with puffy white clouds. The golden gem of the sun illuminated the entire arena. The two remaining tributes knew the finale was on the horizon, and they had light and fresh air as they prepared. Ophelia armed herself with the armor and weapons of the cornucopia and practiced with her katana, favoring it largely over her old sword. Sally started her swim toward the cornucopia, wanting to get as much of the voyage done on her own accord before the gamemakers sent some mutts after her to hurry her up.

After a whole day of swimming, Sally stopped to rest for the first part of Day 19. The Capitol was eager for the finale and wanted their victor as soon as possible, so James pestered Sally with a crocodile mutt. The mutt chased Sally to the cornucopia island, where Ophelia was waiting on the shore. Let the finale begin.

Sally stepped onto the dry land and clashed with Ophelia. The crocodile muttation still wanted its snack and waited on the shore as if one of the finalists might walk back in. From the start, Sally was losing. Sally had the higher training score, but Ophelia had been training for the games nearly every day for a decade and Sally's only training was from her aunt a few days a month. Ophelia's very first blow was true, and Sally collapsed to the ground as the District 2 girl's katana slid through her calf. Sally held out her sword, but the career just knocked aside the sword and set it in the dirt with a thud.

Suddenly, Sally ran toward the crocodile mutt. She had a ridiculous plan in mind, but drastic times call for drastic measures. The girl leapt on top of the mutt and rode it up and down like a rodeo bull. The crocodile leapt to and fro, trying to knock Sally off, but she held onto its scales with all of her strength. Ophelia watched, wide-eyed with shock, as the mutt growled and tried to knock the 5 girl off of its back. The mutt leapt onto shore and knocked Ophelia's with its maw.

The crocodile growled as if saying, "there you are!" and dug into Ophelia. The crocodile mutt tore off her flesh and stained its teeth with her blood. Ophelia's cannon shot sounded, and Sally crawled off of the mutt before it slid back into the water.

 _Ophelia Stinn, District 2 Female: 2nd, Killed by Crocodile Muttation, Day 19_

"Sally Vasilia of District 5, you are the victor of the fifty-sixth annual Hunger Games!" James screamed.

Sally closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. She had fought hard throughout the games, but she was ready to go home.

 _Sally Vasilia, District 5 Female: Victor of the Fifty-Sixth Hunger Games, Day 19_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 5 was pleasantly surprised to receive their sixth victor so soon. It was the first instance in Hunger Games history of the same district winning back-to-back Hunger Games. This would only happen a few more times in the first Hunger Games century. Of course, Victor Porter Tripp was immeasurably happy to see her niece emerge from the Hunger Games alive. Sally was just glad to be home.

She moved into the Victor's Village of District 5, next to Emily's house.

Sally's victory tour was nothing out of the ordinary, though District 2 was a bit sour for obvious reasons.

Sally would live to the age of seventy-four, dying from heart disease in the middle of the one-hundred thirteenth annual Hunger Games. As one of the nation's more attractive victors, Sally was in particularly high demand among wealthy Capitol men. She would be almost completely clean of alcohol and drugs. She would get engaged in her late fifties, but she and her fiancée never got around to getting married. Sally was one of the few victors not to choose a talent or hobby to devote the rest of her life to. She was always one to prefer an easy-going and stress-free lifestyle.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Sally moves into the Victor's Village of District 5.

Dylan Levitt adopts twin daughters: Isle and Isla.

Nolan Wrack has his second child with his wife, a boy named Chisel.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)

* * *

 **A/N: Read to the end of this author's note, as there's a bit of good news at the end. I hope you've enjoyed Sally, as it's great to see a legacy victor every once and a while. Lots of you guys have been asking when the first District 10 victor will pop up, so I'll just tell you flat out that it is the 58th Hunger Games. That's the date I've been planning for a super long time and have even mentioned once before in a previous chapter. That's coming up soon, so stay tuned!**

 **So… Feodore, Reyna, and James have all served two years as head gamemaker. Now the "Capitol citizens" (you awesome readers) are going to vote on who gets the full-time job. There's a poll on my profile for which head gamemaker you think did best. Please consider casting a vote, as it will probably take three seconds of your life and will make sure you're getting the kinds of Hunger Games you want to see. You have three days to cast your vote :D**


	58. The 57th Hunger Games

**The 57th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The Capitol's citizens began casting their votes for head gamemaker the second that Sally emerged from the fifty-sixth games with a blood-smattered face. Statisticians could look at previous games and make their best guesses as to which of the three would get the highest amount of votes, but only time would tell for sure. In the first month, there was no clearly defined winner; Feodore, Reyna, and James each had almost exactly one third of the votes. As time wore on, though, the numbers began straying away from each other. One-hundred days after the end of the fifty-sixth games, all voting outlets were closed. The final statistics? Sixteen percent of votes for James Stradivarius, twenty-five percent for Reyna Bayer, and a whopping fifty-eight percent for Feodore Elliot. Feodore was the winner by leaps and bounds, and the Capitol could not be more happy. Sure, there was the occasional James or Reyna fan who was disappointed at Feodore's victory, but almost everyone was ultimately excited for the many games and arenas that were to come. A week before the fifty-seventh Hunger Games was set to start, Feodore announced his engagement to his girlfriend of twelve years. Their wedding was scheduled for the fifteenth of the upcoming December, and several victors and Capitol officials were invited to attend.

Feodore's first two arenas were based off of real-life disasters in world history (the sinking of the RMS Titanic and the destruction of ancient Pompeii). The arena of the fifty-seventh Hunger Games was an exception, though it did draw massive inspiration from times long ago. The arena was based off of an Irish countryside from the eighteen hundreds, when people still believed in fairies and magic. The cornucopia was placed in the dead center of a rolling green meadow dotted with wooly white sheep. On either side of the horn, narrow lanes ran from one end of the arena to the other. If the tributes looked around, they could see mist-covered mountains and a flash of silver sea. But, cleverly, both the mountains and the sea were illusions. As one tried to walk toward them, they would seemingly get farther and farther away, and one could never truly reach them. Crowds of fairy and leprechaun mutts no taller than the shortest tribute's knee danced lightly under the brilliant canopy of spring. Clusters of rocks and trees were scattered here are there to act as shelter for the tributes. There was no scarcity of water, as dozens of large lakes and smaller pools were placed around the meadow. A tribute was never more than two miles from a clean water source. The tributes' diets would largely consist of the flowers from the meadow and the meat of the sheep mutts that roamed the arena.

This year had one of the weaker batches of careers. Since last year's games, District 1 had largely recovered from its stomach flu epidemic. The tributes of District 1 were as beautiful as always, and masters of close-range weaponry. The male was a popular model who often starred in television ads, and the female was an elegant and beautiful dancer. The boy preferred whips, whereas the girl fancied axes. District 2, overall, produced the strongest pair. The male was undoubtedly the strongest tribute this year. He had bulging muscles, outstanding weaponry skills, and was devilishly handsome, earning himself an enormous amount of sponsors before the games even started. The female was the younger sister of Excalibur Fonseca of the year prior, and she was the second of three Fonseca siblings who would go into the Hunger Games. District 4 produced the most curious pair. The boy, who helped out his father with sailing work in his spare time, was the nephew of the headmistress of District 4's combat academy. The female had a playful smile and the streamlined body of a swimmer. In fact, she was one of District 4's best swimmers, and that was saying something. Their training scores ultimately fell short of some other packs: two tens, two nines, and two eights.

The pack of outliers this year had a few standouts, but it was mostly for their training scores. Three eights were scored. Scipio of 9 had worked as a farmer for his entire life and was a master of the sickle and scythe, the weapons of his district. He also had looks to match and got quite a few sponsors. District 11 provided a brother/sister pair. They were named Cattail and Sunflower. They both specialized in long-range weapons like bows, but they were also decent swordsmen. Sevens were earned by Cable from 3, Ewan from 7, Organdy from 8, and Heidi from 9. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: Aurora from District 7. About a month before the reaping, Aurora was caught sneaking into the reaping balls and removing the names of herself and her loved ones. She was put on death row and volunteered into the games to avoid capital punishment. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Liege Naples, 18, (9) 6-1 and Ivory Codrescu, 17, (10) 5-1

District 2: Mason Kittridge, 18, (10) 3-1 and Camelot Fonseca, 16, (9) 7-1

District 3: Cable Stevens, 17, (7) 15-1 and Pixel Perricone, 16, (4) 33-1

District 4: Dorsal Truitt, 18, (8) 8-1 and Mariana Stang, 18, (8) 7-1

District 5: Gene Favara, 15, (3) 42-1 and Steema Baldwin, 17, (5) 24-1

District 6: Cosmo Dobens, 17, (6) 19-1 and Lexie Ascarrunz, 18, (6) 18-1

District 7: Ewan Bollinger, 18, (7) 13-1 and Aurora Howley, 16, (6) 19-1

District 8: Velour Klyosov, 13, (6) 23-1 and Organdy Flora, 15, (7) 16-1

District 9: Scipio Meyers, 18, (8) 7-1 and Heidi Lux, 18, (7) 14-1

District 10: Auberon Juliano, 12, (3) 46-1 and Everly Ibes, 13, (3) 41-1

District 11: Cattail Orchard, 17, (8) 8-1 and Sunflower Orchard, 16, (8) 9-1

District 12: Raven Douglass, 16, (4) 33-1 and Melanie Nezzer, 18, (6) 18-1

HGBO Bets: 9% on Mason, 8% on Liege, Ivory, and Camelot, 7% on Dorsal, Mariana, and Scipio, 6% on Cattail and Sunflower, 5% on Cable, Ewan, Organdy, and Heidi, 4% on Cosmo, Lexie, Aurora, and Melanie, 3% on Steema and Velour, 2% on Pixel and Raven, 1% or less on Gene, Auberon, and Everly.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Before the tributes could enter the arena, they were brought together in a completely white, circular room. Twenty-four doors lined the perimeter of the room: the doors to the launch rooms. Feodore sat on a stool in the center, holding a dark cloth bag.

"Come," Feodore said. The tributes gathered around him, the career tributes at the front at the outliers a few steps back.

"Listen carefully," he said. "When I call your name, you are to step forward and reach into this bag. Ladies first, as always. Ms. Codrescu, you are first."

Ivory stepped forward, picking nervously at the tendrils of her golden-blonde hair. She reached her hand into the bag and pulled out a small musical instrument. It looked like a recorder but was much smaller and was made of a solid, shiny metal. Feodore nodded, and Ivory stepped back into the crowd. The tributes were called forward in district order, with Raven from 12 being the last.

The head gamemaker spoke again. "The instrument you hold in your hands is an Irish whistle. To play the instrument, simply blow into the mouthpiece."

Some of the tributes put the whistles to their lips to test them. "No! Not now!" Feodore barked. "If at any time in the games you feel as if you have lost all hope, blow into the whistle to be saved. The whistle can deliver you from almost any danger, but it has some limitations."

"Firstly, each Irish whistle can only be used once. As soon as you blow into it, it will shatter."

"Additionally, they cannot be used in the bloodbath. If you find yourself in risk of life or limb during the opening minutes, the whistle cannot help you."

"Finally, if you die in the games, the powers of your whistle will die with you. You cannot use a whistle that once belonged to a dead tribute."

"My deepest congratulations to every single one of you. May the odds be ever in your favor," said Feodore. He then began pointing out doors for the tributes to enter. In minutes, all of the tributes were in the launch rooms, and the games were ready to start.

In the launch rooms, the tributes clutched onto their whistles so hard that their knuckles turned white. They were a priceless resource in the games, and none of the tributes wanted to lose them for fear that they might need them some day. Once the tributes were in the arena, they were blinded by a flash of spring sunshine. Many of them placed their hands over their eyes like visors while their eyes adjusted to the brilliant light. The cornucopia looked as though it was grown out of the earth, woven from daisies and vines and branches.

When the gong rang, two tributes fled immediately (Gene and Steema from 5, close friends and allies). The rest of the tributes decided to fight out the bloodbath in hopes of impressing the sponsors or amassing supplies to help them in the difficult weeks to come.

Mason was the fastest runner of the lot, and he found his way to a weapon in no time: a whimsically curved sword the length of his arm. He tactfully made his way through the sea of waist-high grass and attacked his first victim, an outlier boy who had tipped over and sprained his ankle on his way to the cornucopia. Mason slashed the sword across his chest, bringing forth a fountain of blood. The boy yelped and groaned as the 2 boy continued scoring open his torso with his weapon.

 _Raven Douglass, District 12 Male: 24th, Killed by Mason, Bloodbath_

Mere seconds later, Ivory managed to corner Raven's district partner against the cornucopia. Ivory swept up an axe that sat in a nearly cluster of yellow blossoms and hurled it toward the girl as hard as she could. The blade of the weapon cut through the air and buried itself into the base of the girl's neck. She was sent unconscious instantly and slid down against the side of the horn, never to rise again.

 _Melanie Nezzer, District 12 Female: 23rd, Killed by Ivory, Bloodbath_

Mason wrenched his sword out of Raven's torso and fluidly spun around on his heel. About twenty feet away, two tributes were rolling around on the ground and fighting over a pack containing loaves of bread. Mason dug the tip of his sword into the forehead of the first tribute, knocking him aside. The other tribute was paralyzed with shock and unable to move or speak, and she was easy work for Mason and his years of practice.

 _Velour Klyosov, District 8 Male: 22nd, Killed by Mason, Bloodbath_

 _Pixel Perricone, District 3 Female: 21st, Killed by Mason, Bloodbath_

Dorsal ran all of the way into the cornucopia for a trident, and he hurled it at the first sign of movement. One young boy screamed as the prongs of the trident buried themselves into his abdomen. He tried to drag himself away, but Dorsal was at his side in no time. Dorsal tore the trident out of the boy's torso and speared it through his neck, sealing the pitiful boy's fate for good.

 _Auberon Juliano, District 12 Male: 20th, Killed by Dorsal, Bloodbath_

Camelot snatched a pair of nunchucks off of a countertop in the cornucopia, weapons placed specifically there for her. The career girl waved her two twin weapons through the air and slammed the spiked tips into the head of a nearby boy. The boy cursed and fell like a stone, staining his fingers with blood as he rubbed his head. Camelot resiliently swung the weapons into either side of his head until he passed away from head trauma a couple of minutes later.

 _Cosmo Dobens, District 6 Male: 19th, Killed by Camelot, Bloodbath_

After Cosmo's life force drained away fully, Camelot turned around and felt the bite of a sickle in his gut. Cattail and Sunflower had made a goal to kill at least one career on the first day to impress the sponsors, and Camelot was the easiest target. Cattail tore his sickle out of Camelot's body and let Sunflower do the rest. Camelot was too stunned to move as Sunflower drilled her sickle into his torso, twisting it in circles to cut open more organs and arteries. The career girl was dead in seconds.

 _Camelot Fonseca, District 2 Female: 18th, Killed by Cattail and Sunflower, Bloodbath_

The two District 4 tributes teamed up to make their next kill. Dorsal used his trident to point out the willowy boy from District 7 about twenty yards away. The two four'ers pounced and immediately went in with their weapons. Dorsal shoved his trident through the boy's foreleg, and Mariana used her two twin swords to hack his torso to ribbons.

 _Ewan Bollinger, District 7 Male: 17th, Killed by Dorsal and Mariana, Bloodbath_

Liege was the last career left without a kill, but that would soon change. The 1 boy armed himself with a bladed whip and threw the leather strap at the nearest girl. She screamed as the whip wrapped around her arm and neck. Liege yanked back the weapon and watched as the girl was dismembered and almost decapitated by the force. The girl wobbled back and forth before falling backward like a domino, nearly knocking over her killer in the process.

 _Lexie Ascarrunz, District 6 Female: 16th, Killed by Liege, Bloodbath_

Mason swung his curved sword and tackled a girl to the ground. The girl reached for her weapon, but Mason snatched it up and threw it aside where she couldn't reach it. She let out choked pleas, but Mason didn't listen, and she was dead in seconds as the boy slid the sharp tip of his sword into her stomach.

 _Aurora Howley, District 7 Female: 15th, Killed by Mason, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Ivory was stalking a small boy around the clearing, hiding behind supplies whenever he looked over his shoulder. Finally, the boy knelt to pick up a pack, and Ivory pounced. She swung the blade of her axe into the boy's torso. He jumped and let out a mixture of a scream and a gasp as Mason leapt out of nowhere and gored his sword through his left eye. The two careers stood back as he sprawled out on the ground, dead.

 _Cable Stevens, District 3 Male: 14th, Killed by Ivory and Mason, Bloodbath_

The careers all thought the bloodbath was over, but they were wrong. Mason gasped as an enormous weight slammed into his back and shoved him to the ground. The tricksy Scipio from 9 had been following the strongest career tribute around for the entire bloodbath, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce and eliminate him. Mason growled and tried to shove Scipio off of him, but the outlier boy was too strong. Nearby Mariana leapt at Scipio and worked together with Ivory to tear him off of the District 2 boy's back. Finally, Scipio flew backward and landed in the grass with a thud. Ivory and Mariana went in with their weapons, and the boy was a mess of guts and ribbons of bloody flesh by the time they were finished.

 _Scipio Myers, District 9 Male: 13th, Killed by Ivory and Mariana, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the careers took hold of the cornucopia. Ivory and Mason, the two strongest tributes this year, banded together and hunted the lands immediately around the cornucopia for prey. They returned less than an hour later reporting that they hadn't seen any signs of other tributes. Meanwhile, Liege and Mariana sorted weapons and other supplies from the cornucopia. Dorsal just did yoga and told the audience stories about fishing. The others urged him to put himself to some kind of use, so he had the idea to bind a flashlight to the ceiling of the horn to keep it illuminated at night. Dorsal achieved this by tying a rope horizontally from one end of the horn to the other, and hanging the flashlight from the rope. Once Ivory and Mason returned, the careers went hunting, eager to thin the crowd of outliers before they got too strong.

The outliers scrambled every which way, wanting to get as far away from the cornucopia and the careers as possible. Gene and Steema started heading toward the fake mountains in the distance. The allies became incredibly confused as they seemed to be making no progress at all toward the mountains. The Capitolites had a laugh as they tried to make measurements and calculations to guess how far away it was and how long it would take them to reach it, when, in reality, the mountain range was just an illusion. Gene and Steema settled down at the base of a tall flower-covered hill when night fell, clutching their whistles. Organdy's only pack bounced between her shoulder blades as she jogged away from the horn. A few minutes before nightfall, she heard the sound of rushing water, and she found her way to the lake that was making it. Organdy took a quick sip and laid out her supplies: two twin knives, a coil of rope, a small vial of poison, and, of course, her whistle. Heidi was a logical girl who liked patterns and organization. She found her way to one of the lanes and walked down it, picking and eating flowers along the way. Heidi grew nauseous around noon and had to stop moving for the day. Young Everly's only turnout from the bloodbath was a knife, and she expertly killed one of the wooly white sheep using skills her mother and father had taught her back home in District 10. The sponsors were so impressed that they sent Everly means to preserve the meat as well as some fresh water and a change of clothes. Cattail and Sunflower ventured about three miles away from the horn and settled down in a ditch filled with mist, the ideal hiding spot. The brother and sister from 11 went out hunting, knowing that they had to do some intentional killing for these games to end. Once night fell, Cattail and Sunflower returned to their shelter for the night. Most of the outliers were well-stocked and content, but none of them were safe from the gamemakers. As the games continued, they would face great challenges. After all, only one of the tributes could leave the games with their life.

Day 2 passed, deathless. The careers had severely underestimated the amount of food they needed to take with them. After their breakfast on Day 2, they were out of food already! They returned to the horn and restocked on supplies. The pack got back to hunting soon after, leaving Dorsal behind to guard the cornucopia. The careers were becoming increasingly unnerved by the lack of mutts and other dangers. The meadow seemed almost too peaceful. Finally, at exactly noon, the career pack found their first mutts. It started when Mariana stepped in a patch of blossoms and brought up a cloud of green dust. But it wasn't dust. It was a cluster of tiny creatures with beautiful wings. Every fairy seemed to be different. Some rode tiny horses, some wore crowns. Mariana let out a yelp and tried to escape, but the cloud of fairies followed her. As they flapped their wings, they filled the air with a sweet smell. It smelled like pine smoke and daisies—pixie dust! The careers could feel their brains going foggy as they inhaled the smell. Mason stumbled out of the swarm of fairies and placed his shirt over his mouth to filter out the fairy dust. Mariana managed to stagger away to safety as well. Ivory escaped soon after. Liege was the exception. Liege was trapped in the cloud of green fairy mutts, rolling around and laughing hysterically on the ground. Ivory, Mason, and Mariana dragged Liege away and shooed away the fairies until they were all gone. Liege was under the spell of the pixies. For the next few hours, he didn't really speak real words and just cackled mysteriously. Ivory put up with him for district loyalty's sake and headed back to the horn to heal him while Mason and Mariana continued hunting.

A few hours past noon on Day 3, Mason and Mariana returned to the cornucopia and met up with Dorsal, Ivory, and Liege. Everyone was happy to find out that the fairy spell had worn off of Liege; he was back to normal. That night, Ivory volunteered for first watch, starting back and forth around the cornucopia with her axe. She regularly checked on the others to make sure they were asleep. Ivory may have seemed like a normal career, but she had a secret. From the instant she volunteered, Ivory's plan was to kill her allies in their sleep. Ivory heard the soft snores of all four of her allies. It was now or never.

Ivory started into the horn and crept toward Mason. Best to eliminate the strongest one first so he wouldn't be bothersome later. Ivory lifted the hatchet into the air, and the blade of the weapon clanged against the roof of the cornucopia. The four sleeping careers bolted awake instantly. All at once, they shone their flashlights onto Ivory.

"Traitor!" Liege spat as he grabbed his spiked whip.

"It's not what you think. I was just…" Ivory stuttered. _Think, brain, think!_

"There's no place for traitors in these games!" Liege barked. Then he pounced. Ivory reached for her whistle, but Liege snatched it out of her hand and threw it aside. Ivory begged for Liege to get off of her, but he didn't listen. The District 1 boy swung his bladed whip around her torso and yanked it back sharply. Flesh and tissue tore away from the girl's body, and her lungs starting flooding with blood. The traitor girl was dead in minutes.

 _Ivory Codrescu, District 1 Female: 12th, Killed by Liege, Day 3_

Days 4, 5, and 6 passed without incident. Feodore had been hoping for a death or two, but the tributes were moving around his arena enough to keep the Capitol entertained. He also had a reputation for sparingly interfering with the natural flow of the games, one that he did not intend to break. After Ivory's death, two major changes occurred in the career pack. Firstly, everyone treated Liege completely differently. They had once seen him as one of the weaker careers, but after his killing of Ivory they all treated him with a newfound kind of respect. Mason tried to get their attention back on him, as he liked being the leader of the pack and thought that Liege was challenging him. Secondly, the careers grew extremely untrustworthy of each other. They had thought Ivory was the most loyal a career could get, and after her true colors shown, they were forced to question the bonds they thought they once had between each other. Dorsal was paranoid particularly strongly. He could often be found muttering to himself about how the others were planning to kill him and moving his sleeping bag and supplies so that the others would never be out of his sight when he slept. Gene and Steema kept journeying toward the snowy mountains well into Day 5 until Emily sent them a note that the mountains were just an illusion. Gene and Steema were very embarrassed and tried to keep themselves hidden from the cameras. Heidi moved her home every day, though she favored flatter areas where she had an undisturbed view of the surrounding terrain. Heidi's entire diet consisted of meat from the sheep. Organdy was sleeping on the morning of Day 6 when she rolled over and kicked her bottle of poison into the small pool of water she was living off of. In the morning, Organdy took a sip of the water and collapsed, gasping and shaking as the powerful poison began to shut down her body. Panicked, the girl grabbed her Irish whistle and blew into it. A single shrill note belted from the whistle, and the instrument shattered, shards of metal flying every which way. Mere seconds later, a silver parachute of thick yellow liquid landed in the grass a yard away. Organdy downed the entire antidote and sighed, saved. Cattail and Sunflower were hunting late in the evening on Day 6 when they spotted young Everly moving through the grass about a hundred feet away. The two District 11 tributes ran toward the girl, and she fled in the opposite direction the second she spotted the glint of their sickles in the sun.

Everly was nimble and quick, but so were Cattail and Sunflower. The young girl had a head start, and the two District 11 tributes lost her twice. But the girl's young body couldn't keep running forever. A few minutes after midnight, Everly collapsed, unable to move any farther. Cattail and Sunflower caught up to her and dug their sickles into her chest. The girl reached for her whistle, but it was gone, having fallen out of her pocket during the chase. Blood poured out of Everly's mouth and ran in torrents down her neck. In less than half an hour, Everly had lost too much blood for her little body to keep fighting.

 _Everly Ibes, District 10 Female: 11th, Killed by Cattail and Sunflower, Day 7_

No deaths occurred for the remainder of Day 7, but one tribute had a near-death experience. Heidi was strolling through the meadow with her supplies when, all of a sudden, the career pack appeared out of nowhere. Heidi didn't have time to react before Mason hurled his weight at her and knocked her to the ground like a domino. Mason pressed the tip of his sword into her neck and was about to kill her when Heidi snatched her whistle and blew. Mere seconds later, a fierce growl pierced the air. Mason looked up, screamed "bear!" and fled. The bear chased the careers away from Heidi, and the girl ran toward safety as soon as she could.

Over the last few days, Dorsal had been growing increasingly crazy. By the time Day 8 came around, he was completely nutzo. Dorsal flopped around randomly, stuttered out nonsensical words and phrases, and made strange sculptures with the careers' supplies. As soon as the careers returned to the horn on Day 8, crazy Dorsal pounced toward the nearest career (Mariana, his very own district partner) and threw her against the wall of the cornucopia. Mariana cried out. The other careers ran to help her, but it was too late. She was dead from head trauma before the others could reach her.

 _Mariana Stang, District 4 Female: 10th, Killed by Dorsal, Day 8_

Without a second thought, Mason dug his sword into Dorsal's back. There was no way in Panem they were letting this crazy boy continue living. Dorsal toppled over and died all in the span of two seconds.

 _Dorsal Truitt, District 4 Male: 9th, Killed by Mason, Day 8_

That left the final eight: Liege Naples from District 1, Mason Kittridge from District 2, Gene Favara and Steema Baldwin from District 5, Organdy Flora from District 8, Heidi Lux from District 9, and Cattail Orchard and Sunflower Orchard from District 11.

Days 9 and 10 passed, deathless. The duo of Liege and Mason split up to cover more ground. Liege headed toward the fake mountains to hunt. Mason travelled in the opposite direction. He spent both of the days digging several traps which he then covered with grass and leaves to camouflage. Gene and Steema were attacked by a swarm of fairy mutts. They were both on the ground and to the point of almost blacking out when Steema blew a single shrill note into her whistle. A powerful gust of wind came, and the fairies were all blown away. Organdy fell into one of Mason's traps on Day 9 and began to starve. She struggled to escape the trap with all of her might, but it was hopeless. Organdy had already used her whistle and there was nothing to save her this time. Sunflower and Cattail spent the days developing a plan to raid the cornucopia. They were running dangerously low on supplies and sponsors and needed to make a splash to keep themselves relevant. Sunflower and Cattail planned to attack the horn at noon on Day 12.

Day 11 came about with two deaths. The first one occurred just as the sun was rising. Organdy's entire body was bloody from banging against the sides of Mason's trap, and infection was beginning to take hold. The girl had no hope of escape. She grabbed a rock and drew a heavy line down her left wrist. Organdy hissed as blood poured out of the wound. She repeated for her right wrist and fell slack against the side of the trap, weeping quietly to herself until she died from blood loss a painful three hours later.

 _Organdy Flora, District 8 Female: 8th, Killed by Herself, Day 11_

Tensions were rising in the alliance of Gene and Steema. It was far too late for their little alliance to continue, and they both knew it. But there was a thing called district loyalty, and neither of them wanted to kill the other. Around noon on Day 11, Steema's mentor sent her a note that she had better do the deed soon or the Capitol would send mutts to kill off both of them.

Gene was kneeled over and working to break their camp when Steema began trekking toward him, lofting her knife in the air. Gene turned around and gasped just as the knife entered shoulder. Steema couldn't bear to watch as the boy crumpled in a heap, a dark pool spreading around him.

"I thought we were allies!" Gene cried out as he died.

Steema didn't reply. She had looked away because she couldn't bear to watch the killing.

 _Gene Favara, District 5 Male: 7th, Killed by Steema, Day 11_

The morning of Day 12, Liege and Mason returned to the cornucopia and ate their breakfast side-by-side, absorbed in conversation. Unfortunately, that was the exact moment that Sunflower and Cattail planned for their cornucopia raid.

The two District 11 tributes bowled into the clearing. Cattail snatched up a belt of throwing knives, and Sunflower grabbed a crossbow. Liege and Mason were on their feet and barreling toward them. Before Sunflower knew it, Mason was on top of her, pinning her wrists and ankles down. Sunflower reached for her whistle, but Mason saw her and severed her hand in a few heavy slices of his sword. Sunflower closed her eyes and slowly bled to death, murmuring a prayer that Cattail would be alright.

 _Sunflower Orchard, District 11 Female: 6th, Killed by Mason, Day 12_

On the other side of the clearing, Liege gritted his teeth as he dueled with Cattail. Mason reached their fight in seconds and sided with Liege. There was no way Cattail could win against two highly-trained careers. He turned around and ran. The careers were faster than him, though, and Liege hurled his weight at his back and sent him toppling to the ground. Before they could touch him with their weapons, Cattail grabbed his whistle and blew into the mouthpiece. Suddenly, Mason and Liege both froze. Feodore was freezing them with electrical charges so that Cattail could escape. The 11 boy grabbed the first pack he saw and high-tailed it away from the horn before the careers came back to life.

Day 13 was deathless. Liege and Mason worked together and set more traps. They spotted Heidi a few minutes before nightfall and stalked her for hours. Steema was attacked by fairy mutts and barely managed to escape from her life, though she was under the impact of the fairy spell for the rest of the day. Cattail was a little traumatized after the disastrous attempt to raid the cornucopia, so he hid for an entire day at the base of one of the hills.

The duo of careers continued stalking Heidi several hours into Day 14. Finally, Heidi stopped to sip water from a lake, and the careers pounced. Liege buried the teeth of his bladed whip into Heidi's back and yanked back the strap, pulling out long noodles of blood-lathered flesh. Finally, to finish the girl off, Mason slit her throat with his sword. Now, only four tributes remained.

 _Heidi Lux, District 9 Female: 5th, Killed by Liege and Mason, Day 14_

One more death occurred on Day 14. Cattail had hunted for hours and was just about to rest when he spotted footprints in the dirt underfoot. The 11 boy followed the footprints until he spotted Steema at the top of a nearby hill. Cattail slowly crept toward Steema before slashing his sickle across her back. Steema crumpled to the ground and tried to drag herself away, but she wasn't fast enough. Cattail buried his sickle into her wrist.

At that, Steema jerked suddenly sideways and was sent rolling down the hill. Cattail followed her, but he had to go slowly down the hill to keep from sliding. Steema rolled up and down the terrain like an unraveling mummy. Before long, Cattail had lost her.

Steema came to a stop near a small cluster of trees. She tried to move, but she was too tired. She was also losing lots of blood from her wounds. Her cannon shot pierced the silence of the meadow a few minutes later.

 _Steema Baldwin, District 5 Female: 4th, Killed by Cattail, Day 14_

Day 15 and 16 were deathless as the final three milled about. Liege and Mason split up once more, Mason heading toward his traps and Liege in the opposite direction. Cattail practiced for the finale with his sickle. In the early morning of Day 16, he killed a sheep and made a cloak from its hide. Cattail wasn't from District 11, and nobody knew for sure how he was able to do it, but he got tons of sponsors afterward. Mason and Cattail were the two most beloved tributes of the year, and Liege had been mostly forgotten by the audience. In any other games, Feodore probably should have killed off Liege with a mutt. But Feodore's favorite kind of finale was a career against outlier finale, and he wanted to have a backup career in case something happened to Mason.

The morning of Day 17, Liege caught Feodore's attention. The 1 boy looked as though he was trying to get as far away from the cameras as he could. Whenever he saw a camera, he made a sour face and ran from it. After nearly three hours of searching, Liege collapsed in a patch of grass that he believed had no cameras. He was wrong, of course. Nearly a dozen nearby cameras were trained on him, watching his every move.

Liege grabbed a rock and slammed it into his arm. What on earth was he doing? Liege did this three more times. Did this boy have a death wish? Finally, everything settled in to Feodore. Liege was trying to gouge out his tracker like Diamond Griego of the twenty-fifth games.

Feodore's hands flew over the control panel like lightning. In mere seconds, an explosion shook the earth. Liege and everything in a twenty foot radius was blown to smithereens. By the time the dust settled, there was literally no sign of Liege had once existed. Even his cannon shot was drowned out by the boom of the explosion.

 _Liege Naples, District 1 Male: 3rd, Killed by Explosives, Day 17_

The crop of twenty-four tributes was narrowed down to a final two. It was one of the most coveted finales in history up to that point. Mason was the strongest tribute District 2's academy had seen in the last decade, with the exception of Brutus Cordley. The boy had almost the entirety of the masonry district cheering for him. But, Cattail was the true underdog. Everyone had seen how loyal and faithful he was to his sister Sunflower, and there was no doubt that he would make a great victor.

On Day 18, fires started in the north and south. Mason was in the north, and Cattail was in the south, and the two tributes were driven together. The blazing inferno spread over the grass and left a charred wasteland behind it. Finally, the cornucopia came into their sights. They leapt on top of the cornucopia and tried not to inhale too much smoke as the world burnt around them.

Mason was the first to make a move, thrusting his curved sword toward Cattail's neck. The 11 boy blocked the blow with his sickle and spun around before burying his sickle into Mason's calf. Mason hissed as blood poured from the wound. He was so taken aback that Cattail managed to sever two of his fingers in less than five seconds. Mason collapsed, and, with the last ounce of his energy, cast his sword upward. The sword buried itself perfectly into Cattail's heart.

The two tributes fell together on the roof of the cornucopia. The hovercraft descended, ready to collect the victor as soon as one of the tributes died. They both put up a good fight. In the end, Cattail's wound was much more severe than Mason's. At least he was with Sunflower again.

 _Cattail Orchard, District 11 Male: 2nd, Killed by Mason, Day 18_

"Mason Kittridge of District 2, you are the victor of the fifty-seventh Hunger Games!" Feodore sang.

Mason flashed his signature charming smile, but even that was difficult given how little energy he had left. The team of Capitol doctors poured out of the hovercraft to heal Mason and take him away to the fortune and fame that would envelop his life.

 _Mason Kittridge, District 2 Male: Victor of the Fifty-Seventh Hunger Games, Day 18_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 2 welcomed Mason home with wild applause. After two consecutive years of placing second, the masonry district was elated to gain another victor. With him, their count had expanded to a whopping fourteen victors, essentially guaranteeing that the other career districts could never catch up to them. Mason was all in it for the honor and just soaked in the glory until he eventually faded from the public eye.

Mason moved into the Victor's Village of District 2, the fourteenth victor to do so.

His victory tour was rather average, but, of course, District 11 was sour because they were hoping that their Cattail could win.

Mason would live to the age of eighty, dying from appendicitis five months before the one-hundred nineteenth annual Hunger Games. He would marry and have six children, one of whom would go on to compete in a future Hunger Games. He would remain almost completely clean of alcohol and drugs, as he wasn't traumatized by his games by any means.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Mason moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, the fourteenth victor to do so.

Mason marries his high-school sweetheart and fiancée, Aelia.

Brutus Cordley has his first son, Brutus Cordley II.

Lyme Mabett marries her fiancée of eight months, a man named Gnaeus.

Ashlyn Breston, the victor of the twenty-third Hunger Games, dies in a house fire. A public funeral is held in her memory.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Mason, our newest victor. I hope you've enjoyed him; he is just a standard career but just know that those kinds of victors will happen sometimes. I promise that, after Katniss' games, there will be many more outlier victors and a lot less career victors :D**

 **I'll give you a heads up that the next games is going to be extremely unique and crazy. Like, you might not even recognize it as the Hunger Games if I didn't tell you. But District 10's first victor will be emerging out of the chaos, so stay tuned for that!**

 **If you have the time and are able, please consider leaving a review. This story is shaped by your critiques, and, as any fellow writers will know, it feels all-around great to get a review, whether it's good or bad.**

 **I know this author's note is getting way too long, but I have one more thing to say. I have a new SYOT! It's called "Broken: The 83rd Hunger Games" and I'm currently accepting submissions. Please consider submitting a tribute. Don't think I will be ignoring 23 Cannons to update that story. I will strive to juggle them both! :D**


	59. The 58th Hunger Games

**The 58th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

After a year of hard work, Head Gamemaker Feodore Elliot took a short break from his duties. His wife Caroline was pregnant with his baby. Their son, Darius Ajax Elliot, would be born less than a month after the fifty-eighth Hunger Games came to a close. This, coupled with all of Feodore's responsibilities as a new husband, rendered him unable to fulfill his duties as head gamemaker. He promised that he would be back next year and that this was only a one games-long break. In his absence, Snow needed to find a replacement. The person who rose to the occasion was well-aware that they would only be head gamemaker for a single year. This person was named Trillium Hawk. Trillium had been one of Feodore's top gamemakers and had stayed at his side throughout all of the games that he had led. As one of the most loyal gamemakers, Feodore could trust Trillium to handle his duties while he was occupied aiding his wife. If he could only be head gamemaker for one year, Trillium needed it to be a good one. Knowing that the Capitol loved deviations from the typical games formula, Trillium worked day and night with his team to create the most zany, unusual, and crazy Hunger Games yet. One might not even recognize it as the Hunger Games at a first glance. There really wasn't even an arena this year. But that will be explained later.

This year had an average career pack, but they were certainly better than the careers of last year's games. District 1 provided the strongest pair. The male was a very curious creature, enjoying being in the spotlight but not liking to boast about himself. He was a furious fighter who preferred whips in combat. The female was much more conventional and preferred the bow, the traditional weapon used by young ladies from District 1. She was much more charming and sweet than her district partner. District 2's tributes weren't the best and were mostly overshadowed by those from 1 and 4. The male was calm and level-headed and unknown throughout his district. The female was much more famous. She was the third and final of the Fonseca siblings to enter the Hunger Games, and she was determined to be the first to take home the victor's crown. District 4 put on a varied showing. The male was one of the strongest tributes this year, the fastest runner in the academy and a stellar with tridents. The female was the weakest career due to a lack of training and an accidental self-injury a few hours before the reaping. Her mentor Penelope helped her to clean and bandage the wound, but it would not heal fully before the games started. The career pack scored three tens, two nines, and a single eight.

There were many strong contenders scattered among the outliers, and they were sure to make for a thrilling Hunger Games. The highest achiever was Mercedes, a girl from District 6. She scored a remarkable ten with her survival skills and with her talents with brute force weapons, particularly crowbars and clubs. Two tributes scored nines. Isley from District 7 was a fantastic warrior with the axe, the weapon of her district, and she was also charming enough to get a lot of the Capitol on her side. Delta from District 11 was the other nine-scorer, a brawny farmer boy who balanced survival skills and weaponry in his private session. Sevens were earned by Teresa from 5, Acorn from 7, Needle from 8, and Sage from 11. The other tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Star Morrison, 18, (10) 4-1 and Nouvelle Lace, 18, (10) 4-1

District 2: Laureate Widing, 16, (9) 6-1 and Morgan Fonseca, 17, (9) 6-1

District 3: Cyber Ramires, 13, (4) 33-1 and Peggy Kerler, 16, (6) 20-1

District 4: Maston Greenlaw, 17, (10) 5-1 and Spongeia Housley, 17, (8) 8-1

District 5: Gustav Nawn, 12, (3) 38-1 and Teresa Roc, 15, (7) 16-1

District 6: Franklin Honore, 18, (5) 23-1 and Mercedes Mauve, 17, (10) 5-1

District 7: Acorn Bedford, 18, (7) 13-1 and Isley Eggleston, 18, (9) 7-1

District 8: Needle Ryder, 12, (7) 19-1 and Chevot Vehenna, 12, (4) 38-1

District 9: Oscar Kasmer, 16, (4) 29-1 and Rose Hyde, 14, (3) 35-1

District 10: Nell Layton, 17, (6) 19-1 and Margaret Cartmill, 15, (5) 27-1

District 11: Delta Chaisson, 18, (9) 7-1 and Sage Hearst, 17, (7) 14-1

District 12: Bennie Mullock, 13, (4) 33-1 and Kylie Rickets, 15, (5) 26-1

HGBO Bets: 9% on Star and Nouvelle, 8% on Laureate, Morgan, and Maston, 7% on Spongeia and Mercedes, 6% on Isley and Delta, 5% on Teresa, Acorn, Needle, and Sage, 4% on Peggy and Nell, 3% on Franklin, Margaret, and Kylie, 2% on Cyber, Chevot, and Oscar, 1% or less on Gustav, Rose, and Bennie.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

This year's tributes were expecting to find themselves atop a ring of pedestals surrounding a cornucopia, but it was quite the opposite. The tributes found their pedestals in a straight line at one end of a long hallway. The first few feet of the hallway were lit by a bright light mounted to the ceiling. The rest of the hallway was bathed in darkness. Creepily, lights along the ceiling began to flicker on one by one. Before the tributes knew it, the entire hallway was lit. The floor of the hall was covered with weapons of every type. They couldn't see the other end of the hall, as it was too far away. The tributes shifted nervously around, unsure of what they were supposed to do.

With a whirring of machinery, a hole opened in the ceiling. Trillium made a rather cinematic entrance, lowered down through the hole by a mechanical arm connected to the chair he was sitting on.

"Welcome, tributes, to the fifty-eighth annual Hunger Games," Trillium said with a dangerous smile. He had only been head gamemaker for a few months, but he had already learned much from his venomous overseer, President Snow.

"Now, I am sure you are all very confused. Allow me to explain. Instead of being placed in an arena to fight to the death, you will engage in a series of difficult challenges, or stages. During each stage, a number of tributes will die. The surviving tributes will then be escorted to the next stage. Everything clear so far?"

The tributes nodded.

"Spectacular," said Trillium. "You are mere moments away from Stage 1. Your goal is simple. In front of you is a hallway exactly one mile long. On the other side of the hallway are sixteen doors. Once you enter a door, it will disappear behind you, so each can only be used once. The sixteen tributes that make it through the doors will continue on to Stage 2. The rest of the tributes will be eliminated from the competition."

"May the odds be ever in your favor. Let the fifty-eighth Hunger Games begin!" At that, the mechanical arm pulled Trillium up out of the room. The gap in the ceiling closed behind him.

When the gong rang, a number of tributes ran straight down the hallway without looking back. Running the mile would not be easy, and they didn't want to waste their time trying to kill off other tributes.

About half a minute into the games, Nouvelle made the first kill. She snatched up a bow and aimed at her target. Nouvelle had watched the outliers intensely during training, and she knew that Gustav from 5 was one of the fastest runners. Wanting to eliminate the chances of Gustav getting to one of the doors before her, Nouvelle launched her first arrow. The arrow landed in the side of Gustav's head. He collapsed, blood spraying out from his wound. The boy cried for help, but it did not come, and he was dead in minutes.

 _Gustav Nawn, District 5 Male: 24th, Killed by Nouvelle, Stage 1_

Rose from 9 was sprinting down the hall as fast as her legs could carry her when she suddenly tripped on a suitcase and was sent flying. Rose came to a battered stop about ten feet away from the case. Nearby Maston saw her sulking on the ground and sprinted toward her. Rose screamed and tried to scuttle away, but she wasn't fast enough. Maston speared his trident through her lower abdomen, horribly damaging several of the girl's organs. Maston kept on running, leaving the girl to bleed out behind her, once he was sure she had no chance of recovery.

 _Rose Hyde, District 9 Female: 23rd, Killed by Maston, Stage 1_

Star picked up a bladed whip that sat a few feet from his pedestal and thundered toward the nearest tribute, a small boy named Benny that everyone knew wouldn't survive long anyways. The boy screamed as Star swung the whip through the air. Benny held his hands over his face, but they offered little in terms of protection from the vicious teeth of the 1 boy's whip.

 _Bennie Mullock, District 12 Male: 22nd, Killed by Star, Stage 1_

Mere seconds after Bennie's death, Sage finished the mile run and reached the doors. Sage was just about to enter the first door when she felt a sharp pinch in her back. She turned around and saw Margaret from 10 lowering her crossbow. Sage reached behind her neck and pulled out the dart that had ended her life. As soon as Sage died, Margaret hurried into the door, the first tribute to continue on to the second stage.

 _Sage Hearst, District 11 Female: 21st, Killed by Margaret, Stage 1_

As soon as the door closed behind Margaret, tributes began throwing themselves through the remaining doors. Less than two seconds later, Isley and Mercedes found their way through doors and were safe. Acorn and Delta, also speedy runners, had been running beside each other and entered doors that were right next to each other. The stronger careers (Star, Nouvelle, and Maston) had no problems escaping through the doors. Laureate, Morgan, and Spongeia, the slower and weaker careers, went through next. Cyber and Peggy, District 3 tributes and allies, quickly found their way to doors of their own.

Oscar from District 9 was less than twenty yards from the end of the hall when he felt a strong hand grab his neck. The hand belonged to Franklin of 6. Franklin dragged Oscar along. Franklin stepped into one of the doors and tossed Oscar into the entrance just as it began to close. Oscar didn't realize what was going on until it was too late. As the door closed, it crushed him to death, squishing sounds echoing around the hall coupled with the snapping of bones.

 _Oscar Kasmer, District 9 Male: 20th, Killed by Franklin, Stage 1_

Chevot, the District 8 female, was the next tribute to pass safely to the next stage. Now, there were four tributes left in the hallway and only one door. The four tributes all lunged for the door at the same time. Alas, only one of them could get through. Teresa of 5 was that lucky person. The door immediately disappeared behind Teresa, trapping three tributes in the hallway with no way to escape.

BOOM! In the blink of an eye, the hallway of Stage 1 was blown to smithereens. The three unlucky tributes left inside were killed instantly. Maybe they were the lucky ones. Their pain was over, whereas it had just begun for the others.

 _Needle Ryder, District 8 Male: 19th, Killed by Explosives, Stage 1_

 _Nell Layton, District 10 Male: 18th, Killed by Explosives, Stage 1_

 _Kylie Rickets, District 12 Female: 17th, Killed by Explosives, Stage 1_

The sixteen tributes that survived to Stage 2 found themselves in a small wooden room. There were eight doors on the perimeter of the room, nine if you count the one they entered through. A beautiful crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, casting glowing patters over the floor. The room might actually be cozy if not for the fact that the tributes' lives were in danger.

"Congratulations on surviving to Stage 2, tributes," a voice said. The tributes whirled around and saw Trillium standing behind them, leaning against the door that the tributes had entered through.

"For the next stage, I will divide you into groups of two. Your groups have been randomly selected and are as follows…"

"Group 1: Star and Chevot." The District 1 boy and the District 8 girl moved toward each other. The gamemaker instructed the duo to stand in front of one of the doors.

"Group 2: Peggy and Delta. Group 3: Spongeia and Teresa. Group 4: Cyber and Mercedes. Group 5: Maston and Margaret. Group 6: Nouvelle and Laureate. Group 7: Isley and Acorn. And, finally, Group 8: Morgan and Franklin."

By the time Trillium was finished, the sixteen tributes had been paired off into eight groups of two, with each group standing in front of one of the doors.

"I will now escort each group through one of the doors and explain to them the rules of the game. The rest of you are to wait in here together, and remember, no fighting!" Trillium warned.

The two tributes in Group 1 stepped aside as Trillium walked through their door. Trillium beckoned Star and Chevot in, and the last person closed the door behind them. They were in a gymnasium that looked to be about fifty yards from end to end. On either end of the long room was a beautiful silk banner. The floor was littered with weapons.

"You are to split up and move to either end of the room," Trillium ordered. Star travelled to the left end of the gymnasium, and Chevot travelled to the right.

"Your task is simple. You must retrieve your opponent's banner and bring it safely to your end of the room. You may use any method of guarding your banner or stealing your opponent's," Trillium shouted loud enough so that the tributes could hear him on either end of the room.

He pulled a whistle out of his pocket and blew a single shrill note. The tributes were running the instant the note died fully. Star snatched up a whip and immediately ran for Chevot's banner. The 8 girl armed herself with a pair of knives and prepared to fight off the 1 boy. Star reached Chevot in no time. They collided, and they were on the ground in seconds. Chevot was struggling to drive Star away from her banner, but she was failing miserably. In less than ten seconds, Star had closed his hand around Chevot's banner and was running to his end of the room.

Chevot frantically looked around for something she could use. Aha! A can of lighter fluid. She popped off the lid and sprinted toward Star.

"Ready to twinkle?" Chevot teased. The boy turned around, obviously offended that the 8 girl had made fun of his name but also confused as to what she meant. Chevot hurled the can of lighter fluid at Star, splashing him from head to toe.

"You think getting me wet will bother me?" Star spat.

"No, but wait for this!" Chevot scooped up a match and threw it toward the 1 boy. In moments, the boy was a column of flame. He screamed and staggered to the ground. Chevot ran to Star's side of the room and grabbed his banner, bringing it safely to her side of the court just as Star fried fully to death.

 _Star Morrison, District 1 Male: 16th, Killed by Chevot, Stage 2_

The other seven deadly games of Capture The Flag played out similarly to the first. There wasn't a casualty all the time, though. The very next group, Peggy and Delta, completed their game without either of the tributes being killed.

However, Group 3 ended differently. Spongeia and Teresa were skirmishing head-on in the very center of the court. Each tribute had a sword. Metal clanged against metal and sparks flew as the two girls dueled. Finally, Teresa emerged victorious from the battle. She was about to drop from exhaustion, and she used her last ounces of energy to thrust her blade into Spongeia's chest. The weapon speared her heart, and she was dead almost immediately.

 _Spongeia Housely, District 4 Female: 15th, Killed by Teresa, Stage 2_

The fight of Group 4 (Cyber and Mercedes) came about with neither tribute dying.

Group 5's fight came along, pitting Maston from 4 against Margaret from 10. The 4 boy was confident that he could take down Margaret easily, but he was highly underestimating the girl's physical strength. In their fight, Margaret bravely went head-first into the action, sprinting toward Maston and his banner. Margaret scooped up a belt of throwing knives and clipped them around her waist. While Margaret was pulling the knives out, Maston took the opportunity to run to Margaret's end of the court to steal her banner.

The boy was mere seconds from touching the pole of the banner when one of Margaret's throwing knives wormed its way into his shoulder. He fell like a stone, and Margaret approached him to finish him off with a stab to the heart.

 _Maston Greenlaw, District 4 Male: 14th, Killed by Margaret, Stage 2_

The fights of Groups 6 and 7 were deathless. Nouvelle and Laureate were in Group 6, and they were responsible for possibly the most boring fight yet. They simply walked right past each other and grabbed each other's banners before swapping their places. Neither Isley nor Acorn from Group 7 could bring themselves to kill. They threw a few punches at each other to give the action-hungry Capitolites their fix, but other than that nothing of note happened as they retrieved each other's banners.

Morgan and Franklin's fight was among the most thrilling of all eight. The tributes juggled defending their banners, stealing the other's, and fighting each other will different weapons each time. The Capitol was really on the edges of their seats as to which of the two teens would win.

After nearly an hour of fighting, Franklin was getting tired. He just made a break for Morgan's banner, running like the wind without looking back.

"You want the banner! Well have it!" Morgan teased. She tore her banner off of its pole and threw the cloth at Franklin. Franklin yelped and flailed his arms, unable to see through the cloth. He couldn't see where Morgan was coming from as she approached and delivered the blow that ended his life.

 _Franklin Honore, District 6 Male: 13th, Killed by Morgan, Stage 2_

The tributes that had survived to Stage 3 were led into a very strange room. The walls, ceiling, and floor were completely white. It was so quiet that they could hear their own heartbeats. Twelve beds lined one of the walls. Beside each bed was a hypodermic needle containing pulsing blue fluid. Trillium sat on a dark wooden stool in the center of the room, wearing a set of thick white gloves.

"Welcome, tributes, to Stage 3. For this stage, you will not be killing each other. Instead, your endurance will be tested in the most difficult of ways. Each of you, please lie down in one of the beds."

There was a great shuffling as the shaking tributes lay down on the sheets. Twelve peacekeepers filed into the room and locked the tributes down so they couldn't escape. The peacekeepers picked up the blue needles and prepared to inject them into the tributes, but Trillium held up his hand to stop them, saying that he had to explain the rules first.

Trillium cleared his throat and spoke. "Each of these hypodermic needles contains a carefully designed drug that you will be under the influence of for exactly one hour. While the drug is in your body, you will be plunged into an intensely terrifying scene from which there is no escape until the time is up. During this hour, you will face great horrors, and you must keep yourselves calm throughout them. If you cry out before the hour is up, you will be eliminated from the games."

Trillium signaled to the peacekeepers, and they pushed down the plungers into the tributes' arms.

The tributes instantly felt cold wind whipping all around them. They were falling, plummeting through clouds of mist and gray patches of curling vapor. This was just to ease the tributes into the scarier phases of the stage that were to come, so it wasn't a problem to keep composed for most of the tributes. Cyber from 3 was the only tribute that faced real hardship; he was terrified of heights and did math problems in his head to keep himself distracted.

Thump! The tributes crashed into a hard stone ground and felt little legs crawling up and down their bodies. Millions of tiny red ants crawled out of the ground all around them, swarming over their legs and sending their whole bodies into fits of searing pain. This was the straw that broke the camel's back for Peggy of 3. She was horrified of bugs, and, despite her best efforts, couldn't contain herself. Peggy leaped to her feet and beat herself up and down, screaming and trying to get the horrid fire ants off of her body. The peacekeeper standing by her produced another needle out of his coat, this one filled with lethal poison, and injected it into Peggy's other arm. The poison was enough to kill her in mere seconds.

 _Peggy Kerler, District 3 Female: 12th, Killed by Poison, Stage 3_

After a couple of minutes, the fire ants scuttled back into the ground. The tributes savored the few moments of peace, but, of course, they could not last. Clusters of beautiful green snakes appeared around the tributes and started slithering toward them. They planted themselves into the tributes' sides and starting worming their way through their torsos. It wasn't particularly painful, but it was horrifying to the tributes that were scared of snakes.

Laureate, despite being a career, had been scared of snakes ever since he was young. He struggled to restrain himself, but he couldn't bear the feeling of the little worm-like creatures squirming through his insides. Laureate let out a scream, and the peacekeeper poison put him out of his misery.

 _Laureate Widing, District 2 Male: 11th, Killed by Poison, Stage 3_

The scene melted around them, and the tributes were suddenly overcome by a freezing cold. They spun around and struggled to find something to hold onto, but they couldn't tell which way was up or down. There was no direction in this little world. The tributes floated in this void for a few minutes.

The tributes bolted awake and found themselves safe and warm in their beds. The poison had worn off. The bodies of Peggy and Laureate had been removed from the room as soon as they had died. Even the peacekeepers had all went. Trillium walked around and undid the tributes' restraints. They all climbed out of their beds. Trillium led them through a door at the far end of the room to the next stage.

They emerged into a short hallway. Five doors were on either side of the hall. The tributes looked upward, but the ceiling was lost in some sort of far-away darkness.

Trillium led each tribute individually into one of the rooms and sat them down in front of a computer monitor. Trillium told them that the computer would display trivia questions about Panem. They would have twenty seconds to answer each question, and, if they were unable to give a correct response in the time given, they would be eliminated.

The first few questions were easy.

 _Which district did Grover Handa hail from?_ The tributes all answered correctly: District 7.

 _Which is larger: District 8 or District 11?_ Once again, ten correct answers came in: District 11.

 _Which Hunger Games did Sapphire Waber win?_ All off the tributes answered correctly: the Second annual Hunger Games.

After that, the questions began to grow trickier.

 _What training score did Slate Ogston earn?_ The tributes all answered correctly, but several tributes took almost the whole twenty seconds.

 _How many kills did Mags Flanagan make in her games?_ Isley almost failed this one. There were only two seconds left on the timer when she randomly guessed an answer that seemed plausible. Out of luck, her answer was correct.

 _Who was Magnet Lisagor's district partner?_ This question spelled Chevot's doom. She knew the answer, but she was so nervous that she couldn't call it to mind. Chevot ran through the alphabet and rattled off all the District 3 tributes she knew, but she couldn't answer the question in time. The room Chevot was in was blown up. When the dust cleared, there was no more door, no more computer, and, most importantly, no more Chevot.

 _Chevot Vehenna, District 8 Female: 10th, Killed by Explosives, Stage 4_

The very next question caused one death and almost a second one. _How old was Markus Gardd when he won the games?_

Margaret hovered her mouse over the option 17 and was about to click when she pulled her hand away and moved to the 18 option. That was a close one. But at least she realized her mistake before it proved deadly.

Acorn was not as lucky. He was getting antsy and couldn't think straight, and in one of his nervous spasms he clicked on the wrong option. He turned to the cameras and cried out that it was a mistake and that he wanted a second chance. His begging was useless.

 _Acorn Bedford, District 7 Male: 9th, Killed by Explosives, Stage 4_

That left the final eight: Nouvelle Lace from District 1, Morgan Fonseca from District 2, Cyber Ramires from District 3, Teresa Roc from District 5, Mercedes Mauve from District 6, Isley Eggleston from District 7, Margaret Cartmill from District 10, and Delta Chaisson from District 11.

One more death occurred before Stage 4 came to a close. The tributes were on the final question. Trillium's voice came over the speakers saying that, for this question, the tributes had two minutes instead of the usual twenty seconds.

 _Name the first ten Hunger Games victors in order._

The tributes started typing on their keyboards. Cordin Frey, Sapphire Waber, Molly Toliday, Amelia Spangler, Misty Sablone…

Morgan had named the first eight victors. She racked her brain for the victor of the ninth Hunger Games. It started with a J. No, an I. She scowled and rocked back and forth, struggling to come up with the victor's name. Time ran out, and Morgan was blown sky-high.

 _Morgan Fonseca, District 2 Female: 8th, Killed by Explosives, Stage 4_

Trillium walked around and collected the tributes from their rooms. Nouvelle was the only career left. She was holding strong, determined to push through the remaining stages and bring honor to District 1. Cyber was exhausted but kept on marching forward. Teresa and Mercedes walked beside each other. They both felt alone and wanted to keep each other company. They both were faring well, though Teresa was a little shaken up from hearing the explosives from nearby rooms. Isley fell behind. She was absolutely terrified and just wanted to go home to her warm bed. Margaret was doing remarkably well. She was still a little scared from the snakes and spiders in Stage 3, but thoughts of home kept powering Margaret onward. Delta followed at the front of the ground, right behind Trillium. He hoped this would show a connection between him and the Capitol and make the gamemakers like him.

For Stage 5, the tributes arrived in a room so silent they could hear a pin drop. The room was long and narrow. Seven glass tanks lined the left wall. Trillium escorted each of the tributes into one of the glass tanks and locked the doors once they were inside.

"This is the simplest stage yet," Trillium said, shouting so that all of the tributes could hear him. "The first to drown is out!"

The tributes yelped as cold water splashed over their feet. Before long, the water was up to their knees. Nouvelle and Margaret remained as calm as they could, standing still and breathing sparingly to preserved the little oxygen in their tanks. Teresa and Mercedes' tanks were next to each other. They gave each other reassuring smiles and tried not to panic once the water reached their waists. Cyber tried to stay calm but was involuntarily taking big gulps of air. Delta proceeded similarly. Isley was going completely nutzo, flailing around and trying to break out of the glass container.

Before the long, the tributes had to press their faces to the ceiling to breathe. Isley was having a full-on panic attack, hurling her body weight against the walls as bubbles streamed from her mouth. She promptly drowned. Seconds after her cannon shot, the other tanks shattered, and the six remaining tributes took huge gasps of air as they were finally free to breathe.

 _Isley Eggleston, District 7 Female: 7th, Killed by Drowning, Stage 5_

Trillium handed each tribute a towel to dry off. Once they were all dry, he gave them instructions.

"You are about to continue to Stage 6. Please follow me."

Trillium walked down the hallway and rapped his knuckles on the back wall. The wall swung open on a hinge. The six surviving tributes craned their necks to get a good look at the new room.

A single light was affixed above the door. It lit the first few feet of the room. Beyond that, there was pitch darkness. Strange shapes took form and then dissolved in the air. Whispers seemed to call out form the darkness. The very air seemed to hum with an unseen magic. Trillium picked up a crate that none of them saw and handed each of them a knife.

"This is yet another simple stage. You are to venture into the darkness of this room. You will then be presented with the form of a human being. You are to kill them with your knife. It you are unable, you will be eliminated."

Trillium signaled for them to scatter. The tributes cautiously walked into the darkness. Mercedes stepped back as the mist around her collected into the shape of a human. It was her brother, Chevy. Mercedes smiled to see him again and ran to hug him, but he dissolved at her touch. Mercedes remembered Trillium's instructions. She had to kill him to move to the next stage. "You're fake. The real Chevy is home in 6. You're not real. You're not real!" Finally, Mercedes pounced. Chevy cried out as Mercedes plunged her knife into his throat. He was gone.

Cyber had only walked a few steps when a human took shape in front of him. His mother. She seemed to radiate with warmth. Cyber longed to hug her, but he knew what he had to do. A horrified look crossed his mother's face as Cyber pulled out his knife. He stepped forward but pulled back the next instant. He couldn't kill his mother! Even if she wasn't real, killing was wrong! The 3 boy walked forward and backward for nearly a minute, unable to hurt the person he loved more than anyone in the world.

Finally, Cyber collapsed. "I can't do it!" he screamed. That was it. He had failed. All of the floating mist in a ten foot radius gathered around him. He couldn't breathe. Cyber tried to escape, but the horrid whispering vapor followed him and seemingly squeezed him to death. Now, only five tributes were left.

 _Cyber Ramires, District 3 Male: 6th, Killed by Floating Mist, Stage 6_

Nouvelle was presented with her best friend from the academy, and Delta with his younger brother. Both managed to easily kill them on the notion that they were fake and just figments of gamemaker technology. Margaret saw the hard-worked form of her father in the mist. It took a long time, but she eventually brought herself to plunge her knife into his form.

But poor Teresa was not as brave. Mere seconds into the stage, the mist assembled into the form of her best friend Cynthia. Killing her, even a fake version of her, was out of the question. She just fell to the ground, crying that the games were too much for her and that she wanted to go home to her mom and dad and Cynthia. The evil mist took out its wrath on her tiny body, squeezing and choking her to death like she was begging.

 _Teresa Roc, District 5 Female: 5th, Killed by Floating Mist, Stage 6_

At once, several bright lights flickered on. All of the ghostly mist vanished instantly, leaving four disoriented and dazed tributes looking around for Trillium. They saw him in the corner of the room, pushing open a hidden door. Nouvelle, Mercedes, Margaret, and Delta followed him, curious as to what horrors they would face next.

The floor underneath turned to carpet. The tributes found themselves in a typical Capitol living room. Sunlight streamed in through a large window, illuminating a sofa and television.

Trillium pulled a small remote control out of his pocket. "At my command, this room will begin flooding with water. You may notice a trapdoor on the ceiling. All who pass through the trapdoor before drowning will continue to the next stage."

A portion of the wall swung open on a hinge. Trillium stepped through it, and right before he disappeared they could see him pressing the red button on his remote control.

The room began filling with water at once. At first, it was flooding slowly. Two minutes went by until the water was up to their ankles. After about five minutes, they were wading through water up to their knees.

"The couch!" Mercedes shouted. The final four tributes slogged toward the sofa and stepped up onto it, shaking with cold and trying to dry themselves. Before long, of course, the water reached them once more. Shelves toppled over, knocking down picture frames and pottery. Margaret stepped onto the coffee table and started piling books on top of each other to gain some height out of the rising waters. Mercedes had clambered on top of a shelf and scuttled upward, the water at her heels. Delta was trying to break the windows to get out. Nouvelle was using shards of a fallen shelf as claws to climb up the wall, moving slowly toward the trapdoor on the ceiling.

As the water continued rising, Delta gave up on breaking the window. The glass was simply too strong. He had nowhere to go to, so he began floating on top of the water, hoping it would carry him up to the trapdoor. The water was rising faster than Margaret could pile up more books, and she fell over before the water was halfway up the walls. Nouvelle used her glass shards to work her way to the trapdoor. The 1 girl swung her body through and started away to some unseen safety.

The level of the water was rising faster than ever before. The shelf Mercedes was climbing began floating. One other tribute, Margaret, swam toward her and clambered onto the raft alongside Mercedes. They used television remotes as oars to move toward the trapdoor. By the time the water was a few feet from the ceiling, they were able to stand up and hoist themselves through the door.

That left only Delta. Delta was hurled around by the currents of the water. He fought his hardest to get to the trapdoor, but he kept being dunked under the water and thrown off-kilter. One splash of water found its way into his lungs, and it was all over from there. Delta drowned soon after, the only tribute to perish in the stage.

 _Delta Chaisson, District 11 Male: 4th, Killed by Drowning, Stage 7_

Nouvelle, Mercedes, and Margaret were in a long, silver corridor. It was almost completely dark, but a bright light shone at the end of the tunnel. The three girls zipped toward the light and yelped at the sight of Trillium. He was sitting cross-legged on a chair in front of a door. Trillium stood up and beckoned for the tributes to follow him through the door.

The tributes and Trillium were in a very strange place. The room split off into three separate compartments. Only a small window allowed them to see into the other sections of the room. Trillium instructed each of the girls to enter one of the compartments. Then, they were locked inside.

Trillium reached down and picked up a spherical object the size of a basketball.

"Welcome to Stage 8, tributes. When this ball is yours, you must correctly solve the math problem given to you. Once you answer, you are to toss the ball to the next tribute in line. If you are unable to correctly answer the question in twenty seconds, you will be eliminated."

Trillium tossed the ball to Mercedes. A voice spoke from within the ball. "Seven times three."

"Twenty one," Mercedes replied shakily. A dinging sound confirmed she had given the correct answer. Mercedes tossed the ball through the window to Nouvelle.

"Fifty divided by ten."

"Five," Nouvelle answered.

This deadly game of hot potato continued for nearly half an hour. The questions got harder and harder, until, finally, one tribute blundered. The ball was in Mercedes' hands when it said, "The cube root of twenty-seven."

"Nine," Mercedes answered quickly. She cursed herself for not giving herself enough time to think the question over. The ball buzzed and vibrated. Mercedes tossed it into the corner of the room and moved as far away from it as she could. The windows to the other rooms closed, and a foul black gas began spewing out of the device. Mercedes couldn't hold her breath forever, and she was dead once her lungs filled with the noxious smoke.

 _Mercedes Mauve, District 6 Female: 3rd, Killed by Poisonous Smoke, Stage 8_

The doors of the capsules opened, and Nouvelle and Margaret stepped out. They were the only two tributes left in the games.

"Come," Trillium said. The two girls followed him down several twisting corridors. Finally, they emerged into a harshly-lit circular room. Two swords lay on the ground.

"Congratulations on surviving to the ninth and final stage. Your task: a fight to the death. Only one of you can survive these games."

The girls stepped forward, Nouvelle looking excited and Margaret more than a little nervous. The girls lifted their swords and walked to opposite ends of the room.

Nouvelle was the first to charge, and Margaret almost didn't have time to dodge. The 10 girl dove to one side, and Nouvelle's sword crashed into the wall, nearly twisting itself out of her hand. Nouvelle spun toward Margaret, but she had barricaded herself into a corner and was swinging her sword in wide arcs to keep her away.

Holding her sword in front of her, Nouvelle stalked toward Margaret. She thought that she was scared and would refuse to come out of her little corner, but she was wrong. So quickly that she didn't have time to move, Margaret lifted her shoe into the air and kicked Nouvelle in the thigh. Nouvelle reeled. She opened her eyes and was very confused. Where Margaret had once been, there was nothing. Only an empty floor.

Nouvelle slowly turned around, and suddenly Margaret was on top of her, pinning her wrists and ankles to the floor. The girl thrust down her sword, casting it through Nouvelle's innards. Several of her vital organs and arteries had been pierced. Her blood flowing freely over the floor, Nouvelle bled out quickly.

 _Nouvelle Lace, District 1 Female: 2nd, Killed by Margaret, Stage 9_

"Margaret Cartmill of District 10, you are the victor of the fifty-eighth annual Hunger Games!" Trillium shouted. With a flick of his wrist, the ceiling opened up, and a set of velvet-covered stairs unfolded into the room.

Margaret laughed with glee. A tribute from District 10 had never won the Hunger Games before her. Even she thought she had no chance of surviving, but there she was, very much alive and about to be taken away to the fame that would envelop her life.

 _Margaret Cartmill, District 10 Female: Victor of the Fifty-Eighth Hunger Games, Stage 9_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

The celebrations were endless in Margaret's home of District 10. She was their first victor in nearly six decades, and she was welcomed with hearty applause. Many youths rejoiced, as she gave them hope that, if they were reaped, they could return to their families safe and sound. They also threw together a team to put their Victor's Village back in order, as the houses had been largely neglected for decades and weren't fit for human inhabitance.

Margaret moved into the Victor's Village of District 10, the first victor to do so.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened during her victory tour. However, she was ultimately respected as a symbol of home by the outlying districts.

Margaret would live to the age of seventy-one, dying three days short of her seventy-second birthday from cancer. She would marry and bear six children, though her sixth and final child would die mere hours into its life. She would mentor dozens of District 10 tributes, almost all of which would go on to die in the arena. Watching the deaths of so many youngsters really took its toll on Margaret, and she suffered from depression throughout her life.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Margaret settles into the Victor's Village of District 10.

Penelope Turek marries her fiancée Tide.

Brutus Cordley bears his second son, Amadeus.

Lyme Mabett gives birth to twin sons, whom she names Felix and Asher.

Lily Eckel gets married to her boyfriend Harvest.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)

* * *

 **A/N: Ah, a District 10 victor at last. This was certainly a unique games, and I hope you've enjoyed. Did you have a favorite stage? My personal favorite has to be the fear injections or the flooding living room, I can't decide which! Please leave a review if you have the time and tell me how I'm doing. Expect the fifty-ninth Hunger Games next. :D**


	60. The 59th Hunger Games

**The 59th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

After a short but much-needed break, Head Gamemaker Feodore Elliot was back for the task of leading the Hunger Games once more. Much of the Capitol was heavily anticipating his return. The games of the year prior had been rather poorly received by the audience. One critic even described the games as a "senseless and disconnected jumble of events leading to a dreadful anticlimax." For the remainder of Trillium Hawk's life, he would be associated with the failure of the fifty-eighth games, and one could say it ruined his career. But Feodore was back, and he had no shortage of future arenas bouncing around his imagination. The remainder of his career was sure to hold some of the most exciting Hunger Games yet.

This year had another one-hundred percent natural arena, similar to the Irish countryside arena of the fifty-seventh games. It was modeled after the Australian outback in the olden days, before the continent was buried under rising sea levels. The soil underfoot was red and crumbly due to high mineral content, and in some places the ground was just solid rock. Scruffy bushes and boulders were strewn around the arena. One would expect water to be scarce in such a barren landscape, but the stuff was rather plentiful in small watering holes and streams around the arena. Swarms of kangaroo mutts with amazing strength bounced up and down over the sun-baked earth. Koalas also dwelled in clusters of eucalyptus trees near water sources. Dingo mutts also hunted in packs every here and there, ready to gobble up any unsuspecting tributes. Brush fires were a risk, as the dry vegetation was perfect kindling if the sun was ever focused too directly on one point. The tributes would likely need to do much of their physical activity in the cool of the night, although there were short periods of cool when clouds blocked the sun during the day.

The career districts produced what could be called their most curious pack yet. The two District 1 tributes were siblings and had trained beside each other ever since they were old enough to visit the academy. The boy was the youngest career this year at only fifteen, but he really packed a punch in terms of his resilience and had a whole lot of practice with wolverine claws and brass knuckles. The girl was much more conventional, preferring bows to do her killing. She was a lot more graceful than her brother, who was sometimes awkward. District 2's tributes both claimed to be descended from the same Dark Days war hero, but they were so similar in appearance that nobody could tell which one was telling the truth. Even ancestry tests couldn't tell for sure. The boy was named after the Greek god of sleep, Morpheus. He requested that poppies be carved into the hilt of his swords, the symbol of sleep, as if the blade would be the last thing his enemies saw before falling asleep forever. The girl was extremely spontaneous and flexible, a unique quality of tributes from conventional District 2. She earned the highest odds of winning with her mastery of weaponry, particularly with bows and axes. District 4 provided a brother-sister pair just like District 1! They both had very similar names and similar personalities, often finishing each other's sentences and dressing identically. The boy scored higher, showing off his trident skills, while the girl scored a meager nine as she used her looks and charisma to impress the Capitol more than her weaponry talents. The training scores of the pack were remarkable: four tens and two nines.

The outlier group had a couple standouts, though few of them were notable for anything other than their high training scores. Three eights were earned. District 6's Azalea was a true underdog, working every day to support her two younger brothers ever since their parents died in a car crash two years earlier. She was clever enough to get through the puzzles in the training center and also was something to look at. Jaguar from 10 was a master of blades, having often used them to slay cattle in his home district. He was also a fast learner and charismatic enough to earn over the hearts of the Capitolites. Oliver Awesome from District 11 had possibly the most comedic last name of any Hunger Games tribute thus far. Olive was quirky and knew all the right times to crack jokes. Sevens were scored by Modem from 3, Acer and Holly from 7, and Voile from 8. The rest of the tributes earned between six and three in their private sessions. Coincidentally, there were many more sub-fifteen year-old tributes this year, with three twelve-year-olds, two thirteen-year-olds, and two fourteen-year-olds. There were no volunteers besides the six careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Tiger Sterne, 15, (10) 6-1 and Tigris Sterne, 16, (10) 6-1

District 2: Morpheus Parsons, 17, (9) 7-1 and Calandra Shaven, 18, (10) 4-1

District 3: Modem Ulrich, 13, (7) 16-1 and Sync Brunk, 15, (4) 39-1

District 4: Tidello Bowman, 17, (10) 5-1 and Tidessa Bowman, 17, (9) 8-1

District 5: Oliver Pepper, 12, (3) 42-1 and Ember Damokosh, 14, (3) 38-1

District 6: Merlin Torrac, 18, (6) 20-1 and Azalea Larke, 17, (8) 10-1

District 7: Acer Will, 16, (7) 15-1 and Holly Pigeon, 16, (7) 14-1

District 8: Voile Mastrodanatello, 14, (7) 17-1 and Lille Sore, 12, (5) 20-1

District 9: Elisha McCaulife, 18, (5) 19-1 and Misha Fairchild, 18, (4) 36-1

District 10: Jaguar Hu, 18, (8) 9-1 and Hattie Quimby, 13, (6) 23-1

District 11: Peach Macklemore, 17, (6) 21-1 and Olive Awesome, 18, (8) 11-1

District 12: Gannon Randolph, 12, (4) 35-1 and Fable Munoz, 15, (5) 26-1

HGBO Bets: 9% on Calandra, 8% on Tiger and Tigris, 7% on Morpheus, Tidello, and Tidessa, 6% on Azalea, Jaguar, and Olive, 5% on Modem, Acer, Holly, and Voile, 4% on Merlin and Hattie, 3% on Lille, Elisha, and Fable, 1% or less on Sync, Oliver, Ember, Misha, Peach, and Gannon.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Hot sunlight shone down upon the tributes. They were in a dusty square of scrub terrain about a mile in diameter. Beyond that, tall rock formations stood out of the ground and clusters of boulders could provide shelter to the tributes. The hot wind rustling the bushes created an unnerving, almost creepy sound that set the scene for the carnage that was to come. Noting the bareness of the land that surrounded them, all of the tributes decided to head into the bloodbath.

The careers sprinted to the cornucopia and found it stocked chiefly with spears, swords, and bows. Calandra swept up a bow and aimed for the nearest tribute: a boy from an outlying district with a long last name. The boy spotted Calandra nearby and started to zigzag away to avoid her arrows, but it was in vain. A volley of three arrows found homes in his shoulder, ribcage, and hip, and his blood ran through the cracks in the sun-baked earth.

 _Voile Mastrodanatello, District 8 Male: 24th, Killed by Calandra, Bloodbath_

Tiger and Tigris from 1 armed themselves as quickly as possible (Tiger with a pair of lethal brass knuckles and Tigris with a set of wolverine claws). The duo worked together to corner two girls against the wall of the cornucopia. Tiger attacked the older of the two girls, ramming his knuckles into her nose and crunching the cartilage underneath. Meanwhile, Tigris slashed open the abdomen of the other girl. They were dead in minutes despite their best efforts to escape.

 _Ember Damokosh, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Tiger, Bloodbath_

 _Sync Brunk, District 3 Female: 22nd, Killed by Tigris, Bloodbath_

A few seconds earlier, Tidessa had grabbed a spear. She zeroed-in on her first prey, a boy from one of the poorest districts of Panem who was struggling to escape the horn with a few jugs of water among other things. Tidessa poked her spear into one of the boy's water packages, causing it to splash onto the ground. The boy tried to run but slipped on the wet earth. Tidessa poked several holes in his bloody torso with her spear before running off to look for more prey.

 _Gannon Randolph, District 12 Male: 21st, Killed by Tidessa, Bloodbath_

Morpheus found the sword he had requested from the gamemakers hidden in the back of the cornucopia. The hilt was shimmering red and engraved with poppies. The 2 boy thrust the sword into the back of a nearby girl. She let out a disgusting gagging sound. It was the last sound she would ever make.

 _Hattie Quimby, District 10 Female: 20th, Killed by Morpheus, Bloodbath_

After wrenching her arrows out of the dead Voile's body, Calandra fluidly attacked her next prey. A few seconds earlier, one boy had collapsed to the ground, bleeding out slowly from a stab wound administered by Morpheus. Calandra finished the boy off, shooting two arrows into his chest.

 _Elisa McCaulife, District 9 Male: 19th, Killed by Calandra, Bloodbath_

Now that six kills had been made, the duo of Tiger and Tigris split up to cover more ground. Tiger was sprinting in one direction when another boy rammed into him. Tiger and the boy fell to the ground in a heap. The outlier boy struggled to untangle his limbs from the 1 boy as he proceeded to bash in his skull and tear open his flesh with his spiked brass knuckles.

 _Merlin Torrac, District 6 Male: 18th, Killed by Tiger, Bloodbath_

A few seconds into the games, Tidello of 4 had tripped on a rock. He had been sent skidding over the ground and had broken his ankle as well as two bones in his leg. Tidello was unable to move as the bloodbath played out around him. The career boy was helpless as Jaguar of 10 approached him and cut him to ribbons with a sword.

 _Tidello Bowman, District 4 Male: 17th, Killed by Jaguar, Bloodbath_

On the other side of the cornucopia, Tidessa instantly recognized the boy's dying screams as those of her brother. She ran to his aid and saw Jaguar kneeling and stealing his supplies. Tidessa lunged at Jaguar, and he barely managed to sidestep fast enough. The 4 girl was staring at the corpse of her brother, tears streaming down her cheeks. Jaguar stabbed his sword into her back, working the point of the blade through her skeletal structure and out her front.

 _Tidessa Bowman, District 4 Female: 16th, Killed by Jaguar, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Morpheus was sword-dueling with the boy from District 11. He wasn't very skilled, and Morpheus managed to disarm him in a few seconds. Now that the coast was clear, he put in his all. Morpheus swung his sword repeatedly into the boy's neck until his head tumbled off of his body and landed on the ground, splashing blood onto his legs.

 _Peach Macklemore, District 11 Male: 15th, Killed by Morpheus, Bloodbath_

Calandra made the final kill. Several minutes earlier, she had fired an arrow into a girl's back and then abandoned her to die. The blow wasn't fatal, though, and the girl was still squirming on the stones trying to dislodge the projectile from her back. Calandra finished the job she had started about half an hour earlier, plunging an arrow into her heart.

 _Holly Pigeon, District 7 Female: 14th, Killed by Calandra, Bloodbath_

The careers quickly set to work putting the cornucopia in order. Tiger and Tigris took a few minutes to nurse their wounds. They were exhausted from the bloodbath and spent the next few hours sitting cross-legged on the hot stone ground sorting rations. Morpheus hunted the lands immediately surrounding the cornucopia and returned about an hour later with nothing. Calandra noticed how much dust was building up on their weapons and supplies. She affixed a box fan to the ceiling of the horn to keep the air circulating. That way, the dust could never settle for long. Once their duties were all finished, they went out to hunt, leaving Tigris behind to guard the cornucopia.

Only nine outliers were left, but this would still be plenty for Feodore to mess with. Modem risked his life collecting several mechanical items in the bloodbath. After settling down by a small watering hole, Modem killed a small mouse and used it as bait in a scorpion trap that he assembled. Oliver was miserable. He was so pure-hearted that he couldn't even bring himself to kill the flies that were swarming around him. He clambered up into a cluster of eucalyptus trees. Koala mutts milled around him, and Oliver had a few laughs at their clumsy movements. Azalea had several weapons from the horn, including a pack of three throwing knives. She set up her camp in the shady area at the base of a rock formation and quickly went out hunting. At nightfall, she returned to her home and vowed to keep up her hunt the next morning. Acer was cautious of the bushes; due to the high heat, he was scared that they would catch fire. Acer stuck to the barest areas of the arena whenever possible, and the Capitol was growing a bit bored of him as he walked around with his axe swinging at his side. Lille and Misha ran into each other around noon but turned away from each other, not yet physically or mentally prepared to do any killing. Young Lille was traumatized and ran as fast as she could until she collapsed with her pack near the edge of the arena. Misha was relatively unfazed but was quickly growing hungry. She set out on a search for food but found nothing. Jaguar was probably the most popular tribute. He was responsible for the deaths of both District 4 tributes. A group of sponsors pooled their money together to send him a pair of sound-cancelling headphones and a fan, which allowed him to sleep in comfort despite the heat of the night. Olive's mentor urged her to go hunting, but she had received a lot of painful cuts and scrapes during the bloodbath and wasn't yet prepared. She settled down in a small cave and applied medicine to her cuts. Fable came across a hollow mound of sticks and straw. She saw it as a good source of shelter and felt around inside to make sure it was empty. She was shocked as a mother kangaroo came leaping out, agitated by her prodding. Fable swerved in the opposite direction and lost the angry kangaroo after about an hour.

Day 2 passed, deathless. The careers made remarkable progress on their hunting trip. Since this was one of the flatter arenas, there were only so many places the outliers could hide. Tiger, Morpheus, and Calandra had stopped in a grove of eucalyptus trees when an arrow grazed Morpeheus' ear and shattered on the ground a ways back. The arrow belonged to Jaguar. The careers chased Jaguar for miles under the hot sun. Jaguar had something at his camp that could help him. He sped to his camp and unlatched the door of the scorpion trap he had been sponsored a few hours prior. The dozen or so deadly black scorpion mutts scuttled out and swarmed around the careers. They were so distracted trying to pick them off that Jaguar was free to escape.

The morning of Day 3, a cannon shot shattered the silence of the arena. For much of the wee morning hours, Misha had been strolling around looking for a reliable water source. Around nine in the morning, she came across a bush of luscious red berries. Misha wolfed down the berries just as the pack of dingoes that the bush belonged to came into sight. As one could imagine, the pack of dogs wasn't very happy to see that the 9 girl was trespassing on their land.

The girl screamed as the dingoes growled behind her. She grabbed her knife and slowly walked backward.

"Good doggies?" Misha's voice quivered as she tried to reason with the mutts. "Stay."

But there was a world of different between a vicious dingo mutt and a house dog, and the mutts were on top of her before she had time to run. They sank their teeth into her flesh and hacked open her abdomen and neck with their claws. Once she was like an empty juice box, the wild dogs returned to their berry bush to feast some more.

 _Misha Fairchild, District 9 Female: 13th, Killed by Dingo Muttations, Day 3_

Days 4 and 5 were deathless. It turned out that the boiling heat wasn't the only danger of the arena, and the mutts and vegetation could be vicious as well. On their journey back to the cornucopia, the careers were attacked by a swarm of fierce dingo mutts. One of them bit Calandra in the shoulder and Morpheus in the hip. Tiger, the only one to escape unscathed, finished the dogs off while his allies nursed their wounds. At the horn, Tigris acted as their nurse and helped them on their way to recovery. With his mechanical talents, Modem assembled a rather curious-looking contraption. It generated a powerful electrical current whenever touched by a human on either end. The electrical current would be completed by passing through the prey's body, killing them in minutes if not seconds. Modem set out on a search for a tribute to test out his creation on. Oliver was only able to find small pools of water, all of which he depleted within the first few sips. He did most of his searching at night, and he tried his best to avoid the scorpions. Lille collapsed with exhaustion in a bed of dusty-red flowers after a whole day of running. Lille found some water hiding in the stems and leaves of the blossoms, enough to satisfy her for the time being. Jaguar rested in a small cave and feasted on sponsor foods and the condensation that built up on the walls. Olive was attacked by a swarm of giant tarantulas. She escaped with her life but received a nasty bite on her shoulder that oozed ugly green pus. Fable wandered through the scrub terrain, feverishly searching for water. She felt a raging thirst and couldn't survive much longer without liquid intake. Acer used fibers from the scruffy bushes and a few sponsored ropes to assemble a series of snare traps. They proved efficient and captured at least a dozen small rodents by the end of Day 5. Azalea was hunting when she spotted one of Acer's snares. She followed the trail, curious as to where it would lead.

Mere minutes into Day 6, Azalea got her answer. The trail of snare traps brought her to Acer's camp just as the boy was returning with four dead mice piled in his arms. Acer dropped the mice and sped in the opposite direction. Azalea followed after him and cornered him against a rock formation in less than a minute. He had nowhere to run and could only squeeze his eyes shut as the girl's throwing knives dug into his chest.

 _Acer Will, District 7 Male: 12th, Killed by Azalea, Day 6_

Day 7 came about with two deaths, less than thirty minutes apart. Lille had depleted her water source from the flowers the night before and was prowling over the rocks ever since, in desperate search of water. The hot sun took out its wrath on her, and her life force was drained out of her by dehydration.

 _Lille Sore, District 8 Female: 11th, Killed by Dehydration, Day 7_

Lille's cannon shot served as an alarm clock for many of the tributes. Fable took it as a sign to get up and moving. She had walked less than a mile when three figures came into sight on the horizon: Tiger, Tigris, and Morpheus. Fable fell flat on her stomach, hoping that she could drag herself to safety without being spotted, but the careers had seen her and were racing in her direction.

Morpheus burst out of nowhere and thrust his sword into the palm of Fable's hand. She screamed and got to her feet, but she was so scared that she couldn't see straight. Fable blubbered nonsensically and spun in arbitrary directions, hoping for the best. Tiger and Tigris were at her side in no time. Tiger rammed his lethal brass knuckles into her head, causing a sickening crack as a portion of Fable's skull was blown inward. Finally, Tigris fired two arrows into her chest, ending her life for good.

 _Fable Munoz, District 12 Female: 10th, Killed by Morpheus, Tiger, and Tigris, Day 7_

Days 8, 9, and 10 passed without incident. Much of the Capitol was beginning to grow bored, but Feodore was hoping to draw this empty period out a tiny bit just to make the follow events more exciting. Morpheus, Tiger, and Tigris visited Calandra at the cornucopia and restocked on weapons. The gamemakers sent two strong kangaroos onto them. Since they were surrounded by weapons, it was easy for the careers to kill them. Modem heard the sound of rushing water and found his way to a softly murmuring stream hidden from sight by an overshadowing rock formation. Modem hoped that some other tribute would hear the sound of the water and come to him. He was eager to test out his little electrical contraption. Oliver sustained himself off of water from small pools. Deathly afraid of the careers and mutts, Oliver never stayed in the same place for more than an hour for fear of fading into the background. Azalea and Jaguar ran into each other on Day 10. They were the two strongest outliers, and, instead of killing each other, they allied. Jaguar knew of some large water sources for him and Azalea to hunt near, and they spent the rest of the day on a search for other tributes. Olive's tarantula bite was becoming increasingly vile, spouting pus and blood whenever she moved. A sponsor sent her a bandage to quell the bleeding, but this did little to stop the oncoming infection.

On Day 11, an emaciated and tired Oliver heard the sound of rushing water and followed it to a flowing stream. Modem was hiding behind a nearby boulder, ready to test out his electrical trap. The second that Oliver was in close range, Modem hurled the metal ball at the boy with all of the force he could muster. Oliver instinctively caught the metal sphere. He began screaming as the powerful electric current ran through his brain. It was a rather nasty sight to see the boy contorting and shaking, and his brain was completely fried in a few minutes.

 _Oliver Pepper, District 5 Male: 9th, Killed by Modem, Day 11_

That left the final eight: Tiger Sterne and Tigris Sterne from District 1, Morpheus Parsons and Calandra Shaven from District 2, Modem Ulrich from District 3, Azalea Larke from District 6, Jaguar Hu from District 10, and Olive Awesome from District 11.

At daybreak on Day 12, Olive rested in a dusty square laden with scruffy bushes and boulders. A wild dingo mutt attacked her, and Olive expertly slayed it with her knife. Wanted to roast the meat to eat later, she prepared to start a fire. Olive used a shard of glass from a broken package as a means to focus the sun's rays onto a square of brush that she assembled. In seconds, the fuel was smoldering, and, before she knew it, Olive had a roaring fire.

But the fire was getting out of hand. Olive was preparing a spit to roast the meat when a nearby bush caught on fire. She let out a yelp of shock and beat out the flames with her foot. By the time it was extinguished, three other bushes had caught on fire! The dry vegetation was perfect fuel for the hungry inferno, and the fire was spreading faster than she could put it out. Out of desperation, Olive poured her entire water supply onto the fire to kill it, but it was hopeless.

Options exhausted, Olive had no choice but to run to flee. But as she began running, the smoke filled her lungs. She coughed and screamed for fresh air. Olive tried to stagger to safety, but her eyes were watering so much that she couldn't see. She died from smoke inhalation in a few minutes, the first to die as the brush fire tore over the arena. A not-so-awesome death, one could say.

 _Olive Awesome, District 11 Female: 8th, Killed by Smoke Inhalation, Day 12_

Most of the nearby tributes saw the fire coming and had time to run away. Modem dunked himself in the river so he wouldn't be as flammable and tore in the opposite direction of the flames. Azalea and Jaguar put their shirts over their faces to keep from breathing in the smoke and ran to high ground, where the fire would be less likely to reach them.

Morpheus was supposed to be guarding the cornucopia, but he had fallen asleep a few hours into his shift the night before. By the time the 2 boy screamed to the others that a brush fire was coming, it was too late. The sleeping careers scrambled to their feet but had nowhere to run. The bushes and grasses surrounding the horn were engulfed in crackling fire.

Tiger sped into the horn and grabbed a blanket. He doused it in as much water as he could find. Placing it over him like a cloak, he picked a direction and ran to safety. Calandra got down on her hands and knees and scuttled after him.

Morpheus and Tigris clawed their hands through the smoke. They found each other and grabbed onto one another, hobbling in one direction together. But with the loss of clear sight, they didn't travel far before disaster struck. Tigris stepped into a flaming bush and screamed as the fire licked her feet and legs. She collapsed to the ground, pulling Morpheus down with her. Their clothes caught on fire three seconds later, and it was all over from there.

 _Tigris Sterne, District 1 Female: 7th, Killed by Fire, Day 12_

 _Morpheus Parsons, District 2 Male: 6th, Killed by Fire, Day 12_

Only one more life was to be taken that day. Azalea and Jaguar were fast runners, but they couldn't run from the fire forever. Before long, they came to a dead end. Fire closed in on all sides of them. Jaguar pointed toward a group of boulders and suggested they climb on top of them. The fire couldn't reach them there, but the lethal smoke certainly could. Azalea took in a whiff of the smoke. She was so shocked that she lost her footing and tumbled sideways into the brush fire. Jaguar watched in earnest as her corpse was burnt to a crisp. A later victor would say that Azalea's death was the most traumatizing they viewed as a child watching the Hunger Games.

 _Azalea Larke, District 6 Female: 5th, Killed by Fire, Day 12_

Dark clouds began rolling in, and, in minutes, fat raindrops were pouring down and hydrating the dry, cracked earth. Once the fire was extinguished, the tributes rushed to fill whatever container they had with the clean, cool water. Tiger and Calandra, the two surviving careers, tried to find each other but were unable. Tiger headed toward the more uneven areas of terrain in search of rivers, whereas Calandra moved south toward the eucalyptus trees where there would be more food. Virtually all of Modem's supplies were destroyed in the disaster, and all he had was a bowl, a knife, and a sickle. It wasn't much, but if he played his cards right he might still be able to pull out the win. Jaguar sustained a rather nasty burn to his calf. Using some sponsor medicines, he disinfected the wound. Jaguar rested in a dark, cool cave and waited for time to do its healing.

Day 13 came about with a singular peak of excitement. Tiger was milling about when he spotted a figure about a quarter mile away. He raced after the figure and found himself grasping onto Modem of 3.

"Please don't kill me!" Modem begged, thrashing in the 1 boy's grasp.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to kill you. I want to make a deal," Tiger said.

Modem couldn't believe his ears. "How?"

And Tiger explained his plan. He wanted to venture to the cornucopia and dig up the mines surrounding the tribute pedestals. If Modem was able to successfully reactivate them, Tiger would let him go free. If he tried to make a run for it, the career boy would kill him.

Tiger and Modem drilled to the horn together. Modem quickly grabbed a shovel and started digging. Before long, his shovel clanged against one of the mines. Tiger watched carefully as he pried it out of the earth. Once Modem had dug up four mines, he began reactivating them. It was tough work, but Modem was from District 3 and adrenaline was helping him along.

"That's that," Modem said, sweating bullets. "If you need to touch them, touch them on the edges so they don't explode."

Tiger grabbed onto Modem's collar.

"It's time for me to go now," Modem said, voice shaking.

"You're not going anywhere," Tiger spat.

"But you promised…"

"There's no such things as promises in the games."

Tiger snatched one of the mines off of the table and hurled it at the 3 boy. He scuttled out of the way just as the mine beeped and then exploded. The shockwave sent Modem flying, and he fell to the ground in a heap. His organs starting failing him one by one. How ironic. Being killed by the weapons that he had activated himself.

 _Modem Ulrich, District 3 Male: 4th, Killed by Tiger, Day 13_

Days 14 and 15 passed deathless. Tiger took one of the explosives with him every time he went hunting. They were virtually fool-proof weapons. All Tiger had to do was get far enough away from the tribute and then toss it at them. Boom! They were dead. Calandra heard the explosion that killed Modem and figured that the gamemakers were creating them. She ran for cover and cowered down for hours until her mentor sent her a note that there wasn't any danger. Calandra felt rather stupid and stayed away from the cameras for the next few hours. Jaguar had a skirmish with Calandra on Day 14. A long chase ensued, but Jaguar eventually managed to escape by ducking into a small cave.

On Day 16, Calandra set out on a quest to find and kill Tiger. She didn't want to face another career in the finale. If she bumped off Tiger, her only competitor would be the boy from District 10, the weakest of the districts. Calandra reached the horn around three in the afternoon and found Tiger kneeling down and taking inventory of a few crates and packs.

Tiger leapt to his feet and ran toward his selection of mines, of which he had three. He hurled one of the disk-shaped explosives at Calandra, and she didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. In a column of dust and ash, Calandra was blown to smithereens. Now, only two tributes were left.

 _Calandra Shaven, District 2 Female: 3rd, Killed by Tiger, Day 16_

On Day 17, Feodore used bloodthirsty dingo mutts to lure the finalists together. Tiger snatched up one of his mines and stuffed his pack with some napalm and matches. A sponsor sent Jaguar a sleek and sharp metal sword to use in the finale. Before long, the two tributes spotted each other over the horizon.

Tiger chased Jaguar to a crystal-clear lake with rolling waves. The 1 boy hurled his jar of napalm at Jaguar, dousing him in the flammable jelly-like substance. He pulled out a match.

Jaguar, who figured that Tiger was about to set him on fire, dove into the lake and swam as far away as possible.

Tiger's plan was falling perfectly into place. He hurled the mine onto the water. The instant it made contact with the bottom of the lake, it exploded, sending a shockwave through the water that killed Jaguar instantly. A quick way to go at least.

 _Jaguar Hu, District 10 Male: 2nd, Killed by Tiger, Day 17_

"Tiger Sterne of District 1, you are the victor of the fifty-ninth annual Hunger Games!" Feodore yelled.

Tiger just smiled and let the waves crash over his feet, waiting for the hovercraft to retrieve him.

 _Tiger Sterne, District 1 Male: Victor of the Fifty-Ninth Hunger Games, Day 17_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Tiger received a warm welcome when he returned home to District 1. The luxury district had long since given up hope of overtaking District 2 in terms of victor count, but Tiger was a great addition to their growing lineup. He certainly stirred up controversy as well. Utilizing the land mines as weapons wasn't the least rebellious thing a Hunger Games tribute had ever done, but since Tiger was so beloved, nothing could be done. He also went on to ask the families of the fallen tributes to forgive him. This ruffled feathers in the Capitol, but he got off lightly with no punishment luckily.

Tiger moved into the Victor's Village of District 1, the eighth victor to do so.

His victory tour was a work of art, as he turned out to be a great public speaker and actor. District 10 was furious at him for killing Jaguar, whom many hoped could make their second victor.

Tiger would live to the age of the ninety-nine, dying from congestive heart failure six months after the one-hundred forty-third annual Hunger Games. Five years after his victory, Tiger came out as homosexual, and he became a public speaker for LGBT rights in the districts. He would marry and have twin sons via a surrogate mother. Tiger was a nice enough person but would ultimately be overshadowed by some of the flashier and sexier District 1 victors.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Tiger moves into the Victor's Village of District 1 as their eighth victor.

Mags Flanagan adopts her seventh child, a young girl named Rosa.

Brutus Cordley retires from his position as mayor of District 2 to focus on raising his children.

Lyme Mabett marries her fiancée Angela Alan.

Lily Eckel gives birth to her first child, a healthy baby girl named Hyacinth.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: It turns out the District 3 Male from Katniss' games didn't get the idea of digging up the mines from nowhere! :D**

 **I hope you've enjoyed Tiger. I certainly did. This is the games Katniss mentions in the first book as taking place in a scrub terrain, and I thought modeling it after the Australian outback gave it a perfect fit as one of Feodore's games.**

 **As the 74th games draws nearer, the next few decades will be largely dominated by canon victors. In only one and a half decades, we'll be having Cecelia, Enobaria, Gloss, Cashmere, Finnick, Augustus, The District 10 Male, Annie, and Johanna! Wowza!**

 **Another thing of note is that the lives of some of the early victors are now drawing to a close. That means we'll have to say goodbye to most of the first and second decade victors soon, but never fear, the chapters of their games will remain online forever! :D**


	61. The 60th Hunger Games

**The 60th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The Hunger Games of the year prior had been rather satisfying, if not exactly groundbreaking, and Feodore Elliot was back with his neck and creative mind intact for his fourth year in the position of head gamemaker. Coriolanus Snow ruled the roost for another year, keeping close watch over the nation to ensure it was keeping in order. He hoped that the last few games had been intimidating enough to silence the rebellion in districts, but this was not so. In District 6, a man broke into the Justice Building and attempted the murder of the mayor. Luckily, the attempted murderer was caught before he could do any real harm. He and his girlfriend (who had helped a great deal in the execution and concealment of the plot) were turned into avoxes. President Snow rigged one of their fraternal twin daughters into the games, hoping to set an example of the fate of traitors.

This year's games was going to follow Feodore's original formula of being based after a disaster from history. So far, he had faced his tributes with a ship sinking and a volcanic eruption, and the Capitol was eager to see how he would follow up those games. Seeing the popularity of fire elements in recent games, Feodore decided to recreate the Great Fire of London of 1666. The arena was modeled after old London. The cornucopia was nestled snugly between two buildings in the center of the city. Its supplies were contained in leather bags and burlap sacks. The girls wore long dresses and aprons. The boys found themselves in shirts with puffy sleeves, knee-length pants, and tights. Houses, shops, and churches sprawled out in all directions, most of them dirty and unclean, as the arena was set in a time before decent sanitation. The wide, brown River Thames spiraled through the city, traversed by the ever-famous London Bridge. White swans glided over the water. The scenery looked very empty without any people. Creating realistic human mutts for the games got very expensive, and the gamemakers weren't willing to create thousands of them that likely wouldn't add to the games at all. It was a beautiful city, but disaster would soon strike…

The careers were anything but average this year, and their pack had a rather awkward structure. The male from 1 was boastful and a wild overachiever, sometimes acting on whims and taking foolish risks. The female was shier than most, but she was beautiful and a master of blades, similarly to her district partner. District 2 offered up one of their most menacing pairs yet. The male was a giant, burly and strong and extremely handsome. He fancied broadswords. The girl was of direct relation to a wealthy Capitol businessman, who was sure to send her sponsor gifts galore in the games. She was a dark-skinned girl with incredible grace and beauty. District 4 was where the real curiosity happened. The male volunteer, eighteen year-old Euphrates Sepias, was caught out after dark the night before the reaping and shot by a peacekeeper. A reaped boy went into the games, a small and scrawny boy who did nothing but cry in the Capitol. The girl scored an abysmal seven, as she broke her leg in her excitement to get to the stage at the reaping and proceeded to catch serious flu the morning of her private session. This led the careers to snub her from the pack. They knew they couldn't function well with only four members. This led them to recruit Cecelia of 8 as their fifth member. Cecelia had flowing jet-black locks and glistening blue eyes, and sponsors flocked around her like flies around a sugar bowl. Cecelia was a spectacular builder of traps and wasn't the worst with weaponry, and she was a valued member of the career team. The six (or seven if you count Cecelia) scored poorly, with three tens (four if you count Cecelia), one nine, one seven, and one three.

There weren't many standouts among the outliers, though only time would tell which tributes would be prominent characters once the games started. None of them scored as well as Cecelia, but one tribute came close. Boa of 7 was a formidable fighter with axes and had a lot of experience with knives as well, leading her to score a handsome eight. Sevens were earned by Garrett from 7, Amos from 9, and Garland from 11. Kenaf of 8 was another standout. If he was going to die, Kenaf figured he might as well go out with style. At the reaping, he pulled down his pants and mooned the entire nation. The last standout was a sad one. A severely mentally-disabled girl, Eudora of 12, was reaped. She didn't understand the games much and was completely unaware of what was about to happen. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Gleeson Pontes, 17, (9) 8-1 and Rhubarb Verde, 18, (10) 6-1

District 2: Festus Harris, 18, (10) 3-1 and Justa Bardell, 18, (10) 3-1

District 3: Domain Thackston, 18, (5) 24-1 and Radar Euripides, 14, (4) 41-1

District 4: Arroyo Bronz, 13, (3) 52-1 and Sandy Waterloo, 16, (7) 12-1

District 5: Cap Fellows, 17, (6) 21-1 and Dottie Alhambra, 18, (2) 74-1

District 6: Skyler Klasson, 12, (3) 67-1 and Colma Crysostoma, 17, (5) 22-1

District 7: Garrett King, 18, (7) 13-1 and Boa Xi, 18, (8) 10-1

District 8: Kenaf Rammy, 16, (4) 39-1 and Cecelia Rieffel, 17, (10) 4-1

District 9: Amos Kaligian, 12, (7) 17-1 and Jacoma Smith, 18, (6) 20-1

District 10: Farrow Camilo-Santos, 16, (5) 25-1 and Cat DuCarmont, 12, (4) 45-1

District 11: Garland Cocteau, 18, (7) 13-1 and Violet Braiden, 17, (5) 20-1

District 12: Edmond Langosy, 16, (3) 43-1 and Eudora Iaquinta, 12, (1) 84-1

HGBO Bets: 11% on Festus and Justa, 9% on Rhubarb and Cecelia, 7% on Gleeson, 6% on Boa, 5% on Sandy, Garrett, Amos, and Garland, 4% on Cap and Jacoma, 3% on Domain, Colma, Farrow, and Violet, 2% on Radar, Kenaf, and Cat, 1% on Arroyo, Dottie, Skyler, Edmond, and Eudora.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Even though the tributes knew that anything was possible with Feodore's dynamic and ingenious arena designs, they were still shocked to see tall buildings surrounding them in every direction. They searched around frantically for the cornucopia. Violet of 11 was the first to spot it, tucked between two brick buildings nearby. She pointed it out to her nearby district partner. Other tributes saw it and began pointing it out to their partners and friends, and before long all eyes were fixed on the horn and the supplies within. This year had one of the smallest bloodbaths, due to a large amount of tributes that would run away and a weaker career pack. The upside: this left Feodore with a whole lot of tributes to mess with once the bloodbath reached its conclusion.

Seeing the splendor of the arena that surrounded them or not wanting to risk their lives at the horn, a whopping four tributes turned around and fled from the get go. They were Skyler from 6, Jacoma from 9, and Farrow and Cat from 10. The rest of the tributes ran head-on into the fray.

Justa lead the charge this year, sprinted toward a bow that lay about halfway between her pedestal and the horn. Her first arrow missed Dottie of 5 by only a few inches. Justa's second arrow landed squarely in the heart of Dottie's district partner, who was running nearby. The 5 boy fell to the cobblestones wheezing out nonsense for the few seconds of his life remained.

 _Cap Fellows, District 5 Male: 24th, Killed by Justa, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Festus armed himself with a sword and slashed it into the neck of a nearby boy. The boy had been holding a pack of wire, and Festus didn't want him escaping the bloodbath to assemble some electrical contraption that would higher his odds of winning. The boy screamed as the blade dug a good half inch into his neck, and he collapsed, still clutching the pack of wire, screaming for help. But help did not come.

 _Domain Thackston, District 3 Male: 23rd, Killed by Festus, Bloodbath_

After dislodging her arrow from Cap's heart, Justa sprinted nearer to Dottie so that her arrows would be more effective. Dottie yelped as her first arrow landed in her calf. Subsequent arrows found homes in her hip, waist, abdomen, neck, and shoulder. How many arrows did the 2 girl need to use?

 _Dottie Alhambra, District 5 Female: 22nd, Killed by Justa, Bloodbath_

Rhubarb snatched up the blade she had requested from the gamemakers. It was as long as her arm and curved into the shape of a semicircle. Nearby, a girl was bending over as she sprinted away from the horn, hoping this would mean keeping out of the sight of the careers. Rhubarb slammed down the blade of her weapon into the girl's back. She roared with agony and fled, but Festus was there. She ran right into Festus' sword, and the weapon protruded from her back. Only four kills had been made, yet both Districts 3 and 5 were already out of the running.

 _Radar Euripides, District 3 Female: 21st, Killed by Rhubarb and Festus, Bloodbath_

Cecelia hadn't made a kill yet, but she was determined to do so soon to prove herself to her career allies. She grabbed a machete and chased a weeping boy to an area of the clearing where the other careers could see the kill being made. Cecelia cast the blade into his hip. He scuttled in the opposite direction, hoping to escape into the dark alley between two tall brick apartment buildings. However, he was clumsy in his pain and tripped in the first three steps. Cecelia shoved the weapon into his back to polish him off.

 _Edmond Langosy, District 12 Male: 20th, Killed by Cecelia, Bloodbath_

Gleeson knew he was the weakest of the careers, and he hoped that doing them all a favor would cause them to see him in a higher light. Sandy of 4 was nearby, kneeling on the ground and taking inventory of the contents of a burlap sack. Sandy had technically trained for the games but was injured and sick and would be of no use to them in the weeks to come. Gleeson sawed the knife into her abdomen, sending searing pain through her body. She fell forward onto the sack, so dumfounded with shock she was unable to move. She took her final breath just as Gleeson's knife dug into the base of her neck.

 _Sandy Waterloo, District 4 Female: 19th, Killed by Gleeson, Bloodbath_

Festus and Justa stayed close together as they chased the crying 7 boy away from the cornucopia. He was a speedy runner but quickly came to a dead end. The boy had no weapons on him and was helpless as Festus thrust his broadsword into his neck. He slid down to the ground, gurgling and moaning as blood pooled up in his mouth. Justa shot an arrow into his forehead to finish him off before returning to the horn.

 _Garrett King, District 7 Male: 18th, Killed by Festus and Justa, Bloodbath_

The pair from 2 returned to the cornucopia, only to find the clearing empty of outliers. But there was a sixth tribute in the vicinity besides the five careers. The disabled Eudora from 12 was sitting cross-legged in front of her pedestal. She wasn't giving any attention to the death that was going on around her. Instead, she was pointing at a group of birds nesting in the bough of a nearby tree, smiling and giggling softly. The five careers all walked toward her at once, unsure of what to do. Cecelia, the most emotional of the group, wiped a tear from her eye and sat down beside Eudora, hugging her and whispering words of comfort. Gleeson steeled himself for the difficult task ahead and approached the disabled girl. In the blink of an eye, Gleeson buried his blade into the girl's shoulder. She screamed and fell backward onto her pedestal, unable to comprehend what was happening. Cecelia wept and sang the girl an old District 8 lullaby until she fell asleep.

 _Eudora Iaquinta, District 12 Female: 17th, Killed by Gleeson, Bloodbath_

Trying to put the thought of killing somebody so young and innocent out of their minds, the careers went about their business. Festus and Justa searched the nearby buildings to make sure there weren't any tributes waiting to raid the horn once they left for their hunt. Gleeson sorted their food rations. Rhubarb, a perfectionist, started arranging the weapons in the cornucopia alphabetically by name and by size. The other careers told her she was being ridiculous, but she continued. Rhubarb didn't rest until the items starting with "Z" were all in their places. Cecelia was heartbroken after watching Eudora's death. She pretended to be sorting rations but was actually crouched down in the shadows crying. Rhubarb found her and whispered her words of comfort, which helped, but it was ultimately up to herself and herself alone when to get up and act like a career. They all understood when Cecelia chose to guard the horn that day, as she wasn't prepared to go hunting with grief in her mind.

The outliers scattered, going outward, inward, and upward. Arroyo knew he would be at the top of the careers' kill list. He ran through the stuffy streets until sundown, wanted to get as far away from the horn as he could with the energy his little body held. At nightfall, Arroyo ducked into a post office and buried himself under piles of mail. Skyler and Colma walked beside each other despite never speaking a word to each other in the pre-games. It started when Colma walked into the building Skyler was hiding in. Instead of killing each other, they decided to ally. They got up and trekked across the street to a restaurant where they feasted on ingredients from the kitchen and slept under the sink. Boa's axe swung at her side as he tried to find the tallest building in the arena. With the exception of the clock tower, the tallest building she could find was the church. Boa climbed up countless stairways before staggering into the bell tower and collapsing from exhaustion. Kenaf picked up on an aroma that made his mouth flood with saliva. In mere minutes of walking, he found where the smell was coming from: a bakery with freshly-baked goods in the window. Kenaf broke into the locked shop and stuffed as many donuts and cupcakes into his mouth as he could. Amos found a florist near the outskirts of the city and fit through the window. Inside, shelves of flowerpots and cups of beautiful plants lined the walls. He ducked behind the cashier's counter and sorted the money to occupy himself. Jacoma found her way to a tavern and ducked under one of the tables with her bag of supplies. Farrow discovered an old, abandoned barber shop near the clock tower. In the shop, Farrow hid in a back closet filled with bottles of shaving cream, staying quiet so nobody would hear him. Cat walked for a few hours and found a theater. She walked inside (without a ticket, mind you) and went backstage. Cat had been a lover of fashion her whole life and tried on the various outfits supplied. Garland stopped for the night in a fortune shop, where he waved his hands around the crystal balls and asked questions about his future. Around midnight, he dropped one of the glass orbs, creating a crash that could be heard for about a quarter mile radius. A few tributes heard him, but none decided to investigate. Violet's mother was an eye doctor back in District 11, and the girl felt right at home in an optician that she found about a mile away from the horn. Violet had fun trying on the different lenses and guessing which ways the letters were pointing. There was completely peace in the arena as day turned into night, but that would soon change.

Amos woke up before the sun on Day 2. A growling noise was coming from the corner of the florist. He knew the sound wasn't a good sign and that it would be best to flee, but his curiosity got the best of him. He brushed aside a curtain of vines and couldn't believe his eyes. Mounted in a large flowerpot was a huge red blossom as tall as he was. But where the petals should have been, there were snapping jaws with razor sharp teeth. Amos stumbled backward but tripped on a bag of fertilizer.

Like tentacles of giant sea monster, plants all over the room began coming miraculously to life, feeling the air and snapping with their pincers. Amos scurried to his feet and ran for the door but found it blocked by the curling limbs of a grass-like plant. The plant extended its death-bringing tendrils and restrained him without hope of escape. Amos thrashed, struggled, and screamed as loud as he was able, but he was helpless as all of the nearby plants dove into their newest meal.

 _Amos Kaligian, District 9 Male: 16th, Killed by Animate Plant Muttations, Day 2_

Amos' cannon shot started many of the tributes awake and served as an alarm clock to the arena's entire human population. Not much happened for the first half of Day 3. Jacoma left the tavern and found a pump where she could collect water. Admittedly, it tasted horribly metallic and unclean, but it was water nonetheless. Cat woke up in the theater dressing room surrounded by inside-out outfits that she had tried on the day before. She stuffed them all back into their cases and started exploring the theater. Cecelia had finally stopped crying and got to work actually patrolling the cornucopia. She dutifully drilled in circles around the horn, waiting for her allies to return. The four careers from 1 and 2 were doing quick checks of each building, hastily checking obvious hiding spots for prey and then leaving. Skyler and Colma were practicing with their weapons in the kitchen of the restaurant when they heard the careers' footsteps. They quickly shoved themselves into a cupboard and stayed dead silent as the career pack walked right past.

It was near nightfall, and it seemed as though it was time for the careers to go to bed, when they heard a small sound. They whipped their heads toward it and grinned. Kenaf was poking his head out of a nearby bakery, seemingly frozen to the spot at the sight of the career pack. The 8 boy ran into the bakery, slammed the door behind him, and piled enough furniture in front of it that the careers couldn't get in.

Kenaf thought he was safe, but he was sadly mistaken. Justa and Festus were sneaking around the side of the bakery, while Gleeson and Rhubarb stayed in front of the door in case Kenaf tried to make a run for it. Justa crawled through one of the windows and dropped down into the bakery; Festus followed.

Kenaf screamed as the pair from 2 approached him with their weapons. He sped to the kitchen and grabbed two large knives. Justa's first arrow was mere inches from his face. In retaliation, Kenaf hurled one of the two knives like a projectile. Justa ducked underneath the knife while Festus ran into close range with his broadsword.

Festus thrust the broadsword into Kenaf's chest. He screamed and fell to his knees. With his last ounce of energy, he cast his knife upward and buried it into Festus' neck. Roaring with agony, Festus collapsed in a heap. Bloodthirsty until the very end, Festus continued to hack away at Kenaf's neck and upper torso until he died.

 _Kenaf Rammy, District 8 Male: 15th, Killed by Festus, Day 2_

By that point, Gleeson and Rhubarb had finally broken down the door to investigate what the blazes was going on. Festus was rolling around on the ground, weeping softly as his blood spread around him in a dark pool. While several sponsors sent medicine to help him, the others weren't able to supply it because the 2 boy wouldn't keep still. He bled out less than an hour later, the last tribute to die on the second day.

 _Festus Harris, District 2 Male: 14th, Killed by Kenaf, Day 2_

Days 3 and 4 passed with no major events. Gleeson, Rhubarb, and Justa returned to the cornucopia and met up with Cecelia. The pack of four shared breakfast and went back hunting quickly, this time leaving Rhubarb to guard the supplies. Arroyo left the post office and found his way into a bookshop. He hid himself under the counter and read almost nonstop for the whole two days. Skyler and Colma searched through the stores in the restaurant and found a stale wheel of cheese. Skyler consumed several bites of the cheese and thought nothing of it until he starting vomiting and passing frequent bowel movements a few hours later. Colma couldn't go anywhere until the bad cheese worked its way out of Skyler's body, so she read the menus to entertain herself. Boa explored the church; it was so large, it seemed like she could walk forever and never see the whole thing. Admiring the stained glass windows and superb stonework, a few sponsors that liked her taste in art sent her bites to eat. Jacoma found a bucket in the back of a shop and filled it with water from the pump. The bucket was cumbersome to carry, so Jacoma tried to find some animal to kill to impress the sponsors enough to give her a thermos. Farrow stayed still in the barber shop and sprayed all of the shaving cream into one bucket. He figured that if an invader arrived, he could throw the bucket over their head and cover their face with shaving cream so they couldn't see (not that Farrow hoped ever to use it.) Cat left the theater and went into a shop filled with old dolls. She turned around to leave but found that the door was locked behind her. Vowing to find a way to leave in the morning, Cat went to bed. It took her forever to fall asleep with all of the dolls staring at her, though. Garland kept asking the crystal balls questions about his future, and he was shocked when they started speaking answers back to him. Violet locked herself in the back closet of the optometrist and kept playing with the lenses.

The sun rose on Day 5, but Cat still couldn't get out of the shop with the creepy dolls. When she finally accepted there weren't any windows, she tried to bust down the door with no luck. That night, a terrifying thing happened. One of the dolls moved. It didn't touch her or even make sound, but it was enormously creepy as it paced in circles around Cat.

By the time Day 6 arrived, the amount of living dolls had sextupled. Six of the dolls were moving around Cat, some of them even getting close to her face and whispering out unintelligible words. Finally, at noon on the sixth day, Cat had had enough. She grabbed a knife that had been sponsored to her a few days earlier and jammed it into her wrist. Blood poured from the opened vein, and Cat begged for the blood to come out faster as the haunted dolls swarmed around her. She had killed herself to escape the demons.

 _Cat DuCarmont, District 10 Female: 13th, Killed by Herself, Day 6_

On Day 7, allies Skyler and Colma received a note cryptically warning them that the careers were near. They misinterpreted the note, thinking it said there was a gift for them outside. The duo poked their heads out the door just as Gleeson, Justa, and Cecelia came into sight.

"Get back inside!" Skyler hissed, pulling Colma back. They crammed themselves into the nearest cabinet, but the pack thundered inside before they could both cram into the small space.

Surprisingly, Cecelia was at the front. She had gotten over Eudora's death and was prepared to prove to her allies that she was no weaker than they were. She yanked open the door of the cabinet and thrust her machete into the face of the closest tribute, Colma. Trying not go gag, Cecelia drove her blade farther and farther through Colma's flesh. She was dead as soon as the tip of the weapon pierced her brain.

 _Colma Crysostoma, District 6 Female: 12th, Killed by Cecelia, Day 7_

"He's escaping!" Gleeson shouted. He was right. In the time it took Cecelia to kill Colma, Skyler had managed to wiggle out of the cupboard. They saw him just as he left through the door. The careers chased after Skyler, around buildings and through allies.

Finally, nearly two hours later, Skyler fell against a tall brick apartment building, unable to run any farther. Gleeson slashed his curved blade across his chest. Blood splashed from the wound like water as he slid down against the building. Moments later, Justa fired an arrow into Skyler's neck to deliver the blow that ended his life for good.

 _Skyler Klasson, District 6 Male: 11th, Killed by Gleeson and Justa, Day 7_

Days 8 and 9 passed, deathless. Gleeson, Justa and Cecelia returned to the cornucopia and met up with Rhubarb. Rhubarb's mentor sent her a note cryptically warning her to head north. The warning was written in cipher. Despite the four careers' best efforts to decode the note, they couldn't figure out what it meant. Arroyo found a hidden compartment under the desk of the bookshop that led to a storage cellar. He brought a few books inside with him. He left the door propped open, however, fearing that it might lock behind him and he would be trapped inside. Boa and Jacoma ran into each other on Day 9. Boa chased Jacoma with her axe for nearly four hours. In the end, Boa gave up and proposed an alliance with Jacoma. Farrow's mentor sent him a note that his playing with the shaving cream was coming off as childish. Heeding the warning, Farrow left the barber shop and wandered through the streets without a goal in mind. Garland and Violet found each other, but they decided to band together instead of killing each other. Garland insisted they go hunting for tributes, but Violet was unsure of her stance on killing in the games and wanted a day to rest. Not wanting to cause a huge disagreement that would end their alliance so soon, Garland gave Violet her way; they rested together behind the principal's desk in one of the schools.

Shortly after midnight on Day 10, disaster struck. Just as it had played out in real life nearly five centuries earlier, a small fire started in the bakery on Pudding Lane. The nearest tribute, Arroyo, smelled smoke and left the bookshop to investigate. What he saw made his heart stop. The bakery was a column of flame, spewing smoke into the starry night sky. Several nearby buildings, including a restaurant and bank, were beginning to flame at that point.

Arroyo started to the nearest water pump and filled the bucket with as much water as it could hold. The 4 boy tried to make a circle of water around the three burning buildings, therefore trapping the inferno inside. But the boy couldn't do that fast enough, and before he knew it the entirety of Pudding Lane was on fire.

Without hope of extinguishing the fire, Arroyo turned around and ran, screaming as loud as he could for the others to run for their lives. The fire was right behind him, burning away at the wooden buildings like paper.

Allies Boa and Jacoma woke up to Arroyo's screams and the crackling of the fire. Hastily, Jacoma tore a handful of grass from the ground and threw it into the air. Knowing that the fire would spread in the direction the wind was heading, the duo rain in the opposite direction the grass blades flew. By the time they reached high ground, several of the taller brick buildings were on fire. A good ten percent of the city was consumed by the fire, and the hungry inferno was working its way across the city without signs of stopping in sight.

Garland and Violet didn't wake up until it was almost too late. In the locked classroom, the smell of smoke didn't travel, and they weren't awoken until the fire reached the door. They leapt to their feet screaming. Violet fumbled with the lock, but Garland stopped her.

"If there's a fire on the other side, it wouldn't help to open the door and let it in!" Garland screamed over the roaring of the hungry fire.

In seconds, evil black smoke started pouring into the room. Knowing that heat rose, they got to their hands and knees and searched for an exit.

"Here!" Violet shouted, pointing at a nearby window. She turned the crank and broke the window screen with her fist. Violet crawled out of the school and sprinted as fast as her legs could carry her toward the large stone cathedral, which would be unlikely to burn due to its stone composition.

Garland tried to fit through the window, but his shoulders were too broad.

"Violet!" Garland screamed. "Come back!"

But Violet didn't hear him. Garland was completely helpless as the classroom burned to ashes. It wasn't the fire that actually killed him. He had inhaled so much smoke that he died from suffocation long before the flames could lick him with their evil, death-bringing hands.

 _Garland Cocteau, District 11 Male: 10th, Killed by Smoke Inhalation, Day 10_

As soon as he realized the seriousness of the situation, Farrow abandoned all forms of coherent strategy and ran away from the fire, hoping to escape. This was a terrible strategy. He had also failed to a do a good scout of the city beforehand, and before he knew it Farrow was trapped between two walls of fire. They were closing in on him as well, leaving a charred black hell in their wake.

Farrow ran between the closing lines, toward the wide and brown river. He took a deep breath and went _ker-sploosh_ in the Thames.

Though Farrow wasn't the greatest swimmer Panem had ever seen, he knew how to doggie paddle. Through the rippling surface of the water, he saw a sight he would never forget as long as he lived if he won. The vast city of London, once standing grand and proud, was consumed in a rolling mass of fire that curled into the sky and set out puffs of smoke that blocked the stars and the moon. Spurts of fire fired outward from the mother conflagration, lighting additional buildings on fire. He was dumbfounded with shock for a few moments. Then, once he was back to his senses, he turned around and swam for his life.

After several minutes, Farrow dragged himself on the opposite shoreline. He was exhausted from fighting against the current, and he felt as though he couldn't lift his arm without using all of his remaining strength. When smoke began filling the air, the majority of the white swans in the river and swum to the shore. Farrow found himself in the center of their flock. Gray dust had settled on many of their feathers.

Farrow sat cross-legged on the ground and screamed at a loud squawking sound. Two swans were waddling toward him and shaking to get the dust off of their feathers. They must have thought that Farrow was what caused the fire, because they attacked him. The larger swan jabbed him with its beak, splattering blood across its pristine white feathers. The other swan dragged him to center of the group, and he was toast as the vicious birds dug into his body.

 _Farrow Camilo-Santos, District_ 10 _Male: 9th, Killed by Swan Muttations, Day 10_

That left the final eight: Gleeson Pontes and Rhubarb Verde from District 1, Justa Bardell from District 2, Arroyo Bronz from District 4, Boa Xi from District 7, Cecelia Rieffel from District 8, Jacoma Smith from District 9, and Violet Braiden from District 11.

Two more deaths were to occur before the day was out. Cecelia, who was guarding the cornucopia at the time that the fire began, spotted the trial of smoke early and had time to warn the others that danger was coming. They had a head start, but they couldn't outrun the fire once it starting spreading particularly quickly. They soon found themselves trapped on all sides by burning buildings.

The heat was unbearable, and the smoke was making them all cough. Justa suggested they run through a nearby alleyway, but that, too, quickly caught fire. With a creak and a stomach-dropping groan, a tall wooden building nearby had lost too much infrastructure to keep standing. The building toppled like a domino on top of the career pack.

Justa screamed and scissored sideways through the alley, leaping over burning debris and ducking low to avoid the hot black smoke. But Gleeson couldn't move out of the way fast enough, and he was crushed like a bug as the building collapsed on top of him. Once the games were over, it would take hours of digging for the gamemakers to retrieve his body.

 _Gleeson Pontes, District 1 Male: 8th, Killed by Falling Building, Day 10_

A few seconds after the dust settled, Cecelia managed to climb out of the rubble. She flew in a random direction, breaking away from the career pack for good.

Only Rhubarb was left at the site of the fallen wooden building. A falling plank of wood had crushed her leg and another long metal bar was pinning her opposite foot to the ground. Rhubarb was mortally injured, and she would have died soon enough even if the fire failed to spread to her. The fire did reach Rhubarb eventually, and she was unable to run as she was baked to a crisp.

 _Rhubarb Verde, District 1 Female: 7th, Killed by Fire, Day 10_

As the night of Day 10 turned into the morning of Day 11, the Great Fire of London raged on. The six surviving tributes had all found some kind of safety for the time being. Justa ducked into a farmhouse that was far away from the rest of the flaming city, hoping the fire couldn't spread to a place so secluded. Arroyo took shelter in the cold stone cathedral, which he hoped was damp enough to keep the fire out. He locked the door shut and waited for the fire to pass. Boa and Jacoma picked a direction and sprinted as fast as their legs could carry him. The heat from the humungous inferno pulsed against the backs of their necks as they ran. When they reached the more rural areas of the city, Boa and Jacoma collapsed in an area of damp grass and prayed that the horrible disaster would end soon. Cecelia clutched her machete in hand at all times, fearing that she might need it if she encountered any other tributes. Cecelia wound her way through the streets toward the "richer" looking houses. She figured that they would be more well-made and more fire resistant. Cecelia made her home in a large mansion and filled a bucket with water from the sink. Cecelia carried this bucket with her everywhere she went. Violet thundered into the cathedral. Arroyo, who was already inside, heard her coming and shoved himself into a cupboard. Violet went about her business, completely oblivious to the fact that Arroyo was ten feet away shoved in the small storage cupboard.

Day 11 came about with two new deaths. It took the gamemaker team an incredible amount of work to make their recreation of the Great Fire as identical as possible to the original. This required them to extinguish the flames in some places or bolster them on in others to encourage them to spread in the proper patterns and distances.

Violet couldn't leave the stone cathedral and paced around anxiously. She was running dangerously low on water and food and threw open a storage closet hoping there would be some inside. She screamed when she saw Arroyo hidden inside the cupboard.

"How long have you been in there?" Violet demanded.

"Maybe a day," Arroyo estimated. "You're not going to kill me, are you?"

"Not yet. Let's have a truce."

And so they did. They paced around the building, engaged in conversation and trying to distract themselves the destruction and death that was happening all around them. It was both Violet and Arroyo's understanding that the stone structure couldn't be harmed by the fire. However, they were quite mistaken. The building was held up by a wooden skeletal frame, and, as soon as that frame was burnt away…

Arroyo screamed as a stone fell from the ceiling and landed with a thud at his side. Violet and Arroyo both sped toward the nearest exit as the entire building began collapsing around them. The air was filled with dust as pieces broke away from the rocks when they clanged against each other and against the ground. Violet fumbled with the lock but couldn't find the key. She had left it a ways back in the cathedral. She ran back to go grab it, but she never did. A stone the size of a large dog came firing toward the ground.

"Look out!" Arroyo warned. Violet swerved to one side, but she wasn't fast enough. Her torso was crushed under the rock. Blood gushed everywhere like water out of a broken water balloon. Violet was dead in seconds.

 _Violet Braiden, District 11 Female: 6th, Killed by Falling Rock, Day 11_

Arroyo pounded at the door with all of his might, but it wouldn't open; the wood was too strong for his small body to break. In less than a quarter of an hour, poor Arroyo was crushed under the collapsing cathedral just like Violet.

 _Arroyo Bronz, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Collapsing Building, Day 11_

Day 12 had two more deaths. Cecelia fled to the countryside, far away from the burning London. It was the only safe place left. Knowing what the gamemakers wanted her to do, she hunted with her machete for the entire day.

Boa and Jacoma wandered across the grass, trying to avert their gaze from the blazing buildings to their left. A few minutes before nightfall, the duo came across the farmhouse that Justa was hiding in. Justa saw them out the window and ducked behind a bale of hay, ready to kill them once they entered.

The two allies cautiously walked inside. They didn't have time to breathe before Justa leapt out of nowhere and tackled them. Jacoma screamed and wiggled sideways. Finally free from Justa's grasp, she smacked her in the face as hard as she could. Wincing, Justa got back to her feet. She spun around, but Boa was there. Boa thrust her axe upward, casting it several inches into Justa's torso.

The 2 girl collapsed to the ground, and, with her last ounces of energy, fired a single arrow into Boa's body. Jacoma caught her ally Boa as she fell. Justa fell spread out onto the hay, losing blood dangerously quickly.

 _Justa Bardell, District 2 Female: 4th, Killed by Boa, Day 12_

Justa's final arrow had done a great deal of damage to Boa. The once-powerful 7 girl was curled up on the ground, wiggling around and trying to dislodge the arrow from her body. Jacoma stood by helplessly for nearly four hours as she died, praying that her family would be alright.

 _Boa Xi, District 7 Female: 3rd, Killed by Justa, Day 12_

The top two had been finalized, consisting of Cecelia and Jacoma. Jacoma was terrified but practiced with her knife for the entirety of Day 13 to prepare for the finale. Cecelia was a fierce warrior with her machete, cutting up the grass and burying the weapon into tree stumps and hay bales.

By Day 14, the Great Fire of London had ended. Where the grand city of London had once stood was an ugly black landscape that looked straight out of a science fiction novel. The few buildings that were still standing looked as if they might fall any second. The silence was complete.

Cecelia and Jacoma met up at the farmhouse around noon on Day 14, and they clashed. Jacoma's adrenaline was forcing her to fight both smarter and harder with her knife. She was trying to catch Cecelia off-guard and then disarm her of her machete, leaving herself free to go in for the kill.

But there was a reason Cecelia scored a ten. She was a much more skilled warrior than Jacoma. In less than a minute, she flung her blade into Jacoma's shoulder. The girl careened sideways with pain, clutching her shoulder until Cecelia tore the knife out. Jacoma fell to the ground and writhed in agony.

Cecelia knelt beside the dying Jacoma and whispered her words of comfort.

"It's going to be alright, Jacoma," Cecelia reassured her softly. "There's nothing to worry about."

Cecelia stopped to think for a second. Jacoma wasn't just a number on the gamemakers' computer screen. She was a real human being. It was the least Cecelia could do to give her a dignified death. Cecelia began to sing.

 _Deep in the meadow, under the willow,  
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow,  
Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes,  
And when again they open, the sun will rise._

 _Here it's safe, and here it's warm,  
Here the daisies guard you from every harm,  
Here your dreams are sweet, and tomorrow brings them true,  
Here is the place where I love you._

 _Jacoma Smith, District 9 Female: 2nd, Killed by Cecelia, Day 14_

"Cecelia Rieffel of District 8, you are the victor of the sixtieth annual Hunger Games!" Feodore cheered heartily.

Cecelia just wiped a tear from her eye and stared at the scene of desolation all around her.

 _Cecelia Rieffel, District 8 Female: Victor of the Sixtieth Hunger Games, Day 14_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 8 was overjoyed to finally receive another victor. Their last victor had been Woof of the thirteenth games (forty-seven years ago!) and they were glad to reset the counter to zero. Woof himself was glad to have Cecelia to help him, as he was getting extremely overwhelmed caring for so many tributes.

Cecelia moved into the Victor's Village of District 8, occupying the second house.

Nothing of note happened during her Victory Tour.

Cecelia would go down in history books as one of the most beloved Hunger Games victors of all time. The way she had given such a solemn goodbye to Jacoma, whom she had never interacted with beforehand, warmed the hearts of people all across the nation. As time progressed, Cecelia would become Panem's mother, then Panem's grandmother, and eventually Panem's great-grandmother. She would live to the astounding age of one-hundred thirteen, dying from a stroke a few days into the one-hundred fifty-sixth annual Hunger Games. She would marry and have three biological children, though she would adopt several more before she flowered into old age. Her motherly physique would often be compared to that of Mags Flanagan, the victor of the eleventh Hunger Games, and the two women would become the best of friends. Cecelia would go on to play a leading role at Mags' funeral and would even walk several of her adopted children down the aisle.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Cecelia settles into her new home in the Victor's Village of District 8.

Lyme Mabbett gives birth to a baby boy, but he dies mere hours into his life.

Lily Eckel bears twin sons, Soy and Peter.

Rye Boyum, the victor of the forty-fourth annual Hunger Games, dies from liver disease.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)

* * *

 **A/N: The sixth Hunger Games decade comes to a close. Here is Cecelia! I hope you've enjoyed reading her. This chapter turned out to be a good thousand words longer than I typically post, just because there was so much to describe with the fire going on and such.**

 **Anyway, how'd you like the appearance of Rue's lullaby here? Or shall I say Jacoma's lullaby?**

 **Cecelia later! Sorry for that pun. Okay I'll leave XD**


	62. The 61st Hunger Games

**The 61st Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

After the kills and thrills of the previous year, much of the Capitol was curious to see how Feodore Elliot would follow up his masterpiece. Many were quickly growing a liking toward his "natural disaster" arenas, and there was little doubt that this year's arena would follow the same formula. President Coriolanus Snow ruled Panem for another year, poisoning whoever objected him. While previous years had had their fair share of rebellion, the sixty-first year post dark days passed with almost no disobedience in the districts whatsoever. Feodore must have been doing a good job subduing the districts and distracting the Capitol to keep the nation so calm.

This year's arena was similar to the arena of the year prior in that it took place in a human settlement. The arena was modeled after a typical suburban town from southern District 11, in a place once known as Louisiana. The cornucopia was in the town square. Its weapons were sharp and sleek. Roads wound every which way, most of them gravel and only a few properly paved. Houses, most of them one-storied, lined the streets on each side, with bright green lawns. Smaller roads split off from the main streets and led into more secluded areas of the town, hidden by trees. Little did anyone know that a large hurricane was coming toward the town. Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest hurricanes in world history. It lasted eight days in 2005. The hurricane was responsible for an estimated 1,500 deaths and the damage of billions of dollars' worth of property. The high winds (of which some reach a whopping 175 miles per hour!) weren't the only threat. The flooding that resulted from the hurricane would pose trouble for the tributes as well.

The careers were back to normal, reverting to the typical six-career model after the insanity of a pack the year prior. District 1's tributes were more supple and graceful than anything else. The male was shier than most and preferred to lie back while the stronger careers did the dirty work, though he liked to ambush and outsmart his prey. He was also one of the few openly homosexual tributes. The girl had a playful and chaotic aura to her. She was also incredibly beautiful and preferred knives, while her partner fancied swords. District 2's tributes were both fierce fighters that were confident and boastful enough to get the attention of the audience. The male was cocky and a massive overachiever, though he was the youngest career and only scored a nine. His youth didn't hold him back much, as one might expect. The girl was steely and icy-cold and didn't seem to give a crap about the pre-games festivities. She was mysterious and intriguing, making much of the Capitol like her. After providing two atrocious tributes the year before, District 4 was back at the task of putting forth two of their strongest fighters. The boy was your typical assured and confident career, though he preferred brass knuckles, a unique weapon. The girl had a very exotic beauty to her. She liked whips and tried to flirt with some of the career boys in training. She came off as a bit of an air-head to the audience, but she still earned a spectacular ten and four-to-one odds. Their training scores were average enough: two tens, two nines, and one eight.

There were only a few outlier standouts this year, but they were good ones. Itsuki of 7 was a karate master that had earned a black belt, and she was skilled with katanas and hatchets. Vulpini of 10 was a fantastic warrior with knives. Though he wasn't as cocky as the careers, he would still put up some of the strongest competition during the games. Two eights were scored as well. Sylvan of 7 had a playful smile and was silly and charismatic, and he liked serrated knives. Danton from District 12 was massive and muscular. He was one of the District 12's best chances at winning in ages, and many hoped he could take home the victor's crown. The rest of the tributes scored between seven and three in their private sessions. There was another standout coming from District 6 this year. The girl from 6 had a rare mental condition. Her condition caused her to only be able to talk about herself in third person. Her parents couldn't afford treatment and took the simpler and cheaper route of changing her name to I. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tribute:

District 1: Goldton Philips, 16, (10) 4-1 and Annalace Stanton, 17, (9) 6-1

District 2: Cliff Hester, 15, (9) 7-1 and Valerie Easton, 18, (10) 3-1

District 3: Technetium Hiremath, 18, (7) 14-1 and Via Pass, 17, (5) 21-1

District 4: Everest Cedargren, 18, (8) 9-1 and Kathleen Shostakovich, 18, (10) 4-1

District 5: Henry Mellon, 13, (7) 19-1 and Ohma Schoon, 16, (4) 33-1

District 6: Paxton Arduini, 16, (6) 20-1 and I Williamson, 18, (7) 15-1

District 7: Sylvan Kale, 18, (8) 10-1 and Itsuki Kerezaki, 18, (9) 7-1

District 8: Azlon Gemberling, 17, (4) 31-1 and Venice Martin, 15, (3) 46-1

District 9: Domino Mullaly, 18, (7) 16-1 and Lyra Presnell, 18, (6) 19-1

District 10: Vulpini Fletcher, 17, (9) 6-1 and Cowa Benn, 17, (6) 18-1

District 11: Wattle Mohanram, 16, (5) 23-1 and Kimbra Zitkus, 14, (4) 34-1

District 12: Danton Vale, 18, (8) 11-1 and Cessair Thomsen, 18, (6) 17-1

HGBO Bets: 11% on Valerie and Kathleen, 9% on Goldton, 7% on Annalace and Cliff, 6% on Everest, Itsuki, and Vulpini, 5% on Sylvan and Danton, 4% on Technetium, Henry, I, and Domino, 3% on Paxton, Lyra, Cowa, and Cessair, 2% on Via and Wattle, 1% or less on Ohma, Azlon, Venice, and Kimbra.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

It was an agreeable temperature as the twenty-four tributes rose up into the arena atop their pedestals. Without any human inhabitants besides the tributes, the place seemed strangely quiet and empty. Two tributes fled from the get-go (Via from 3 and Danton from 12). The other tributes made the decision to run head-on into the fray in hopes of obtaining valuable supplies.

Valerie lead the charge by a substantial amount. By the time she reached the horn, she was a good twenty meters ahead of the other careers. She picked up a sword and thrust it upward into the gut of a nearby girl. Valerie twisted the blade to and fro as she drove it through her body, splitting through organs and dislodging bones. By the time she fell to the ground with a loud sound, she was dead.

 _Lyra Presnell, District 9 Female: 24th, Killed by Valerie, Bloodbath_

Goldton, ravenous to thin the crop of outliers, scooped up a spear that lay in grass about thirty yards from his pedestal. It seemed like he was violating his "sit back and let the others do the killing" rule for the bloodbath. Goldton jabbed his spear outward and skewered it through the chest of a small boy. The boy groaned and fell backward, his form limp.

 _Henry Mellon, District 5 Male: 23rd, Killed by Goldton, Bloodbath_

Annalace had collected two knives when she decided to go in for her first kill. Holding one knife in each hand, she quietly approached the weeping boy from District 9. The career girl stabbed one of her knives into the base of the boy's neck. He howled and turned to run, but Annalace lashed out with her other knife, slashing open his upper abdomen. District 9 was now officially out of the running.

 _Domino Mullaly, District 9 Male: 22nd, Killed by Annalace, Bloodbath_

Kathleen grabbed a whip and swung it at her side as she searched for her first victim. Her eyes landed on a girl cowering at the base of the cornucopia, bleeding out from a sword wound inflicted by Valerie. The girl was helpless as Kathleen approached her and slammed the leather whip into her back. The skin broke instantly. Blood drizzled from the girl's raw skin as Kathleen continued to degrade her flesh with the strong whip.

 _Venice Martin, District 8 Female: 21st, Killed by Valerie and Kathleen, Bloodbath_

Everest found the set of brass knuckles he had requested from the gamemakers sitting in an open chest a ways into the cornucopia. He fit them snugly onto his real knuckles and leapt toward the nearest boy. Everest crushed the boy's windpipe with two hard blows of his lethal brass knuckles. The boy choked and clawed at his throat, but it was to no avail. He died swiftly after the 4 boy rammed the brass knuckles into his head, sending severe trauma through his skull and brain.

 _Azlon Gemberling, District 8 Male: 20th, Killed by Everest, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Goldton chased a tall girl away from the cornucopia with his spear. She ran for almost half a mile before Goldton caught up to her. With all of the strength he could muster, the 1 boy cast the spear into her back. Screaming, she fell against the wall of a nearby house, dragging her blood down the exterior wall as she quickly died from organ failure.

 _Cessair Thomsen, District 12 Female: 19th, Killed by Goldton, Bloodbath_

Cliff and Valerie of District 2 teamed up to kill their next victims. Cliff watched as two young girls climbed into a chest and closed the lid behind them. Cliff and Valerie sprinted in their direction and threw open the ceiling of the chest. They screamed and leapt to their feet. Cliff killed the first of the two girls in mere seconds, flinging one of his throwing knives into her chest. The other girl was a bit harder to kill. The two careers had to corner her against the interior wall of the horn, after which they ran forth and tore her apart with their weapons.

 _Ohma Schoon, District 5 Female: 18th, Killed by Cliff, Bloodbath_

 _Kimbra Zitkus, District 11 Female: 17th, Killed by Cliff and Valerie, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Annalace chased a boy in circles with her knife, laughing and taunting him as tears ran down his cheeks. The boy finally tripped and fell to the ground with a thud. Annalace thundered toward him and flung the first of her knives into the back of his head. Just for good measure, she buried the second knife into the small of his back.

 _Wattle Mohanram, District 11 Male: 16th, Killed by Annalace, Bloodbath_

Everest made the final kill. He rammed his brass knuckles into a strong boy's chest, bringing several of his ribs close to cracking. The boy careened backward with shock and was unable to move as the 4 boy flattened his windpipe and crunched the bone in his neck.

 _Technetium Hiremath, District 3 Male: 15th, Killed by Everest, Bloodbath_

The career pack was unscathed, unlike some years in which they had faced losses during the bloodbath. The allies regrouped at and took hold of the cornucopia. Kathleen hunted the nearby streets just to make sure there weren't any nearby outliers to ambush them or take their supplies. Meanwhile, Annalace and Valerie sorted the weapons in the cornucopia. Annalace was trying to be casual and make conversation with Valerie, but she refused to respond and stayed steely and focused on the task at hand. Cliff and Everest sat in the horn and talked about the kills they had made. They started organizing the food rations once they ran out of things to talk about. Goldton was supposed to be pillaging the dead bodies of their supplies, but he got bored and ventured away into the town. He didn't return until hours later, after the careers had left to go hunting. They had left Cliff behind to guard the horn, and Cliff and Goldton did yoga and chatted about their lives back in the districts.

The outliers, of which there were eight, scattered across the arena. Via ran down one of the broader streets before coming to a stop in front of a large brick house. Via ducked into the doorway and hid behind a bookcase that was tucked diagonally into a corner of the living room. Paxton secured a belt of throwing knives around his waist and wove between buildings. At nightfall, he found himself near a house with a large green lawn. Paxton strolled into the house, climbed down into the basement, and placed furniture over the door so nobody could get to him. I had received a bountiful turnout from the bloodbath: a meat cleaver and dagger as well as a packet of medicine. She travelled for a couple of hours before climbing over a fence into the town park. I exercised on the jungle gym before climbing into the cylindrical slide to sleep. Sylvan and Itsuki of 7 had allied prior to games. With a nine and eight going for them, they received several sponsor gifts before the day was out. By the time night fell, the duo had two axes as well as a few liters of clean water. Sylvan and Itsuki walked into a convenience store and stuffed their faces with chips and flavored drinks. Vulpini's collection of supplies consisted of a knife, rope, and night-vision glasses. He made himself at home in a small corner restaurant in the men's bathroom. Cowa had firewood and matches, but her mentor Margaret sent her a note to refrain from starting a fire unless it was absolutely necessary. Wanting to place as much distance between herself and the careers as possible on the first day, Cowa jogged until she arrived at a small cluster of trees. She was too exhausted to move on and slid down against a thick-trunked oak tree. Danton walked into a small one-storied house and climbed a ladder into a rickety and dusty attic. There was complete peace in the arena as day turned into night, but that would change very soon.

The morning of Day 2, Vulpini woke up to an unpleasant surprise. A few hours earlier, the gamemakers had caused one of the toilets in the men's bathroom to overflow, causing the bathroom to flood with toilet water. Vulpini got to his feet, his clothes sopping wet, and trudged out of the bathroom. The second he was out of the bathroom, the 10 boy heard footsteps from outside the diner. In a panic, he ducked under one of the tables. The tablecloth hung over the edges of the table enough to conceal him underneath.

The situation couldn't be worse for Vulpini. He peeked through a hole in the tablecloth and saw the four hunting careers come inside. Annalace, Valerie, Everest, and Kathleen set down their supplies and made themselves at home in the diner. All the while, Vulpini was paralyzed with terror underneath the table.

"I think it's time we eat breakfast," he heard Annalace say.

And the careers all sat down… _at the table he was hiding under._

Vulpini made himself as small as possible so that none of their feet would touch him. He was scared out of his mind as the four careers ate and chatted all around him, unbeknownst to his presence. Nearly ten minutes later, Vulpini lost his balance and toppled sideways onto Everest's feet. Everest yelped with surprise and backed away from the table. Vulpini rolled out from underneath screaming.

He leapt to his feet to run, but Everest was faster. The career boy slammed his brass knuckles into his neck. Vulpini reeled, clutching his throat. He couldn't breathe for several seconds, and he recovered just as Annalace's knives entered his chest. He collapsed, wheezing and coughing up blood, and he was dead in minutes.

 _Vulpini Fletcher, District 10 Male: 14th, Killed by Everest and Annalace, Day 2_

Not much happened as Day 2 wore on. Paxton left the basement he was hiding in and started combing through the streets in search of valuable supplies. At the end of the day, he couldn't find his way back home and settled in a storage closet in a different house. Sylvan and Itsuki walked out of the convenience store and hunted for outliers with their axes. They came across Cowa around six in the evening. A long chase ensued. During the chase, Cowa dropped her firewood and matches, and the District 7 allies were happy to pick them up as their own.

The first half of the next day, Day 3, passed without incident. Sylvan and Itsuki were disheartened after Cowa escaped them the day before, and they were ravenous to find at least one other outlier before the day was over.

A few minutes after noon, Sylvan and Itsuki came across the park that I was hiding in. The 6 girl was swinging across the jungle gym, sometimes stopping to hang from her legs and rock back and forth. Sylvan and Itsuki lofted their axes overhead and sprinted toward I. I screamed and fell off of the jungle gym, landing on her head. This sent her into a daze, and she was unable to see for a few seconds. She just picked a direction and sprinted over the grass as fast as she could. Luckily, she was a few precious strides ahead of the Sevens, but they were gaining quickly.

Once she couldn't run any further, I turned around to face Sylvan and Itsuki with her meat cleaver and dagger. Sylvan pounced toward her, swinging his axe through the air. Shaking with terror, I thundered out of the way. Sylvan threw himself at the empty ground like a fool and came skidding to a stop.

Before Sylvan could get back to his feet, I leapt beside him and drove her meat cleaver into his back. Sylvan's blood sloshed down his sides and over the ground, dying swiftly and leaving behind his ally to face I alone.

 _Sylvan Kale, District 7 Male: 13th, Killed by I, Day 3_

Enraged, Itsuki chased after I for nearly an hour. But I finally managed to escape, shinnying up a tree nimbly, like a squirrel. But it turned out that the girl hadn't thought her plan through. Itsuki planted her axe into the tree three times.

The tree started to tip sideways. Before either of them knew it, the tree was toppling like a domino. Figuring she had better abandon ship, I leapt off of the falling trunk. She landed right next to a frozen Itsuki, and, before the 7 girl could fight back, planted her dagger into her neck. Itsuki roared and fell to the ground. She tried to swing her axe, but it was too heavy for her to man with so little energy. I had killed two of the strongest outliers in the span of less than two hours.

 _Itsuki Kerezaki, District 7 Female: 12th, Killed by I, Day 3_

As Day 3 came to a close, a light rain shower swept over the town. None of the sinks in the arena actually worked, and many were relieved to have their thirst finally quenched. There was no flooding, as the houses were sealed well and there wasn't much rain anyway. Annalace, Valerie, Everest, and Kathleen were reminded by the shower of how low their supplies were, and they ventured back to the cornucopia. They arrived at nightfall and met up with Goldton and Cliff, who were engaged in conversation as they sorted supplies.

The career pack departed at noon on Day 4, leaving Annalace to guard the supplies. Cliff and Goldton were happy to be hunting once more after so many days of inactivity at the horn, though they began to grow exhausted as they weren't used to the physical strain of the entire day of hunting.

The pack was about to stop for their noon meal when they heard footsteps from nearby. They bolted to alertness and tightened their grasp around their weapons. A young face poked out of the doorway of a nearby building. Paxton had heard the careers approaching and barely had time to duck into the building before they saw him. But he was so panicked that he collapsed in a very awkward position, and he could only stay still for so long. His shuffling into a more uncomfortable pose was what the careers had heard. They bolted through the door and trapped Paxton inside, and there was no escape.

Valerie sprinted at the head of the onrush. She chased after a weeping Paxton with her sword, up stairways and through hallways. Less than half a minute later, Paxton came to a dead end. Valerie held her blade straight outward and ran forward. The sword was driven into Paxton's stomach. He collapsed, moaning and gurgling. The other careers caught up to Valerie just as the boy died. They took a quick moment to pilfer his throwing knives and water supply before leaving the building to search for more victims.

 _Paxton Arduini, District 6 Male: 11th, Killed by Valerie, Day 4_

On Day 5, there was a lot of movement but little action. Via raided the kitchen of the house she was hiding in. It didn't hold much food, but it was enough to keep her satisfied for the time being. Via's inactivity was beginning to peeve the audience, and her mentor sent her a note to move soon. I was rather inactive after her killing of both Sylvan and Itsuki. She stayed put in the women's bathroom in the park center. Cowa had zero supplies; she had dropped them while Sylvan and Itsuki were chasing her a couple days before. Knowing she had little chance of survival if she tried to make do by herself, Cowa set off to hunt. Her only weapon was a medium-sized rock, but it was better than nothing. Danton stayed as still as a stone in the attic of the large house he was living in. The gamemakers wanted him to move, so they rattled the house back and forth, causing plaster and dust to rain down from the ceiling. Danton was too stubborn to heed their warnings. This would ultimately spell his downfall.

That evening, a particularly strong shaking of the house caused small pieces of debris to flutter to the floor of the attic more than ever before. Danton coughed as he inhaled the dangerous stuff. The dust continued to fall, filling the air and making it so he couldn't breathe. Danton fought his way to the exit, but he couldn't make it fast enough. Soon, he collapsed to his knees and elbows, gasping and choking. It was a rather un-flattering death for the boy who was District 12's best chance at victory in ages.

 _Danton Vale, District 12 Male: 10th, Killed by Suffocation, Day 5_

As Day 6 came about, the first signs of the quickly approaching Hurricane Katrina came into sight. The tributes all reacted to these differently. The career pack (of which all six members were still surviving and thriving) made their way to the horn as soon as possible. Many of their mentors sent them notes that intense flooding would be coming their way. Wanting to preempt the flooding, they created six rows of touching crates and put their sleeping bags on top. They also gathered their most water-sensitive supplies and placed them on top of boxes and cases to keep them from getting wet. A sponsor sent Via an urgent note. The note instructed her to get to high ground as soon as she could. Heeding the warning, Via left the house she had been hiding in for nearly a week and took up a search for the tallest building in the town. She found a library near the outskirts of the town and climbed up its staircase to the second story. I saw the swirling vortex of clouds barreling her way and frantically ran to shelter. She slipped into the visitor's center of the park and barricaded the doors with benches to keep them from opening during the storm. Cowa requested a small heavy ball from the sponsors. She placed the ball on the ground. Whichever way the ball rolled, Cowa walked the other way. In this way, she could find the place of highest ground in the arena. She rested on top a hill at nightfall, bracing for the worst.

The hurricane made landfall shortly after midnight on Day 7. The torrential rainfall began immediately. Sheets of cold rain pelted toward the earth. The world was like a sponge, absorbing the rain and keeping any real flooding from occurring. But even the earth has a limit of how much water it can absorb.

As Day 7 turned into Day 8, water began to build up in the lower areas of the arena. The careers woke up at dawn on Day 8 to an unpleasant surprise. The land surrounding them had flooded with a good foot of cold water. The six trained tributes rolled up their sleeping bags and gathered their supplies. Valerie pointed toward a two-story house that was nearby. They trekked through the strong wind to the house and walked inside. Annalace wanted to sleep on the living room couch, reasoning that it was closest the exit and they would be able to cut down intruders quickly. Valerie interjected, however. If any greater flooding occurred, she suggested, they might drown in their sleep. Cliff pointed out a stairway, and the six sopping wet tributes climbed up the steps. After one step, the water was barely up to their knees. Another step, and only their ankles were submerged. One more stair upward, and they were out of the water. They settled in a game room on the second floor. Everest played a combat simulation game on the gaming computer while his allies tried to sleep. Eventually Goldton told him to stop because he was making too much sound, and he was forced to turn off the game and sleep just like his allies.

The three remaining outlier girls were facing immediate trouble. Water started seeping into the library Via was living inside of. It was in one of the lower-grounded areas of the town. By the time Day 8 came to a close, the entire first story was flooded. Winds howled their horrible songs, and growls of thunder shook the building. Pretty much all of the town had lost electricity. In the pitch-black of the library, Via read books with a flashlight to keep herself occupied. It seemed that I hadn't thought her plan through that well. Water was leaking into the visitor's center of the park despite I's best efforts to keep the waters out. Vowing she would find a better place to live after a good night's rest, I slept on top of a table. Out in the open, Cowa was miserable. The wind blew raindrops into her face that stung like bullets, and she was so chilled and wet she looked just about ready to explode. Cowa trudged through the floodwaters and found a house with multiple stories. One of the walls had caved in from hurricane damage a few hours earlier. Cowa locked herself in a small office and spun on the green wheelie chair until she fell asleep.

The career pack was sleeping relatively peacefully the wee morning hours of Day 9. But, around five, Annalace woke up screaming. Through the night, the floodwaters had risen by several feet, weakening the structures of buildings and trees. A nearby tree was toppling sideways and was mere seconds from hitting the house when Annalace's screams finally woke her allies. Annalace scrambled to a safer area of the house just as the heavy tree trunk broke through the ceiling. Goldton and Valerie scrambled to their feet and leapt out of the way of the falling trunk.

Kathleen was not as lucky. She didn't notice the coming danger. Kathleen didn't even flinch as the falling tree trunk crushed her to a pulp, breaking all the way through the two stories of the house. Once the games were over, the gamemakers would have to gather her remains in little bits and pieces to be sent home to District 4.

 _Kathleen Shostakovich, District 4 Female: 9th, Killed by Falling Tree, Day 9_

That left the final eight: Goldton Philips and Annalace Stanton from District 1, Cliff Hester and Valerie Easton from District 2, Via Pass from District 3, Everest Cedargren from District 4, I Williamson from District 6, and Cowa Benn from District 10.

With so much of its structure destroyed, the house the careers were in began to collapse.

"Run for your lives!" Goldton screamed, bolting toward the stairway. Annalace, Cliff, Valerie, and Everest followed. As they ran down the stairs, nails popped beneath them like gunfire. Walls collapsed and were swept away by the floodwater. The waters rushed in to fill the gaping wound. Cliff leapt off of the stairs and landed with a splash in the neck-high water. Cliff swam to the exit as fast as he could. Valerie followed, and the District 2 tributes clutched onto each other as they navigated their way through the disaster scene. Everest popped himself out of a window and swam expertly to safety.

Annalace and Goldton were trapped back inside of the house as it collapsed on top of them, sending out huge pulsing waves of displaced water. They were buried under the wreckage and died fairly quickly.

 _Annalace Stanton, District 1 Female: 8th, Killed by Collapsing House, Day 9_

 _Goldton Philips, District 1 Male: 7th, Killed by Collapsing House, Day 9_

Days 10 and 11 passed deathless. Hurricane Katrina continued to batter the arena and the tributes. Great arms of lightning shot from the sky and caused the world to rumble violently. The wind and rain were awful, and the flooding only got worse. Cliff and Valerie clutched their weapons and the few supplies they were carrying. The District 2 tributes waded together toward the areas of the town that hadn't been damaged much by the dreadful hurricane. They regularly lost each other, and they had to fight with all of the strength they could muster to keep from being separated by the currents in the water. Everest had been separated from his career allies by the storm. His brass knuckles were also lost, and he spent the days hopelessly searching. He didn't know what he was searching for, but it was better than staying still.

Day 12 came about with a single death. The twelfth day saw the strongest winds yet. Even a few of the sturdiest houses in the town faced severe damage and destruction from the vicious Hurricane Katrina. Cowa was so terrified that she couldn't move. As water sloshed into the small office room she was hiding in, she pulled up her legs onto the green plastic wheelie chair.

The house had already caved in somewhat from the storm, and continual damage caused the remaining areas to face trouble. Once enough of the supports had been worn away, the house crumbled to the ground. Cowa was napping when she felt the world falling around her. She screamed and ran for the exit, but she couldn't make it fast enough before the house crashed down onto the ground. Cowa was sent unconscious instantaneously. The flood swept her limp form away, carrying it downhill and drowning her the rest of the way to death.

 _Cowa Benn, District 10 Female: 6th, Killed by Collapsing House and Drowning, Day 12_

As anyone who has ever learned about hurricanes knows, every hurricane has an eye. The eye is a miniscule area of total calm in the center of the storm. On Day 13 in the arena, the five surviving tributes experienced the passing of the eye. Almost immediately, the rain and wind stopped. The sun poked its way through the clouds and shone its brilliant rays over the world.

Cliff and Valerie didn't let the glorious calm distract them. They took careful advantage of the moment of peace by travelling. They hadn't made a kill in forever and knew that the Capitol would be growing bored of them. They went to high ground, where they hoped the outliers would be, and hunted for the remainder of the eye. The storm had separated Everest from all of his supplies, and he was all by himself as he prowled through the un-flooded areas of the town in search of food and clean water. The only two remaining outliers (Via and I) came across each other at one in the afternoon on Day 13. Instead of killing each other, the two weary girls allied. Via and I scavenged the buildings and gathered weapons. Via gathered steak knives from a kitchen whereas I collected jackets from a closet to keep herself and Via warm.

Cliff and Valerie continued walking through the streets, staying away from taller buildings and power lines for fear they might collapse and kill them. A few minutes before nightfall, they spotted Everest from 4 coming around a nearby corner. Everest was so wet and dirty that he was unrecognizable. The District 2 tributes didn't recognize him as a fellow career as they pounced toward him.

Valerie tackled him to the ground, driving the tip of her sword into his neck.

"But… I'm Everest," Everest choked out, but his words were unintelligible. Valerie thrust the blade all of the way into his neck. It was only after the killing was done that Valerie realized she had killed a career. She felt awful but didn't want to ruin her reputation of being steely cold, so she tried her best to put the event behind her as she and Cliff settled down for the night.

 _Everest Cedargren, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Valerie, Day 13_

Hurricane Katrina was back in full-force by the time Day 13 fully transitioned into Day 14. The final four tributes were fractured into two groups of two (Cliff and Valerie in one, Via and I in the other). Feodore was hoping to drive all four tributes together for the finale. He increased levels of the floodwater by nearly ten feet. Cliff and Valerie saw the rising waters and knew that it was the gamemakers' sign for them to get moving. They trekked to a single grassy hill near the edge of the arena and set up shelter as they waited for the others to arrive. Via and I needed a fair bit more persuasion. Feodore collapsed several nearby buildings, forcing the two girls to run toward the two District 2 tributes. They couldn't make it all of the way in one day, and they stopped in a small shop to sleep, knowing the finale was on the horizon.

On Day 15, Via and I finished their trip toward Cliff and Valerie. They all had some sort of weapon. Cliff had throwing knives, Valerie a sword (together they had a bag of various supplies from the cornucopia), and Via and I held two kitchen knives each. The two duos spotted each other a few minutes after dawn, and they clashed atop the hill, metal clanging against metal.

Via ran toward Cliff, whereas I occupied herself trying to take down Valerie. The duel between I and Valerie was going horribly, and the winner was immediately obvious. I tossed one of her knives like a projectile. Valerie expertly swung her sword and knocked it out of the way. The blade landed with a squishing sound in the sopping grass. I prepared to toss her second knife, but she wasn't fast enough. Valerie lunged forward, casting her sword into I's gut with all of her worldly strength. Her interior organs immediately began flooding with hot blood, and she collapsed, retching, and swiftly dying. Now, only three tributes remained.

 _I Williamson, District 6 Female: 4th, Killed by Valerie, Day 15_

Via and Cliff were dueling. Cliff used his knife like a stubby sword, swinging it through the air and trying to poke holes in his opponent. Via wasn't trained well and swung her knives randomly, trying to drive Cliff farther away from her.

Meanwhile, Valerie was doing something very odd. She was sifting through her bag of supplies, looking for something. After nearly a minute, she pulled out a little jar of purple fluid. Deadly poison.

Valerie raised her leg and kicked Via in the hip. The girl screamed and fell backward into the floodwater. Cliff was too shocked to move as Valerie knocked him down on top of Via.

Now that both of her final opponents were in the water, Valerie uncorked the bottle and poured the entire contents on top of them. The poison spread like a cloud through the water, eating away at their skin and causing their skin to turn an ugly green color. Via and Cliff scrambled to safety, but Valerie was there. She skewered her knife through Via's gut before tearing it out and burying it into Cliff's. The poison and sword wounds had weakened them so much that they were unable to fight back. Their blood melted together on the ground and they swiftly bled out, leaving behind a singular victor towering over them.

 _Via Pass, District 3 Female: 3rd, Killed by Valerie, Day 15_

 _Cliff Hester, District 2 Male: 2nd, Killed by Valerie, Day 15_

"Valerie Easton of District 2, you are the victor of the sixty-first annual Hunger Games!" Feodore cried.

Valerie raised her bloodstained sword into the air in gallant celebration of her victory.

 _Valerie Easton, District 2 Female: Victor of the Sixty-First Hunger Games, Day 15_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

There was no shortage of celebration in District 2. The district of masonry was elated to receive its fifteenth victor, and many would learn to love their Valerie. She was actually one of the less acclaimed District 2 victors in the Capitol, as she hadn't done much out of the ordinary during her games. But she was one of the most physically perfect, and many wealthy Capitol men were more than willing to pay the high victor's cost that Snow imposed.

Valerie's victory tour was nothing out the ordinary, though District 3 was a little sour.

She settled into the Victor's Village of District 2, the fifteenth victor to do so.

Valerie would live to the age of eighty-one, dying from breast cancer around the time of the one-hundred twenty-fourth annual Hunger Games. She would go on to marry a rich Capitol business tycoon, and they would have four children before getting divorced fifteen years afterward. Valerie would grow rather quiet and reserved in her old age. She was a nice enough lady but would ultimately be overshadowed by many of the flashier and more innovative District 2 victors.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Mags Flanagan adopts her eighth child, a young boy named Ocean.

Emily Pollick marries her fiancée, a nice man named Verde Salazar.

Mason Kittridge has his first child with his wife, a girl he calls Calla.

Amelia Spangler, the victor of the fourth annual Hunger Games, dies from a seizure.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Valerie! I hope you've enjoyed her for what she was, as in the end she wasn't much but another District 2 career victor. Sorry if this chapter isn't nearly as polished as some of my others. I guess I rushed a little to get it out today.**

 **Next up is a victor I've been looking forward to writing for quite some time—Enobaria! Stay tuned for her :D**


	63. The 62nd Hunger Games

**The 62nd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

With the events of the previous year still on their minds, the Capitol welcomed Feodore Elliot back for his fifth year as head gamemaker with hearty applause. None of his games had failed to entertain thus far, and this was a trend he and his team most certainly intended to continue. As Feodore worked tirelessly on the arena of the sixty-second Hunger Games, Coriolanus Snow faced the next of the many hurdles of his presidency. A few months before the games were set to begin, a group of two-hundred District 8 rebels set fire to a peacekeeper living facility. The peacekeepers all managed to escape without being killed in the fire, but several were slaughtered by the rebels waiting outside. Snow knew exactly what to do. He sent out some of his most trusted peacekeepers to kidnap fifty innocent District 8 children. These children were held prisoner in a crowded room together in the Capitol. Snow released this news with the message that the fifty children would not be returned to their families until they got back into order. Snow was one who knew how to keep his country bent to his will, and the rebellion stopped almost immediately. The children were all taken back to District 8 on a train and pushed out where their parents and loved ones were waiting for them. A few months later, twenty-four more would be taken, and twenty-three would never return…

After two consecutive years of bombarding his tributes with deadly natural disasters, Feodore decided to take a break and go for a more conventional games style. This year's tributes would find themselves in a desert with rolling dunes of sand. The cornucopia sat nestled between two tall sand dunes. It was made of sandstone, and its weapons were largely made of stone as well. Towering over the rest of the arena were three humungous stone pyramids—the Great Pyramids of Giza. Inside the pyramids were great treasures and resources, but the tributes would have to endure dangers to reach and obtain them. Feodore knew better than to leave his tributes without water in the desert. There were at least a dozen oases in the arena: clusters of palm trees, fruit plants, and greenery surrounding small water sources. Living in the arena were also ibex and camels. Temperatures were intense—eighty degrees Fahrenheit seemed to be the average temperature, though temperatures could reach as high as one-hundred degrees on hot days and as low as fifty degrees on cool nights.

The career pack this year was rather unstable; many of the members had rocky relationships with each other and there were several tributes competing for the role of leader. District 1 provided a classically beautiful pair. The boy was a gifted archer who could hit targets from hundreds of feet away, and he was able to laugh at most things and could have a great time in any situation. The girl was the best friend of Annalace Stanton, the District 1 female of the year prior. She was rather cold, fixated, and determined, and she could work magic with spears. District 2 put on a varied showing. The male was probably the weakest career, and the youngest at only sixteen. But he was tricksy and manipulative, which would no doubt give him an advantage in the games. The girl was spontaneous and flexible, and she was also one who loved adventure. She was actually from one of the poorest families of District 2, and her story was a very inspirational one. District 4 provided the strongest pair. The boy was a very curious creature; he could be playful or serious depending on the circumstances, and his energy levels seemed to change very spontaneously. The girl was undoubtedly the strongest tribute this year, as she was stunningly beautiful and one of District 4's fastest swimmers. The 1 boy, 2 girl, and 4 girl all thought they had the right to be the leader of the pack, and none were fair enough to suggest something reasonable like drawing lots. They all were mistrustful of each other, and the career pack seemed doomed to failure unless they could work something out. Their training scores were quite good: three tens and three nines.

This year had one of the weaker outlier batches, but there were still a few standouts. Orson of 10 was the only tribute to score higher than a seven. He was rather open, talkative, and agreeable, and knew the right times to crack jokes to make everyone like him. Sevens were earned by Ajax of 5, Laureth and Henna of 7, and Solstice of 11. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. Another standout came from District 8 this year. The girl, Bernadette, had jitters. In the training center, Bernadette walked toward the 2 girl to see what she was doing. Bernadette bumped into the girl's cart of throwing knives, and the cart topped over, crushing the career girl underneath. Several of the knives stabbed her in the back and neck, and the 2 girl swore in a fit of rage that Bernadette would be the first tribute she would get in the arena. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: Ajax Tiago of District 5, who volunteered in place of his brother. Another fact of note was that there were no twelve-year-old tributes in the games this year. Additionally, there were only two thirteen-year-olds and two fourteen-year-olds, making for a much lower number of sub-fifteen-year-old tributes than usual. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Brave Hager, 18, (10) 5-1 and Blossom Corbusier, 17, (9) 6-1

District 2: Hector Lozada, 16, (9) 7-1 and Enobaria Rigatti, 17, (10) 5-1

District 3: Switch Jackson-Hough, 18, (6) 21-1 and Mona Carman, 14, (3) 42-1

District 4: Ray Tribe, 17, (9) 6-1 and Danube Blanchard, 17, (10) 4-1

District 5: Ajax Tiago, 13, (7) 15-1 and Europa Tucker, 15, (5) 20-1

District 6: Pedal Cyders, 18, (5) 19-1 and Cowl Heckelman, 16, (4) 38-1

District 7: Laureth Stark, 17, (7) 14-1 and Henna Forte, 15, (7) 16-1

District 8: Carrickmacross Douglas, 14, (6) 22-1 and Bernadette Sam, 15, (6) 20-1

District 9: Vachel Grossi, 18, (5) 23-1 and Luna Wolfsy, 17, (4) 30-1

District 10: Orson Tipspin, 17, (8) 10-1 and Pippa Merple, 13, (3) 47-1

District 11: River Joshua, 16, (6) 19-1 and Solstice Fujii, 16, (7) 15-1

District 12: Carlo Rosetti, 15, (4) 32-1 and Semiquaver Anesko, 18, (4) 31-1

HGBO Bets: 11% on Danube, 9% on Brave and Enobaria, 7% on Blossom, Hector, and Ray, 6% on Orson, 5% on Ajax, Laureth, Henna, and Solstice, 4% on Switch, Carrickmacross, Bernadette, and River, 3% on Europa, Pedal, and Vachel, 1% or less on Mona, Cowl, Luna, Pippa, Carlo, and Semiquaver.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Dry, windswept sand swirled around the tributes as they stood on their pedestals waiting for the games to begin. The hot sun beat down, and the wind whistled over the sand like violin music. All of the tributes spotted the great stone pyramids surrounding them. Not expecting anything much of value to be provided by the arena itself, all twenty-four players decided to head into the bloodbath this year.

Danube sprinted at the head of the onrush, her auburn hair rippling behind her. She snatched up a bronze trident and quickly thrust the heavy prongs into a nearby girl's chest. The girl collapsed to the ground, panting and sniffling heavily until she died a few seconds later.

 _Mona Carman, District 3 Female: 24th, Killed by Danube, Bloodbath_

A few seconds later, Brave picked up a bow that sat in the hot sand about thirty yards from his pedestal. The career expertly nocked an arrow into the weapon and fired a volley of three arrows toward the nearest boy. One arrow lodged itself between two of his ribs, nearly piercing his lungs. The next two arrows found homes in his head and shoulder respectively, and he was pretty much toast from there.

 _Carlo Rosetti, District 12 Male: 23rd, Killed by Brave, Bloodbath_

Enobaria had clipped a belt of throwing knives around her waist when she tackled the nearest boy, a small one from District 8. Enobaria demanded that the boy tell him the location of his district partner, Bernadette. The boy choked out that he didn't know. He was no use for Enobaria. The 2 girl whipped out one of her knives and slashed it across his throat, drawing blood. He screamed and struggled to pry himself out from underneath Enobaria's weight, but it was a futile effort.

 _Carrickmacross Douglas, District 8 Male: 22nd, Killed by Enobaria, Bloodbath_

Enobaria's district partner, Hector, grabbed two knives before tackling two close-by girls to the ground. They collapsed in a heap, Hector on top of them. They tried to untangle their limbs before Hector could attack them, but they weren't fast enough. He drilled his knife into the torso of the nearer of the two girls before kicking her aside. The other girl was mere moments from getting to her feet when the second knife landed squarely in her heart.

 _Cowl Heckelman, District 6 Female: 21st, Killed by Hector, Bloodbath_

 _Europa Tucker, District 5 Female: 20th, Killed by Hector, Bloodbath_

Danube wrenched her trident out of her first victim's chest and fluidly attacked her next victim, a willowy boy from 7. Danube thrust the prongs of her trident into his neck. He reeled backward, stumbling over his own feet, before falling clumsily to the sand. Retching himself dry, Danube approached him and finished him off with one more quick stab.

 _Laureth Stark, District 7 Male: 19th, Killed by Danube, Bloodbath_

The two tributes from District 1 banded together to make their next kill. Brave held a bow firmly in hand, an arrow fit onto the string; whereas Blossom held a spear tightly in her grasp. The two careers crept toward a boy who was kneeling inside the cornucopia and crying as he tried to shove a package of water into a backpack. One of Brave's arrows flew past him and shattered on the wall behind him. The boy leapt to his feet to flee. Blossom ran forward with her spear, skewering it through his foreleg. That left Brave to finish him off with an arrow to the neck.

 _Pedal Cyders, District 6 Male: 18th, Killed by Brave and Blossom, Bloodbath_

Meanwhile, Enobaria was pursing an outlier girl with her throwing knives. The career girl was growing frustrated with how quick her victim was, and she was about to give up when her aim was true. One of her knives landed in the base of the girl's neck, and she fell like a stone, gurgling and coughing out blood.

 _Pippa Merple, District 10 Female: 17th, Killed by Enobaria, Bloodbath_

Ray, the last career without a kill, picked up a shogei and fit the ring snugly onto his finger. He hurled the knife with all of his worldly strength, and the blade pierced the hip of an outlier girl. She careened sideways, writhing with agony, as Ray approached her. He drew the knife back by the string and plunged it into the girl's chest.

 _Solstice Fujii, District 11 Female: 16th, Killed by Ray, Bloodbath_

Nearby Orson from 10 armed himself with a sword and crept toward Ray. He had a goal of killing at least one career during the bloodbath, and that was a goal he intended to reach. Orson's face crinkled from disgust as he thrust the sword up into Ray's back, working it through tissue and muscle until it finally protruded from the base of his neck.

 _Ray Tribe, District 4 Male: 15th, Killed by Orson, Bloodbath_

Enobaria roared with fury as she chased a crying Bernadette away from the cornucopia. The girl had accidentally injured her in training and the 2 girl was more furious at her than any hatred one could imagine. Finally, Bernadette managed to escape, and Enobaria marched grumpily back to the horn, swearing vengeance would be hers. She returned to the cornucopia just in time to witness the last kill being made. Hector had cornered a boy against the wall of the cornucopia. He had nowhere to run. The boy could do nothing but squeeze his eyes tightly shut and pray the end would come quickly as Hector ran forward and speared the blade of the knife several inches into his abdomen.

 _Vachel Grossi, District 9 Male: 14th, Killed by Hector, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the careers set the cornucopia in order. The two District 1 tributes sat across from each other as they sorted weapons. These two were close friends and fiercely loyal to each other. Brave sorted weapons while Blossom sorted food. Hector sat outside of the cornucopia pillaging the dead tributes of their supplies. Meanwhile, Danube hunted the areas immediately surrounding the cornucopia. Given how plain the terrain was, there weren't many places to be hiding. Danube rested in a small oasis nearby and sipped water and cooled herself by pressing leaves to her skin before walking back to the horn. Enobaria grumped about her repeated failures to kill off Bernadette. Hector tried to calm her, but she insisted she wanted to be left alone. Hector found a handbook on desert life and reported that lots of dangerous creatures roamed the desert at night. The careers all had a look at the book and were too scared to go hunting. They vowed to leave to hunt the next morning, unwilling to risk encountering what creatures might be out and about at night.

The outliers wobbled over the sand, scattering in all directions away from the cornucopia. Switch escaped the bloodbath with an orange pack that stood out boldly against his dark skin. The pack contained a pocketknife and an empty plastic water canteen. As the sun began to set, Switch settled in an oasis and rested against a tall tree that provided shade and fruit to feast on. Ajax sped southeast with a loaf of bread and an apple. He should have had enough food for several days, but by nightfall he had eaten over half of his food supply out of nervousness. Ajax hid at the base of a tall sand dune to sleep. Henna was intrigued by the humungous stone pyramids and wandered toward the closest one. The 7 girl was unable to reach the structure in one day, and she settled near a small pool for a quick wash before sleeping. Bernadette fled from the cornucopia. Her father was an animal tamer back in District 8, and she had a very curious idea. She approached a nearby camel and held out her hand for it to lick. By nightfall, the camel was permitting Bernadette to safely approach and pet it. It wasn't to the point of allowing her to ride on its back, but they were making progress. Luna made camp in a cluster of scruffy bushes. She found a cluster of beetles the size of her hands and munched on the beetles. They weren't the tastiest, but they were rather nutritious. The area smelled strongly of dung, however, and Luna vowed to depart for a more pleasant-smelling home at dawn the next day. Orson alternated between walking and jogging for the entire day. Well after midnight, the boy found himself at the foot of one of the great pyramids. Too tired to search for an entrance, Orson knelt on the first step and was asleep before he knew it, holding his sword firmly in hand. River and Semiquaver hadn't planned to ally before the games, but they walked next to each other and engaged in conversation as they ventured away from the cornucopia. They were exhausted when they came to a stop in a field of dusty boulders. River and Semiquaver were asleep the second their heads hit their pillows.

An earsplitting scream frightened most of the tributes and mutts awake the next morning. However, some of the mutts were already awake. Luna was sleeping when she heard heavy footsteps. She ducked into the shadows and drew the only weapon-like like she owned, a can opener. Four ibex mutts strolled toward her, their curved horns glistening in the dawn sun and their eyes growing wide with bloodshot and blood lust. The herd galloped toward her, and Luna backed away before standing her ground.

A younger one, one with pretty beige fur that wasn't fully developed yet and was eager to take down the girl, was the first to pounce. It wasn't very fast, and Luna managed to dance around it. But it kept spinning around her, and the ibex dug one of its razor-sharp horns into her wrist. Luna screamed as the rest of the heard tackled her. She closed her can-opener around one ibex's neck. It screeched and bucked off of her, taking the can opener with it. Luna was defenseless as the ibexes rammed into her flesh with their horns. Afterward, the herd began to bite at her, tearing away strips of flesh to eat. Luna's cannon fired, and the gamemakers sent the ibexes reeling away from Luna's tattered, amorphous corpse with electrical pulses so that the remains would be at least somewhat recognizable when they were sent home to District 9.

 _Luna Wolfsy, District 9 Female: 13th, Killed by Ibex Muttations, Day 2_

The careers had been planning on hunting the morning of Day 2, but their plans were foiled when a group of two camel mutts bowled into the cornucopia, overturning supplies and even hitting Enobaria in the head so hard that she passed out. It took them hours to clean up after the disaster, and by the time they were finished there was less than three hours until nightfall. As the careers went about the rest of their day at the horn, they grew extremely mistrustful of each other. Brave and Danube never turned their backs on each other as if they were scared the other would ambush them. Enobaria came to about thirty minutes after the attack. Hector filled her in on what was going on, and in minutes Enobaria was back as a functioning member of the career team. She, too, never turned her back on her allies for too long. Blossom, always district-loyal, sided with Brave that he should be the leader of the career pack. Hector was neutral and didn't care much about which tribute was the leader as long as they were getting progress done.

At dawn on Day 3, the careers finally went hunting. They left Blossom behind to guard the horn. Out in the desert, Brave, Enobaria, and Danube were competing to be the most popular. The pack rested at noon in a small oasis with cool, grassy leaves and tall, shady trees. They refilled on water from the central lake and then unpacked their lunches. As they ate, Danube used a mathematic formula involving the relative heights of the pyramids and the radius of the earth to calculate how far away each of the pyramids were, with incredible accuracy. It seemed like none of the others could top this feat until, less than five minutes later, a thirsty camel wandered into the oasis and knelt beside the pool for a drink. Brave shot a volley of five arrows at the camel, expertly killing it in seconds.

Enobaria knew she had to do something crazy to impress the Capitol even more than Danube and Brave had. The 2 girl used her throwing knives to single-handedly take down a massive ibex with razor-sharp, curved horns. The gamemakers were all curious to see what Enobaria was about to do.

The 2 girl knelt beside the ibex and cut out a strip of its bloody flesh. She brought down her head and sank her teeth into the tender meat of the animal, pushing it down her throat. The other careers stood with their mouths and eyes wide-open in awe as she tore out chunks of meat with her mouth alone. When she was finished, Enobaria pulled her head back up. Blood was smeared all over her face, and little pieces of meat that hadn't landed in her mouth littered the corners of her lips.

For the rest of Day 3, and the entirety of Day 4, the other careers treated Enobaria with a sort of newfound respect. Danube and Brave kept trying to outshine her, but there was nothing they could do that would be more popular than literally eating an ibex raw without the aid of hands. Her numbers of sponsors skyrocketed. They stood by and watched rather enviously as endless sponsor parachutes rained down onto the famous young lady.

Days 5 and 6 were deathless. After several days of focusing on the career pack, the cameras shifted to the actions of the outliers. Switch was going completely nutzo from dehydration, walking into mirages and hallucinating about strange colors swirling around him. He wandered tirelessly through the desert. There were oases all around them, but he must have been too loopy to notice them, for Switch paid them no mind at all. Ajax left the oasis he had been living in for nearly a week and began travelling to the nearest pyramid. He was curious as to what to be inside, and he imagined images of vaults filled with jewels and gold. Then again, even though those things are of monetary value they are essentially valueless in the arena. After days of tireless searching, Henna made her way to the largest of the great pyramids. She searched around for an entrance. Right before nightfall, Henna's mentor Blight sent her a note giving her instructions to the nearest entrance. She camped right outside the gaping hole in the pyramid, from which strange whispers seemed to be calling. Bernadette's camel training had been going remarkably well; by the end of Day 6, the camel were letting her ride it and she was even beginning to train it some human words and commands. She got her water from oases and sponsor gifts, though she was still getting less than her body needed. Orson survived off of killing small animals with his sword. After a few days of no success, he had given up hunting, and he kept himself hydrated off of sponsor beverages. On Day 6, a sponsor sent him a bottle of water, and he swallowed the whole bottle in one gulp, an impressive feat. River and Semiquaver discovered a large pool of water, one of the largest in the arena. It was about the size of a small house, and several animals were kneeling beside it, sipping its cool contents. River filled all of their containers with water while Semiquaver set up their camp by the lake.

Henna woke early in the morning on Day 7, ready to enter the pyramid. A sponsor sent Henna a note that the supplies and resources inside the pyramid would be worth risking her life for. The 7 girl took a deep breath and walked into the yawning entrance of the stone pyramid. The entrance caved in behind her. She sighed. Henna looked around and saw that she was in a long stone corridor. Old Egyptian characters, hieroglyphs, were carved into the walls. At the end of the torch-lit hallway was a granite counter. Five colorful stones, red, orange, yellow, green, and blue, were placed in a line on the counter. Also nearby, there were five wooden boxes stacked on top of each other, so that their openings were facing Henna. She squinted her eyes and read the small print on the wall. It was in English, fortunately.

 _Each of these five colored stones belongs in one of these five boxes. The red stone belongs lower than the orange stone. The stone two boxes above the blue stone should not be orange. The orange stone belongs in the middle box. The box four boxes below the box with the yellow stone is two blocks below the box with the orange stone. The boxes containing the yellow stone and the green stone should be adjacent._

Henna sighed and got to work, shaking fiercely as she threw stones into boxes. It was nearly two hours before she allowed herself a break, feeding herself on water and regretting that she hadn't brought more food into the pyramid with her. By the time night fell, she still hadn't solved the riddle, and her brain needed a break to sleep for the night.

While Henna was catching up on much-needed sleep, a death occurred all the way across the arena. Switch had been searching through the burning desert for three days, desperately hunting for a drop of water to sip. He passed away from dehydration less than an hour before midnight, curled up in the fetal position and crying softly.

 _Switch Jackson-Hough, District 3 Male: 12th, Killed by Dehydration, Day 7_

As Day 8 wore on, Henna toiled away at the puzzle with the coloedr stones. At long last, she solved the riddle at two in the evening. From top to bottom, the stones belonged in the order yellow, green, orange, blue, red. The wall in front of her collapsed. Once the dust settled, Henna got a glimpse at the next puzzle she had to complete.

The back wall of the room was a very peculiar sight. Dozens of plastic containers were bolted to the wall. Plastic tubes and pipes connected some of the containers to each other, so that the water from one container could flow through into another container. The container at the very top of the chaos had a faucet suspended over it.

Five words were embossed into the ground. _Which container will fill first?_

Henna followed the containers with her finger. The water would flow from the first container into the second container, then into the container below that… but no, the inlet to the opposite container was lower and so would begin flooding first… Henna was developing a headache in minutes. A sponsor sent her a bit of medicine, and she camped in a corner of the room, staring blankly at the seemingly impossible puzzle in front of her.

Throughout the two days Henna had been solving the puzzles inside of the pyramid, the cameras had shown almost nothing of what was going on with the other tributes. That was because the outliers weren't doing much, to be honest.

But Day 9 came with a lot of drama in the career pack. The careers awoke to find that Brave had fallen asleep halfway through his shift. Enobaria was furious, and she wanted any excuse she could get to eliminate some of the strong competition from the other careers.

"Get off me," Brave grunted. He squirmed out of Enobaria's grasp and grabbed his bow.

"Hey!" Enobaria growled. She reached into her belt of throwing knives. The shining blades glistened in the hot desert sun overhead.

"Stop!" Blossom begged, having left the cornucopia to investigate what was going on. "It's too early for fighting!"

But Brave and Enobaria didn't listen. They leapt toward each other and collided in mid-air. Brave tried to use his arrows like little spears to pierce Enobaria. But Enobaria had the best weapons, and she took down Brave in no time. The 2 girl stabbed one of the knives into the 1 boy's waist. He got to his feet, screaming, but the wound was giving him so much pain that it was unbearable to even stand. Enobaria staggered away from Brave's cooling corpse as his cannon fired. Now the pack had been whittled down to four.

 _Brave Hager, District 1 Male: 11th, Killed by Enobaria, Day 9_

The other careers glared at her. Enobaria had just killed a fellow career.

"Traitor," Danube spat, lofting her trident into the air.

Enobaria didn't wait for her to use it. She turned tail and fled. She jogged until sundown, when she collapsed in the pond in the center of a cool oasis, shaking. Reassuring thoughts ran through her mind. She was still the most popular tribute in the games. She just had to remind the Capitol what she was best at and they'd forget about what she had done back at the horn.

When Day 9 bled into Day 10, Enobaria got on the move. She only travelled through the areas the career pack had already hunted; that way, she would be likely to have a trip free of contact with the other angry careers. Perhaps the word other isn't the best fit here because, for all intents and purposes, she had broken from the pack. She stopped a few hours before nightfall so that she would have time to get acquainted with her new surroundings. Enobaria killed a camel with her throwing knives. She was looking forward to savagely digging into the prey and impressing the sponsors, but her mentor sent her a note that camel meat wasn't safe to eat until cooked. Enobaria found bits of dry wood and arranged them into a fire. She was sponsored a bucket. The 2 girl filled the bucket with sand. If the fire ever got out of hand or attracted another tribute, she could pour the sand over the fire and douse the flames immediately. She ripped and tore apart the meat like a mad dog, her hands behind her back the whole time.

Meanwhile, miles away, Henna was in the final stages of the challenges inside of the pyramid. She had correctly solved the water containers puzzle and was now tasked with a parkour challenge. A pool of bubbling water substituted the floor, and Henna had to jump across platforms and climb ladders and ropes to make her way across the room. If she ever fell in the water, it took all of her strength to swim to safety and she was too exhausted to do anything much for the next hour or so.

The allies River and Semiquaver both knew that it was far too late in the games for their little alliance to continue. In the Hunger Games, a tribute doesn't get to be the second person to betray their ally. River felt awful with himself as he readied himself to kill off Semiquaver. They rested in an oasis and went to sleep. River stayed awake until he heard Semiquaver's soft snores. It was time.

River wiggled out of his sleeping bag, grabbing the only weapon he owned, a knife. He bit his lip and crept toward his sleeping ally. Then, quickly, he thrust the point of the knife into Semiquaver's chest. Screaming, Semiquaver woke with a start. Blood rushed down either side of her torso, and Semiquaver's muscles pushed to dislodge the knife from her torso. River couldn't bear to watch the death that had been his doing. He slid down the opposite side of a far-away tree and silently begged for her screams to stop soon. Those screams would haunt him forever, if he left the arena with his life.

 _Semiquaver Anesko, District 12 Female: 10th, Killed by River, Day 10_

Day 11 saw two additional deaths. Orson of 10 had been staying still for long periods of time over the games and had been almost completely forgotten by the audience and by Claudius and Caesar. Knowing the gamemakers would have no choice but to kill him off if he kept being so inactive, Orson turned to tribute hunting to fill the long hours of the days. His sword swinging at his side, Orson wobbled over the hot sand in search of tributes. He had been hunting for less than two hours when a figure came into view. Orson careened sideways and ran around a tall sand dune so that the boy wouldn't see him until it was too late.

The boy, who was Ajax, screamed as Orson burst out from behind the sand dune, swinging his sword like a madman. Ajax turned around to flee, but Orson shoved his sword into his back, denting the flesh about a centimeter. His blood dyed the sands evil red as Orson relentlessly hacked away at his abdomen with his weapon. His cannon shot fired just a few moments before sunset.

 _Ajax Tiago, District 5 Male: 9th, Killed by Orson, Day 11_

That left the final eight: Blossom Corbusier from District 1, Hector Lozada and Enobaria Rigatti from District 2, Danube Blanchard from District 4, Henna Forte from District 7, Bernadette Sam from District 8, Orson Tipspin from District 7, and River Joshua from District 11.

The second and final death of the day transpired mere minutes later. The duo of Hector and Danube had been hunting for three days when they decided to head back to the cornucopia. They were on their way back to the horn when they heard a human sneeze. Hector and Danube leapt toward the sound and found themselves tackling River of 11 to the ground. The boy screamed and rolled out from underneath them. River tried to flee, but Danube threw her trident like a projectile. It whistled through the hot desert air and buried itself into his back. He fell forward onto the ground, the trident sticking perpendicularly out of his back, and he bled out quickly after Hector initiated the blow that ended his life by digging his knives into his neck.

 _River Joshua, District 11 Male: 8th, Killed by Danube and Hector, Day 11_

On Day 12, after five long days of being trapped inside the cool pyramid, Henna completed her last task. She reached the end of the parkour challenge. The back wall of the room collapsed, and Henna couldn't believe her eyes. Her prize. A rack of swords, spears, and scythes stood in the corner of the room. In the other corner was a table covered in fruit, vegetables, and meat. The center of the room had a chest that was open and revealed that it was filled with bottles of water. Henna stepped into the room carefully, fearing that booby traps might be guarding the supplies. But they were hers for the taking.

Henna chugged down as much water and stuffed down as much food as could fit inside of her. She found a backpack in a corner and fit a jug of water inside. She held a scythe in one hand and a sword in the other hand. She had all of the supplies she could ever need. There was just one problem. Henna had no way of getting out. Suddenly, a little drone containing a note from a sponsor landed beside her. Intrigued, Henna knelt down and read the note.

 _Keep your arms close to your body. Once you've exited the pyramid, paddle in one direction. You should be just fine if you land in the sand._

Henna didn't have time to interpret the note when the ceiling opened up. She peered upward and saw bright-blue sky high above. She was too shocked to scream as she flew upward, through the tube and finally out of the pyramid like she was in some kind of magical elevator. It turned out that drones with enough strength to carry a person were strapped into the pants of her tribute uniform.

Now outside of the pyramid, Henna looked around. She could see the entire arena from up there. A parachute erupted from her uniform, and she coasted to the ground. Suddenly remembering the note, Henna paddled in one direction as though swimming through water. The joy and freedom was indescribable. She was flying. Henna landed safely in the sand near the edge of the pyramid. She checked her body for damage but found herself unscathed. It turned out that nightfall was in less than an hour. Henna camped at the base of the pyramid, spoiling herself with the cool water and nutritious food she had retrieved from the pyramid.

The night of Day 12 had a singular peak of excitement. Enobaria was doing most of her hunting after nightfall, liking how cool it was when it was dark. It was a few minutes before midnight when Enobaria spotted a slowly ambling figure in front of her. She squinted her eyes and made out the shape of a camel. Somebody was riding the camel… Bernadette, her sworn enemy since before Day 1.

Enobaria stormed toward Bernadette. She didn't see her coming until it was too late. Bernadette spotted the career girl coming her way and ordered her camel to run as fast as possible. Her voice was too frantic and shaky for the camel to understand her command, and Enobaria had no problem burying one of her throwing knives a half inch into the camel's leg. The camel groaned and ran as fast as it could, and it took all of Bernadette's strength to keep from being bucked off. Bernadette had escaped Enobaria once more.

On Day 13, many of the tributes saw a massive dark cloud rolling toward them, as big and quiet as District 10. None of the tributes were in the immediate path of the sandstorm, but it would spread and spread, never content until it had bowled over the entire arena. Bernadette was nursing her wounded camel when the winds picked up and she noticed the ginormous cloud of dust headed her way. Knowing she couldn't outrun it, she ducked down beside her camel and prayed that it would be over quickly. Henna took her supplies out of her backpack and placed it over her head. She looked rather stupid with the pack over her head, but when the storm hit her for real, the cloth worked well to keep out the pesky grains of sand.

When the sandstorm actually hit, it was horrible. The air filled with sand, and anything that wasn't covered began flooding with the blisteringly hot grains. The warm winds were awful and the sand dug into the tributes' exposed skins like tiny knives into their flesh.

Danube had been guarding the cornucopia when the sandstorm hit. She lie down in her sleeping bag and zipped it shut, trapping herself inside. She occasionally shook back and forth so that too much sand wouldn't build up atop Danube's sleeping bag. Blossom and Hector were away hunting. They saw the storm coming and started thundering back to the cornucopia as fast as their legs could carry them, but they weren't fast enough.

The storm rolled over them, and Blossom and Hector fell to their knees. They gasped with agony, fury, and terror, only working to inhale more dust. Blossom was the first to face serious danger. In minutes, a good inch of sand had piled up in the bottoms of her lungs. She tried to cough up the sand and cover her mouth, but she was too confused and panicked to do anything. The sandstorm's evil, death-bringing hands closed around her. District 1 would not have a victor this year.

 _Blossom Corbusier, District 1 Female: 7th, Killed by Sandstorm, Day 13_

Nearby, Hector was throwing his body weight in random directions, going crazy as the sand pummeled into his skin. Several large clumps had drawn blood, and he was battered, bruised, and tired. The storm had completely blinded him, and he couldn't even open his eyes if he wanted to because of how much sand stuck onto his eyeballs whenever he did. The gamemakers didn't want the sandstorm to claim too many lives; the storm ceased immediately the second that Hector's cannon shot faded away fully. The winds stopped abruptly, and the sand fluttered the ground in a rather beautiful display of natural art. All was silent and still.

 _Hector Lozada, District 2 Male: 6th, Killed by Sandstorm, Day 13_

Day 14 passed, deathless. Danube stayed at the cornucopia to clean up. Sand from the sandstorm had piled high on top of the shelves, weapons, and supplies, and it took the 4 girl all day long to clean up the mess. Enobaria had survived the sandstorm with a little bit of drawn blood. She applies anti-disinfectant cream given to her by sponsors and rested in a cool oasis for the day. Henna hunted with her sword and sickle, wanting to make a splash and impress sponsors. She really didn't need any, given how many weapons she had from the pyramid escapade, but it gave her something to occupy her time nonetheless. Two days after being stabbed in the leg by Enobaria, Bernadette's camel died. She was heartbroken and knelt in silence for much of the day, crying softly into her hands. They had only known each other for two weeks, but they had become best friends ever since. Orson had about a centimeter of sand in his lungs. He spent the day vomiting and coughing, fighting to expel the foul sand from his body.

On Day 15, the only two remaining careers started toward each other. Danube left the horn with a bit of body armor and her trident, while Enobaria stalked in the direction of the horn with her throwing knives. Each girl was eager to eliminate the other, as neither wanted to face the trouble of having to kill another trained career in the finale. They spotted each other about a hundred yards apart at nine in the morning.

The two tributes danced around each other, inflicting cuts and scrapes but nothing minor. Danube shouted taunts to Enobaria, calling her a traitor and a whole lot of words that would warrant a thorough mouth washing back in the academy of District 4. Finally, Enobaria lunged forward, slicing off one of Danube's auburn tresses. Danube stumbled backward as her locks fluttered to the ground. Her strategy to get sponsors involved not only her kills, but her looks, and Danube was furious to have her look ruined. She blindly ran forward, abandoning all forms of coherent strategy to kill Enobaria. Enobaria danced out of the way and spun sharply on her heel, hurling one of her throwing knives into Danube's head. She let out a groan, and that was it. Enobaria was the only living career in the sixty-second Hunger Games.

 _Danube Blanchard, District 4 Female: 5th, Killed by Enobaria, Day 15_

The next day in the arena, Day 16, passed with only one death. For days, the Capitol had been heavily anticipating a fight between Henna and Orson. Henna was only fifteen had had scored a seven in training, but she had the advantage of the weapons and supplies; whereas Orson was older and stronger but only had one weapon, his sword. Herds of fierce camel mutts drove Orson and Henna together, and they crashed into each other when the sun was at its zenith.

Orson was the first to attack, lunging forward and prodding at Henna's foreleg with the tip of his sword without hesitation. Henna felt a small prick from the sword and leapt out of the way, bringing down her scythe onto Orson's back. The tip of the scythe buried itself into the boy's torso, dislodging bones and tearing muscles like taffy. It turned out that the fight lasted much shorter than many had hoped. Now, only female tributes remained.

 _Orson Tipspin, District 10 Male: 4th, Killed by Henna, Day 16_

Day 17 passed deathless as the final three milled about. Enobaria was attacked by a fierce ibex mutt at dawn. She managed to kill it, but only after it had driven its horn a good half inch into her leg. Enobaria stayed still for the rest of the day, applying Capitol medicines to the leg wound and praying that it would heal in time for the finale. Henna practiced for the finale. First, she practiced with only her scythe, then only her sword, then both together. She had plenty of water to drink and food to eat and wasn't worrying about dehydration or hunger in the slightest. Bernadette tried to find another camel to make friends with, but her mentor sent her a note that it was too late in the games and that she was coming off as childish. Bernadette began her walk to the cornucopia, figuring that she might as well get a head start ahead of whatever threat the gamemakers would send her way to drive her toward the finale.

A canon shot shattered the still of the hot desert on the morning of Day 18. Henna had been walking to the horn when she had walked by a sleeping Enobaria. Henna crept toward Enobaria, ready to kill her swiftly in her sleep, but she clumsily fell to the ground and cursed. Enobaria bolted awake and sprang to her feet. She started toward Henna, already reaching for her first throwing knife. Henna tried to get to her feet, but it was no use. Her legs were in too much pain. She had clumsily dropped both of her weapons in her descent. Henna held her arm in front of her face as Enobaria threw her first knife. The knife landed in her arm, and Henna pulled the limb away, gasping and hyperventilating as blood poured from the gash.

Enobaria smiled very delicately and threw her second knife. The girl was in too much pain to put up any defense, and the knife buried itself into her calf. Enobaria stood by and watched smugly as her fifth victim bled out over the course of two hours, dying just short of the finale.

 _Henna Forte, District 7 Female: 3rd, Killed by Enobaria, Day 18_

On Day 19, sandstorms started in the north and south. Bernadette was in the north, and Enobaria was in the south, and the storms drove them together. They had to keep running as fast as their legs could carry them or else the storms would consume them (these sandstorms were slow enough to be outrun at a fast sprint). The two tributes spotted each other from the tops of two hills at noon, and they ran toward each other. The finale was here.

Bernadette had his knife in one of his hands, while Enobaria clutched one throwing knife in each hand. While Enobaria was rather seriously wounded from the ibex attack of two days prior, she was still the better fighter of the pair. This equaled the duo out rather fairly.

However, Enobaria was still a trained killer, and Bernadette was just the offspring of a rich merchant father and poor seamstress back in District 8. Enobaria struck first, and Bernadette barely had time to deflect. Her next few blows were powerful, one of which disarmed Bernadette of her knife. She was defenseless.

Enobaria threw her entire body weight on top of Bernadette, crushing her to the ground. The 2 girl knelt over Bernadette's blood-lathered form, and the rest is history. Seizing Bernadette by the head, she brought her throat to her face and sank her teeth into her skin, biting down so savagely that her scream was already muffled by the squishing sound of blood. Enobaria ripped into her muscles with the same savagery with which she had consumed her animal kills over the almost three-week-long games. Holding Bernadette's flesh firmly between her two rows of teeth, Enobaria tugged back her head, tearing out Bernadette's throat. She spit out the chunk of flesh just as the symphony of trumpets began blaring across the arena.

 _Bernadette Sam, District 8 Female: 2nd, Killed by Enobaria, Day 19_

"Enobaria Rigatti of District 2, you are the victor of the sixty-second annual Hunger Games!" Claudius and Caesar sang. Claudius looked a little disappointed, while Caesar was over the moon, as he had liked Enobaria whereas Claudius had favored Bernadette.

Enobaria smiled wide, displaying her rows of bloodstained teeth for all to see.

 _Enobaria Rigatti, District 2 Female: Victor of the Sixty-Second Hunger Games, Day 19_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Enobaria was rejoiced in District 2. The district now had sixteen victors, and there were no signs of their stopping in sight. She would go on to mentor many District 2 tributes, many of which were just as ruthless and adventurous as she was. The Capitol loved her for her move of tearing out Bernadette's throat, and it would go down as one of the most iconic kills in Hunger Games history.

She moved into the Victor's Village of District 2, the sixteenth victor to do so.

Enobaria's victory tour was nothing out of the ordinary. District 8's citizens gave her the cold shoulder, of course, but that was to be expected.

Enobaria would live to the age of ninety-two, passing away from cancer four and three-fourths moths after the one-hundred thirty-seventh annual Hunger Games. She would go on to credit her longevity to being brave and adventurous as well as exercising regularly. Enobaria would become headmistress of District 2's academy, and she would never marry nor have children, always claiming the academy was enough for her. She would also have her teeth cosmetically filed into fangs and inlaid with gold, making her a menacing sight to behold for many a district citizen and Capitolite alike.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Enobaria moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, the sixteenth to do so.

Ruby Rayfuse marries his fiancée, a nice lady named Lace Calzone.

Lily Eckel gives birth to her fourth child, a healthy boy she calls Sprout.

Mason Kittridge has his second son Rockson.

Cecelia Rieffel gets married to her fiancé of eight months, Strapson Irving.

Brandi Coyne, the victor of the eighth annual Hunger Games, dies from skin cancer.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: This update was super quick. I had another day of no plans… well, other than to write, of course ;D**

 **I hope you've enjoyed Enobaria! She's my personal favorite District 2 victor thus far. Henna was also one of my favorites.**

 **Thanks for all of your reviews! They really mean a lot and I take each one to heart. For the next two games, the spotlight will be on Gloss and Cashmere. Then there'll be only ten years left until the canon cut-off point :D**


	64. The 63rd Hunger Games

**The 63rd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

In Hunger Games past, the vast majority of camera coverage featured the arenas themselves and the carnage within. However, when the sixty-third annual Hunger Games rolled around, it became apparent that the pre-games festivities and ceremonies could contribute just as much to a games' memorability factor as what happened within the games themselves. This year's entire scheme was water-based, and the Capitol couldn't get enough of it. The training center was decked out with shimmering blue walls. It was lit by a plethora of flashing and rotating blue lights on the ceiling, and most of the bladed weapons had ocean-colored hilts. The training center also had a dozen swimming pools, one for each district, and swimming was emphasized as one of the skills tributes should practice on before the games began. Much of the Capitol was curious to see how the water element would play into the arena, and they were surprised when Head Gamemaker Feodore Elliot released his trailer clip. The clip showed a path down a long, dark, underwater hallway. At the end of the hallway, a glowing golden trident was propped against the wall. Panem's Capitol was sent into a Hunger Games frenzy as enthusiasts speculated about the supplies and mutts of the underwater arena. President Coriolanus Snow cracked the whip over his domain called Panem for the thirty-ninth year. After his kidnapping escapade of the year before, the nation was seduced, and the year passed with virtually no rebellion or misconduct between the nation's twelve districts.

This year's arena was entirely underwater, the first of its kind in Hunger Games history. Past arenas had had sections and pieces submerged, but never entirely. The tributes would find themselves with strange apparatuses bound to their mouths. They were man's newest invention in the field of technology. The contraptions worked like gills, quickly utilizing electrolysis to separate oxygen from water and allowing the tributes to breathe underwater indefinitely. To eat, a tribute would simply place a small piece of food in a compartment in the contraption. It then worked like an air-lock (or rather, water-lock) forcing out the water and then allowing the food to be eaten normally. But enough about those. It looked like Feodore was violating his policies of historical accuracy this year, as the games took place in a location that has been almost definitively proven to be nonexistent: the lost city of Atlantis. The terrain of the sea floor was rocky, and coral and other sea plants sprouted up like bushes. Fish swam in schools everywhere. There were brightly-colored and fast fish; slow, large fish will silly faces; and every other type of fish one could imagine. Temples with heavy marble columns were scattered around the city, acting as sources of shelter for the tributes. There were also strange stone statues, choked by moss and corroded by time. The eyes of the statues appeared to follow the tributes as they walked, and they seemed creepy to say the least. Even if the tributes couldn't swim, they could still clumsily prance along across the sea floor, though the ones who could swim well would certainly have an advantage.

The career pack was nothing out of the ordinary this year. District 1's tributes were as beautiful as ever. The boy was a beautiful sight both because of how attractive he was, and also how swift and strong he appeared to be. The girl was the weakest this year, as she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed and wasn't very good with weaponry. She was also the first tribute in history to have a hyphenated first name. District 2's tributes were the fiercest, but, ironically, they earned some of the lowest scores of the pack. The male was manipulative beyond belief and could convince almost anyone to do his bidding. The girl was rather relaxed and unconventional outside of the arena, but once in the games she would fight viciously until the very end. District 4 provided the strongest pair. The boy was strong and brutishly attractive and a stellar with tridents. He was also one of the fastest tributes the games had ever seen. This was guaranteed to give him the edge in the arena, and he was the early favorite. The female was a stunning, dark-skinned girl who was skilled with a variety of long-ranged weapons as well as daggers. Nobody could say for certain which of the tributes from 4 was stronger. Most people predicted that they would both go far, but only time would tell. Their training scores were average, with three tens, two nines, and a single eight.

The crop of outliers was one of the strongest in Hunger Games history up to that point; this games was sure to be a good one. Six of the strongest outliers banded together in what was the largest outlier alliance in history. The anti-careers earned some of the highest percentages of bets of the Capitol, and with a whopping six members it wasn't unlikely that one of them would take home the Victor's Crown. The anti-career pack consisted of Dartson from 5, Severa from 6, Robina from 7, Pike and Riza from 9, and Vine from 11. Dartson was a slender boy who was tall and thin and very handsome, and he used swords well enough to earn a respectable seven. Severa seemed very indecisive and not a very fast thinker, but she was still treated well because of how great she was with animal hunting. Robina from 7 took several days to reply to the others' invitation; previously, she had been planning on allying with her district partner. In the end, though, she joined the anti-careers. She was the smarts of the group, but she could get annoying because of how meticulously she planned everything out. Pike was a smaller boy, one of the greatest hiding advantages a tribute can have. He was unbelievably talented with sickles and spears, and Pike in fact was the highest-scoring outlier this year, walking home with an eight. Riza was tall and multi-talented and very pretty. She was also a great comedian, dropping one-liners in her interview and very playfully teasing some tributes and victors from past Hunger Games. The group recruited Vine simply because of his swimming skills. He could swim all the way across the swimming pool in the training center in less than ten seconds, owing mostly to his profession as a farmer of decorative underwater plants back in District 11. Two sixes, three sevens, and an eight were earned in their group. There were several outliers standouts that weren't anti-careers, however. Velnor from 8 was the half-sister of Cecelia Rieffel, the victor of the sixtieth annual Hunger Games. He was a very kind and well-mannered boy with a clear set of morals, though strangely he didn't seem to mind killing. District 12 provided a brother-sister pair; Cole and Jacqui Drinker, twelve and seventeen respectively, banded together before the games started, pledging to stick together as far into the games as possible. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: Afton from 7. Afton was on death row for the kidnapping of two young girls. His execution was scheduled for the day after the reaping, and he volunteered into the games as a final card to play, hoping that becoming a victor would pardon him from his visit with the reaper for the time being. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Gloss Linden, 17, (10) 4-1 and Ruby-Gleam Zirman, 17, (8) 10-1

District 2: Kedian Propert, 16, (9) 7-1 and Wystelle Murphy, 15, (9) 8-1

District 3: Wumpus Movius, 14, (4) 35-1 and Techana Zhao, 13, (6) 22-1

District 4: Anchor Tranquilli, 18, (10) 3-1 and Mirror Oesterling, 18, (10) 3-1

District 5: Dartson Holoien, 17, (7) 16-1 and Thermis Abraham, 13, (3) 44-1

District 6: Arhianrhod Shappo, 12, (3) 48-1 and Severa Otis, 17, (7) 17-1

District 7: Afton Sandall, 18, (7) 15-1 and Robina Vane, 18, (6) 20-1

District 8: Velnor Ibes, 18, (5) 24-1 and Flossie Schulman, 12, (4) 40-1

District 9: Pike Skottak, 16, (8) 11-1 and Riza Spring, 15, (7) 18-1

District 10: Magpie Tullius, 15, (5) 20-1 and Pallas Crawford, 14, (4) 39-1

District 11: Vine Bluri, 18, (7) 15-1 and Cupcake Dippet, 13, (6) 24-1

District 12: Cole Drinker, 12, (4) 45-1 and Jacqui Drinker, 17, (4) 37-1

HGBO Bets: 9% on Anchor and Mirror, 7% on Gloss, Kedian, and Wystelle, 6% on Ruby-Gleam and Pike, 5% on Dartson, Severa, Afton, Riza, and Vine, 4% on Techana, Robina, and Cupcake, 3% on Velnor and Magpie, 2% on Wumpus, Pallas, Cole, and Jacqui, 1% or less on Thermis, Arianrhod, and Flossie.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The majority of this year's tributes were shocked beyond belief as they entered the arena. As the elevators rose, water started seeping in from the arena above. One tribute, Techana from 3, even screamed to her mentor far below that she thought something was wrong. Once their pods had completely filled with water, the tributes discovered that the little machines strapped to their mouths allowed them to breathe underwater indefinitely. Finally, the pods opened and sank downward, and the tributes were left standing on their stone pedestals surrounding the cornucopia.

The bloodbath was mostly a skirmish between the careers and the anti-careers. Most of the other tributes fled from the get-go, not wanting to get into the middle of the intense fight. These tributes were Wumpus and Techana from 3, Thermis from 5, Velnor and Flossie from 8, and Cole and Jacqui from 12. This lead to one of the smallest bloodbaths in history at the time.

Anchor sped at the head of the onrush; he was the fastest swimmer by a wide margin. Anchor picked up a glowing bronze trident that sat about twenty yards from his pedestal, tearing its prongs out of a small fissure in the earth. The 4 boy whirled around and spotted Riza, one of the weaker anti-careers, a few meters away. Anchor swam toward Riza, trying to thrust his trident toward her back. But Riza felt the waves of water caused by his movements, and she turned around just in time to deflect Anchor's blow with a blow of her own. The two tributes skirmished for almost thirty seconds, but one tribute triumphed in the end. Anchor had managed to cut a gash in Riza's waist, and she fell backward, dropping her trident and shaking violently as a dark cloud of blood spread around her. Anchor finished her off with one more heavy thrusting movement of his trident.

 _Riza Spring, District 9 Female: 24th, Killed by Anchor, Bloodbath_

Less than ten feet away, Gloss was dueling with Severa from 6. It was a fight with bare hands, as neither tribute was armed with a weapon. Severa threw her fists at Gloss, but the 1 boy quickly retaliated, swirling like a top to gain extra momentum before punching Severa in the stomach. The girl reeled, turning around to flee to somewhere where she could recover safely. But Gloss picked up a harpoon that sat nearby and buried its tip into her back. Severa was dead in seconds.

 _Severa Otis, District 6 Female: 23rd, Killed by Gloss, Bloodbath_

Two of the strongest anti-careers, Dartson and Pike, had teamed up to take down the strongest tribute in the games. Dartson had a silver sword, and Pike had a trident, and they raced toward Anchor. Anchor screamed as Dartson buried his sword into his back. Pike landed the prongs of his trident into his hip. Bubbles streamed from the career boy's mouth as his organs started failing him from the grievous wounds he had sustained.

 _Anchor Tranquilli, District 4 Male: 22nd, Killed by Dartson and Pike, Bloodbath_

Despite the distance between them, Mirror recognized Anchor's screams as those of her district partner. Mirror swam in the direction of his calls, ringing with fury and desperate to avenge his death. Many suspected she fancied him, but this was never confirmed. Mirror arrived at the scene just as Dartson and Pike began swimming away. She bolted toward Pike and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck like a mother kitten. Pike swirled around with his trident. He started to thrust it toward the 4 girl's abdomen, but Mirror retaliated with a trident of her own. Roaring with rage, Mirror cast the end of her trident into Pike's neck. Blood flow to his brain stopped almost immediately.

 _Pike Skottak, District 9 Male: 21st, Killed by Mirror, Bloodbath_

The two tributes from District 2, Kedian and Wystelle, were working together to corner a very young boy against the abalone cornucopia. Kedian hurled his harpoon. It buried itself into the boy's shoulder, and he turned to run, roaring in agony, just as Wystelle's knives entered his chest. Moaning, he slid slowly to the rocky sea floor, his last breaths bubbling out of his mouth.

 _Arhianrhod Shappo, District 6 Male: 20th, Killed by Kedian and Wystelle, Bloodbath_

Gloss made the last kill of the bloodbath. He had caught a young boy and was struggling to restrain him so that he could kill him with his harpoon. The boy kicked and screamed, but Gloss was so strong that he couldn't escape. Finally, he managed to slip out of his arms. Enraged, Gloss tackled him. He punched the boy's upper abdomen with all the strength he could conjure up, crushing his windpipe and silencing his screams.

 _Magpie Tullius, District 10 Male: 19th, Killed by Gloss, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the careers set up their base at the cornucopia. Only one of their members had been killed, whereas they had killed two of the anti-careers, so they went about the day with their heads held high. Mirror was eager to get hunting, so she swam in circles around the cornucopia to "keep herself warmed up." She had underestimated the amount of time it would take for the others to prepare, and by the time they were ready Mirror was too exhausted to actually go hunting. Kedian and Wystelle, the close-knit pair from 2, sorted the supplies in the cornucopia. As all of the supplies were very heavy, it was a lot of effort. Gloss engaged in a small hunt around the cornucopia. As he hunted, he told stories to the audience to occupy himself. It was hard to hear him through the water, so the producers had to do a voice-over of what he was saying so that the audience could understand him more clearly. Ruby-Gleam, the weakest career, experimented with ways of lighting up the horn and the area around. She knew all of the tridents glowed, so she grabbed a few of them and scattered them here and there to act as light sources. The majority of the careers were too tired to do anything, and they decided not to go hunting, but vowed to leave the next morning. The three anti-careers fled east. A few of them had sustained minor injuries throughout the bloodbath, and they needed time to nurse the wounds before they could do any real hunting. Robina was the only one in tip-top condition; she hadn't engaged in nearly as much action thus far as the others had. She acted as the others' guide, swimming ahead of them and instructing them on where to go. Dartson was pretty traumatized after almost being killed by Mirror a few minutes earlier, and he followed Robina's directions quietly. When the trio stopped for dinner, Vine swam away to gather plants to eat. He was extremely knowledgeable about what was edible and what wasn't; he returned with several armfuls of green plants and fish that he had killed. The non-career and non-anti-career tributes spread across the arena. With so many, it was hard to cover them all. Wumpus found a patch of soft sand that was remarkably like a soft mattress. He settled down after knocking down a statue that would block him from sight. Young Techana, deathly afraid of the careers, dragged herself onward for nearly twelve hours before collapsing with exhaustion at the base of a small temple to a sun god. Techana swam inside and settled in the dark shadow of a tall statue, vowing to search for food and supplies the next morning. Thermis was scared. She had nothing, and she was alone in the middle of the ocean. Weeping softly, she slid down against a tall marble statue, burying her face in her hands. Afton, the rapist volunteer boy, amazed the audience with his ability to kill a whole swarm of fish. He had several jars of poison from the horn. When a school of vibrant-purple fish swam by, Afton uncorked the bottle and fled. He returned a minute later to find that all of the fish had died upon contact with the poison, and he stuffed his victims into his pack to eat later. Velnor drifted in one direction until the sun began to set, at which point he ducked into a shop selling strange colored stones and fell asleep. What Velnor didn't know was that these stones would transform into weapons when they were touched by human hands. Pallas found herself at a gate guarded on either side by fierce stone shark statues. She swam over the gate and settled against one of the statues after tearing open her pack and finding it filled with food and wire. Cupcake had a trident from the cornucopia, but she wasn't up to using it on another tribute just yet. The girl swam for several hours before walking into a peculiar glass building and falling asleep. Cole and Jacqui had allied prior to the games. Brother and sister swam beside one another until they came to a patch of boulders with strange inscriptions. The rocks glowed whenever the tributes drew near. They were creepy, to say the least. Flossie from 8 was morbidly curious, and she wondered what she would find if she swam upward. She expected that the water would have a surface, but what would be above it, she couldn't tell for sure until she saw it with her own eyes. Flossie had swum upward for about a minute when she found her answer. There was a force field at the top of the water, and little Flossie's head knocked into it. Before she knew it, she was sent spiraling downward, the powerful electrical current of the force field coursing through her body. Her brain was fried in seconds, and she fell like a stone to the sea floor.

 _Flossie Schulman, District 8 Female: 18th, Killed by Force Field, Day 1_

On Day 2, the first mutts of the arena were released. They were shark mutts: long, slender creatures with flat noses and smooth skin. They attacked the tributes in three groups, two of which would end in death and one of which would be fended off. Which group of sharks would not succeed in killing a tribute was anyone's guess, and only time would tell.

Bubble's streamed from Wumpus' mouth in a scream as he saw the dark shape of a shark coming toward him in the morning sun. He quickly ducked behind a rock and grabbed a few smaller stones to use as weapons. He hoped the shark hadn't seen him, but it had, and it was thirsty for his blood. Without warning, the first shark zoomed forward, and Wumpus barely had time to deflect. The boy used his rock like a bludgeon, slamming the shark in the nose. It curled backward, agitated, and Wumpus turned to flee. What he didn't know was that two additional shark mutts were waiting, unseen, in the shadows.

Wumpus recoiled at the feeling of another shark mutt's rough skin. As it came into the light, Wumpus realized that it was in fact two sharks, a mother and very young child. The boy went for the young shark first, thinking it would be the easiest prey. The small rocks were everywhere and not disposable in any sense of the phrase, so Wumpus had no problems with risking losing them. He hurled his first rock through the air, hitting the young shark between the eyes. It let out a growl, and Wumpus ran forward, slamming it in the nose. The blow hadn't killed the adult shark, but the child was weaker by a significant margin. As the matriarch comforted the dying child, the third and final shark zipped toward Wumpus and closed his torso in its teeth. Pain exploded through the boy as the shark tore out a hunk of flesh. He tried to stagger to safety, but he was losing blood too quickly, and he fell to his knees in death before he had travelled ten feet.

 _Wumpus Movius, District 3 Male: 17th, Killed by Shark Muttations, Day 2_

The remaining two shark packs went for the careers and the anti-careers. The former had a significant journey to travel to get to the cornucopia, and the sharks kept getting distracted as they smelled blood across the way. It was a lot of work for the gamemakers to force them on the right path to the horn, but once they smelled a tiny taste of the blood of five humans there was no stopping them. Ruby-Gleam, who was guarding, saw the shape of the sharks coming near and screamed for her allies to wake. Only the nearest tribute, Wystelle, would wake up. Wystelle saw the sharks coming and knew trouble was ahead, and she shook awake Gloss, Kedian, and Mirror.

The careers sped out of the cornucopia and sank backward as much as possible. Ruby-Gleam was naturally at the front, and she was the first to face the sharks. The largest shark mutt swam forth in a very stately manner, and Ruby-Gleam used her glowing golden trident to cut several holes in its side. Black muttation blood spread around the shark in a dark cloud. The 1 girl suddenly remembered something horrible. Muttation blood was highly acidic and could kill upon contact. Past games had shown her that. Ruby-Gleam dove sideways, and the others didn't realize the severity of the situation until it was too late. Wystelle fell to the sandy and rocky floor, screaming, as the highly acidic solution ate away at her face and neck. The careers swam quickly out of the way of the spreading blood, and Wystelle kept screaming until her death. After she was dead, the shark mutts retreated. They hadn't given the careers much strife at all, but they would face many terrors as the games continued. They would see…

 _Wystelle Murphy, District 2 Female: 16th, Killed by Shark Muttation Blood, Day 2_

While Dartson, Robina, and Vine weren't the strongest tributes in these games, they did have a lot going for them, and they were prepared when the three shadowy sharks swam into sight. A few minutes earlier, Vine's mentor Seeder had sent him a note warning him of the coming shark mutts. The notes this year had to be written on plastic, as paper wouldn't sink and would likely tear and dissolve in the water. Vine had shared the note with Dartson and Robina, and they had grabbed their weapons in time for the shark's arrival.

The monster swam toward Dartson, and Dartson lashed out, cutting through the water with his sword. The blade clanged into the monster's sharp scales, doing no damage and just angering it further. Dartson scrambled away, and the monster turned to Robina. Robina distracted the beast with her trident. While it was distracted, Vine, who also had a trident, barged into the scene and gored its shining prongs through the shark's eye. The shark roared and wobbled back and forth. Vine and Robina turned tail and fled, leaving the shark to die behind them. They found Dartson in a minute or two, and they returned to their camp where the body of the dead shark lay.

As the sun rose fully on Day 2 and the day began for real, the tributes got out and about. The careers went hunting instantly, leaving Ruby-Gleam behind to guard the cornucopia. As they hunted, Kedian formed a plan in his mind. He wasn't the strongest career, and he knew he couldn't win if he didn't cut his way out of the pack somehow. So he planned to split away from his allies and band together with a group of strong outliers. He wasn't ready to split away just yet, as he was looking forward to a full day of hunting with Gloss and Mirror, but given how quickly the tributes were dropping he would have to do it soon.

The pack of Gloss, Kedian, and Mirror was treading through the sunken Atlantis arena when they spotted a glint about twenty feet to their right. It was Thermis. She had seen the careers coming her way, and, right before ducking behind a rock, her eyes had caught a ray of the sun's light and reflected it. Her location revealed, the three careers lunged toward her. Thermis screamed and paddled the other direction, tearing off a piece of coral to use as a weapon. Mirror lunged toward her, and Thermis roared to motivate herself as she brought down the coral onto her head. The coral just cracked, and Mirror wasn't hurt or injured in the slightest. Mirror's trident entered Thermis' chest, and she spun away through the water, hoping desperately to escape, but Gloss caught up to her and she was toast. Gloss hurled his harpoon into her chest, and her eyes rolled back into her head. She was the careers' first kill since the bloodbath.

 _Thermis Abraham, District 5 Female: 15th, Killed by Mirror and Gloss, Day 2_

Velnor from 8 was a heavy sleeper, but Thermis' cannon shot was able to rouse him from his slumber nonetheless. He got to his feet and looked around, remembering he was in the strange shop. Deciding to investigate what the shop was selling to occupy himself, he starting walking. Velnor shut the door and covered the windows so that nobody could see him. Enough sunlight was coming in through gaps in the ceiling for him to make his way around, however. The shop had many strange artifacts in store; strips of stone, slabs of red rock. However, his eyes were constantly drawn to the line of colored and polished stones sitting on the front desk. The rocks glowed and pulsed, and they radiated warmth. Curiously, Velnor grabbed one of the stones. Immediately, it broke open, unfolding and expanding. Before Velnor knew it, he was holding a trident about half the length of his arm. Velnor dropped the trident, and in seconds it had collapsed back down into a stone. Each of the five stones turned into a different weapon; besides the trident, there was a red sword, a strange tool for cutting coral, an awl, a harpoon, and a javelin. Knowing that a little bit of intentional killing would make these games end faster, Velnor took the trident and the javelin and went hunting.

Luckily, since there were so many outliers, it didn't take Velnor long to find another. He had hunted for less than an hour when he saw a stream of bubbles floating upward from a gate guarded by stone models of sharks. Velnor swam over the gate and saw Pallas of 10 snoozing contentedly against one of the statues. Steeling himself for the task ahead, Velnor rammed his trident into Pallas' chest. She bolted awake, screaming, and swam in random directions, spasming and going berserk from the agony. Velnor hurled his javelin. It skewered itself through the disoriented girl's heart, and she was dead in seconds. She didn't even flinch.

 _Pallas Crawford, District 10 Female: 14th, Killed by Velnor, Day 2_

Two more deaths would occur before Day 2 finally came to a close. The siblings Cole and Jacqui slept through the cannon shots of Wumpus, Wystelle, Thermis, and Pallas and woke on their own accord at noon. They broke camp and made breakfast, chatting about what foods they hoped would be supplied at parcel day back in District 12. Little did they know that that parcel day would never come, and their deaths would transpire sooner than later. Cole kept wanting to check out the glowing blue rocks they had slept near, but Jacqui warned against it. That was probably a smart choice. Who knew what the rocks could do? It simply wasn't worth the risk. But Cole was too curious to listen to Jacqui, and as soon as his sister was looking away he paddled toward the glowing rocks.

Eyes wide with fascination, Cole ran his finger along the ancient-looking runes carved into the stone. Someone must have gone over the carvings with shining blue ink afterward, and the perfectly spherical shape of the rocks seemed to be done by yet another party. Then, Cole traced his finger over the faint spiral that ran across the whole rock. Immediately, the currents of the water began to pick up. Nearby, Jacqui swam toward him and grabbed onto him.

"I told you not to touch those!" Jacqui scolded.

But the lost city of Atlantis really was mystical, and the force of the water kept growing stronger and stronger. Jacqui and Cole held onto each other as they clung to the ground, trying desperately not to be swept away. Finally, the current was just too strong. Powerful Jacqui was able to keep her firm grip, but the weaker Cole was torn away from his sister. Cole was crushed against the ground, and the water kept picking him and throwing him back down as if it had hands. Before long, the breathing mechanism had been knocked off of his face. He tried to swim toward it to put it back on, but it too was swept away in the storm of currents. Jacqui's screams rang in his ears as he died. Curiosity really did kill the cat.

 _Cole Drinker, District 12 Male: 13th, Killed by Drowning, Day 2_

When the storm finally calmed down, Cole's cannon shot boomed across the arena. Jacqui was horrified. She shouldn't have let Cole out of her sight! She had failed as a sister. If she could do anything to honor Cole's death, it was destroy the strange stones that seemed to have magical powers. She approached the field of boulders.

"What are you? How do you work?" she demanded.

Jacqui wasn't really expecting a response, and she didn't get one. The stones just kept flickering and pulsing.

Infuriated, Jacqui picked up a rock and slammed it down into the nearest magical stone. It didn't crack at all, and the rock in her hands split in half. One of the halves drove itself deep into her wrist, and Jacqui screamed, falling backward, as the blood made a cloud around her. Infuriated and sobbing heavily, the girl sprung forward and slammed the rock with her wrist. The central spiral glowed bright, and the currents around her began to pick up…

"No! No!"

But all of the noes in Panem couldn't change what was about to happen. The first pulsation of water threw her against the sea floor, and she was sent unconscious as her head slammed into a block of coral and stone. Over the course of the next five minutes, she was beaten to death, and she died from head trauma. At least she was with Cole again.

 _Jacqui Drinker, District 12 Female: 12th, Killed by Head Trauma, Day 2_

By the end of Day 2, the games were going just as Feodore had planned. After several long and drawn-out games in a row, he was experimenting with short games, choosing brief duration at the expense of length. After being brutally attacked by the group of shark mutts earlier in the day, Gloss, Kedian, and Mirror returned to the horn. Ruby-Gleam was there, and the careers filled each other in on what had happened. Kedian continued developing his plan to break away from the pack. Wanting advice from his mentor, he swam away from the others and quietly whispered his plan. Little did Kedian know, however, that Ruby-Gleam had followed him and was listening to every word he said. Ruby-Gleam covered her mouth to keep from screaming as the information sank into her. Kedian was a traitor. The 1 girl sped back to the cornucopia and yelled for her district partner, Gloss.

"What?" Gloss asked, peeved that Ruby-Gleam had interrupted his work.

"Kedian's… well, he's going to…" Ruby-Gleam was so shocked that she couldn't speak, and she was speaking so strangely that Gloss couldn't hear her through the water.

That night, Ruby-Gleam accepted that, if none of the others were willing to kill off the traitor of a boy Kedian, she had to do it herself.

Ruby-Gleam stayed up long after the others were asleep. Finally, once she heard the soft snores that she recognized as Kedian's, she slithered out of her sleeping bag and swam toward the 2 boy. Ruby-Gleam grabbed a trident from nearby, and, before she could stop herself, plunged the prongs into Kedian's chest. He woke with a start, coughing up blood, and Ruby Gleam thrust her trident into his neck, finishing him off. His screams woke the others up, and Gloss and Mirror had reached the scene of the crime by the time Kedian's cannon shot fired.

 _Kedian Propert, District 2 Male: 11th, Killed by Ruby-Gleam, Day 3_

"Hey. What are you doing?" Gloss shouted. Ruby-Gleam was standing with a bloodstained trident beside the bleeding body of another career. He and Mirror both assumed she was a traitor.

"I can explain!" Ruby-Gleam stopped them. "He was the traitor! He was planning to break away from us and team up with the outliers."

"Yeah, right." Mirror grabbed her trident. "There are no places for traitors in these games."

Mirror dove toward Ruby-Gleam with her trident, and Gloss with his harpoon at the exact same moment. Ruby-Gleam was too shocked to move, and the weapons killed her almost instantaneously.

 _Ruby-Gleam Zirman, District 1 Female: 10th, Killed by Mirror and Gloss, Day 3_

The remainder of the first half of Day 3 was filled with a lot of movement, but very little action. Gloss and Mirror stayed close together everywhere they went. They were the final two careers in the games. They didn't hunt that day and instead stayed at the cornucopia for a break. Moving around took a lot more effort in the entirely submerged arena than in an aboveground arena, and they spent the day on a much-needed rest. The three anti-careers nursed their wounds from the shark attack of the day prior. While none of them were mortally injured, they were in intense pain and needed a rest. Dartson, the tribute in the best physical condition, helped out the others with nursing their wounds. When he wasn't doing that, he was swimming in laps and telling stories about his life in District 5. Robina, however witty and crafty, had literally no idea of how to care for the wound that was on her arm. The shark had torn off a chunk of flesh about a centimeter long. Robina's sponsors had sent her a bandage to staunch the bleeding, but other than that there was nothing to do but wait for the wound to heal. Vine was the anti-careers' food. Not literally, of course, but he regularly swam away and brought back plants and animals for him and Robina and Dartson to eat. Much of the Capitol was anticipating a clash between the careers and the anti-careers, and Feodore was sure to make sure that fight happened before the games ended. Techana had promised herself she's start hunting for food on Day 1, but two days later she had been too scared to move and felt a raging hunger. If Techana didn't start hunting soon, she might die. Afton had been sustaining himself off of fish for several days. The sponsors often sent him new jars of poison, which he dropped into schools of fish to watch them all die. He only ate the ones that were edible, according to a handbook sent to him early the day prior. Afton rested in a temple to a sea god, but he felt a little dirty trespassing on land that was once sacred to somebody. Velnor returned to the shop with the stones in it and stayed behind the counter, amusing himself by touching the stones to watch them expand into huge weapons and then releasing them to watch them shrink back into mere rocks. The Capitol was growing bored with the outliers' inactivity, but this didn't matter much as most of the focus was on the career and anti-career packs. Cupcake had a bit of a scare around eleven in the morning. She accidentally knocked her face against a rock, and her breathing apparatus was shoved off of her face. Cupcake panicked and inhaled a big gulp of water. It took her nearly thirty seconds to put the mask back on, and hours to cough up all the water that was in her lungs. Too tired to do anything for the rest of the day, the girl settled between two hills and hid in a seaweed-like plant.

As Day 3 wore on, Velnor was becoming increasingly antsy. Nervous as to how quickly the final eight was arriving, he anxiously fidgeted with the stones. Once, he turned a bright-red stone in hand, and when he touched it, the blade of the sword expanded, puncturing his chest and driving at least an inch down into his flesh. Velnor let go of the sword, but it wouldn't shrink back down because it was lodged into his chest. He tore it out after half a minute of struggle. Velnor fell back as blood poured from the wound, and he wept quietly to himself as he bled out over the course of about five hours.

 _Velnor Ibes, District 8 Male: 9th, Killed by Bleeding Out, Day 3_

That left the final eight: Gloss Linden from District 1, Techana Zhao from District 3, Mirror Oesterling from District 4, Dartson Holoien from District 5, Afton Sandall and Robina Vane from District 7, and Vine Bluri and Cupcake Dippet from District 11.

Three deaths had already occurred on Day 3, and it was on a roll. Wanting to have plenty of tributes left when the endgame threats came about, Feodore made sure that no more deaths occurred before the day was over. What he did do, however, was begin moving the anti-careers toward the careers. Feodore waited until they were asleep and then sent them several strong water currents, spurred on by himself. The anti-careers floated in the direction of the cornucopia, and they would be likely to meet the next day.

The artificial sun could be seen through the rippling water as Day 4 arrived. Dartson, Robina, and Vine were extremely confused as to why they were several miles away from where they had gone to sleep. Vine's mentor sent them a note saying that the gamemakers wanted to see a fight between them and the careers. They all got nervous, but, knowing that Feodore would sent some threat to drive them to the cornucopia if they didn't do it themselves, began their journey. Dartson, Robina, and Vine arrived at the cornucopia a few minutes before noon on Day 3, tightly grasping their weapons. Gloss and Mirror, having been sent a notice the night before, were waiting for them. The three anti-careers curiously walked toward the horn. Suddenly, Gloss and Mirror burst out of nowhere, tackling them to the ground.

Robina let out a shrill scream and rolled out from underneath Gloss, running to help tear out Dartson from underneath Mirror. Gloss got up to chase after her, and she knew that she had to fight him alone. Gloss and Robina danced around each other, Gloss occasionally lashing out with harpoon just to scare her and Robina doing the same with her sword. Suddenly, Robina gathered the courage to lunge. She tried to hit Gloss in the torso, but he swam out of the way, causing Robina to fly past him and smack against a nearby rock with a loud noise. Robina couldn't get back up fast enough before Gloss cast his harpoon into her back. Screaming, Robina swam away. She lost all ability to move after less than a minute, and she died about seventy seconds after her horrid wound was inflicted by the boy from District 1.

 _Robina Vane, District 7 Female: 8th, Killed by Gloss, Day 4_

While the cameras were distracted focusing on the duel between Robina and Gloss, they had completely forgotten about the other career and two anti-careers. Dartson and Vine were trying to corner Mirror against whatever they could find, but the 4 girl was a slippery one and she refused to be trapped. Suddenly, Dartson lunged forward with a surprising and unexpected burst of energy and planted his sword into Mirror's stomach. She staggered backward, her movements slowed and exaggerated by the water, and she fell right onto Gloss, dying on top of him. Gloss managed to shove her off of him, and by the time he could see Dartson and Vine had escaped. Mirror's cannon proved that Gloss was the only remaining career in the games.

 _Mirror Oesterling, District 4 Female: 7th, Killed by Dartson and Vine, Day 4_

The rest of Day 4 passed with no loss of life nor limb, nor conflict, nor interaction between the remaining tributes whatsoever. Many of the outliers were shocked as to how quickly these games were going, but the Capitol couldn't have enough of it. They loved the fast-paced nature, but it wasn't something that could really become regular or else it would be boring. They had to savor the short games while it lasted. Techana finally got out to search for food, and she was very surprised by just how easy it was. She had gathered a bit of soft coral when she decided to head back to the temple to eat. Afton's poison tactics were growing a bit old; the Capitol was getting tired of them and Afton spent the day in a sandy ditch trying to think of something else. Cupcake had finally coughed up all of the water in her lungs by the time nightfall arrived, but she was in too much pain to keep moving, instead resting against a statue and watching the schools of colorful fish swim around her.

On the morning of Day 4, Cupcake woke up gradually. She'd fallen asleep leaning against the statue with bits of coral scattered around her, which she had knocked apart in her reckless sleep. What she didn't know, however, was that something else was waking nearby. It was a deadly mutt that had been asleep since the start of the games and was finally awakening from its slumber. It had been used only once before in the thirty-seventh Hunger Games, but it had been re-programmed with new behaviors so that it wouldn't be too predictable. Cupcake got to her feet, interesting, and pranced toward the strange rumbling sound that was going on to her left. After about a hundred feet, she spotted a strange curled-up mass resting on the sea floor. It was surrounded by a pile of spaghetti-like noodles of flesh…

Cupcake didn't have time to breathe before the kraken shot out a slimy tentacle and grabbed her around the ankle. She screamed bloody murder as the kraken mutt drew her inward, opening its hideous beak-like mouth for all to see. The girl grabbed a rock and smashed the tentacle that was gripped around her. Roaring in pain, it loosened its grip, and Cupcake was free. Adrenaline forced her to swim faster than she had ever swum before, and she dropped into a nearby temple with a small entrance. She was hoping the kraken wouldn't be able to fit through the entrance. However, it was slippery and slimy, and it popped into the temple where Cupcake was trapped. She crouched into the shadows, hoping for the best, but she knew her life was over as soon as two of its blue undulating tendrils bound themselves around her abdomen. Screaming, the kraken squeezed her. It squeezed her tighter and tighter as it brought her toward its mouth, shattering her ribs and killing her before she even got to see the chunks of bad meat stowed away in its mouth.

 _Cupcake Dippet, District 11 Female: 6th, Killed by Kraken Muttation, Day 4_

Techana had set out from her field of sand earlier in the day to explore. As she swam down a lane of anemone-like plants, she heard a nearby rumble and Cupcake's screams. She drew a sponsor gift she'd received a few minutes earlier, a knife, ready to face whatever was running her way. The moment she saw the slimy mess of a kraken mutt surging toward her, she had a sudden change of heart, turning tail to flee and hiding in a small astronomy building with a ceiling open to the sky high above. The tentacles of the mutt separated from each other and started feeling around, searching for Techana. Finally, Techana reached a dead end, and she could do nothing but wait for the worst as the tendrils of the mutt felt toward her.

The mutt eeked in triumph as it felt her flesh. Not two seconds later, three tentacles were binding themselves around her. She kicked and screamed with all of the strength she could muster like a little kid. At last, she remembered—her knife! Techana grabbed the blade and buried it into the tentacle that was closing around her the tightest. The kraken mutt let out a cry of pain and pulled back its tentacle, stowing it away underneath its ugly center while it healed. Only two tentacles were holding her now, but reinforcements were coming—and, was it just her imagination, or was its mouth coming closer and closer? She managed to put another tentacle out of action, but the kraken shook her violently like a matchbox, knocking her knife away. She reached for it, crying, but it was lost. She was now disoriented and without a weapon, while the kraken's grip was tightening around her. The actual killing process was quick, as she died soon after the monster's grip became too tight for her bones to stay strong.

 _Techana Zhao, District 3 Female: 5th, Killed by Kraken Muttation, Day 4_

Dartson and Vine were still camped-out in an area heavily populated by colorful fish and lobster-like creatures. Dartson was sharpening a sword he'd been practicing with out of boredom when she heard the rumble. Vine was getting a little shuteye about fifteen feet away, and his soft snores drifted up to Dartson's ears. He knew the noise was not something good. He was brave, but also smart, and he knew that something that could make that loud of sound from so far away was not something he could take down alone. Dartson packed up his supplies, and, trying to be quiet, snuck away. He felt horrible leaving Vine behind. He had made great friends with Vine over the games, but in the end he had to stick true to the Hunger Games strategy of kill or be killed.

Vine woke up too late to be saved. He sat up, stretching his arms, just as a cloud of dust was kicked up in the distance. The kraken was pummeling the sand with its tentacles, wanting to make him even more scared before he died. Many suspect it thought he would taste better if he died scared, though the thought is quite macabre and not scientifically accepted. By the time he turned around, he saw the vicious mutt raging toward him. He made out the way it flicked its blue tentacles. There was no way he could take down that thing himself. Vine stood up to run, thundering away toward a safer area.

But the kraken moved much faster than he did. Vine hadn't gone ten steps before one of the tentacles wrapped around his neck. He was tugged back, and for a scary second he couldn't breathe or think. With a thrusting motion of his spear, he managed to send one tentacle away, though two others were grasping him tightly by each ankle. Holding the spear toward the tail-end so he would have more space for stabbing, he tried to damage the tentacles enough that the kraken would be forced to retrieve them. But he was shaking with fear, and he accidentally stabbed himself in the foreleg. He screamed as blood spread out around him, and he was the kraken's next meal. The crunching of bone could be heard for a great ways around.

 _Vine Bluri, District 11 Male: 4th, Killed by Kraken Muttation, Day 4_

Having made three kills, the kraken recalled itself into the shadows to go back to sleep. It was quite possibly the most expensive mutt in games history, costing just short of a million dollars to create from scratch. Several parts were re-used from the mutt utilized in the thirty-seventh games, the better to save on costs. The only mutt that could have come close in cost was the dragon mutt of the forty-second Hunger Games, though even that never needed to be built to survive underwater.

The rest of Day 4 passed with only one more death. The final three tributes stayed mostly still, all of them male coincidentally. Gloss had been out hunting when he'd heard Vine's screams. Staying low to the ground so he wouldn't be seen, Gloss had spectated every second of Vine's death. He had also seen the way his blood spread out around him like a cloud, temporarily blocking him from sight. The imagery game him a stroke of inspiration. Gloss swam back to the horn and asked for a sack of ink from the sponsors. They were confused, but granted him his wish. In a minute, he held a sack filled with deep black ink in his hands.

Gloss' mentor sent him a note that the kraken was gone and there wasn't any more danger. He grabbed his harpoon and quickly went hunting. The gamemakers were curious to see what Gloss was doing. Only two outliers remained, Dartson and Afton. Because of his involvement in the anti-career pack, Dartson was more beloved, while Afton hadn't done much throughout the games. Feodore used water currents to drive Afton toward Gloss. They spotted each other around six that evening, ready for a fight.

The fight was over in less than thirty seconds. Gloss used the point of his harpoon to pop the bag of ink. The ink spread around Afton's face, and he was rendered blind. Gloss was using the ink like a squid's ink, to blind his opponent from sight. Gloss hurled his harpoon toward Afton. The 7 boy couldn't tell which direction the weapon was coming from. He was helpless as Gloss kept drawing back his harpoon for more blows. The cloud of ink didn't dissipate fully until several minutes until the boy's cannon shot faded away.

 _Afton Sandall, District 7 Male: 3rd, Killed by Gloss, Day 4_

By the looks of things, this was going to be the third shortest games in history. Only the seventeenth Hunger Games and the fortieth Hunger Games would be shorter than this one. Feodore promised the nation that the games would be wrapped up the next morning, and much of the Capitol went to bed heavily anticipating the coming finale.

Feodore stayed true to his promise, and Day 5 was the final day in the arena. The two finalists were up bright and early to prepare for the finale. Dartson practiced with his sword. In any normal-length games, the sword would probably be too damaged from water exposure to be used in the finale. However, this games had been so short that it was virtually unscathed, save for a few dents and pieces of dried blood that Dartson scraped off. Gloss stayed at the cornucopia. His sponsors sent him two more ink sacks. He held one in his hand and tucked the other one into his shirt as a reinforcement in case something went wrong with the other one. Figuring he might as well have a backup weapon, he grabbed a trident in addition to his harpoon. He strapped the harpoon to his side and held the trident in hand, waiting for Dartson's arrival. It was career versus anti-career.

Far away, Dartson began his journey toward the horn. At times, he was procrastinating the duel and moving slowly. Whenever this happened, Feodore sent him a shark mutt or two to keep him on his toes. At noon, Dartson allowed himself a thirty-minute rest against a statue. After the power nap, he was up and feeling alert for the finale. An hour later, Dartson spotted the cornucopia and ducked behind a rock. Quickly, he leapt toward another rock. He moved with small spurts of energy, zigzagging back and forth toward the horn. He was a quick one, and Gloss, who was waiting in front of the cornucopia, didn't notice him until he burst out of nowhere and raced toward him.

Gloss immediately deflected, using his trident to knock away Dartson's sword. The blow caused the long blade to fly out of the boy's hand, but he quickly grabbed it back. Dartson retaliated with a blow of his own, landing his sword into Gloss' elbow. He yelled in agony, and Dartson took the opportunity to pick up a nearby trident, discarding his sword in favor of the better weapon.

As soon as Dartson got to his feet, Gloss held out his first bag of ink. The 5 boy absorbed the information just as Gloss popped the bag. Ink exploded outward, blinding Dartson completely. Gloss swam backward, and, grabbing his trident, back forward, thrusting the bronze prongs into the back of his final competitor. Dartson gasped, and the next second he was underneath Gloss, his cannon firing.

 _Dartson Holoien, District 5 Male: 2nd, Killed by Gloss, Day 5_

"Gloss Linden of District 1, you are the victor of the sixty-third annual Hunger Games!" Caesar chimed.

The first thing Gloss did was peer down at his horribly wrinkled fingers, thinking about how ready he was to go back to the district he loved.

 _Gloss Linden, District 1 Male: Victor of the Sixty-Third Hunger Games, Day 5_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Gloss brought District 1 to nine victors, bringing them equal to District 4. Spending on the academies in these districts increased by incredible amounts, as each district wanted to be the one that produced the next victor. Which district would be superior as the games continued was anyone's guess, even if District 2 was objectively superior to both of them. Gloss was rather crafty and very creative, and also quite intelligent despite the stereotype of stupid and ditzy District 1 tributes. His strategy of utilizing ink like a squid to blind his prey was not one to forget, and this strategy would be used many times by tributes in future Hunger Games, with varying degrees of success. He was also one of the more good-looking District 1 tributes, and this meant that Snow started selling him like the best candy in the candy shop as soon as he was of age.

Gloss moved into the Victor's Village of District 1, the ninth victor to do so.

Nothing spectacular could be said about his victory tour, though both Districts 5 and 7 showered him with ill-will.

Gloss would live to the age of seventy-nine, dying from cancer the day before the start of the fifth Quarter Quell. Throughout his life, he would dabble in many arts, like painting, writing, and sculpting. He would marry a model from the Capitol, and they would have twin daughters before getting divorced five years later. After that, he would date but never remarry.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Gloss moves into the Victor's Village of District 1, the ninth to do so.

Ruby Rayfuse adopts two baby boys, Salazar and Gleam.

Lily Eckel gives birth to twin girls, whom she calls Honey and Lady.

Valerie Easton marries a rich Capitolite business tycoon named Chester Tidewaters.

Enobaria Rigatti has her teeth cosmetically filed into fangs and inlaid with gold.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: Wow! This chapter was a long one, clocking in at just shy of 10,000 words. I hope you've enjoyed this arena, as it was personally one of my favorites. I originally considered including a scientific explanation for the stones that unfold into weapons and the rocks that glow and kill you whenever you touch them, but I decided not to. I felt leaving everything mystical and mysterious would further the Atlantis ambiance.**

 **We'll be seeing another familiar face next year, Cashmere, and then Finnick the year after. Some of you guys have been commenting about the games that Katniss mentions in the first book, like the games with only spiked maces and the games where the victor only scores a three. Don't worry—I have all of those games planned to at least some extent :D**


	65. The 64th Hunger Games

**The 64th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

With the streak of career victors growing longer and longer, some of the outlying districts began to worry that the careers were simply getting too strong. This wasn't just a worry that the poorer citizens of Panem faced, though. It caused President Coriolanus Snow a lot of trouble as well. How boring would the games be if every single year was won by a career tribute? Snow didn't have intentions of deliberately breaking the streak by ensuring an outlier victory this year. He ordered that Head Gamemaker Feodore Elliot's next arena fit a few very specific criteria. Firstly, the arena was to be entirely indoors, which largely favored outliers in many scenarios. Also, there had to be another very small bloodbath this year. This would increase the number of outliers surviving the first day, thus increasing chances of an outlier victory. These requirements were only very temporary, and they were to be lifted after the sixty-fourth Hunger Games came to a close. Meanwhile, construction of a new project began in the Capitol—The Walk of Victors. The walk to the presidential mansion was stamped with the names and districts of all sixty-three Hunger Games victors. Victors would be added to The Walk of Victors as they were crowned. It would be centuries before space ran out.

This Hunger Games' arena was likely the most festive yet; it took a break from the harsh and brutal concepts the Capitolites liked and delved into the innocence of childlike faith. The arena closely modeled the cultural depiction of Santa Claus' workshop at the North Pole. The cornucopia was housed in the cafeteria in the center of the workshop. It was made of a creamy material that looked like frosting. The tables in the café were covered with trays of cookies, ice cream pops, and candy canes. Lights were affixed everywhere, casting a warm and cozy glow over the sweet-smelling elf cafeteria. Spindling off of the center were dozens of hallways that led to various rooms for things from wood carving to painting to wrapping. Most of the rooms had windows, but the snow outside was falling so heavily that the tributes couldn't see far out of them. Festive holiday bells jangled here and there. The mutts of the workshop were rather cute and seemingly harmless. Elves with pointy ears and noses and green hats roamed the place, humming and whistling tunes and feeding on holiday treats and occasionally sitting down to make a toy or two. The big man in red himself stayed in a very sweet-smelling bedroom near the reindeer pens. Outside of the building, a wide fence (too tall to climb and too strong to cut through) encircled a pen where the reindeer stayed. There were tall and small reindeer, reindeer with curved antlers and funny faces, and, most importantly, the one and only Rudolph, his nose shining through the white-out like a glowing lantern.

This year had one of the weaker career packs, but there were still several very strong ones that would make for an interesting games. District 1 offered forth the strongest pair. The boy was the whole package: tall, strong, brutishly attractive, and extremely talented with throwing knives and spears. Given his looks and skills, he was the favorite before the games began. The girl was the twin sister of Victor Gloss Linden, and many quickly grew a liking toward her. She was very classically beautiful, and very elegant and graceful in her movements. She was a bit too conceited for many but was tactful enough to earn an outstanding ten with throwing knives. District 2 provided two smaller kids this year. The boy was shier than most, and he was younger and more laid-back; while the girl was very prim and proper and liked to go by the book. She fancied swords, whereas the boy liked knives. District 4's tributes weren't the strongest; in fact, they earned the lowest scores of the career pack. The boy was more handsome than anything, but while he was very good-looking he didn't have much going for him anywhere else. He was greatly empathetic as well, but ironically didn't mind killing. The girl only scored a seven. She was very shy and nervous and socially insecure, but she could be cute. The training scores weren't the best: two tens, two nines, one eight, and one seven.

After the ridiculously powerful outlier crop of the year prior, the high-numbered districts reverted to their usual model, with a few strong tributes sprinkled about the crowd. Two different tributes scored eights, both of them male coincidentally. Bo of 7 was very good-looking and multi-talented, and he was great with an axe. He was the early favorite amongst the outliers. Meanwhile, Lettuce from 11 was a large and muscular boy with a knack for sickles and a way with words. Sevens weren't plentiful this year. Only three of them were scored outside of the career pack: Inertia from 5, Dmitri from 9, and Cameron from 12. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. Another standout came from District 3. Function was a very intelligent boy; he had invented a long-reaching radar device that could detect minute changes in atmospheric pressure and detect oncoming storms with a margin of error of less than one percent. Function stated in his interview that he hoped to win the games somewhat like Beetee of the fortieth games. Hermione from District 9 was another standout. Hermione was a full-out hula hoop champion, able to spin ten hula hoops around her body at once, all while jumping around and swirling her limbs through more and more. She showed off her skills during her interview; it wasn't long before the supply backstage ran out and she had to stop. There was only one volunteer outside of the career pack: a boy from District 6 named Tire, who volunteered to escape abuse and awful living conditions in his home. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Guild Decesare, 18, (10) 3-1 and Cashmere Linden, 18, (10) 4-1

District 2: Sixto Katzmann, 16, (9) 7-1 and Minueta Bird, 17, (9) 6-1

District 3: Function Craft, 14, (6) 21-1 and Samba Luongo, 15, (5) 25-1

District 4: Salton Rivera, 18, (8) 9-1 and Cuttle Ruyle, 17, (7) 15-1

District 5: Zeller Lechten, 16, (4) 42-1 and Inertia Harris, 18, (7) 16-1

District 6: Tire D'Ambrose, 18, (6) 20-1 and Bonnet Dressler, 18, (6) 21-1

District 7: Bo Phoenix, 18, (8) 11-1 and Shelby Mintz, 15, (4) 43-1

District 8: Foulard Stuppord, 13, (5) 28-1 and Taffeta Olivier, 12, (3) 48-1

District 9: Dmitri Sciscores, 16, (7) 17-1 and Hermione Macrae, 17, (6) 22-1

District 10: Cuckoo Aminoff, 18, (6) 20-1 and Wrena Vaccaro, 16, (6) 21-1

District 11: Lettuce Ekstrom, 18, (8) 12-1 and Petunia Dokidis, 13, (4) 46-1

District 12: Cameron Sine, 14, (7) 20-1 and Allison Lewalski, 18, (5) 29-1

HGBO Bets: 13% on Guild, 11% on Cashmere, 7% on Sixto and Minueta, 6% on Salton, 5% on Bo and Lettuce, 4% on Cuttle, Inertia, Dmitri, and Cameron, 3% on Function, Tire, Bonnet, Hermione, Cuckoo, and Wrena, 2% on Samba, Foulard, and Allison, 1% or less on Zeller, Shelby, Taffeta, and Petunia.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The aroma of gingerbread cookies and sweet frosting wafted around the tributes as they rose up into the central cafeteria of Santa's toy factory. They were all dressed in cozy Christmas Eve pajamas, which depicted reindeer and elves. Several of the tributes also wore Santa hats, made of red cloth topped with white fuzzy puff-balls. The tributes gazed all around. They looked at the tinsel that lined the walls and the cookies that sat, perfectly baked, on the tables in the cafeteria.

A loud boom shook the room. Young Taffeta from District 8 had been swiveling her head every which way, gawking at all of the festive holiday decorations. About twelve seconds before the countdown ended, her Santa hat fell off of her head. Screaming with panic, Taffeta clawed at the air, trying to regain the hat as it fell closer and closer to the ground. It landed at the base of her pedestal, and the land mines were activated. They weren't strong enough to blast her against the ceiling, but they were strong enough to throw her against the nearest wall, shaking and dying as blood leaked from everywhere on her body.

 _Taffeta Olivier, District 8 Female: 24th, Killed by Land Mines, Pre-Bloodbath_

When the gong rang, a number of tributes fled immediately into the depths of the toy workshop. They were Zeller from 5, Dmitri from 9, and Wrena from 10. The rest of the tributes decided to run head-first into the fray. On President Snow's orders, this year's bloodbath would be another very small one.

Guild sprinted at the head of the onrush, powered onward by the sight of a spear that leaned against a table near his pedestal. His fingers locked around the spear, and he twirled around, spying over the droves of outliers in search of worthwhile prey. Guild tackled a muscular boy to the ground, pulling his spear out of his belt to do the dirty work. The boy thrashed under Guild's weight as the 1 boy thrust the point of the spear into his neck. He stopped struggling almost immediately. The boy let out a strange, oddly-creepy moaning sound until his death about thirty seconds later.

 _Cuckoo Aminoff, District 10 Male: 23rd, Killed by Guild, Bloodbath_

Cashmere had run all of the way into the cornucopia for a belt of throwing knives. She began throwing as soon as the belt was clipped around her waist. Her cascading golden locks rippled behind her as she sprinted toward a nearby girl. The girl in question was leaning against one of the tables, stuffing cookies and pieces of Christmas pie into her mouth while simultaneously shoving as many treats into her pockets as she could. The girl screamed and let out her whole mouthful of sweets as two of Cashmere's knives dug into her chest, ending her life. At least she was happy in her final moments.

 _Samba Luongo, District 3 Female: 22nd, Killed by Cashmere, Bloodbath_

Sixto gritted his teeth as he dueled with the boy from District 12. Each of the boys had a knife; sparks flew and metal screamed against metal as the blades clashed into the air. The battle came to a close nearly two minutes after it started. A testimony to his spontaneity, Sixto lunged forward, shoving the 12 boy against the ground. Shocked at the career's sudden burst of energy, he was unable to move as the knife was slid down into his throat.

 _Cameron Sine, District 12 Male: 21st, Killed by Sixto, Bloodbath_

Mere seconds later, Cashmere went in for another kill. She had spent the last minute or so chasing a screaming girl around the cafeteria with her throwing knives. The girl couldn't flee forever, and she collapsed, shaking underneath a table, unable to move any farther. The much stronger Cashmere had a lot of energy left. The girl under the table tried to crab-sprint away, but one of Cashmere's throwing knives found a home between two of the plates of her skull. She tumbled at the feet of another career (Guild, Cashmere's district partner) who finished her off with a spear to the windpipe.

 _Petunia Dokidis, District 11 Female: 20th, Killed by Cashmere and Guild, Bloodbath_

Salton made the final kill. Hailing from District 4 meant that he had a lower standing in the eyes of the sponsors, but he was ravenous to prove that he had a career-like streak in him. Arming himself with a trident, the 4 boy pounced like a cat toward a very small boy from an outlying district. Salton didn't hesitate before thrusting the prongs of his trident into his chest. The six careers (only four of whom had actually made kills) gathered around to watch him die, a process that took a little under half an hour.

 _Foulard Stuppord, District 8 Male: 19th, Killed by Salton, Bloodbath_

The careers went about their pre-hunting rituals very quickly. After the very small bloodbath of six kills (only five of which were actually made after the countdown) they were eager to get hunting and thin the massive crowds of outliers. Guild, the strongest tribute this year, did a quick check of the hallways around the cornucopia for prey. A smell of cake drew him into the kitchen, where he feasted on peppermint swirls before returning to the horn with a dreamy look in his eyes. Guild had brought back several of the mint sweets in a bucket, which the other careers snatched up to suck on every once and a while. Cashmere organized the cafeteria a bit more. She piled all of the sugary snacks onto one of the tables near the cornucopia and then wheeled the other tables to the edges of the room, giving them all more room to move freely. Sixto pillaged the dead of their supplies. Due to the smaller bloodbath, there wasn't much to take, but he did get a considerable amount of first-aid supplies as well as knives. Minueta, who was very much a beaurocrat and lover of order, patrolled the cornucopia adjusting anything that was out of place. Her district partner Sixto mentioned to her that she was being bossy, but she didn't stop. Salton struggled to wrench his trident out of Foulard's chest for several minutes. The prongs were lodged so far into the tissue that he had to grab onto nearby objects to gain extra leverage. After nearly twenty minutes, Salton finally extracted the prongs. He spent the next few minutes wiping the blood off of it and swiping away the tissue and skin chunks. Cuttle wasn't doing much. She was just sprinting around the cafeteria, overjoyed at the festive atmosphere of Christmas. Of course, it wasn't actually Christmas (the Hunger Games begin on the third Saturday in June, essentially as far away from Christmas at it can be) but it felt like it nonetheless. When hunting time arrived, Sixto volunteered to guard the cornucopia while the other five spindeled outward to hunt for more victims. The outliers scattered every which way, clinging onto their supplies from the horn. Function sprinted through hallways for several hours before coming to a sudden stop in front of the doorway to a toy-making room. Long tables stretched across the room, covered with half-painted toy cars and trains. Function ducked under one of the tables after opening his pack and finding it filled with wire and a thermos of water. Zeller had spent much of the bloodbath shoving as many sweet treats as possible into his bag. As he walked, he munched nervously on the food. He hardly made a dent on the huge supply of sugar-cookies, frosting, and pound cake slices. It was only when night fell that Zeller grew conscious of the way the smell was alerting the others to his position. He crashed in a room designed for doll-carving, making sure to shove a bit of spare carpet under the door so the smell of the sweets couldn't escape. Inertia had gathered two wicked-looking hunting knives; she held them tightly in grasp as she ventured outward, through twisting corridors and around rooms meant for the strangest things. Being thrown into a fight to the death wasn't exactly her cup of tea, so she slept the night away shaking and scared in a large, unused, and ill-heated room. Tire did deep-breathing exercises as he trekked down one of the hallways. It was several hours into the day that he realized the factory was shaped like a snowflake, with six large spindles each with small hallways of their own branching left and right. Tire was strangely unfazed by the stress of the games; perhaps he thought anything was better than the horrible things he had been living with in District 6. He made himself at home under the warm blankets in a supply closet, though it grew a bit scratchy and hot quickly. Bonnet was scared; she had nothing but a coil of twine and was alone in the workshop. Figuring she might as well be resourceful, the 6 girl found a pair of scissors in one of the rooms and tore it in half, leaving herself with two knife-like weapons. She slept near the scissors that night, wanting to have a supply of sharp objects near in case the enemy discovered her. Bo, the strongest outlier, had an axe but not much else. Fortunately, the factory provided much. He spent the evening scavenging for things from ropes to knives to use in the future, storing them under a wheelie cart in a room filled with half-sewn stockings. Shelby was too traumatized from the bloodbath to do much for most of the day. Instead of hunting for more supplies than she already had (a pack of dried fruit and a jar of a weird jelly-like edible substance), Shelby sat cross-legged in front of a crackling fire in a rec room far away from the horn. Dmitri camped out in a room populated by tall wooden nutcrackers like guards. Coincidentally, one of Dmitri's supplies was a pack of nuts with hard shells. He was able to crush the shells under his feet, rendering the nutcrackers useless, but they still kept him a sort of weird company. Hermione had nothing but a pack of beef strips from the bloodbath; she ventured through hallways for the whole day. At dusk, she found a room filled with presents that needed to be wrapped, including… a hula hoop! Hermione spun the hoop around her waist for nearly an hour before stopping due to exhaustion. Wrena, having chosen to flee from the bloodbath the second the gong played its note, had no weapons nor supplies of any kind. She had fled to an area where there weren't many well-stocked rooms, and she wasn't finding much. However, she found a cart of gingerbread cookies in a pantry and fell asleep halfway through shoving down the load. Lettuce had a quart of milk from the horn, and he knew exactly what he had to do. He poured the milk out into a wooden bowl and broke several cookies into the milk. Lettuce kneaded the cookies and milk together until he was left with a pasty and dough-like mixture he ate before settling in a toy-making room. Allison was a hard-working poor girl, and she was shocked when she saw the hundreds of diamond necklaces and rings kids had wished for stowed away in packages in one the rooms. She couldn't have left the room if she wanted to; she was entranced with the diamond jewelry. Allison didn't sleep until she had tried on everything. At least she had enough sense to close herself in the back room for the night. There was relative peace in the arena as day turned into night.

Day 2 had some action in it. The career pack of five got up early in the morning, wanting catch a few of the sleepier tributes off-guard. Their prey would be weaker so early in the morning, and, if they were lucky, they might just have come across a sleeping tribute or two. Guild lead the procession, walking quietly at the head of the pack. Cashmere and Salton were right behind him, while Minueta and Cuttle were at the back.

Dmitri was sitting cross-legged in the room guarded by tall wooden nutcrackers when he heard the familiar beep of a sponsor gift. The little drone slipped down to him. It was just a slip of paper. Dmitri anxiously tore over the note. The message was from his mentor, Barley. The note cryptically warned him of the nearby career pack, hinting that he needed to find a safe hiding spot quickly. Dmitri was unable to correctly interpret the note. The career pack was drawing closer and closer, but the 9 boy was completely unaware of their presence. After finally gathering up enough energy, he got to his feet and peered out of the room. It was too late. Just as his head poked into the hallway, the shaft of Guild's throwing spear sailed over his shoulder. Dmitri sprinted back into the room, shaking and trying not to scream. The career pack outside broke into a run, all five of them exchanging thrilled whispers. In the room, Dmitri stood completely still, his brain racing as he tried desperately to think up a solution.

Once he gathered the courage to move his wobbling legs, he reached out to shut the heavy wooden doors. He wasn't fast enough. The career pack burst in, thirsty for blood. Dmitri screamed and staggered to the back corner of the room. A parachute containing a serrated dagger was zipped down to him; he held the weapon firmly in hand, gritting his teeth as the careers grew closer and closer. He didn't want to fight, but he had no choice. Minueta broke into a run, and Dmitri lashed out with his knife, forcing it into the career girl's gut. She fell back, her steps choppy. Minueta clutched her side tightly, desperately trying to keep her blood inside her body. She was the first career tribute to die in the sixty-fourth annual Hunger Games.

 _Minueta Bird, District 2 Female: 18th, Killed by Dmitri, Day 2_

Agitated by Minueta's cannon shot, the four remaining careers lunged forward, desperate to take down the 9 boy. Suddenly, an idea popped into his head. He grabbed the nearest nutcracker and rocked it back and forth. The wooden man grew more and more unstable until it finally toppled over. The nutcracker the size of a pickup truck came crashing down. Dmitri danced to the left, covering his head to prevent injury. Guild, Cashmere, Salton, and Cuttle yelped as they staggered out of the way of the falling object. Dmitri used his dagger to drive them out before finally closing the heavy wooden doors. He dragged as much furniture in front of the doors as he could, barricading himself inside with the dead Minueta and the huge nutcrackers.

Outside, the careers were infuriated. Cashmere, ever the patriot, suggested that they march to the horn right away to gather Sixto. He deserved to be informed of his district partner's death, and besides, they needed all the help they could get to bust into the room where Dmitri was hiding, she reasoned. Salton objected in a whisper that Sixto wasn't very strong; they wouldn't need him to bust into the room. Cashmere gave up arguing, but she insisted that a few of them stay and guard the doors in case Dmitri tried to make a run for it. She and Cuttle stood on either side of the doors, weapons at the ready, while Guild and Salton tramped away to continue their hunt.

After that, what could be considered late evening arrived, though it was difficult to define morning and night in the always-lit, indoor arena. Zeller was so terrified of enemies smelling all of the sweets he had stashed that he jumped between rooms every few hours, making himself virtually un-trackable. He also left decoy sweets in random rooms, hoping to throw any pursuers off guard. Zeller's actions weren't very sensible, but he was paranoid and wasn't thinking very straight at all. Wrena woke up in the pantries where she had fallen asleep eating cookies the night prior. Cookies and other sweets were broken and strewn everywhere. The doors to the pantry were wide-open; several things had spilt overnight. It looked like a tornado had struck the area. The ruckus Wrena made trying to put everything back in order attracted the attention of several nearby tributes, but none of them decided to investigate. Bonnet decided to put on her hair-stylist hat. Afraid her locks would get in the way of her vision, she snapped her scissor-halves back together and started snipping off her hair. She was deathly afraid that someone would find them, so she stashed them away in a garbage chute in a room meant for book binding.

On Day 3, the first mutts of the arena were unleashed. They were elves: creatures with pointed-ears and rosy cheeks that travelled in packs chortling with each other. Their toy-making belts included weapons from hammers to screwdrivers; it would be a mistake for any tribute to presume they weren't lethal. The elf mutts attacked four different tributes. Two of them would result in death, whereas two would be fended off.

Lettuce woke up gradually. He found that his hand was covered with the cookie-milk dough concoction he had feasted on the day before. He licked off his fingers and got slowly to his feet. He could hear the laughter of the elves ringing around him. They seemed harmless, but they were capable of performing vicious deeds upon tribute contact. The mutts smelled Lettuce's blood, and they would not give up until they either had a taste or were killed.

Realizing the danger, Lettuce grabbed a hammer off of a long table. It wasn't a very efficient weapon, but it was far better than nothing. He ducked into a nearby wardrobe filled with cloth. Feeling through the darkness, he wiggled down into the mass of threads and blankets. Inside, he accidentally hit himself on the head with the hammer. He cursed, and that was what gave him away.

All five of the mutts bolted toward the wardrobe where Lettuce was hiding. He held onto the insides of the doors with all of his might. Even though the elves were small, their combined strength was far greater than the boy's alone. The doors were thrown open, and the elves poured in. Lettuce stood his steady ground, struggling to fend off the small creatures. One of them held a screwdriver above its head, eeking triumphantly as it stormed toward him. The boy thrust out a foot and knocked the elf to the ground. A striking motion of his hammer was enough to send in unconscious, but it would be back in combat before long.

Before he knew it, Lettuce was being overwhelmed by the three elves. One of the larger elves drove an awl into his calf, and the 11 boy slid to the ground, screaming, as blood poured onto the floor of the wardrobe. Next, the final two elves leapt on top of him, jumping down on top of him. Wheezing, his airways were crushed, and he suffocated to death around two minutes after he was rendered incapable of breathing.

 _Lettice Ekstrom, District 11 Male: 17th, Killed by Elf Muttations, Day 3_

On the other side of the factory, Bo perked up at a high-pitched noise. The room he was inside was filled with stockings; sound didn't travel well when it was constantly being absorbed by the cushion-like material. Bo didn't hear the elves coming his way until it was almost too late. Knowing anything that made that sound was not human, he quickly closed the door to the room. Bo reached to lock it, but the door didn't have a lock. There wasn't any furniture to barricade the door shut either. He had no choice but to fight. Four elves scarcely the height of Bo's waist burst into the room. The boy leapt on top of a table, panting with exhaustion. The elves clambered to reach him. He had chosen a great strategy; the elves were easy victims from the high height. The crunch of bone was heard as the blade of the axe was buried into two elves' skulls in rapid succession. The two survivors were tricksters, but it wasn't hard for Bo to round them up. He didn't know what to do with their bodies, so he stuffed them into the wardrobe and moved to a different room before they began to smell.

The muttations of Santa's helper elves would attack two more tributes, but they would only succeed in killing one of them. Inertia awoke from a pleasant dream to a tickling sensation on her face. She just laughed and kept her eyes closed. It wasn't hard to imagine that it was just her pet dog back home in District 5. A few seconds later, Inertia groggily opened her eyes, remembered where she was, and screamed. A small elf was tracing its nose along her face. She sprang to her feet and snatched up her hunting knives before storming toward the exit. On the way out, two elves grabbed her feet, and she tripped. The knives flew out of her hands, clattering still on the other side of the empty room.

Meanwhile, Allison was chillaxing in the room filled with diamond jewelry. She hadn't done a good job of cleaning up after trying on all of the jewelry; several necklaces and bracelets were scattered here and there and a few boxes and bits of wrapping paper were on the floor. Coupled with the smell of her blood, the elf mutts had no doubt that a tribute was hiding in the jewelry room. Two elves burst into the room and stormed toward Allison, and she barely had time to deflect. She wasn't a strong girl (kids in District 12 didn't start work until age nineteen) but she was clever enough to evade the elves. Once, she leaped onto a table and then jumped onto the crowd of elves, trying to squash them under her feet.

The nation watched in anticipation as Inertia and Allison struggled to fend off the rogue elves. Whether both, one, or none would lose to the mischievous mutts was anyone's guess.

A minute or so later, Allison got the edge over the attacking elves. The jewelry room also contained sparkling shoes that children had wished for. Allison snatched up a shoe with a pointed end and gored it through the eye of the nearest mutt. Black blood rolled down its face as it staggered backward, scowling with pain and clutching its face as if it could draw away the pain with its hands. The other mutt ran to the help of its dying ally, and Allison managed to flush them out of the room with the shoe. Inertia, on the other hand, was not so lucky. Without her hunting knives, she had no weapon but her bare hands. She rolled over on the floor, struggling to kick off the elves that were wresting her down. Their leaping weights rendered her unable to breathe. As the seconds passed and Inertia's lungs started screaming for breath, she became weaker and weaker, before finally falling to the mutts.

 _Inertia Harris, District 5 Female: 16th, Killed by Elf Muttations, Day 3_

No more deaths occurred that day. No one moved around much, utterly frightened by the sounds of the elf mutts and the two cannon shots that followed. The crowd had already been thinned down to fifteen tributes. That was a lot to be left on the third day in a normal games, but given how this games had an extraordinarily shoddy bloodbath it was a sight to behold.

Days 4 and 5 passed deathless. After three action-packed and thrilling days, it was only natural that a few less-exciting ones should come about. Guild and Salton returned to the cafeteria where the cornucopia was and met up with Sixto. In the time they were gone, Sixto had greatly organized the cornucopia. He had sorted the weapons into three categories (projectile, melee, and other) and the tools into three categories (food and water, health, and textiles). Sixto was greatly confused as to why they were the only two careers when he hadn't seen the faces of Cashmere or Cuttle on the death recap. They informed him that the 1 and 4 girls were guarding the room where Dmitri was hiding. Cashmere and Cuttle were growing extremely bored guarding the doors. Their daily schedule was very repetitive: wake up, eat breakfast, brush teeth, and then stand for ten hours before going to bed and assigning shifts. They hoped Dmitri would either starve inside or try to escape soon, just so they would be delivered from the monotony of their current lives. Inside of the room, Dmitri was panicking. He was incredibly hungry and thirsty. He had been surviving off of sponsor gifts delivered through openings in the ceiling, but they couldn't last him forever. He paced around the room crying, sometimes kneeling with his chin resting on his knees, trying to think of a method by which to escape.

As for the outliers, there was a lot of movement but little action. Function had spent the last few days assembling an electrical trap reminiscent of Beetee's; a spider-web of wires wrapped all around the room he was living inside of, and he waited for prey to come as he fed on sponsor foods and sweets that were scattered around the place. Zeller was getting more and more paranoid about people being able to track him. He was developing elaborate tactics, such as making loud noises whenever he had stayed in one place for too long and then fleeing. Zeller had eaten all of his sweets so the smell wasn't a problem, but he had the idea that the smell was somehow ingrained into his clothes and pack. Tire left the supply closet to search for food, as the cloth inside was irritating his skin and annoying him. He found a water fountain near one of the work rooms, which he moved his supplies to for the sake of easy access to hydration. Bonnet had been cutting her hair on-and-off for the last few days. She wasn't very good at it. Her tresses were very choppy and uneven and she had accidentally stabbed herself several times. She was getting extremely close to the entrance to the reindeer pen, and Bonnet was expected to discover it accidentally sooner or later. Bo was a little shaken-up from being attacked by the elves, but a few quick breathing exercises were able to calm him down by morning. He made sure to get the good night's rest he needed. Bo vowed to find a new home in the morning, as the bodies of the elves in the wardrobe were stinking. Shelby was trapped in a state of denial. She wanted to get up and find food, but her mind kept her trapped in front of the warm fire. She didn't want to do anything or go anywhere; she was in the Hunger Games and didn't know what to do. Chaff, her mentor, sent her a heads-up that the gamemakers were getting bored of her inactivity. But Shelby was too terrified to move despite the constant warnings from sponsors and Chaff. Hermione pawed around the room that contained unwrapped toys. Food was plentiful, and Hermione only needed to leave for a minute or so to get enough food for each new day. She kept the hula-hoop close at hand to impress the sponsors in case she was getting a little boring. Despite her enthusiastic hula-hooping, the Capitol was getting bored of her. Wrena was being, for lack of a better description, a lazy bum. She jumped between pantries, pulling out whatever looked tasty and leaving scenes of relative chaos behind her. She was what one would call a pig. At least she was sensible enough to have a definitive home at night: a large room with several long tables covered with half-painted toys. Allison was so terrified from the elf mutts that she barricaded herself into the jewelry room. The girl crouched down into the back closet, shaking and crying as the true stress of the games sank in.

Only one death occurred on Day 6, breaking the two-day-long streak of peace in the arena. Shelby finally got up the courage to leave her safe space by the fire, and she began exploring. She was surprised as to how much the workshop had to show. She passed by rows of rooms and corridors, gawking at the tinsel and holiday bells that hung from the ceiling. Finally, she reached the place where sweets were made. The smell made Shelby's mouth flood with saliva, and she was drawn into the room. Ovens lined the room, and baking ingredients were stacked neatly in a cupboard on the right wall. There was a door on the other side of the kitchen, and Shelby curiously opened it and walked inside.

The unfortunate girl, unbeknownst to her, had strolled into one of the large ovens. She whipped her head around as the door locked behind her, and, in her panic, thought that the heat dial was the exit key. She turned it all the way to super-hot and instantly realized her mistake. In mere seconds, the temperatures in the oven exceeded one-hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Shelby panicked and tried to push the lever back to zero, but the temperature had increased by several hundred degrees by the time she managed to make any sort of progress. Shelby collapsed to the ground, screaming, and every time she inhaled her lungs were scorched by the four-hundred degree air. In no time, her skin was melting off of her bones. It was one of the most disturbing deaths shown in games history up to that point.

 _Shelby Mintz, District 7 Female: 15th, Killed by Being Trapped in Oven, Day 6_

The rest of Day 6 passed, deathless. Several nearby tributes (including Zeller from 5 and Hermione from 9) had been close enough to hear Shelby's screams of agony. They were terrified by the screams and ducked into their hiding places for the rest of the day, unable to shake out the screams that still rang in their ears.

Day 7 was the day that the reindeer were finally discovered. Bonnet got up early. Ever since gathering the courage to start moving around more, she was fascinated as to how every turn seemed to bring about something new. At eight in the morning, she came across a door made of frosty panes of glass. It must have been the entrance to the outside. Preparing for a blast of cold, Bonnet tugged the door open. Snowflakes dug into her skin as Bonnet stepped outside. She could make out the forms of several roaming figures through the blizzard. One of the creatures had a bright-red light affixed to its face—Rudolph. Santa himself was out feeding the reindeer. He had placed a bucket of their food in the center of the field and was now walking back to the workshop. Santa spotted Bonnet standing in the doorway, and he let out a growl. Santa and his reindeer simultaneously began sprinting toward a large object to Bonnet's left. It was an object she hadn't noticed before. A sleigh. Realizing the severity of the situation, the girl turned around and ran back into the warm workshop, panting with panic. She had travelled less than ten steps when the sleigh broke through the door, pulled by nine reindeer. The back of the sleigh was loaded with presents, some of which fell out on the bumpy ride.

Bonnet raced through hallways, panicking and trying to escape the horrible sleigh team. She had her hands in the air, and she was screaming out, "Run for your lives!" After nearly ten minutes of running, Bonnet slumped to the carpeted floor like a stone, unable to travel any farther. Santa grabbed a present from the toy sack and threw it toward her. The present hit her in the head, and she reeled, nearly careening into the fire. She grabbed a stocking that was hanging over the fireplace and used it to deflect the incoming presents. The sleigh drove her farther and farther back; it wasn't long before she felt the smooth wall on the back of her neck.

All at once, the reindeer charged, running over her with their hooves. Rudolph himself placed his red nose to Bonnet's torso, and she screamed as it buzzed and burned a hole through her flesh. Blood spouted from everywhere on her body, and Santa cackled maniacally at the sound of her cannon shot, depicting a vastly different Santa Claus from his typical portrayal in holiday tradition.

 _Bonnet Dressler, District 6 Female: 14th, Killed by Reindeer Muttations, Day 7_

Zeller and Tire both woke very gradually. They had heard Bonnet's screams, but they were in a state between sleepfulness and wakefulness and all of their thoughts were so dreamy that they hadn't really been understanding what was going on. When they finally heard the clatter of hooves, both boys left their rooms to investigate. Zeller and Tire spotted each other on opposite ends of the hallway, and they nervously approached each other. They weren't going to kill each other. Zeller proposed that they band together to find the source of all that hoof-clattering. They stood side-by-side, slowly creeping on their tip-toes…

All at once, the procession of Santa's Christmas sleigh burst around the corner. Zeller and Tire screamed and turned around to run. One of the reindeer had grabbed Tire with its mouth and was biting down on his neck. Tire could feel the reindeer's sharp teeth digging into his neck, and breathing was becoming more and more difficult. Zeller didn't care what was going on behind him; he ran and ran and ran and ran, hoping desperately to get away from Santa and his evil reindeer.

The news sank into Tire that he had no chance of survival. The reindeer had dragged him to the center of the pack. All of the deer were struggling against the reins, trying to get closer to him. One of them stamped his trachea flat with its hoof, and he was dead in minutes. There was a whole lot of blood over the next few minutes. Feodore had to actually send them reeling away with electric pulses so they wouldn't eat the whole body. Now only half of the tributes remained.

 _Tire D'Ambrose, District 6 Male: 13th, Killed by Reindeer Muttations, Day 7_

Tire's cannon shot only made Zeller run even faster. Adrenaline was running through his veins instead of blood. He was fast enough to run from the sleigh, but he was getting more and more tired. When he finally couldn't run any longer, Zeller hurled himself into a supply closet, slammed the door shut (knocking down some of the tinsel on the ceiling), and prayed that the door was reindeer-proof.

Santa's reindeer crowd caught up to Zeller in seconds, busting down the door and crushing him against the back of the cabinet. Their hooves made quick work of him. They were satisfied by two kills, but their killer instincts fired back up at the sound of voices from nearby—the voices of careers.

 _Zeller Lechten, District 5 Male: 12th, Killed by Reindeer Muttations, Day 7_

Those voices were the voices of Cashmere and Cuttle, dutifully guarding the room in which Dmitri was hiding. The two careers froze and grabbed their weapons. There was the unmistakable clattering of hooves and jangle of sleigh bells. All at once, the sleigh team burst around the corner.

"Santa! It's… reindeer and Santa!" Cuttle shouted, bewildered.

"Shut up! We've got to fight them off!" Cashmere hissed.

The sleigh reached them in no time. Cashmere had her throwing knives, Cuttle her whip, and they were struggling to fend off the reindeer mutts. With two cracks of her whip, Cuttle sent two reindeer flying. They were too shocked to move, but they would quickly jump back into the ongoing fight once the agony wore off. One reindeer stood on its hind legs and kicked Cashmere in the stomach. Cashmere reeled, gasping and moaning in pain. Her lungs had taken a small dent from the blow, but they were recovering. In the time the 1 girl was recovering, the 4 girl was left alone to take down the reindeer mutts. Cuttle slammed her whip down onto two reindeer, breaking off their horns. Each reindeer thought its partner had been the one to do the damage, and they broke into a skirmish with each other. Only six reindeer were left in combat. Santa himself wasn't doing anything much other than sitting in the sleigh smugly, tossing the point of his festive holiday hat around and around.

As the reindeer continued swarming forth, it grew harder for Cuttle to hold them off. Finally, she was overwhelmed. Two reindeer slammed their hooves into either side of her neck. She retched, hot bile staining their fur and the carpeted floor, and she was an easy victim in the end. It wasn't until several seconds after the 4 girl's death that Cashmere finally recovered from her agony. She shakily got to her feet. All nine of the reindeer were digging into Cuttle's body. Even the vicious 1 girl couldn't help but feel a little disgusted

 _Cuttle Ruyle, District 4 Female: 11th, Killed by Reindeer Muttations, Day 7_

Cashmere looked up and made a strange discovery. As Santa Claus' hat wobbled around, she noticed something. A large metal chip about the size of a human hand was planted into his scalp. Whichever way Santa moved his head was the direction the reindeer ran. That metal chip was what controlled the reindeer!

Cashmere's feet were moving before her brain had time to catch up. She had learned a lot about controlling animals from her time in District 1. She jumped on top of the first reindeer and grabbed onto the scruff of its neck. Cashmere had to hold on with all of her might to keep on as the reindeer jumped up and down like a rodeo bull, trying to buck her off. The career girl hopped between reindeer before finally tumbling into the sleigh.

"Santa, Christmas isn't for, like, five months. GET OUT!"

Cashmere tore off Santa's hat and yanked out the metal chip planted into his scalp. She then shoved the portly man off of the side of the sleigh before killing him with a few throwing knives.

Cashmere had complete control over the reindeer army.

The entire time, Dmitri had been rocking back and forth and sobbing inside of the room. The worst part was that, even though he could hear the screams clearly, he had no idea what was going on outside; sometimes not knowing is the worst feeling of all. When the sound finally died down, Dmitri got up and opened the door. He spotted Cashmere sitting in the sleigh were Santa should have been, and, as one could imagine, was extremely confused.

Cashmere moved the control chip sharply to the right, causing the reindeer to leap toward Dmitri. It was like she was using a remote to control characters in a video game. Dmitri tried to run back into the room, but Rudolph pinned him to the ground with his hooves, pressing his red nose into his neck. The skin melted away from the bone, and he was dead quickly after blood flow to his brain ceased.

 _Dmitri Sciscores, District 9 Male: 10th, Killed by Cashmere, Day 7_

No more deaths occurred that day. After pulling the reindeer away from Dmitri's corpse, Cashmere led the reindeer back to one of the warm toy-making rooms. Afterward, she traipsed outside and picked some of the frost-covered grass to feed them. The problem was that Rudolph kept burning up the grass with his nose, so Cashmere had to separate a portion for him while the other eight fed on the pile together. At the cornucopia, Guild, Sixto, and Salton were growing increasingly worried. They saw Cuttle's face in the sky, which meant there had to be some sort of event going on near the room where Dmitri was trapped. They knew Cashmere wasn't dead, but for all they knew she could be in life-threatening danger. Guild, her district partner, urgently demanded that they look for her in the morning. Salton and Sixto shakily said no. Cashmere was the strongest tribute besides Guild himself, and neither of them wanted her between them and the Victor's Crown. What they didn't know, of course, was that Cashmere was alive and well with an entire army of reindeer that she could control with a flick of her wrist. They were in for a surprise in one of the coming days, that was for sure.

A cannon shot rang through the toyshop on the morning of Day 8, causing the toys to shake on the tables and the frosty glass windows to rattle in their panes. While the entire nation had presumed that the Christmas trees all around the workshop were inanimate and simply for decoration, several of them were actually live mutts that could spring outward into huge dragon-like beasts with claws and talons.

A few minutes earlier, Wrena had broken into one of the pantries to stuff herself on sweets. She had gained nearly five pounds since the start of the games, but that wasn't stopping her from shoving down more. A large rumble broke out from a nearby room. With nowhere else to go, Wrena hurled her body weight into the pantry. It was extremely uncomfortable inside, and she had to fight with all of her willpower to keep from gasping out for the pain. There was an odd shuffling outside, coupled with the scraping of something sharp against carpet. Finally, Wrena could hold herself in the position no longer. She let her limbs go slack, and they pushed against the door of the pantry, opening her vision up to the hallway.

Only her screams did the Christmas tree mutt justice. It was the size of a pickup truck. The way it moved was halfway between a waddle and a sprint. Its green scales were the exact same color as the leaves of the Christmas pine tree it had once been pretending to be. The mutt saw her and came galloping her way. Wrena blanched, dropped the cookies she was holding, and bolted down the hallway.

The tree mutt followed her down the hallway. Its heavy footsteps knocked tapestries down from walls and caused the carpet to tear and wiggle underfoot. Once, it let out a huge breath. Instead of the dragon's stereotypical fire, a huge jet of freezing cold air came firing out of the mutt's mouth. All of the water vapor in the air condensed and froze. In seconds, the walls and floor were coated with frost. In the time it took to "warm up", Wrena had gotten a bit of a head-start. Tip-toing to avoid making noise, Wrena fell into a small room filled with half-painted toys and grabbed a drill, ready to fight the monster.

It burst into the room in seconds, instantly reducing the door and the wall surrounding it to rubble. Wrena held out her drill and turned it on. The mutt eeked with surprise at the sudden whining of the drill but soon realized it could go in for the kill. Screaming, Wrena ducked under the nearest table. The tree mutt brought down a huge arm and slammed the table straight in half before crushing Wrena to death completely. The second her cannon shot fired, the Christmas tree mutt collapsed, limp, nothing more than a holiday decoration.

 _Wrena Vaccaro, District 10 Female: 9th, Killed by Christmas Tree Muttation, Day 8_

That left the final eight: Guild Decesare and Cashmere Linden from District 1, Sixto Katzmann from District 2, Function Craft from District 3, Salton Rivera from District 4, Bo Phoenix from District 7, Hermione Macrae from District 9, and Allison Lewalski from District 12.

Wrena's cannon shot acted as an alarm clock for the arena, welcoming the eight remaining tributes to the new day. The career pack quickly went hunting. Sixto guarded the cornucopia whilr Guild and Salton went hunting. At the cornucopia, Sixto quickly got to work sorting everything further. He folded up all of the cafeteria tables and shoved them into the corner where they wouldn't get in the way. He also sorted the foods and supplies and practiced with as many weapons as they could. Out on their hunt, Salton and Guild were clashing. Salton wanted to go to places the pack hadn't travelled as of then, where prey would be likely to be hiding. But Guild insisted that they search for Cashmere. The argument lasted only a minute or to, when Salton gave up. He didn't want to get on the bad side of the strongest tribute in the games.

The outliers weren't doing much but moving around the toyshop. Function occasionally travelled away from the room where his electrical trap was housed to collect food and water. He found that he could mix milk and honey and place in the oven for about five seconds to create a relaxing bedtime treat that he resolved to drink every night. Bo had spent the first few days in the arena hunting, but he had lost motivation by Day 8 and crashed in a lounge with fat sofas and a crackling fire. Hermione's sponsors sent her several more hula-hoops over the course of the day. She moved between rooms every three hours or so, and when she wasn't moving she hula-hooped and told stories to the audience. Allison was terrified. After hearing the roars of the Christmas tree mutts, elf mutts, and dying tributes, she was reduced to a sobbing mess. She hugged herself on the ground, rolling around and crying out to be sent home.

A few minutes before noon the next day, Day 9, Guild and Salton perked up. They followed Allison's soft weeping to the jewelry room, where they made out the movements of the girl's fiery-red hair. Guild and Salton crept toward her, Guild holding his spear and Salton brandishing a trident. Allison turned around slowly and didn't flinch when she spotted the two career boys. She just stared at them with wide, sad eyes.

"I just want to go home," Allison cried.

The careers, who hadn't made a kill in several days, were more than happy to comply. Without hesitation, Guild thrust his spear outward and upward, spearing through the 12 girl's ribcage. Allison tumbled backward, letting out a mixture between a pained scream and a sad cry of longing, as she quickly bled out. Salton ran forward to polish her off, but Guild held him back. They wanted to give the Capitol as much blood as possible before her life ended, after all. The careers were flushed out of the room by her spreading pool of blood.

 _Allison Lewalski, District 12 Female: 8th, Killed by Guild, Day 9_

The remainder of Day 9, and the entirety of Day 10, passed without incident. Guild and Salton continued hunting, as they wanted to make a very spectacular kill to follow up their killing of Allison. They didn't find anyone, though, and they slept in a closet less than a hundred yards from where Cashmere was living with her reindeer. They were sure to meet in the next few days. Bo was the only outlier who did anything (Function and Hermione were staying still for the time being). Determined to keep from fading into the background after a note from his sponsors that re-kindled his games flame, Bo hunted for prey with his axe. He didn't find anyone, though, as there were so few tributes left.

On Day 11, Cashmere heard footsteps from outside of the room in which she was keeping the reindeer and the sleigh. Over the last couple of days, she'd learned what all of the controls on the small chip did. She was able to make the reindeers make noise, lift their legs, and move in any way she wanted them too just by pressing dials and such on the control chip. The 1 girl hushed her reindeer and walked to the door, adjusting her belt of throwing knives on her waist. It wasn't just one tribute outside of the room. It was the duo of Guild and Salton. They were in for a nasty surprise to find out that their ally was much more heavily armed than they were.

The second Cashmere made out Guild's and Salton's forms, she commanded the reindeer to tackle them. Salton blanched and tried to run out of the room as the herd thundered toward him, but one of the reindeer had planted its hoof into his ankle, pinning him against the ground. Salton lifted a foot to run but fell to the ground on his face, knocking out several of his teeth. Several reindeer pounced at the tooth, lightening the career's load ever-so-slightly. Guild was slightly more fortunate, as he had had time to draw his weapon before being attacked by the reindeer. With three thrusting movements of his spear, Guild managed to send three reindeer reeling. One of them even collapsed in agony. All three were sure to be back in tip-top fighting condition sooner than later.

After nearly three minutes, Salton was able to get back to his feet. One of ankles was broken; he had to place his entire body weight on one foot as he limped away from the reindeer. He caught a glimpse of Cashmere's cascading blonde locks through the herd and lumbered toward her. Cashmere just grinned delicately as the injured Salton came into view, barely strong enough to lift his trident. The District 1 girl hurled two throwing knives, landing in her ex-ally's neck and hip respectively, he collapsed onto one of the reindeer (which quickly kicked him aside) and died in minutes, praying that Guild would be alright.

 _Salton Rivera, District 4 Male: 7th, Killed by Cashmere, Day 11_

Guild muttered a string of curses as he realized that he was all alone to face the rogue reindeer mutts. He was running on the hope that Cashmere would recognize him as her district partner and command the reindeer to leave him away. Then again, she had done nothing to stop Salton's death, so why his?

The three reindeer that Guild had scared away before Salton's death were quickly back in action. With nine bloodthirsty mammals surrounding him, Guild was literally overwhelmed. The air was knocked out of him as Rudolph knocked him the ground. He tried to scream, but a little gurgle came out and nothing else. Rudolph pressed his blazing red nose to his neck, and Guild screamed as his cells started rapidly dying off. His skin was peeling away in sheets. More and more reindeer were piling on as they realized how vulnerable he was. Cashmere watched with a smug smile as her reindeer slaves mauled the strongest tribute in the games to death. The 1 girl was unwilling to let district loyalty stand between her and another kill.

 _Guild Decesare, District 1 Male: 6th, Killed by Cashmere, Day 11_

Nothing of great incident happened as Day 11 came to a close. At the cornucopia, Sixto saw the faces of Salton and Guild in the death recap. For the entire games, he had been keeping a sheet of paper on which he crossed of the names of tributes that he saw on the recap. The sheet told him that he and Cashmere were the only remaining careers in the games. Pride and desire to win coursed through him, and Sixto slept beside his sword that night. He vowed he would search for Cashmere in the morning.

Days 12 and 13 were both deathless as the final five milled about. Cashmere spent most of her time nursing her injured reindeer back to health. She was hoping to get medicine from sponsors, but they didn't send her any. Feodore banned the sending of anything meant to help the reindeer. It was getting a little bland how she could kill any tribute she wanted with the army, so Feodore wanted to lose a few of the deer or convince Cashmere to part with them. Fortunately, there was just the solution. For nearly a week, Function had been polishing up his electrical trap. It was much less organized than Beetee's, but it still had a fair amount of logic to it. Feodore himself sent Function a note that he should hold out for just a day or so longer while he could flush Cashmere's herd toward the trap. All the while, Sixto hunted feverishly for the only other remaining career. The gamemakers used elf mutts to help contain him in certain areas of the arena; they didn't want Sixto interfering with the interaction of Cashmere and Function.

Bo continued hunting with his axe. Around noon on Day 13, he spotted Hermione wandering a ways down the corridor. Hermione screamed with terror as the sight of Bo's axe. A long chase ensued. At the end, Hermione managed to escape, ducking into a closet the instant before Bo rounded the corner. She locked the door from the inside and prayed that Bo would go away. The boy knew that Hermione was in the closet, but he didn't have the energy to break in. He thumped on the door twice with the butt of his axe and slept against a nearby wall, yelling a warning to Hermione that he would be there if she tried to make a run for it.

And, of course, Hermione tried to make a run for it. At four in the morning on Day 14, when she was sure that Bo was asleep, she unlocked the door and slowly pushed it open. _Ring!_ Bo had affixed a bell to the door. Bo instantly awoke, grabbing up his axe, and Hermione bolted away faster than she ever had before. The boy chased after her, and Hermione couldn't escape no matter how fast she ran. She was so panicked that she ran right into a dead end. With a thud, she fell backward onto the ground. One second, she was squirming underneath the weight of the boy with the axe; the next, the axe was lodged into her forehead; the next, she was plunged into darkness, never to awake again. Bo felt a little icky as he wrenched his axe out of her skull, but he tried to best not to show it.

 _Hermione Macrae, District 9 Female: 5th, Killed by Bo, Day 14_

After Hermione's death, the day passed with little in the ways of excitement. Bo holed up in a toy storage room and sharpened his axe. The gamemakers were occasionally sending swarms of elves to drive Cashmere and her reindeer closer and closer to Function's trap. Meanwhile, Function waited impatiently in the room filled with wires, fidgeting anxiously as he anticipated Cashmere's arrival. Sixto took a well-deserved rest after several long days of hunting, returning to the horn for a supply restock and then sleeping the night away as snow fell outside.

On the morning of Day 15, the first interactions between Cashmere and Function took place. It only took one swarm of elf mutts for the reindeer team to be driven all of the way to the room where the 3 boy was hiding. Hoping to keep the reindeer safe from harm until the elves were completely gone, Cashmere herded the group into the room where Function was hiding and shut the door behind her.

All the while, Function himself was cramming himself into a corner and making himself as small as possible so as not to be seen. Eager though he was to get up and dance to draw the reindeer and Cashmere toward him and into the live wires, his logical senses took over. Cashmere had a belt of throwing knives clipped around her waist. She could just throw through the wires. So Function watched, terrified of making a single sound, as Cashmere unloaded her supplies and took care of the reindeer.

A horrible screeching pierced the silence. One of the reindeer had stepped into the wire. The 1 girl inspected its hoof and knew immediately that some tomfoolery was going on in the room. She urged the reindeer out of the room, wanting to get as far away from whatever threat was inside as possible. Finally, Function had no choice. He leapt to his feet and waved his arms, shouting, "I'm right here! Come and get me!"

Cashmere hissed and tugged two knives out of her belt. Function shakily ran back and forth to avoid being hit by her knives. He was speedy, and all of the blades simply hit the wall and either bounced off or buried themselves into the wood.

The reindeer all speed in a mob toward Function. Cashmere urged them to turn around and tried using the control chip, but their bloodthirsty instincts were taken over. All nine of them ran head-first into the electric trap. They spasmed and contorted violently, all dying in the space of five minutes.

Cashmere set her gaze on Function, who was standing on the other side of the web of wires. There was silence. Then, so suddenly that he didn't have time to breathe, Cashmere hurled a volley of four throwing knives. The first landed in Function's neck, essentially blocking his ability to breathe. He gasped and tried to wrench the blade out of his neck, but three more knives landed down his arm by the time he had made any real progress. Screaming, Function fell forward into the web of wire, finished off by the trap that he had built himself. Cashmere left his body to rot away on the floor and turned around, feeling oddly lonely without her reindeer companions.

 _Function Craft, District 3 Male: 4th, Killed by Cashmere and Himself, Day 15_

As Day 15 turned into Day 16, the first elf mutts in nearly a week were let into the arena to run free. Their purpose was to drive the final three tributes toward the cornucopia for a finale. Feodore was hoping to fit in one more death before the tributes met, though, so the elves were travelling rather slowly. Cashmere was a little out of practice without her reindeer, so she practiced with her throwing knives whenever possible. As elves started trickling out of rooms to chase her, she did her best to fend them off. Sixto withdrew to the horn, hoping he would be exempt from whatever threat the other two would receive to force them toward the cafeteria center. There, he barricaded all of the doors except one, which he waited near to ambush any incoming prey. Bo was the underdog of this year's final three, but he was determined to beat down his two remaining opponents in one way or another. He practiced with his axe, thinking hard.

At noon on Day 16, a death occurred. Sixto's mentor Enobaria sent him a note that he had to leave the horn before the end of the day, warning him of danger that would be around the center of the arena. Heeding the warning, Sixto packed up food, water, and weapons and fled. Enobaria was really lying; there was no threat near the cornucopia, she just wanted her tribute to move around some to keep from fading into the background. Figuring he might as well get a few hours of hunting in while he was out, Sixto traversed the easternmost areas of the toyshop. The rooms there were mostly for toy storage rather for toy manufacturing. There were still lots of places were tributes could be hiding. In fact, one tribute was hiding there. Bo heard Sixto's light footsteps and quickly crouched down under a desk. He waddled behind a three-legged wooden stool to help hide himself from view. Finally, he placed his hands over the blade of his axe to keep it from catching the light from above. As Sixto strolled into the room, Bo remained silent.

Finally, when the 2 boy grew close, Bo leaped out from under the table and grabbed Sixto's legs. Sixto screamed and fell backward, blanching at the sight of the 7 boy's axe. Both tributes got to their feet and stood apart. Bo was incredibly nervous about facing a career but swallowed hard and sucked it up. Meanwhile, Sixto wore a delicate smile. He would be the one to kill the strongest outlier in the games.

Bo was the first to pounce, and Sixto barely had time to dance out of the way before making a strike of his own. Sixto's sword clashed against Bo's axe, and for a long time there was no clear-cut winner. He was lasting admirably long for a tribute from 7, especially considering he was fighting a tribute from 2, the district that had harbored the most victors and some of the best ones at that. After nearly thirty minutes, Sixto triumphed. Thrusting his sword sharply outward, he cast the tip of the blade into Bo's chest, driving it through his lungs and ribcage. Bo fell, dropped his axe, and slid off of the sword. Sixto just smirked and wiped the blood off his blade.

 _Bo Phoenix, District 7 Male: 3rd, Killed by Sixto, Day 16_

At long last, the crowd of twenty-four tributes had been filed down to its final two. Both of the finalists of the games were careers, a spectacle that hadn't occurred in ages, and the Capitol was eager to see how their skirmish would play out. Sixto immediately began his retreat to the horn of plenty after killing Bo; Cashmere ran over battle tactics in her mind and adjusted her armor while cleaning her weapons.

The two tributes spotted each other from either end of a long hallway a few minutes before midnight. It was one of the latest finales ever; many Capitolites would wake up the next morning surprised to find that the victor had been crowned while they were asleep. They clashed in the center of the hallway. The first thing Sixto did was prod his sword into Cashmere's waist. The girl keened in pain. She clutched her side, blood pouring out plentifully from between her fingertips.

Sixto was strong, but Cashmere was stronger; however, the 1 girl's early wound evened the duo out rather fairly. As Cashmere attempted to juxtapose fending off Sixto's blows with keeping her blood inside of her body, her opponent was dancing around her, trying to make her disoriented so he could go in for his final kill.

But it was not so. At once, so quickly that many games viewers jumped in their seats, Cashmere pounced toward Sixto. Stomaching the pain from her hip wound, she thrust two of her throwing knives into Sixto's back. He collapsed, screaming. Cashmere knocked his sword out of his hand, rendering him defenseless, and crushed his windpipe with a heavy stamp of her foot.

 _Sixto Katzmann, District 2 Male: 2nd, Killed by Cashmere, Day 16_

"Cashmere Linden of District 1, you are the victor of the sixty-fourth annual Hunger Games!" Caesar yelled. His voice was rather sleep-addled, as he had just been roused awake in the middle of the night to commentate the finale.

Cashmere collapsed to the ground as blood poured out of her body. As the medics rushed down to help the famous young lady, the cameras picked up on the unmistakable smile that had crept across the newest victor's pretty face.

 _Cashmere Linden, District 1 Female: Victor of the Sixty-Fourth Hunger Games, Day 16_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 1 welcomed their tenth victor with open arms. They were very pleasantly surprised to receive their next victor so soon; this was only the third instance in Hunger Games history of a single district bringing home two back-to-back victors. Gloss and Cashmere were also the first two sibling victors in Panemian history, and were fraternal twins in fact. Cashmere was mostly beloved in the Capitol for her beauty, which of course meant that she, like many victors, would spend much of the next few years being auctioned off to spend nights with the highest bidder.

Cashmere moved into the Victor's Village of District 1, in the house right next to the one inhabited by her twin brother.

Her victory tour had a lot of drama. During her stop in District 7, no less than three attempts were made on her life. The first two attempted murderers were caught and tried, while the third succeeded in blasting a bullet hole through one of her hands. Unfortunately, the wound was severe, and it would take several years of treatment before Cashmere could use her hand again.

Cashmere would live to the age of ninety-six, dying from a heart attack six weeks before the one-hundred forty-second annual Hunger Games. Cashmere loved all the fame and attention she received, and was one of the most involved victors with the Capitol, a full supporter of whatever they did, and not a rebel at all. She used the wealth and privilege from her victory to integrate into the Capitol society, including by dressing how they did and paying for extensive plastic surgery to keep looking young. The one exception to this rule was that she would never dye her hair or skin, as she wanted to keep at least a small part of the District 1 look that everyone loved. In her lifetime, she would marry and have five children, though none of them would compete in future Hunger Games.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Cashmere moves into the Victor's Village of District 1, the tenth victor to do so.

Mason Kittridge has his third child, a girl named Athena.

Margaret Cartmill marries her fiancée of four years, a nice man named Buck Henry.

Tiger Sterne comes out as homosexual and announces his engagement to a man named Kylo Huxley.

Valerie Easton gives birth to her first child, Reginald.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: This chapter turned out to be just shy of 13,000 words long. How does that even happen? I knew this would be a longer chapter but I wasn't expecting it to be this long! This story's certainly come a long way from the first 2,000 word long chapter.**

 **This was a longer wait but I hope the chapter was worth it! And I have to say that this arena was one of my favorites. Certainly different than most of the arenas in years past.**

 **Cashmere was a fun one to write. I also liked Hermione. Two butterbeers and a chocolate frog if you can guess where her name came from ;)**

 **Next up in the games timeline is everyone's favorite Finnick Odair. Given as it's likely one of the most hotly anticipated chapters of the story (probably second only to the 74th games) the wait will likely be longer. I don't want to write him averagely :D**


	66. The 65th Hunger Games

**The 65th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The splendor and awe of the last few games proved that Head Gamemaker Feodore Elliot did indeed have the capacity to keep improving every year. While Panem watched all of the carnage his arenas entailed, there was a whole lot going on behind the scenes that they didn't see. After several years of sedation, the districts of the nation were getting riled up once more. Feodore wasn't stupid. He knew this was a bad time to be a gamemaker; the more rebels there were in Panem, the more rebels would end up in the games, and the higher the chance was that some tribute would perform a rebellious stunt that would result in his death. Feodore was also growing terrified of having a flop games like those of Mr. Latier or Mrs. Cartmill. But he wasn't a man to suddenly leave the post without warning. Feodore Elliot would lead one more Hunger Games before his retirement. He promised that the careers, supplies, and mutts would be some of the most thrilling yet. Time would tell if the sixty-fifth games would live up to this ambitious promise.

Feodore really outdid himself for his final games, and the arena was almost objectively the most beautiful he had created yet. This year's games were set on a paradise island. It was one of the smaller arenas in games history; the island was a total of exactly sixteen square miles (more on that later); but it was sure to pack a punch. The island was trimmed with a long ribbon of sandy, picturesque beach. The water was icy cold, and colorful schools of fish swam in the water. The warm sun shone through the rustling fronds of palm trees above. Much of the land was taken up by a beautiful flower-strewn green meadow. Adorable rabbits and meerkat-like mammels scampered here and there. There was the occasional bush or tree, but the meadow was almost entirely made of grass. The cornucopia matched the colorful theme. It was made of palm tree fiber, and the packs inside of it were multicolored and bright. Swarms of colorful butterflies, harmless and in fact edible, fluttered above the tributes. They might have even landed on their hands and faces if they were still. Several small clusters of trees dotted the arena, some of them supplying fruit. The one peculiar thing about the island was that it was almost perfectly square. Each side of the square was four miles long, and the arena was divided into sixteen different sections. These factors would play a great role in the games.

The career pack was average enough, though there were a few standouts. The tributes from District 1 had been dating for four years when they were reaped, and they faced a lot of psychological hardship at the prospect that only one of them could leave the arena with their life. The boy was fiercely loyal and very hard-working, and he was always ready to lend a helping hand when it was needed. Meanwhile, the girl was more clever and quiet, shier than most but stunning beautiful. Opposites really do attract, it would seem. District 2's tributes were both steadfast classics, masters of swords. The boy took pride in never mingling with the tributes from the outlying districts. He was a big bigot and a bit classist, and he made unnecessary assumptions about people he met. The girl was large, muscular, and rather masculine, and though she was serious most of the time she knew how to have fun. The District 4 tributes were both high-school sweethearts; their romance was very cute and popular with the Capitol. The male from 4 was the star of the show this year. This Finnick Odair boy stole the show with his handsomeness and mastery of weaponry, skilled with everything from knives to axes to long-range combat. He was one of the youngest careers in history, only fourteen, but despite his young age he was easily the most popular tribute and the undisputed leader of the career pack. The girl was the weakest career this year but had a playful smile. She was also great at improv and a stellar actress and singer. The training scores of the career pack were great: one eleven, two tens, and three nines. Also of note is the fact that the 4 boy was the first tribute to score an eleven since Brutus Cordley of the forty-eighth Hunger Games, seventeen years prior.

There was a decent outlier crop, and many of them were notable for things other than just their scores. The highest score earned by an outlier went to Coalette from 12. She scored an astonishing nine with her speed, smarts, and talent with pickaxes. She was also a great comedian and stellar public speaker. Feodore would ensure that at least a few pickaxes were supplied at the cornucopia so that the strongest outlier could have her favorite weapon. Along with the nine, an eight was earned. Whipcord, a lanky, willowy boy from District 8, was very good-looking and a master of survival skills like fire starting and edible plants and bugs. Sevens were earned by Cache and Cookie from 3, Tahoe from 7, and Guy from 12. Two of these tributes, Cache and Cookie of 3, were siblings. They had allied prior to the games and had very similar personalities; many were eager to see how they would fare in the arena. Another standout was Lina from District 5. She was the youngest tribute in Hunger Games history at that point; she turned twelve less than an hour before she was reaped. If only she had been born a few minutes later. There was only one volunteer outside of the careers: the District 6 boy, named Pass. Pass was a qualified surgeon, one of the very few in the district of transportation. The week before the reaping, he botched a surgery on a young man, accidentally killing him. The eighteen-year-old volunteered to escape the guilt. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Filigree Johnston, 18, (10) 4-1 and Orchid Ernisse, 18, (9) 7-1

District 2: Abel Twells, 16, (9) 6-1 and Florianna Arangio, 16, (10) 5-1

District 3: Cache Make, 17, (7) 15-1 and Cookie Make, 18, (7) 14-1

District 4: Finnick Odair, 14, (11) 3-1 and Pacifica Crane, 15, (9) 8-1

District 5: Ivan Hainsworth, 12, (3) 47-1 and Lina Shepard, 12, (2) 54-1

District 6: Pass Hartzog, 18, (6) 21-1 and Axelle Hopkins, 17, (4) 32-1

District 7: Tahoe Lylith, 15, (7) 18-1 and Kimbie Baker, 13, (4) 34-1

District 8: Whipcord Bayles, 18, (8) 10-1 and Bettyann Moses, 18, (5) 20-1

District 9: Tommy Scott, 17, (5) 21-1 and Esa Siers, 15, (3) 46-1

District 10: Mongrel O'Connel, 18, (6) 21-1 and Kitty Strouss, 16, (5) 24-1

District 11: Liose Norbert, 14, (4) 30-1 and Flower Harrison, 15, (5) 25-1

District 12: Guy Crocodile, 17, (7) 15-1 and Coalette Rushing, 18, (9) 8-1

HGBO Bets: 15% on Finnick, 10% on Filigree and Florianna, 8% on Abel and Orchid, 7% on Pacifica, 6% on Coalette, 5% on Whipcord, 4% on Cache, Cookie, Tahoe, and Guy, 3% on Pass and Mongrel, 2% on Bettyann, Tommy, Kitty, and Flower, 1% or less on Ivan, Lina, Axelle, Kimbie, Esa, and Liose.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Before the games began, the twenty-four tributes were brought together in a harshly-lit room. Feodore sat on a three-legged stool in the center of the room, holding a small suitcase and guarded by two peacekeepers. Twenty-five doors lined the perimeter of the room; one was the door they had entered through, and the others were the doors to the launch rooms.

"Gather around, tributes, and listen carefully."

They didn't need to be rocket scientists to know that some devious twist was coming their way. The tributes stepped forward, the steps of the career tributes substantially longer than those of the weaker, more nervous outliers.

"You are about to be placed on an island arena for the games," Feodore explained, summoning a holographic map of the perfectly square island. "But this is no ordinary island."

"The island is divided into sixteen sections, each of which has an area of exactly one square mile. At the end of each day, harmless force fields will be set up at the boundaries of each section. Therefore, the section you are inside of at nightfall is where you will be imprisoned until the next morning."

The tributes nodded, knowing that more was coming.

"Every day, you may move up, down, left, or right one section. For example, if you are living in this section here…"

Feodore pointed to the section in the top-left corner of the square.

"It will take you three full days to reach here…"

He pointed to the top-right corner.

"But that is not all. Every day, a certain number of square sections will flood. Which square floods on which day is randomly chosen by our number generator, so there is no method of predicting these patterns."

But there was one more twist.

Feodore reached into his suitcase and pulled out twenty-four cloth bags. He handed one of the bags to each tribute, then spoke once more.

"These waterproof bags each house three cards." Feodore said. "May I borrow yours, Ms. Ernisse, to demonstrate?"

The 1 girl nodded and handed over her cloth bag. True to the man's word, the cloth bag housed three small cards. They were labeled, _Shore Up, Diagonal,_ and _Pilot_.

"Each of these cards has a special power. Each of them can only be used once, so use them wisely."

"To play a card, simply dip it in water. The ink on the card will dissolve instantly."

Feodore held up the card labeled "Shore Up". "This card," he instructed, "allows you to shore up a flooded section. Simply wet the card, and the flooding will be lowered in the section the user is in."

He held up the second card, which said "Diagonal". "This card, when played, will allow you to move diagonally to another section. It will be of great use when escaping mutts, for even they cannot travel more than one section per day."

A shiver ran down the spines of the outliers at the mention of the word "mutt".

Feodore held up the third and final card, which said "Pilot". "This card is the most powerful of all. When played, simply name one of the sections and you will transported there immediately. The Pilot Card can transport you over any distance, but it cannot transport you off of the island, so don't bother trying."

"Oh, and one more thing. These power cards can't be used until the end of the bloodbath, but I'm sure you'd already inferred that."

He began pointing to different doors, and before long all of the tributes were in their launch rooms. Before entering the arena, each tribute was given a holographic screen that recapped the rules.

 _-The section you enter at nightfall is where you are trapped until morning.  
-You may only move to an adjacent section once per day.  
-Each day, a certain number of sections will flood.  
-The cards each have different powers (to play a card, simply wet it with water)  
-Shore Up Card – Allows the user to shore up a (flooded) section.  
-Diagonal Card – Allows the user to move diagonally to a different section.  
-Pilot Card – Allows the user to transport themself instantly to any section of choice._

As the tributes' pods opened up and revealed the terrain around, they knew instantly that Feodore wasn't fibbing. They were on an island. Palm trees swayed around them, and the hot sun beat down. They could smell flowers and salty sea spray, and many caught glimpses of the splashing sea two miles in each direction. A lot of them felt very apprehensive, particularly the weaker tributes. All of the supplies at the horn were so colorful that they could be spotted from hundreds of feet away. And all while trying not to lose their three cards… these games would not be one to forget.

Only two tributes fled from the get-go: Ivan and Lina, the diminutive duo from District 5. The rest of the tributes decided to run into the bloodbath in hopes of obtaining supplies.

Finnick sprinted at the head of the onrush. He was slim, charming, and the fastest tribute by a wide margin; he was easily the most popular. He was hoping for a trident, but they weren't provided at the horn, so he settled for a spear. The instant the shaft of the weapon was fitted snugly into his grasp, he tackled a nearby outlier girl to the ground. With a smack to the head, Finnick sent the screaming girl unconscious, and a single thrusting motion of the 4 boy's spear was enough to finish her off.

 _Esa Siers, District 9 Female: 24th, Killed by Finnick, Bloodbath_

Filigree and Orchid from District 1 teamed together to make their next kill. Loyal companions to the very end, they cherished each other's company and engaged in conversation as they struggled to corner a weeping boy against the cornucopia. About a minute later, the boy slid against the horn, having lost all hope of escape as he cried into his hands. Filigree hurled two of his throwing knives, and they dug into the boy's chest. He staggered awkwardly, coughing up blood, as Orchid fired two arrows from her bow. He didn't have any supplies on him, so the 1 tributes quickly abandoned his body to search for more victims.

 _Guy Crocodile, District 12 Male: 23rd, Killed by Filigree and Orchid, Bloodbath_

Abel had no sooner got his hands on a sword than attack his first prey. The boy in question was an older and stronger tribute from one of the poorest districts of Panem. He was strong, but his strength couldn't compare to that of the trained Abel. The 2 boy slashed his sword into his side, and then into his neck after he was sent reeling. He was dead in seconds.

 _Mongrel O'Connel, District 7 Male: 22nd, Killed by Abel, Bloodbath_

After a few seconds of searching, Finnick found his sweetheart Pacifica in the crowd. They knew emphasizing their romance as much as possible would make the sponsors go bananas, so they quickly kissed before banding up on a smaller girl. Finnick buried his spear into her neck; she staggered backward, moaning. Pacifica tied back her loose fiery-red hair before offing the girl with a spear of her own.

 _Kitty Strouss, District 10 Female: 21st, Killed by Finnick and Pacifica, Bloodbath_

Florianna hadn't yet made a kill, but she was determined to do so before the end of the bloodbath. She snatched up a glittering rapier and thrust it through the torso of a nearby volunteer boy. He was dead in seconds. He didn't even flinch, and he might have knocked Florianna herself down like a domino if she hadn't scuttled out of the way in time.

 _Pass Hartzog, District 6 Male: 20th, Killed by Florianna, Bloodbath_

Coalette of 12 was a determined miner girl. Ambitious was her middle name. She grabbed two pickaxes off of a shelf in the horn. About twenty feet away, two district partners were trying to escape the horn sharing the weight of a large pack. Coalette buried one of her pickaxes into the boy's back, just opposite his navel. The girl dropped the pack and tried to escape, but she couldn't get away in time before Coalette took out her wrath. Both District 11 tributes were dead in less than a minute, and the Coalette fled from the horn, apparently having had enough trouble for a bloodbath.

 _Liose Norbert, District 11 Male: 19th, Killed by Coalette, Bloodbath_

 _Flower Harrison, District 11 Female: 18th, Killed by Coalette, Bloodbath_

Abel and Florianna ganged up on a very young girl from District 7. The girl had an axe, and she was admittedly some trouble for the District 2 tributes. Abel barely managed to sidestep her first axe strike, but he landed the tip of his sword into the girl's shoulder blade just as Florianna knocked her axe out of her hand. Florianna drilled her rapier through her chest, and the 7 girl fell to the ground, close to death. The careers abandoned her to die, and she ended up stabbing herself with a nearby knife to make the pain end sooner.

 _Kimbie Baker, District 7 Female: 17th, Killed by Abel, Florianna, and Herself, Bloodbath_

Finnick finished off the bloodbath. He and Pacifica had been tracking a strong boy for nearly half the bloodbath. They were nearly half a mile away from the horn when they finally pounced. The District 4 duo jumped out from a bush and tackled the boy. He let out a gasp of terror: the last sound he would ever make. Finnick skewered his spear through his neck, and he was dead before Pacifica laid a single mark of her own on him. They made it their goal to reach the cornucopia before the cannon shots ended. They sprinted into the clearing without a cannon shot to spare, panting and giggling like young lovers.

 _Tommy Scott, District 9 Male: 16th, Killed by Finnick, Bloodbath_

The careers took hold of the cornucopia. The weather was so agreeable that everyone seemed to want to be out in the sunshine. Filigree and Orchid told jokes and stories to each other and the audience as they sorted rations. It was so hot that they needed to hydrate often; by the end of the day, they had depleted nearly a fifth of the pack's water supply by playfully throwing the cold liquid at each other before Florianna stopped them. Finnick and Pacifica both volunteered to hunt the lands immediately surrounding the horn. Nobody else wanted to do this, so they were off in instants. The others eyed Finnick carefully as he left. It was an incredible spectacle for a tribute to score an eleven, let alone a tribute so young! They had to be careful of him in the future, and they promised to never let themselves grow too trustful of him. Florianna was sick of all the romance that was blossoming around her. As she sharpened her rapier, she gave the stink eye to Filigree and Orchid whenever they got to close or whenever their giggles got too loud. They usually just glanced at her and laughed more whenever she did this. Abel was struggling to keep his district partner Florianna away from the others. He strictly believed that the tributes from different districts and classes should remain separate. This rather archaic way of thinking led Florianna to grow a dislike to him, and as one could imagine the 2 girl wasn't a very happy camper. When the 4s returned, the pack (minus Abel, who was guarding) went out hunting, keeping their cards close at hand in case they were needed.

The outliers scattered, sprinting under the sun and wobbling over the sand, heading more so towards the east coincidentally. Cache and Cookie, siblings and allies, locked arms to keep from getting separated as they sprinted away from the horn. They settled in a cluster of cool, shady palm trees after tearing open their pack and finding it filled with two knives and several mechanical parts. They fidgeted with the parts, assembling small things to keep themselves occupied. Ivan and Lina were certainly the weakest tributes this year: they were both twelve (Lina was the youngest tribute in games history), and they had only scored a three and two. But by allying they had taken a step toward being ones to remember. Ivan was looking forward to seeing the sea at the edge of the arena, as he thought it would remind him of the dams at home in 5. Lina wanted to see the water too, so they started their journey. Since they could only move one square per day, it would take them two days to reach the edge; they settled in the tall grass of the meadow munching on flowers. Axelle was injured; she'd received a shallow gash on her leg, courtesy of Filigree's throwing knives. She knew a bit about medicine from glancing into her mom's medicine cabinet back home in District 6. Fortunately, she'd gotten a bit a burn spray from the horn; Axelle rested in a small cave after applying the spray and praying that the wound would heal soon. Tahoe was one of the more young and foolish tributes. On his journey away from the horn, he was swinging his axe merrily to and fro. Around noon, he accidentally stabbed the axe into his leg. Tahoe screamed as blood oozed from the cut. He applied a few herbs he recognized from the training center and rested on a grassy hill while the wound healed. Whipcord fled north with his supplies, which included a sword and a pocketknife. He didn't like how shiny the blades were, so he spent the day rubbing them with mud to make them less noticeable from long distances. His district partner Bettyann was hating the games. She was used to a wealthy life back home in 8. Bettyann killed a few grasshoppers and beetles and vomited the second she placed the first in her mouth. She tried to scrub off the bile, but she could do little to remove the smell, and she cried herself miserably to sleep in a small cave that evening. Coalette placed a layer of leaves between herself and her pack to quiet the sounds it made as it thumped against her torso. After making camp in a bit of sandy terrain, she doodled in the dirt with her pickaxes. Day 1 was the only day on which no flooding took place, but that would soon change.

The next morning, the five hunting careers woke up bright and early. They had camped out the night before in a damp vine-laden cluster of trees. It was awfully crowded and they were all damp with sweat from the long night. They were about to break camp when Finnick noticed a cluster of odd plants about ten meters away: sugar beets. They looked like radishes, but with brown skin and very scraggly roots and stems. Finnick had an idea; he was tired of eating the bland beef strips and bread loaves the horn provided. He wanted a sweet treat.

He instructed Pacifica to bring a pot of water to a boil. Filigree, Orchid, and Florianna approached to see what they were doing, but Finnick wouldn't tell. He said it was going to be a surprise. He dropped the sugar beets into the boiling water and mushed them with his spear until they were soft. When they were ready, Finnick siphoned away the hot water and ground up the sugar beets with the tip of his weapon. Given another quick boil and a few more good stirring sessions, he was left with a pot of chunky sugar.

Finnick added a little bit of water and stirred everything together. He picked up the sugar mixture and started forming it into small shapes—cubes. A sponsor sent him a basket to keep the sugar cubes in.

"Try one," Finnick offered, popping one into his mouth. "Taste great."

They did taste great. Before long, the careers' diets had morphed into ones that most dentists would not have approved of, and bits of sugar cube were lodged into the corners of their mouth and lips. The pack had eaten the whole supply by noon, at which point they finally got around to hunting.

Later that day, the first flooding occurred. Axelle's knife wound wasn't coming along nearly as well as she had hoped; blood was still drizzling sporadically from it. She was resting in a small cave when she felt cold water splash around her. She got to her feet and waded to the exit of the cave. By the time she got there, the water had risen to her knees. The ocean was spilling over onto the land, and rocks were falling away from each other as the seawater siphoned down to the gaps between them. She knew what she had to do. Remembering Feodore's instructions, Axelle pulled the Shore Up card out of the waterproof pouch. She dipped it into the water. True to the gamemaker's word, the ink dissolved immediately. Before she knew it, the water level was lowering. It was up to her shins, her ankles, her feet—she was left standing on solid, albeit slippery, land.

Day 3 had more action in it. One of the elements that Feodore was famous for was introducing mutts very early in the games—the shark mutts of the sixty-third and elf mutts of the sixty-fourth came to mind for many—and this was a trend he intended to continue in his final games.

Tahoe's accidentally self-inflicted axe wound had healed fully by the time the sun rose in the morning. It still hurt somewhat when he walked, but he didn't feel agony unless he actively stimulated the tender skin of or around the scar. By hopping one section per day, the boy managed to reach the edge of the island by Day 3. He collapsed on the beach around noon. It was warm without being hot, and the sea spray cooled him enough that the broiling sun didn't bother him. Tahoe didn't know how long he'd been relaxing in the sand when a horrible screeching sound made him jump out of his skin.

He leaped to his feet and grabbed his axe. Tahoe turned hastily around, and his pupils dilated as he made eye contact with his muttation pursuers. They were sirens—they had the heads of human women with flowing blonde hair and cold, piercing dark eyes, whereas they had the bodies of horrible birds of prey with black talons. The creatures were the size of pickup trucks. Tahoe's hands quivered fiercely as he backed away from the sirens, gripping his axe so hard his knuckles were as white as his face.

He glanced at his supplies for anything useful. Warm relief spread through him. He'd killed several of the small mammals of the arena the night prior, and he had a slab of meat. Tahoe leaned down to pick up the juicy meat and tossed it in one direction. His plan worked—at first. Curiously, the sirens walked toward the meat, sniffing it and taking a few bites. It was only when they saw Tahoe sprinting away that they realized his trickery. The faster of the two sirens bore down on Tahoe, knocking away his axe. Panicked, he reached for his deck of three cards. It was hopeless from the start. Even if he did manage to grab one, the sea was twenty meters away! He could never reach water in time to wet the card and activate its powers! Using their talons, the two sirens tore off ribbons of his bloody flesh. Needless to say, he was dead in less than a minute, and the sirens soared off to look for more tasty-looking victims.

 _Tahoe Lylith, District 7 Male: 15th, Killed by Siren Muttations, Day 3_

Cache and Cookie of 3 were resting in their cool cluster of trees. After a hard day of food gathering the night prior, they deserved to have a lie-in. It was halfway through Cache's shift when he heard the screeching of the sirens and saw them flying through the sky with their velvety black wings spread left and right. Cache panicked and fell to the right, rolling down into the ditch where Cookie was sleeping. He could have bolted at first sight of the sirens and most certainly been fine, but his constitution didn't justify abandoning his sister to save himself.

"Cookie! Wake up!"

Cookie groggily rolled over. Chunks of sleep were in the corners of her eyes, and her face was smeared with chlorophyll.

By the time Cookie realized the severity of the situation, it was too late to flee. The siren mutts had landed heavily on the ground about ten meters away. They were stalking toward Cache and Cookie, their talons tearing up earth and plant roots as they dug into the ground. Cache cried to his sister that it was hopeless. They had to use one of their cards. Cache drew his black bag open and pulled out the Pilot card. A terrified Cookie did the same.

"We'll go to the section second row, third column! Three, two, one, go!"

Cache and Cookie were suddenly frozen by powerful electric currents, being zapped down from a hovercraft levitating above. One moment, they were struggling to move their fingers and legs, confused out of their wits; the next, they were being hurled across the terrain, around trees and over valleys. They were deposited in a scruffy patch of earth two miles away, safe from the hideous siren mutts and all that their talons entailed.

That night, another section of the arena flooded. It was the section in the first row, first column. The ocean was rising, and the beach was suddenly shrinking. Fortunately, none of the tributes were inside of that section. Nobody used their Shore Up card to keep the section from flooding. Once the beach had disappeared, the water was hissing madly as it poured into the deepest cracks of the rocky terrain. Before long, the square mile was entirely flooded. The arena was only fifteen sixteenths of its original size, and it was sure to shrink even further in the future.

Day 4 transpired with only one death. The career pack was finally getting into their stride of the games, and they were hunting more efficiently than ever before. Finnick and Pacifica were always at the head of the pack. Pacifica really should have been in the back given her youth and low training score, but she was Finnick's district partner so that automatically boosted her. Finnick was the fifth tribute in history to score an eleven, meaning he was among the five strongest tributes ever. Filigree and Florianna were slightly behind. Filigree had his throwing knives, and Florianna her rapier, and they actually made very good friends; they had a lot to talk about given how little they were in the action (they were always second to see to anything, after Finnick and Pacifica). Meanwhile, Orchid was at the very back. She was the weakest, but she didn't mind. She didn't like how being a tribute like Finnick or Filigree painted a target on a tribute's back, and she was content doing the work none of the others wanted to do. As long as it meant surviving another day in the difficult Hunger Games.

The career pack had been hunting for about five hours on Day 4 when they struck lucky. They were all preparing their noon meal, and Finnick and Pacifica were preparing more sugar cubes when a nearby tribute caught onto the smell. Bettyann from 8 climbed out of the steep cave she was hiding in and walked toward the delicious smell to investigate. She walked right into the midst of the pack, and they were onto her before she could say "big mistake".

Florianna, who was tired of being overshadowed by the head-over-heels 4 duo, was at the front of the surge. She thrust her rapier through Bettyann's torso, and she staggered backward, her mouth open as if to scream. Finnick and Pacifica were onto her in no time. With a thrusting motion of his spear, Finnick cut off blood flow to one of Bettyann's arms, and Pacifica was at her side to kill her with a few knives. Filigree and Orchid just giggled about some funny joke a ways back.

 _Bettyann Moses, District 8 Female: 14th, Killed by Florianna, Finnick, and Pacifica, Day 4_

Only one more event of note came about before Day 4 drew to a close. After resting for several days, Coalette got around to hunting with her shiny pickaxes. Everyone knew that she was the strongest outlier by a wide margin, and they wanted to see her at it. So Feodore prodded her on with a single siren mutt, and now that she was up Coalette decided that she might as well hunt a bit. She had been hunting for less than half an hour when she heard a human sneeze. The sneeze came from Axelle of 6, who had ducked behind a rock at her arrival and gotten sick after inhaling lots of dust. Coalette ran around the rock, but Axelle was prepared. She had her Pilot card in hand, and she was running toward a nearby pool of water. Axelle dipped the card into the water, dissolving the ink; and uttered "second row, first column!" and was transported away from the fierce 12 girl. Axelle now had only one of her three playing cards left.

That night, another section of the arena flooded. Again, no tributes were living there, but as the arena shrank there were sure to be more tribute encounters and skirmishes, and hopefully more brief gaps between deaths. The arena was now fourteen sixteens, or seven eighths, of its original size.

Day 5 meant, who would've thought, more mutts. This was a games that Feodore intended to end quickly. The mutts were giant crabs as big as people. The crabs were bold and rusty red in coloring, and they had long claws. Their pincers had enough force to crush a tribute, and they would surely do so as they attacked several different tributes on the fifth day.

Axelle had lit a fire and was preparing a pot of boiling water. The night prior, she'd gathered an argosy of flowers and vegetables, and she was planning to make a kind of stew with everything. She had just begun sprinkling a few herbs into the stew when she heard the scuttling of a nearby crab mutt. Axelle grabbed the only weapon-like thing she'd retrieved from the horn, a can opener, and stood her ground. The crab mutt burst through a nearby rock. Screaming, Axelle's instincts forced her to run in the opposite direction. She was substantially faster than the scuttling crab, but she couldn't run forever. If she ran into a different section, using up her precious one-a-day move, the crab could just follow her! She had no choice but to use her final card—the diagonal card. She wet the card in a puddle left by the wet crab and scissored sideways. Eventually, Axelle had traveled diagonally, a journey which would have taken the crab two days. It was quite amusing to watch it pound against the makeshift force field with its pincers. The amusement didn't last long, though, and Axelle fled to a safer location as soon as she'd calmed down.

The diminutive duo of Lina and Ivan were getting dangerously close to being forgotten completely. Nobody had expected them to survive long past the bloodbath, and they hadn't done much but move around every morning and make a new camp each night. The allies had split apart to hunt for food and water when Ivan had an encounter with one of the mutts. He screamed for help as it burst around a tall rock formation. About half a mile away, Lina instinctively screamed her ally's name and ran to his side. There, she grabbed onto Ivan and took a quick check of his wounds. They fled together into a small cave, where they got out their Pilot cards. They picked a random section, and in no time the electric pulses were carrying them to the opposite end of the arena, far away from the hideous crab mutts.

The career pack of six was dozing contentedly in the cornucopia. They were far away from Axelle, Ivan, and Lina; they had no idea that the dangerous muttation crustaceans were loose in the arena. That was, until they all woke up with a start to Pacifica's screams. It was halfway through Pacifica's shift when two crab mutts attacked her. The careers watched with horror from the back of the horn as the crabs closed their giant pincers around her, mouths foaming in an ugly kind of triumph. Pacifica screamed Finnick's name, and the 4 boy was sprinting out of the cornucopia in no time. He tried his best to dispatch the crabs, but their armor was too strong. By the time he'd inflicted any sort of life-threatening wound onto the first crab, Pacifica was dead. Content, the giant mutts slid back into their hideouts.

 _Pacifica Crane, District 4 Female, 13th, Killed by Crab Muttations, Day 5_

Only one more tribute was affected by the mutts. Whipcord, the slender boy from District 8, was dozing the morning away in a larger cave when a crab mutt eeked from outside. Whipcord made out the crab's form, silhouetted against the brightly-lit outside, and he knew just what to do. His father was a fisher back in 8, and he knew that crabs' hard armor was nearly impossible to penetrate. However, the flesh under their arms was vulnerable and unprotected. Whipcord thrust up his sword, planting it into the tender and ill-protected armpit of the beast. The crab scuttled around on the ground, black muttation blood pouring freely from the wound, until it died about a minute later. There was only one problem: its body was blocking Whipcord's path out of the cave. He tried to push it out of the way, but it was too heavy. Any attempts at climbing it were futile. Things weren't looking good for the 8 boy.

That night, another arena section flooded. Coalette was there, and she managed to use her Shore Up card in time to eliminate the flooding. As the games continued, the flooding would occur faster and faster until it was impossible to keep at bay.

As Day 6 began, Whipcord was going crazy. He banged against the crab's dead body with all his might, but it wouldn't budge an inch. He tried using a lever to roll it away, but the creature was simply too massive. Whipcord was going loopy, and dehydration wasn't helping. He laughed at unnecessary times and pointed in the distance seemingly uncontrollably. Trapped in his pitiful little cave, he would no doubt be dead in days unless he found some way to escape.

Two kills were made in the early morning hours of the sixth day of the games. Abel of 2 was getting very grumpy; he hated seeing Filigree and Orchid flirt and laugh together, but he refused to step in and stop them because of how different his social class was to theirs. Any mixing of classes was bad, in Abel's opinion. It was only a matter of time before they would have to die anyway. If Abel felt bad about plotting to kill two of his allies, he didn't show it.

Abel woke up before the others the morning of Day 6. He grabbed his sword and tread carefully toward the sleeping forms of Filigree and Orchid. Filigree was too shocked to jump or scream as he woke to the tip of Abel's sword being projected into his chest. He simply lurched suddenly to the side, moaning, and waking Orchid. Abel offed Orchid before she could scream. Their cannon shots startled the other careers awake.

 _Filigree Johnston, District 1 Male: 12th, Killed by Abel, Day 6_

 _Orchid Ernisse, District 1 Female: 11th, Killed by Abel, Day 6_

"Hey!" Florianna called, getting to her feet. "What was that for?"

"I just…"

"Shut up! Traitor!"

Abel knew he had no chance of escaping Florianna and Finnick on foot. So he grabbed his Pilot card, his last resort.

"Don't you dare use that thing!" Finnick shouted.

But it was too late. Abel had already whispered the location he wanted to go and dropped the card into his thermos of water. He was off and away, and the others had no chance of reaching him now. Their numbers had dwindled from five to two in less than sixty seconds.

Abel landed with a thud on a far-away grassy hilltop, and he quickly got to work setting up a shelter. He'd taken his sword with him on the pilot journey, but nothing else. He felt a little ashamed to be hunting for food and clean water like a poor barbarian, but what had to be done had to be done.

That night, two arena sections flooded. Cache and Cookie were resting in a patch of cool grass when they felt water creeping up around them. Water was sloshing down hills and filling up valleys, and it was rising mind-numbingly fast. Cookie used her Shore Up card to eliminate the flooding. The duo vowed to travel to a more central area of the island the next morning.

Finnick and Florianna woke with a start as floodwater began to creep into the horn. Their sleeping bags and many supplies were bobbing on the surface of the water. Finnick knew he had to use his Shore Up card, lest he and Florianna be killed. The churning water was up to his ankles, and it was up to his chest by the time he found his card set. He used the Shore Up card, saving himself and Florianna. Many of the horn's supplies were waterlogged and unusable from the flood. In the days to come the duo would find that they needed to be very resourceful with their limited supplies.

The morning of Day 7, a cannon shot pierced the peaceful silence of the island arena. Whipcord had tried every trick under the sun to escape his cave prison; he'd begged the Capitol for guidance; he'd cried more tears than he ever knew were inside him, and he still hadn't escaped. Finally, he lost hope completely. Whipcord forced the point of his sword into his wrist and drew a heavy line down his arm. The boy's clothes were torn and stained evil red as dark blood ran down his arms. He slit his left wrist in the same way, and Whipcord lie on the stone ground crying. He bled out in that pitiful little cave four hours later.

 _Whipcord Bayles, District 8 Male: 10th, Killed by Himself, Day 7_

A few hours later, two groups of tributes crossed paths. Lina and Ivan were weak from hunger; they were used to a satisfactory albeit tasteless diet home in District 5, and being in the arena was only teaching them how bad they were at adjusting to rapid change. Ivan, the higher scorer, walked in front of Lina. They weren't desperate enough to use any of their cards, at least not yet. Meanwhile, Cache and Cookie were in the best state they'd been in in days. They had a plentiful amount of food and a great supply of clean water, and their impressive animal kills had warranted several valuable sponsor presents.

It was around noon when the four tributes found each other. Ivan and Lina were on one horizon, and Cache and Cookie were on the other. They just walked slowly toward each other. Awkward silence closed its fist around the air as the tributes made out the whites of each other's eyes.

"Team up, then?" Ivan said, causing several of the others to jump.

Cache and Cookie peered down into their bag of supplies. Were they willing to make adjustments to fit two new members into their alliance? But the District 3 siblings peered at the sunken and tired faces of the young District 5 tributes and their hearts melted. They were only twelve, whereas the Make siblings were seventeen and eighteen, but it couldn't hurt to give them just a little food, could it?

The four allies moved to a wide, flat area that Cookie recognized as a moor. As she and Cache set up their camp and sorted rations, Lina and Ivan went out to kill the swarms of butterflies that fluttered overhead. Their mentor had sent them a note that the butterflies and most other arena life were completely edible. They were also quite tasty, though Lina didn't like the texture as the thin wings dissolved in her mouth.

At the cornucopia, Finnick and Florianna were preparing to hunt. They were eager to get out and kill the traitor Abel, and they hadn't made a kill in a while anyway. Florianna was left behind to guard the horn. Meanwhile, Finnick ran off. He wouldn't be able to return until the next day unless he played one of his precious cards; he made sure to bring a satisfactory supply of food and other resources. When he settled for his noon meal in a cluster of quivering trees, he noticed something peculiar.

There were long, green cords coiling around and between the trees—vines! If life in District 4 had taught Finnick anything, it was that vines weren't just for monkeys to swing on. He tore down several of the vines and wove them into a net. His knots were firm, the vines were strong—the intervals between strands of the net were perfectly uniform, and there was almost no chance prey could escape. He just needed a victim on which to test his creation.

Axelle gave it to him. She'd been stumbling over the sands and grasses of the island arena for days, searching for something to drink. She's used up all three of her cards, and she had no idea which direction was the fastest way to the ocean. Axelle was close to death from dehydration already when she crested a hill and came into Finnick's view. Finnick crouched down under the tall grass, waiting with his spear and net in hand.

When the 6 girl sat down cross-legged, Finnick tore out from behind the rock, revealing his presence. He lunged over the earth as quick as a flash; Axelle could do nothing more than gasp before he threw his net over her, trapping her body underneath. Axelle flailed and pounded hither and thither, but Finnick's handiwork was well-built. Her strength simply wasn't enough to snap the strong vines of the net. He seduced the outlier girl by poking three holes in her torso with his spear. Finnick quickly removed the net afterward; he didn't like the image of the otherwise clean vines being stained with blood.

 _Axelle Hopkins, District 6 Female: 9th, Killed by Finnick, Day 7_

That left the final eight: Abel Twells and Florianna Arangio from District 2, Cache Make and Cookie Make from District 3, Finnick Odair from District 4, Ivan Hainsworth and Lina Shepard from District 5, and Coalette Rushing from District 12.

That night, an astounding three sections of the arena flooded! Two of the three sections were inhabited by tributes. Cache, Cookie, Ivan, and Lina were resting together (they hadn't set a shift schedule) when they felt cold water sloshing around them. It was rising astonishingly fast, and the tributes were so panicked that they didn't bother to sort out who would use their Shore Up card. Both Cache and Ivan used their Shore Up cards to lower the floodwaters. It was only the next morning that they would realize one of them had wasted their card.

The next square to flood was the rightmost section of the first row. No tributes were living there. It quickly sank under the rising sea. Now only thirteen sixteenths of the island remained.

The third and final section to flood housed a tribute. It was Abel from 2. After abandoning the horn, he'd alternated between walking and jogging for several days. He was sleeping inside of one of the arena's many caves when he heard the lapping of ocean water outside. Funny. He didn't remember the sea being that close.

It was only after he felt water sliding into his sleeping bag that he knew he was in trouble. He leaped to his feet, grabbing his sword, and waded out of the cave. He reached for his three cards—oh no, he'd left them at the cornucopia! Abel was helpless as the water rose and rose. He was submerged up to his ankles—his waist—his neck—his chin. He tried to tread water, but the fierce currents kept throwing him back down. Upon his death, only twelve sixteenths, or three fourths, of the island was left unflooded.

 _Abel Twells, District 2 Male: 8th, Killed by Drowning, Day 7_

Finnick awoke to a beeping sound the next morning. He rolled out of his sleeping bag and pushed aside the veil of leaves and twigs he'd been sleeping under. That beeping was a sound he'd recognize anywhere: the sound of a sponsor gift. His heart nearly stopped at the sight of what sat beside him. The object in question was too large to be delivered by the small parachutes that were usually used, so there were five or six parachutes coaxing it safely to the ground in different places. It was a trident! Glowing golden and beautiful crafted, jewels were firmly inlaid into the handle and prongs. It was stunningly beautiful; Finnick practiced with his new weapon all morning before going out hunting to test it.

The odds were most certainly working with his favor, as less than two hours later he hit the ultimate jackpot. The forms of four snoring tributes cave into view—Cache, Cookie, Lina, and Ivan. Trying not to laugh or smile too broadly, Finnick grabbed up the weapons the quartet of tributes had on them.

Ivan woke up screaming. Finnick had slid the prongs of his new trident into his chest. Well-lubricated, the trident slid into his flesh as smoothly as silk. The 5 boy thrashed frantically around, knocking awake Lina. Lina's screams awoke Cache and Cookie. Before long, the three tributes were standing on their feet, while Ivan retched on the ground from the three gaping holes in his abdomen.

 _Ivan Hainsworth, District 5 Male: 7th, Killed by Finnick, Day 8_

Lina, Cache, and Cookie stumbled backward, their minds unable to process the fact that the strongest tribute in the games was standing right in front of them. Finnick was just sliding his bloodstained trident between his hands, peering over the threesome as if deciding which of them to kill first.

At once, as though it were planned, all three tributes screamed and turn to run.

"Use your Diagonal cards!" Cookie said. "It's our only chance of escaping him!"

As she said this, Cookie shakily opened her black cloth bag and pulled out the Diagonal card. Cache did the same. Lina took a while longer. By the time all three of them were holding their Diagonal cards, the running Finnick was less than ten meters behind them. He could have hurled his trident at any moment and killed one of them, but the 4 boy wanted to round them up and kill all three once they dropped from exhaustion.

Cache pulled out his water thermos, and all three tributes dipped their cards into it. By the time Finnick pulled out his own cards, they'd travelled diagonally to a different section and hidden well enough that he couldn't find them. Finnick camped near that spot anyway, wanting to catch them if they tried to make a run for it.

Cookie, Cache, and Lina peeked out from the layer of fallen branches that concealed them. They cringed at the sight of the blood stains on Finnick's trident—Ivan's blood. When he finally stopped for the night, they crept out of the branches and ran like mad. They couldn't move to a different section because it was far after nightfall, but they could at least place more distance between themselves and him before he woke up.

The odds were not in their favor. Five minutes later, they stumbled across yet another strong tribute—Coalette from 12. Lina, who had the best vision, was the first to spot the girl's brawny form moving through the trees. She ducked to the ground and hissed for Cache and Cookie to do the same. Coalette hadn't seen or heard them, but they were standing in her path; if they didn't move soon, she would step right onto them! When she drew close, they waddled out of the way.

Coalette's foot knocked into Lina's body. The 12 girl muttered a curse of confusion that was cut short as Lina dug her knife into the girl's back. Coalette collapsed to the ground while Lina stumbled backward, a torrent of emotions attacking her after making her first kill. Coalette reached for her pickaxes, but she'd dropped them a moment earlier from the agony. The trio watched in earnest as she died. They quickly moved after that, not wanting stick at the scene of the crime in case anyone had heard her screams. So the girl that scored a two killed the girl that scored a nine. Peculiar to say the least.

 _Coalette Rushing, District 12 Female: 6th, Killed by Lina, Day 8_

When night fell, three arena sections flooded. One of these sections was inhabited by Cache, Cookie, and Lina. They were apparently very unlucky that day. What Lina didn't realize when she played her Shore Up card was that it was the last of its kind that had yet to be used. In other words, no Shore Up cards were left in the arena. There would be no stopping the flooding as it continued to swallow down the island arena with its death-bringing hands.

The voice of Feodore Elliot rang through the arena the morning of Day 9. A mid-games announcement hadn't happened in years, and many were eager to hear what the gamemaker would have to say.

"Deepest congratulations to the final five tributes of the sixty-fifth Hunger Games," Feodore announced. "I must now inform you that your cards are now useless. They are nothing but slips of cardboard and have no special powers anymore. May the odds be ever in your favor."

The tributes had a very different approach to the games now that there were no special cards to save them. They all seemed to want to get as close to the cornucopia as possible, most likely in preparation for the finale.

Tensions were growing in the alliance of Cache, Cookie, and Lina. It was long overdue that Cache and Cookie break away from the much weaker Lina. The very small girl curled up for a short nap at one that afternoon, and the District 3 siblings knew what they had to do. They reassured themselves that someone had to do some intentional killing for these games to end, and Lina would have to die anyway. A tribute younger than fifteen had never won the Hunger Games. They might have even done her a kindness by giving her a quick and relatively painless death.

Cache and Cookie steeled themselves for the difficult task ahead and prowled toward Lina's softly snoring form. They softly counted down from three before forcing their knives into her abdomen. Lina woke up screaming, and her killers couldn't bear to stick around to hear it. They ran away with their ears covered, leaving Lina to die behind them. Now only four tributes remained.

 _Lina Shepard, District 5 Female: 5th, Killed by Cache and Cookie, Day 9_

As soon as the sun set for the ninth time, three arena sections flooded. Two of them were uninhabited, but the third one held a tribute. Florianna hadn't done anything of note for days; the audience had mostly forgotten about her existence. Feodore had only been keeping her around so that Finnick could have some competition.

Florianna let out a short scream as a tide of water knocked her off of her feet. She was carried nearly ninety feet down the current before getting to her feet. By that point, the water was up to her chest. She was completely alone in the flooding square of land with no hope of survival. After the three squares flooded fully, a measly six sixteenths, or three eighths, of the arena was left to walk on.

 _Florianna Arangio, District 2 Female: 4th, Killed by Drowning, Day 9_

Day 10 passed deathless as the final three tributes moved toward the cornucopia. Finnick cleaned his trident and net before beginning the journey. He did smear the prongs slightly with mud, as he thought they might catch the sunlight and give away his position if he left them in their perfectly shiny state. Meanwhile, Cookie and Cache practiced for the finale. They dueled with their knives nearly twenty times, moving a few feet between duels. They moved a lot during the day, but it didn't feel like it because of how segmented the walk was.

On Day 11, the three finalists spotted each other over the horizon. Finnick bolted toward Cache and Cookie while they fled sideways. They knew they couldn't kill the 4 boy if they didn't stock up on more good weapons, and the best place to get those was the cornucopia. He was a fast runner, but Cache and Cookie were being powered onward by adrenaline; they still were able to outrun him. They ran even faster when the horn came into sight. They each grabbed up spears, shaking as the 4 boy sped toward them.

Something strange was that Cache was holding a cloth sack that once held loaves of bread. Even without talking, Cookie knew what it was for. If they could place the bag over Finnick's head and restrain his arms, they could blindfold him long enough to go in for the kill. They didn't want to think about what would happen after that.

As Finnick attacked, Cookie struggled to corner him. He was fast, so fast that he was nearly impossible to keep still. Finally, Cookie was able to kick him in the groin hard enough to send him reeling backward into the exterior wall of the horn. Cache stuffed the cloth bag over his head, and he was blindfolded.

They had thought it would be easy to kill him once he was deprived of sight, but they were wrong. Finnick had scored a cool eleven; even blind, he was a formidable fighter. He shoved his trident into Cookie's chest. She let out a mewl of pain before falling backward. Finnick twisted sideways. Cache was too stunned to move or fight back as the 4 boy efficiently dispatched him. The siblings collapsed in a heap, dying as Finnick struggled to get the stupid sack off of his head. He had made his two final kills blindfolded.

 _Cookie Make, District 3 Female: 3rd, Killed by Finnick, Day 11_

 _Cache Make, District 3 Male: 2nd, Killed by Finnick, Day 11_

"Finnick Odair of District 4, you are the victor of the sixty-fifth annual Hunger Games!" Caesar and Claudius sang as one, their voices accompanied by the festive symphony of trumpets.

Finnick raised his bloody trident into the air in gallant celebration of his victory, his lips curling into his signature handsome smile.

 _Finnick Odair, District 4 Male: Victor of the Sixty-Fifth Hunger Games, Day 11_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Finnick was cherished when he returned home to District 4. They hadn't had a victor since Dylan of the forty-third games, over two decades prior, and they were overjoyed with all of the fame and attention they received after years in the shadow of the other, flashier, career districts. With Finnick, they were the third and final career district to achieve double digits in terms of victor count. Finnick was also the youngest victor in history up to that point, and the first tribute under the age of fifteen to ever win the Hunger Games, winning at the tender age of fourteen. Being one of the best-looking victors of course meant a life of prostitution, which certainly degraded him somewhat as well.

He settled into the Victor's Village of District 4, the tenth victor to do so.

Finnick's victory tour went fine, though District 3 was extremely sour to him and disagreed with whatever he said.

Finnick would live to the age of sixty-two, dying from a drug overdose around the time of the one-hundred thirteenth annual Hunger Games. Watching his companion Pacifica die in the arena did a lot more than just shake him up, and he would suffer the effects of the trauma for years after his victory. He would fall in love and marry another District 4 victor named Annie Cresta. Many suspected she reminded him of Pacifica. They would have one child together, who would compete in the ninety-ninth annual hunger Games. Finnick retained much of the charm and handsomeness that everyone liked as he flowered into old age. In his fifties, he would become addicted to several drugs, which would eventually lead to his death a decade later.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Finnick settles into the Victor's Village of District 4, in the house next door to Dylan's.

Mason Kittridge has his fourth child, a boy he calls Justinus.

Cecelia Rieffel's son, Burton, is born.

Cashmere Linden gets married to a rich Capitol man named Hunter Sylvester.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry this update took forever. I wrote it once before this but Finnick didn't turn out the way I'd intended so I let it sit for a while before eventually deciding to rewrite the whole thing.**

 **How was the arena this time? I had a super specific idea for a board-game like arena but it took a lot of tinkering to get it just right. And this was another long one. Next chapter will be shorter :)**

 **Next chapter isn't a canon victor for the first time in forever, so I can keep you waiting on who will win, not just who'll place second! It also means I can do whatever I want, which is always more fun that sticking to a character created by Suzanne Collins. I mean, characters like Cashmere and Finnick are great, but it's super fun to make an original character, yanno? :D**


	67. The 66th Hunger Games

**The 66th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The race was on for the new head gamemaker after Feodore Elliot stepped down after a truly spectacular ten years in the position. Starting with the _RMS Titanic_ and Ancient Pompeii arenas during his contest with Reyna and James, he'd gone on to carefully craft the Irish countryside arena, the Australian outback, the 1666 Great Fire of London and all that it entailed, the southern town as it was battered by Hurricane Katrina, the Egyptian desert with the great stone pyramids, the Lost City of Atlantis, a creation of Santa Claus' workshop at the North Pole, and the flooding island of the year prior. Nobody was sure if the new head gamemaker would be able to top Feodore's genius, but many were willing to try. Hundreds of auditions poured in, sent by everyone from standard issue Capitol citizens to wealthy businesspeople to even Victor Mason Kittridge. As President Coriolanus Snow began the arduous process of picking someone to steer the Games ship, there was relative joy in the districts. After watching the fourteen-year-old Finnick Odair win the games the previous year, younger children saw it as a ray of hope that perhaps they were not all completely doomed if they got sent into the arena. When reaping day came around, the feeling of despair generally associated with the glass reaping balls was slightly lessened. Of course, Mr. Snow could not have this. He needed a ruthless, unforgiving head gamemaker who could make even the toughest of district rebels cry for mommy. Fortunately, he found what he was looking for. Falcon Thorne had been serving as a minor gamemaker under the retired Feodore ever since his first games, and he knew a thing or two about how to make for an exciting games. Falcon was the one who'd designed the Roman citizen mutts of the fifty-fourth games, who'd planned the locations of all the water sources in the fifty-ninth games—heck, he'd even come up with the entire board game arena concept of the games the year before! He was the obvious choice. In his position of authority, Falcon assured everyone that this games would be the most thrilling yet. He wasn't one to make a games memorable by carefully tailoring the arena or selecting the tributes based on that particular games' needs. He wanted blood, and lots of blood at that. And that was what he would have.

The tributes would rise in the ovular throne room of a giant crystal palace. The crystal, which made up virtually everything in the arena, was a sparkling blue color—almost translucent. Many suspect this was so that the blood splatters would stand out more to the cameras. The cornucopia, also made of crystal, housed only one type of weapon this year, and this kind of weapon had a reputation for being one of the most despicable in games history—spiked maces. Also made of the arena's signature crystal, the maces had thick handles that would fit snugly into any average-sized tribute's grasp. The spikes were made of a shiny black metal that looked whole shades of intimidating. All of the packs and supplies were spiked as well, meaning that virtually anything supplied at the horn could be used as a weapon if its user was creative enough. The palace was shaped like a wagon wheel, with eight high-ceilinged hallways spindling off the central throne room. The palace had virtually every kind of room one could imagine: kitchens, bedrooms, lounges, reading and writing rooms, sitting rooms, bathrooms, closets, servants quarters, armories, and so much more. The mutts of the arena were titanic chess pieces the size of pickup trucks. The queens and kings mostly stayed at the ends of the hallways, whereas the rooks, knights, and bishops moved around more. The pieces moved fast and had a fair bit of artificial intelligence built into them; they would surely be lethal. Given the crystalline theme and ultimately stately atmosphere, the District 1 tributes would surely have an advantage this year, though it was anyone's guess which of the twenty-four tributes would walk home safe and sound.

This year had one of the strongest career packs to date. Falcon needed a whole lot of tributes strong enough to use the heavy spiked maces. District 1's tributes were as beautiful as always, and they were both slim and blond. The boy was a stunning, taller boy who had a cute laugh and a great sense of humor. Meanwhile, the girl was very prissy and kempt, and she only acted ladylike, making her a little unpopular amongst her allies. District 2 offered forth one of their strongest pairs yet. The male was a huge, muscular boy with dark hair and eyes that could intimidate any outlier, and he was one of the strongest tributes the academy had trained in ages. The boy was also of heavy Asian heritage, a new look for 2 as opposed to its typical crop of dark-skinned, brown-haired kids. The girl was swift and agile and great with ambush tactics, though she wasn't afraid to dive head-first into any difficult task. Ambition was her middle name, it could be said. District 4 provided the weakest batch, as was typical. The boy was very young and foolish, and he often didn't take time to think before he acted. The girl was his polar opposite: much more careful and calculating. Both had red hair, and they actually could have been siblings. The training scores of the pack were astounding: a total of four tens and two nines.

The outlier group had a lot of standouts. For starters, the two District 3 tributes allied prior to the games. The boy, Link, and the girl, Shard, had been good friends since they could crawl, and they would make a charismatic and dynamic duo without a doubt. The highest score was earned by Omari from 9. Omari's story was ultimately shrouded in mystery, and only pieces were known. He somehow managed to score a ten, but all existing footage of his private session and interview were destroyed shortly thereafter. The exact whereabouts of how Omari scored a ten were never revealed. Poundcake from District 11 was another high scorer, scoring an eight. She had a lot of experience with sickles and scythes from her time working the fields, though she could fight with most weapons well. Poundcake was a girl who was determined and resilient, and she could never spare time for fooling around if there was important work to be done. Sevens were earned by Sparky from 5, Paul from 7, Byssus from 8, and Tindra from 9. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. Another standout came from District 6. The girl, Mandrel, was the daughter of one of District 6's most infamous drug dealers. She was the only reason her mother had been staying drug-free for eighteen years. She fell off the wagon two hours after Mandrel was reaped. Corbin from 10 was openly bisexual, and he made a speech in his interview about LGBT rights in the districts. He only managed to score a four, but he was still one to remember. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Richer Nazarian, 17, (10) 4-1 and Beautify Hinnon, 17, (9) 6-1

District 2: Victor Xhang, 18, (10) 3-1 and Lilith Goldstein, 18, (10) 3-1

District 3: Link Yntema, 16, (5) 24-1 and Shard Upton, 17, (5) 27-1

District 4: Eddy Finestone, 16, (10) 5-1 and Vanessa Colburn, 18, (9) 7-1

District 5: Sparky St. Claire, 18, (7) 14-1 and Arza Stumpo, 14, (4) 39-1

District 6: Modello Lombroza, 15, (4) 36-1 and Mandrel Frost, 18, (6) 18-1

District 7: Paul Uccello, 13, (7) 16-1 and Anisa Tiller, 16, (5) 30-1

District 8: Byssus Castro, 17, (7) 15-1 and Piña Rockwall, 12, (3) 56-1

District 9: Omari Ennis, 18, (10) 4-1 and Tindra Line, 18, (7) 15-1

District 10: Corbin Fajtova, 15, (4) 39-1 and Birdie Tenner, 15, (5) 30-1

District 11: Carrot Brooten, 12, (6) 21-1 and Poundcake Carrera, 18, (8) 11-1

District 12: Teo Feather, 13, (3) 55-1 and Phaedra Antoine, 12, (3) 60-1

HGBO Bets: 11% on Victor and Lilith, 9% on Omari, 8% on Richer and Beautify, 7% on Eddy, 6% on Vanessa, 5% on Poundcake, 4% on Sparky, Paul, Byssus, and Tindra, 3% on Mandrel and Carrot, 2% on Link, Shard, Anisa, and Birdie, 1% or less on Arza, Modello, Piña, Corbin, Teo, and Phaedra.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Disbelief reflected on the faces of the players as they gawked at the giant crystal palace arena for the first time. The crystal was hard and shiny, and if the tributes caught the light just right they could actually pick up on their reflections. The two empty crystal thrones sat at the opposite end of the room, far away from the cornucopia, casting a sense of foreboding over the already tense scene.

BOOM! Anisa from 7 had been fidgeting nervously with her tribute token, a small wooden ball. With about four seconds left on the countdown, she mistakenly dropped the token. It hit the mines, and she was being blown against the wall with smoke issuing from everywhere on her battered body before she even knew what had happened. Anisa's tribute token had led to her downfall.

 _Anisa Tiller, District 7 Female: 24th, Killed by Land Mines, Pre-Bloodbath_

When the gong rang, only one tribute avoided the bloodbath, Arza from 5. While the arena was beautiful, it didn't look like it provided anything useful; the other twenty-three tributes figured heading into the bloodbath was their best bet.

Lilith sprinted at the head of the onrush, her brunette ponytail thumping against her back. She wasn't the fastest of the careers, but adrenaline was enhancing her movements such that she was running faster than she'd ever thought was possible. Lilith grabbed the first spiked mace she came across and dove toward a nearby boy. The career girl lifted the hideous spiked mace by its handle like a baseball bat and slammed it into the boy's head. There was a loud crunch and an awful moaning as his skull was bashed in; his brain couldn't keep running for very long after experiencing the intense trauma.

 _Carrot Brooten, District 11 Male: 23rd, Killed by Lilith, Bloodbath_

Victor ran right into the thick of the fray. The 2 boy wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, and he was in fact a little jealous of Lilith, as he had his heart set on being the one to make the first kill. He would make up for it by making his first kill as gory as possible. Victor grabbed a mace with a longer handle and admired the way that the spikes glistened in the light of the crystal lamps overhead. He swung suddenly to the left, slamming the mace into the upper neck of a nearby girl with all of the strength he could muster. Her head was literally blown off of her neck, and strings of flesh and sticky blood were sent flying, staining the clothes of her killer. At least it was a quick death, her mentor later told the press.

 _Mandrel Frost, District 6 Female: 22nd, Killed by Victor, Bloodbath_

Beautify had spent the first few minutes of the bloodbath carefully searching for a mace that she liked. When she finally found one that she liked, she glided toward the boy that would become her first victim. Beautify swung the mace into his side, muttering all the while about how un-ladylike maces were and how she wished there were at least a few bows provided at the cornucopia. The boy screamed and collapsed to the ground as Beautify beat him a few more times. The last sounds he ever heard were Beautify's rants coupled with his own screams.

 _Paul Uccello, District 7 Male: 21st, Killed by Beautify, Bloodbath_

Beautify screamed as she felt two enormous weights hit her back. Lilith and Victor, the strongest tributes from District 2, knew that this year's pack was one of the strongest yet, and they figured the games would play out best if at least one of their members died before the end of the bloodbath. Lilith and Victor stepped away from the prissy 1 girl they'd come to dislike. They watched as Beautify slid to the ground, panting, before Victor finished her off with one more blow to the head, bashing in her skull.

 _Beautify Hinnon, District 1 Female: 20th, Killed by Lilith and Victor, Bloodbath_

Eddy went on a killing rampage as soon as he got his hands on one of the spiked maces. He was racing through the droves of outliers and swinging his mace every which way in hopes of hitting some random tribute and killing them. About a minute later, a very small girl felt the weight of Eddy's mace hit her chest. The spikes dug into her abdomen: perfect entry points for blood to flood into her lungs. The girl fell to the crystals, coughing up blood, and Eddy watched by with a smile until she died.

 _Pi_ _ña Rockwall, District 8 Female: 19th, Killed by Eddy, Bloodbath_

Poundcake from 11 wasn't completely on board with the idea of killing, but she knew she had to do it to attract sponsors and increase her chances of winning. She grabbed a heavier mace, its weight deterring her movements slightly, as she scouted the throne room for worthwhile prey. She eventually decided to attack Eddy from 4; he seemed to be moving rather randomly and not taking note of his surroundings. Poundcake sprinted toward him and swung her mace into his back. Eddy gasped with shock and whipped around, at which point the 11 girl smacked him in the face. The spikes opened up holes in his forehead and chin; the career collapsed, dying, and Poundcake fled the scene before any of the other careers noticed.

 _Eddy Finestone, District 4 Male: 18th, Killed by Poundcake, Bloodbath_

Victor made another kill soon after. For about three minutes, he'd been chasing a crying girl around the room. Finally, the girl collapsed behind one of the tall thrones, crying into her hands and begging that Victor make her death quick and as painless as possible. One blow of his mace sent her scuttling out from behind the throne, and Victor bashed in the young girl's skull with ease.

 _Phaedra Antoine, District 12 Female: 17th, Killed by Victor, Bloodbath_

Vanessa grabbed a spiked mace and attacked her first victims. She was one of the only careers left without any kills, but she was determined to make one or two before the bloodbath ended. Vanessa was standing right behind Link and Shard of District 3, preparing to kill them both with one broad swing of her mace. But the girl stumbled and cursed, and the allies turned around slowly, eyes widening as they saw her. Link and Shard fled, picking up maces of their own along the way, and they faced off with the 4 girl. Vanessa swung her mace lightly, just as a warm-up, and the two tributes easily knocked it out of her hand. Her abdomen was a pulp by the time they were finished. Now only three of the careers remained.

 _Vanessa Colburn, District 4 Female: 16th, Killed by Link and Shard, Bloodbath_

The feisty Richer, wielding one smaller mace in each hand, spotted a boy gathering supplies in an unoccupied corner of the cornucopia. Richer ran with surprising speed for someone bearing so much weight. The boy turned around with a gasp as Richer thrust several of the spikes into his back. Before he could scream, Richer quickly bludgeoned him in the stomach. Several of his ribs had cracked from the blow, and the boy was left immobile and incapable of much thought until his death half a minute later.

 _Modello Lombroza, District 6 Male: 15th, Killed by Richer, Bloodbath_

Lilith was on a roll, and she made her third kill as soon as the opportunity came about. Hyped on adrenaline, she swung her spiked mace, letting it slam into the side of the nearest boy. He fell forward, the wind knocked out of him, unable to move or make a single sound. The adrenaline-crazy Lilith squashed his head into an awkward shape over the course of the next few minutes as the bloodbath began to dissipate around them.

 _Corbin Fajtova, District 10 Male: 14th, Killed by Lilith, Bloodbath_

Omari of 9 was the last tribute to die during the bloodbath. The gamemakers really didn't want him to win the games. He was the boy they'd deleted from the private session and interview footage, and who'd scored a ten. As he began his sprint out of the throne room, he saw a massive fireball firing down one of the hallways toward him. Omari blanched and turn to run, but the fireball blasted him to smithereens before he could move a single step.

 _Omari Ennis, District 9 Male: 13th, Killed by Fireball, Bloodbath_

The career trio had a lot of cleaning up to do after the twelve cannon shots faded away fully. Smoke from the site of Omari's death was beginning to build up in the halls and the throne room. Richer's sponsors sent him a few fire extinguishers, and he did his best to get rid of the flames issuing from the gaping hole in the floor of the crystal palace. Meanwhile, Victor and Lilith stayed in the horn to sort supplies, Victor mainly specializing in food and such while Lilith organized the weapons. They were a very close-knit duo, and their strictly platonic relationship was cute and greatly loved throughout the Capitol. Once Richer completely extinguished the flames, he returned to the throne room for a quick nap and to rehydrate. They left soon after to hunt, leaving Victor behind to guard the cornucopia.

The outliers spread throughout the arena. In theory, each tribute had eight choices for which hallway they would run down, though most just chose the one that their pedestal had been closest to. Link and Shard were a little shaken up after killing Vanessa during the bloodbath; they weren't traumatized to the point of being unable to function properly, but they moved quickly out of nervousness and didn't speak to one another except when it was absolutely necessary. They settled in a kitchen, and Link organized some food for them to eat while Shard cleared out one of the cupboards to act as their shelter. Sparky had managed to grab a bunch of mechanical parts from the horn, as well as a mace and a few additional supplies. Being from 5, he knew a thing or two about mechanics, and he spent the night assembling something under a large table in a reception room. Arza, the only tribute who had avoided the bloodbath entirely, fled down one of the hallways until she came to a large lounge. She grabbed a pair of scissors from one of the tables and broke it in half, leaving her with two knife-like weapons. Arza stuffed herself under the couch to sleep the night away. Byssus had snatched a thermos of water as well as a mace from the cornucopia. He found his way to the servant's quarters and slept in a closet that stored servant uniforms. He couldn't fit the mace in the closet with him, so he had to leave it just outside. Tindra found herself in what was possibly the most luxurious bathroom she had ever visited in her life. The bathtub was ornately crafted out of the arena's crystal, and hot water poured from the faucet when she turned the handles. Needing a warm bath to soothe her aching muscles, Tindra removed her clothes (except for her underclothes, for decency's sake) and fell asleep in the tub, leaving the faucet running. Birdie had grabbed a stubby metal rod from the horn on a whim. She found a reading and writing room with desks and chairs strewn about, and she placed the metal rod under the hooked door handle, locking it closed. Birdie slept well knowing that nobody could get into her secure room. The daring Poundcake traipsed into the dark armory. While there were no windows, some light was let in through the crack beneath the door. It was enough light for her to shove herself and her supplies behind a heavy suit of armor for the night. Teo was absolutely terrified of the careers, being a very young boy with a very low score in an arena that was clearly not meant for District 12 tributes. He'd been forcing himself through rooms and corridors for ten hours when Teo realized he was just walking in circles. With no supplies, he collapsed crying in a bedroom and dragged himself under the covers.

The portion of the career pack that was hunting woke up very early in the morning. Richer and Lilith wanted to catch any victims they may find off-guard and sleep-addled, when they would be easier to kill. They didn't need to look for long. Richer and Lilith momentarily split up to cover more ground, and Richer came racing toward Lilith in minutes. He'd found that one of the hallways was flooded with about half an inch of water, and he wanted the 2 girl to help him investigate.

Richer took Lilith to the flooded hallway. Water was creeping slowly across the crystal floor—hot water that smelled pleasant. It was bath water. When Tindra had fallen asleep in the bathtub the night prior, the tub had overflowed and seeped out of the room. Tindra woke as suddenly as though someone had yelled into her ear as Lilith and Richer lightly pushed the door open. She saw their forms silhouetted against the bright backdrop of the hallway and dropped down below the bathwater, hoping the bubbles would hide her from sight. In seconds, her blood was painting the bathwater. Lilith saw the tip of her head above the bubbles and slammed down her mace, rendering Tindra incapable of breathing or moving for several seconds. When the girl composed herself, she fought toward the door, but Richer was standing there. He finished her off with one blow to the abdomen. Her cannon shot was loud, and it was the careers' signal to vacate the bathroom to hunt for more prey.

 _Tindra Line, District 9 Female: 12th, Killed by Lilith and Richer, Day 2_

Not much happened in the latter portion of Day 2. Sparky kept working on his odd electrical contraption. By the end of the day, it shot sparks whenever he flicked one of the levers on the machine. It was obvious to most that he was trying to build some kind of electric stun gun. Sponsor gifts of useful mechanical parts piled on in Sparky's reception room, some he didn't even need but kept in case he did. Byssus left the closet of the servant's quarters, having deemed it too cramped to spend any more time inside of, and hid under a long table in one of the dining rooms. The crystal-colored table cloth hid him and his belongings from sight.

Day 3 was deathless. After a long day of hunting, Richer and Lilith decided to head back to the horn. They were short on supplies, and their shoes and socks were horribly wet from wading in the overflowed bathwater, courtesy of the deceased Tindra. The duo was mere feet from the central throne room when they found their path blocked by a massive figure. It was the first of many giant chess pieces that would appear throughout the games—a knight. It had a wide, circular base that covered its hidden wheels, and its regal horse head was crafted expertly. It let out a hideous screeching neigh, and the duo grabbed their maces.

The knight piece dove toward Richer, and he slid out of the way, bumping into Lilith. They collapsed to the ground in a heap, and they panicked as they noticed the chess piece mutt barreling toward them. They managed to get back to their feet just in time for Lilith to swing her mace, knocking off a good chunk of its nose. The oversized figurine fell toward them like a falling tree. Lilith was able to get out of the way fast enough, but Richer was not. His foot was trapped under the fallen piece, and hundreds of pounds of pressure were being forced down upon it every second. The agony was awful. He enlisted Lilith's help to wiggle out from underneath. Eventually, the gamemakers drew the destroyed knight mutt away, and their worst suspicions were confirmed—Richer's ankle was sprained.

Richer hobbled back to the horn, leaning on Lilith's shoulder. Victor, who had spent the time his allies were away further organizing the cornucopia's supplies, was a skilled healer. With a few sponsored first-aid supplies, Victor managed to correct Richer's broken bone. He was still in horrible agony, but nobody expected there to be any lasting damage. He just needed rest.

A cannon shot shattered the silence of the palace the morning of Day 4. Poundcake was hunting again; she was easily the most popular and good-looking of the remaining outliers. She quietly left the armory and immediately picked up on a soft crying noise. Nearby Teo from 12 was absolutely miserable. The stress of the games was getting to him, and he was hiding under the covers in one of the bedrooms, sobbing into his shirt sleeve. Poundcake followed the crying sounds to investigate, and she had a moral dilemma when she realized the boy she was planning to kill was so young. Trying not to think about killing someone so innocent, she quickly sprinted toward the bed and blew in three of his ribs.

The 11 girl instantly felt awful, but she had inflicted too much pain to turn back now; the best option would be to just deliver Teo from his misery. The spiked mace weapons made it impossible to kill anyone quickly, just what Falcon wanted. The sheets were stained with blood by the time Poundcake was finished. She moved a few rooms over and fell onto a fat sofa, her mind full of thoughts.

 _Teo Feather, District 12 Male: 11th, Killed by Poundcake, Day 4_

Days 5 and 6 were both deathless. At the cornucopia, the careers kept injuring themselves. Richer was still healing from his sprained ankle, and a few additional sponsor gifts sped up his healing process significantly. Even so, he wasn't expected to be back in action until Day 7 or Day 8. After several days of guarding the horn, Victor was looking forward to a long day of hunting with his best friend Lilith. This could not happen, however, as Lilith accidentally hit herself in the leg with one of the maces she was practicing with just before they were going to leave. Lilith screamed as her blood flew everywhere, and Victor had to physically restrain her as he applied her bandages and disinfected the wounds. Victor was now playing nurse to his two rather-severely-injured allies, meaning any possibilities of hunting for the next few days were of the table.

Meanwhile, the outliers weren't doing much except moving around. Link and Shard moved around every day, though they returned to their home in the kitchen every night (they knew when it was "day" and "night" based on the death recaps). Link was supremely bored, and it was Day 6 when he suggested that they hunt to fill the empty hours of each day. Shard gasped, disgusted at his suggestion, and refused to talk to him for the rest of the day. Shard would rather do most anything than kill another tribute, and given how different her views were than those of her ally Link their alliance was essentially built on sand. Sparky was in the final stages of manufacturing his small electric machine. He hadn't left the reception room since Day 1. But that hardly mattered; the audience already had their attention on him because they were all curious to see what would come about of his creation. Arza had a run-in with two chess piece mutts. Having no weapon to fend them off, she ran to the nearest room and barricaded the door with heavy furniture. It was a small bedroom, and Arza hid under the bed until the giant chess pieces went away. Byssus was searching one of the kitchens when he found a cookbook. He curiously leafed through it and found several recipes that he couldn't help but try. The boy wasn't an experienced cook, but by following the concise instructions he was able to make several sweet treats to power him through the difficult games. Birdie didn't leave the reading and writing room for the whole two days. In the early morning of Day 5, she found a romance novel (one of Falcon's wife's favorites) open on one of the sofas and began reading. She was completely engrossed in the novel and read almost straight for the two days, even pulling an all-nighter to finish the book's last few chapters. While she wasn't moving around at all, many admired her love of reading, and the gamemakers didn't send any threats her way. Poundcake took a well-deserved break in one of the bedrooms. She'd made two kills since the start of the games, and she just needed a bit of time to gather her thoughts. There was peace for this two-day period, but this of course could not last. Blood would soon splatter across the crystal.

Day 7 had some action in it. After a bad night's sleep, Arza crawled out from underneath the bed she had slept under and walked toward the door of the bedroom. She knew a few of the giant chess pieces were nearby, but they could have moved a lot over the night and it wasn't worth it to stay in the room and starve out of paranoia. On her sprint away from the cornucopia six days before, she'd seen several faucets; Arza knew with direction to go to get clean water.

She stopped at a burbling water fountain made of crystal and took a quick sip of the water. It was clean and refreshing. Arza had drunk more than she'd ever thought could fit inside of her when she heard a loud grumble from behind her. She spit out of her mouthful of water and whipped around, seeing two large chess pieces approaching her. One was a black king piece, the largest of all the chess piece mutts, and the other was a white pawn. She didn't have a weapon. There was nothing she could do but back away and hope they didn't notice her.

Finally, she broke into a run. Arza ran through hallways, and the chess pieces followed her, groaning as they dragged themselves over the floor of the palace. Finally, she grew too exhausted to keep running. Arza barricaded herself into a small room meant for prayer and hoped that the mutts couldn't break through wood.

But they could break through wood. The mutts busted down the door, and Arza was overwhelmed before she could lift a finger. The king mutt rolled right over her, crushing her windpipe, as the pawn knocked her head over and over until she died from head trauma. After her death, the humungous chess pieces wheeled away, content until they came across another weary tribute.

 _Arza Stumpo, District 5 Female: 10th, Killed by Chess Piece Muttations, Day 7_

The next day, Day 8, Richer and Lilith had both healed fully. Richer could walk on his ankle without feeling any pain at all, and the puncture marks on Lilith's legs were mere crusty spots on her flesh. Victor was glad to be free of the burden of caring for them. Leaving Richer to guard the horn as he practiced using his ankle again, Victor and Lilith headed down one of the spindles of the wagon wheel-shaped palace to search for outliers.

Meanwhile, Sparky was fitting the final few pieces into his electrical contraption. It looked like a gun, but it was much smaller; Sparky could easily conceal it from sight by closing his fist around it. He requested a creature to test the weapon on, and the gamemakers answered the request. A mouse mutt with bright-pink fur scuttled into the room less than a minute later. Sparky flicked one of the levers on his handiwork, and it buzzed to life. Sparky touched the metal rod to the skin of the mouse. It eeked once and immediately died, its fur sizzling at the site of the contact. Now he just needed human victims.

Fortunately (or, rather, unfortunately for them) two tributes were nearby: Link and Shard of 3. Falcon moved Link and Shard closer to Sparky with a single chess piece mutt. One of the clever boy's sponsors sent him a note that two other tributes were just outside. Sparky poked his head out the door and spotted the two allies walking slowly toward him about a hundred feet off. Shaking with both excitement and dread, he readied his weapon.

When Link and Shard grew near, Sparky leapt out of the room. Shard yelped and staggered backward as he placed the live metal rod onto her hair, singing off one of her locks. The awful smell of burnt hair filled the corridor. She was lucky only her hair was affected; if the contraption had touched her skin, especially in a point so close to her brain and heart, she would have no doubt been mortally injured or killed. As the two allies staggered backward, Sparky wove the electrical machine through the air with admirable grace for a District 5 tribute. They were both weaponless, as they'd left their maces behind in the kitchen. They both decided at the same second that running like mad would be the best way to go. They came to a dead end in no time. Shard turned around just as Sparky placed the live electrical rod onto her neck. She gurgled with shock and slid down the wall, contorting from the powerful electrical current before eventually landing on her knees.

 _Shard Upton, District 3 Female: 9th, Killed by Sparky, Day 8_

That left the final eight: Richer Nazarian from District 1, Victor Xhang and Lilith Goldstein from District 2, Link Yntema from District 3, Sparky St. Claire from District 5, Byssus Castro from District 8, Birdie Tenner from District 10, and Poundcake Carrera from District 11.

Enraged at the death of his ally and thirsty for revenge, Link made a desperate attempt to tackle Sparky and knock the weapon out of his hand. Weaponless, he was no match for the boy who could kill with one touch. The way their limbs were knotted together on the floor was rather gruesome, so Sparky left quickly.

 _Link Yntema, District 3 Male: 8th, Killed by Sparky, Day 8_

The next day, Day 9, was deathless. Most of the tributes were well-armed, and those that weren't didn't seem to have too bright a future ahead of them. However, as it often is with the Hunger Games, only time would tell which of the seven remaining tributes would have their name stamped into the Walk of Victors. Sparky holed up in a lounge, repairing his electric weapon. It had taken some damage during his fight with the late Shard and Link, but nothing his dexterous hands couldn't fix within a day or two of hard work. Poundcake finally started hunting again, after several day of inactivity. Byssus was hiding in a dining room when he heard Poundcake's footsteps, and he ducked under one of the tables just in time that the girl didn't notice him. The portion of the career pack that was hunting returned to the horn, and their relationship was growing very rocky and awkward. Richer, Victor, and Lilith were still allied at the top seven, meaning that almost half the tributes were together whenever the trio met. Each of them suspected a betrayal from one of the other two, and they never really turned their backs on one another if they could help it. Even the amicable Victor and Lilith from 2 felt a bit awkward talking when they knew only one of them could leave the arena alive.

Day 10, Birdie finally completed the sequel to the lengthy romance novel she'd been reading for the last few days. She was a major bookworm, and she felt very sad at the death of a character she'd grown to like throughout the book. Figuring it couldn't hurt to move around a bit to cheer herself up, she left the safety of the reading and writing room, all on her own in the crystal palace.

She hadn't gone ten steps before an arrow flew over her head. Birdie screamed and ducked underneath it. There was an enormous chess piece mutt about thirty meters down the hall: a queen. The queen piece was shooting out arrows dripping with what looked like deadly poison as it moved closer and closer to her. Birdie fled in the other direction, but Falcon had ensured that another chess piece was there to block her way. She ran right into a large rook or castle piece, and she fell to the ground, instinctively apologizing before realizing the seriousness of the situation. The queen and rook mutts were closing in on her with alarming speed. She had to slip past one of them to escape, and she chose the smaller rook mutt.

Birdie tried to calm her rapid breathing as she bolted toward the rook piece. It was now or never. She dove to the left, wiggling between the piece and the ornate crystal wall. The rook moved suddenly to the side, crushing her against the wall. Birdie screamed in terror and struggled to escape as the queen approached. It battered her to a pulp over the course of about an hour. Now only six tributes were left.

 _Birdie Tenner, District 10 Female: 7th, Killed by Chess Piece Muttations, Day 10_

That night, at the cornucopia, Richer stayed up long after his allies fell asleep. He knew he was easily the weakest and least popular of the three remaining careers, and he had no chance of victory unless he managed to kill them both in their sleep. The problem was that tributes tend to scream when being bludgeoned to death with spiked maces; whatever tribute Richer attacked, their screams would wake the other. He had to kill them both at once. Creeping out of his sleeping bag, Richer grabbed up his spiked mace. He wasn't looking forward to the task ahead, but he knew it was necessary. The sleeping forms of Lilith and Victor came closer and closer. He could kill them any second…

But there was something he didn't know. Victor was so paranoid of being betrayed by his allies that he wasn't able to sleep. When he saw Richer grabbing his mace, he knew he was a traitor. Richer brought down his mace, and suddenly Victor leapt to his feet, roaring and shoving the traitor 1 boy to the ground. His thrashing and screaming woke Lilith, who scuttled to the back of the cornucopia, horrified as she watched their skirmish play out from a safe distance.

In seconds, Victor was able to snatch the spiked mace out of Richer's grasp. Before he could grab a new one, Victor swung the weapon into the side of his head. Warm beads splattered everywhere, and Richer was dead in seconds. He shoved his body away and lie back down in his sleeping bag. It was a long time before Lilith could gather the courage to do the same.

 _Richer Nazarian, District 1 Male: 6th, Killed by Victor, Day 10_

The morning of Day 11 passed without much conflict. Victor and Lilith got back along after he explained to her that he only killed Richer because he was a traitor. Unfortunately, this increased Lilith's suspicions that he himself was planning to betray her, and she never fully trusted him despite his constant reminders that he would never hurt her if it was unnecessary.

Meanwhile, the three survival outliers bustled about. All of them wanted to prepare as well as possible for the finale. The strong Poundcake began her journey to the cornucopia, a long one that would take several days at a normal pace. When the death recap played, she crashed in a reception room and placed furniture in front of the door to keep other tributes out. Sparky's hands slipped when he was adding a few very small pieces to his contraption, and he accidentally ruined the whole previous day's work. He was so devastated that he couldn't bring himself to touch the project again, so he let it sit for a while as he relaxed in a lounge. Byssus, undoubtedly the least popular of the five remaining tributes, was trying desperately to gather any sponsors he could get. He was doing cartwheels, jumping onto couches, and even telling corny jokes. The only thing he got was a strawberry-flavored cookie, which he stuffed into his pocket for later.

Mere minutes after noon, Byssus heard footsteps from outside the bedroom he was hiding in. It took all of his willpower to keep from screaming with terror, and he quietly made his way under the bed to hide. The door creaked open. Byssus took a peek and immediately pulled himself back under the bed. It was Lilith. Hours earlier, she'd volunteered to go hunting (while her district partner and ally Victor was guarding the horn).

Lilith sat down on the bed that Byssus was hiding under. The mattress compressed, and Byssus was squished against the floor. His mouth pressed against the mattress, he could hardly breathe, and he gasped with shock as he started inhaling debris from the mattress. Lilith, knowing she was about to make another kill, jumped off of the bed and peeked under it. Byssus immediately made a break for the door, but Lilith caught up to him in seconds. She swung her mace into his side, and the bone in his arm was blown to bits. He collapsed, limp, against a nearby wall, and Lilith made quick work of him from there.

 _Byssus Castro, District 8 Male: 5th, Killed by Lilith, Day 11_

The tributes were getting closer and closer together; given how quickly the games were escalating, it wasn't completely impossible that the games would be over within the next day or so. There were two careers (Victor and Lilith) and two outliers (Sparky and Poundcake) remaining, and betters were going crazy. All four tributes were wildly popular ones, and nobody could tell which of the four would be crowned Victor.

Byssus' cannon shot caused the tributes to move even faster. They all wanted to get as close the horn as possible. There, in close quarters, the finale would undoubtedly take pace.

The next tribute encounter occurred less than an hour later. Sparky and Poundcake had been near each other for the entire games: in fact, their pedestals had been adjacent all the way back on Day 1! Many suspected that the two would meet before long, and this suspicion was proven true. Poundcake was resting in the servant's quarters when she heard Sparky's light footsteps outside. Over the days in the arena, killing had been getting easier for her; she got up without a second thought to investigate the sound.

Poundcake poked her head out of the door, and Sparky was onto her in seconds. She was surprised, of course, but she managed to regain herself quick enough to keep Sparky from hurting her with his electrical weapon. She stared at the buzzing metal device and told herself that she needed to get that thing out of her opponent's hand. Sparky was struggling to press the metal to her skin, but Poundcake was stronger and more muscular than he was so it was extremely difficult. After nearly ten minutes, Poundcake grabbed her mace and smacked the device out of Sparky's hands. The weapon exploded into a million pieces, scattering all over the crystal floor of the palace.

Sparky gasped with shock at the sudden annihilation of the thing he'd poured days of work into, and it was this distraction that the 11 girl needed to make the kill. Sparky's skull ended pretty much like the machine, blown to bits by her mace. After his cannon shot sounded, Poundcake wiped the crystal dust off of herself and continued the last stretches of her journey to the horn.

 _Sparky St. Claire, District 5 Male: 4th, Killed by Poundcake, Day 11_

By that point, Lilith and Victor had both reached the cornucopia. They vowed to stay allied under they managed to kill Poundcake, at which point they would have a true fair fight like true District 2 ladies and gentlemen. Falcon didn't need mutts or devious traps to drive Poundcake toward the horn—she was resilient and brave, and she made the journey on her own initiative.

Lilith and Victor scrambled into their battle positions as they spotted Poundcake's form racing toward them from one of the hallways. As soon as she was in the throne room, a boom louder than any sound they had ever heard blasted through the palace. The eight long corridors spindling out from the central throne room were collapsing. The crashing of crystal rang through the air for minutes. By the time everything settled, there was nothing but the throne room and the three tributes. There was nowhere to run. The finale had truly begun.

Poundcake immediately grabbed a newer and sleeker mace. For the first few seconds, this actually gave her a disadvantage, as she wasn't familiar with the new weapon's properties; however, after a few second of mindlessly swinging it around, she got a pretty good feel for it. She leaped onto a pile of supply crates and grabbed a crate. She hurled it at Lilith, and it hit her in the stomach. Lilith let out a mewl of pain before collapsing to the ground. She wasn't dead, but she was in so much pain that she couldn't move. Victor was all alone to kill the very popular and pretty 11 girl.

Poundcake hurled another crate, and Victor smashed it out of the way with his mace. The crate cracked in half, and the two halves landed about ten feet apart a ways away. In seconds, Victor was running toward the pile of crates and Poundcake, letting out a battle cry. Their maces crashed against each other, and sparks literally flew between the weapons. Victor was one of the strongest tributes District 2's academy had seen in ages, but Poundcake was muscular from years of work in District 11's fields. Only time would tell who would win.

Mace clashed against mace, girl fought against boy, and boy triumphed over girl. Poundcake's main weakness was that she let adrenaline drive her on too much during battles, and that was what led to her downfall. Victor sharply kicked the pile of crates she was standing on, and Poundcake began falling to the ground. She was too panicked and pumped full of adrenaline to reason that falling onto a nearby pillow would be the safest option: instead, she tried to stop the fall with her hands. Her arm splintered sideways into a wooden crate, and she screamed as the long splinter of wood dug into her skin, pain exploding through her arm. Victor quickly offed her with his mace, leaving himself and Lilith as the final two tributes in the sixty-sixth Hunger Games.

 _Poundcake Carrera, District 11 Female: 3rd, Killed by Victor, Day 11_

There was silence as Lilith and Victor faced each other. They had been good friends for years, but now one of them had to die. They each grabbed newer, cleaner, and sharper maces and walked toward each other, sad smiles on each tribute's face.

"A fair fight, then?" Victor said.

Lilith nodded. "May the best tribute win."

They met, and the battle was won from the start. Seconds into the duel, Victor was able to knock away Lilith's mace. She struggled to reclaim it, but it clattered to the crystal about ten meters away. She would never be able to reach it. Lilith was left to fend away Victor's blows with her bare hands. She held out her hands to stop a swing of his mace, and each of her hands was blown messily off. Tears streamed down Lilith's face as she collapsed to the ground, sobbing.

Victor knelt beside her, apologizing for everything and asking her to forgive him.

"It's okay. At least one of us won," Lilith choked out before falling still.

 _Lilith Goldstein, District 2 Female: Killed by Victor, Day 11_

"Victor Xhang of District 2, you are the victor of the sixty-sixth annual Hunger Games!" Caesar and Claudius shouted.

Victor put on a charming smile for the cameras that he knew were all focused on him, trying to ignore the dark pool of Lilith's blood spreading around his feet.

 _Victor Xhang, District 2 Male: Victor of the Sixty-Sixth Hunger Games, Day 11_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 2 was overjoyed to receive their seventeenth victor. They now had seven more victors than either of the other two career districts, a feat that its citizens were enormously proud of. The Capitol loved Victor for his charm and his determination, and many thought he resembled several District 1 victors in many ways. Victor was of course glad for all of the fame and attention he received, and he was happy to bring the honor to his family that he promised to bring them when he volunteered several weeks prior.

He moved into the Victor's Village of District 2, the seventeenth victor to do so.

His victory tour went spectacularly. Everyone loved how fair his final duel with Lilith had been, and even Lilith's mother and father didn't show Victor any hardship, at least not publically.

Victor would live to the age of eighty, dying from oral cancer around the time of the one-hundred twenty-eighth annual Hunger Games. After his games, Victor was a very changed boy. Watching his good friend Lilith die at his own hands during the games and taught him a thing or two about the unfairnesses of humanity, and Victor would dedicate the rest of his life to making the world a better place. He asked all of the relatives of his victims to forgive him, and he would even attend several of their funerals. As an adult, he would dedicate much of his free time to working in soup kitchens; he would also donate much of the profits from his victory to the poor of the district and would even pay for shelters to be built for the homeless around District 2. He would marry another District 2 victor, and they would have a son and a daughter together. His legacy would never be forgotten.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Victor moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, across the street from Mason.

Mags Flanagan adopts her ninth child, a young girl named Anemone.

Margaret Cartmill's son, Steer, is born.

Tiger Sterne has twin sons via a surrogate mother, whom he calls Dazzle and Shine.

Valerie Easton has her second child, a girl named Thama.

Cordin Frey, the victor of the first annual Hunger Games, dies from pneumonia.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: I hope you've enjoyed the spiked maces games! This was certainly a super fun games to write, and the crystal palace arena worked perfectly for everything I had planned.**

 **As I wrote the chapter, I grew to love Poundcake, and she has to be one of my favorite tributes so far, but given that all of the weapons are maces it seems extremely unlikely, almost impossible that a career tribute wouldn't pull out the win. And I tried to make Victor as great as possible by giving him a good life after the games. And I hope his friendship with Lilith in the games was cute :)**

 **And so the streak of career victors continues! As any avid Hunger Games fans will know, we have another canon victor next year: Augustus Braun of District 1. The Cavalier Career, Panem's Favorite Son, whatever you call him, I have a lot planned for his games! Stay tuned for the next chapter :D**

 **P.S. The first Hunger Games century is now two-thirds of the way done (I meat it's actually 66.666... but you know :P)**


	68. The 67th Hunger Games

**The 67th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Head Gamemaker Falcon Thorne knew that he had a lot to beat after the Capitol audience applauded his masterpiece of the year prior heartily. The crystal palace arena had been thrilling and mysterious without being confusing nor overdone, and it was one of the most exciting games yet in many opinions. Yet it was the job of every gamemaker to keep improving each year, and Falcon sat down with his team to think up a grand new arena for the sixty-seventh games. Meanwhile, President Snow ruled the roost for another year, and he faced the next of many hurdles throughout his presidency. While his political supporters in the Capitol were still strong, their numbers were beginning to crumble as some members began mysteriously disappearing. Talk of rebellion was rising in the districts once more for the first time in ages. A few strong droves of peacekeepers managed to quiet most of the riots, but it was ultimately Falcon's responsibility to lead a terrifying Hunger Games that would pacify the districts for another year.

The arena this year was a simple one. After a very elaborately crafted arena of the sixty-sixth, Falcon was shooting for something that would draw the attention more toward the action and bloodshed. The arena was an unassuming campground. The cornucopia sat in the lobby of the visitors' center, and it was made of a bright silvery metal that almost hurt to look at directly for more than a few seconds. The supplies were kept in duffel bags and burlap sacks, and the weapons were mostly brute force weapons like awls and blades like knives. A thick forest spread outward from the cornucopia, running even to the edges of the arena. The trees were very tall and completely parallel, making them creepy to say the least, especially on cold, misty mornings. Five wide gravel paths wound through the woods. One of the paths led to tent campsites. While the tents didn't have air conditioning, they supplied sleeping bags and many toiletries and some weapons. The second path led to trailers; they were very warm, cozy, and had electricity and working toilets. These would be the ideal hiding spots, but also the first places the career tributes would search for prey. The third path led to crudely-built wooden cabins. They had beds inside, but were still very cold and didn't provide many materials. The fourth path led to empty sites. The fifth and final path just grew thinner and fainter until it disappeared. Tracker Jackers were absolutely everywhere; they flew in swarms through the trees and over the gravel. If a tribute was caught off-guard by a particularly large swarm, they were in big trouble. Water was plentiful in small lakes throughout the forest. Food was of abundance if one knew how to find it, mostly in the forms of edible plants and fruit from the trees.

The career pack was nothing special. All six slots were filled by well-trained volunteers, and none of them scored lower than a nine. District 1 provided a classically beautiful duo. The boy really stole the show this year. He was a popular model who often starred in television commercials, and he was lanky and stunningly handsome. The 1 boy was also charismatic, charming, and always ready to party. He could make anyone laugh, and one could say he was a wild spirit at heart. The female was a shorter and pudgier girl, but she was extremely quick and great at staying unnoticed. District 2 offered forth the strongest pair. The boy was hailed as the descendant of a famous Dark Days war hero, and he had the dark hair and angled face of a fierce warrior. The Capitol loved him for his all-in-it-for-the-honor career attitude, though he was humble enough to keep from coming off as cocky. He would be dangerous. The girl had a sort of exotic beauty to her, and she could charm any audience. Her plan to come off as sexy during her interview fell flat in the first few seconds, so she resorted to joke-telling to win over sponsors. District 4's duo was the weakest, as was the norm. The boy was born with six fingers on his left hand and only four on his right, making him one to remember. He was very cunning and ambitious, and President Snow was even said to have taken a liking to him before the games began. The female was a more tall and slender girl who was very pretty, and she was fiercely loyal to her district and to the Capitol. A true career tribute if there ever was one. Both District 4 tributes were steadfast classics who liked tridents, though they would have to make adjustments because no tridents would be supplied in the campground arena. The training scores of the pack weren't out of the ordinary: three tens and three nines.

This year's crop of outliers was a weird one. There were a lot of quirks and abnormalities, and the statistics were anything but ordinary. None of the outliers scored higher than a seven, but there was a plethora of sevens and sixes. Sevens were earned by Fiberre from 3, Engineer and Aprila from 5, Tread from 7, and Quentin from 9. Tread of 7 was second cousins with Victor Blight Holzer. Hunger Games enthusiasts would argue for decades whether he counted as a legacy victor given how distant his relationship was with Blight, but he would mostly be counted as a legacy in fact files about the games. Tread was shier than most but was a stellar user of axes, and he was also one of the few openly gay tributes. Another standout came from District 3—the female, an older girl named Fiberre, was the daughter of an extremely wealthy Capitol business tycoon. Despite Fiberre's carefree upbringing, she still managed a seven. Sponsor gifts paid for by her father were sure to rain down upon her in the arena. Additionally, there were no tributes younger than fourteen in the games. It was the first games in history without any twelve- or thirteen-year-olds. Finally, these games had a much higher proportion of volunteers than usual. In fact, four of the outliers were volunteers! Engineer from 5 had been an orphan since age two and had spent the last fifteen years jumping between orphanages. After an intense beating from a peacekeeper after failing to meet labor quotas, Engineer volunteered believing his life had little worth left. Yewwa from 7 volunteered in place of her twelve-year-old sister. Harry from 10 had been diagnosed with terminal cancer a week before the start of the games; he volunteered to save a life knowing that he would be dead soon anyway. The final volunteer was a sad one. Sue from 10 had been dating a nice boy for four years. On her seventeenth birthday, her boyfriend bought her a stuffed bear. Sue was furious; she wanted a ring, and she threw the bear into a nearby field in anger. When her boyfriend walked into the field to retrieve the bear, he was run over by a tractor and killed. Sue volunteered as a form of suicide after learning that the stuffed animal had a ring inside it. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Augustus Braun, 18, (10) 3-1 and Silk Edgerton, 16, (9) 7-1

District 2: Isolt Joliffe, 17, (10) 4-1 and Petra Wodtke, 17, (10) 4-1

District 3: Moniter Rojas, 14, (4) 47-1 and Fiberre Monson, 18, (7) 16-1

District 4: Fjord Lee, 18, (9) 6-1 and Duna Rossi-Wilcox, 18, (9) 7-1

District 5: Engineer Matern, 17, (7) 14-1 and Aprila Simonite, 18, (7) -1

District 6: Rivet Nelson, 18, (5) 20-1 and Fuse Evangeline, 18, (4) 46-1

District 7: Tread Waite, 17, (7) 14-1 and Yewwa Branch, 16, (6) 20-1

District 8: Crochet Valley, 14, (5) 27-1 and Venice Bardwell, 17, (4) 44-1

District 9: Quentin Clifford, 16, (7) 17-1 and Lisa Mchugh, 16, (5) 24-1

District 10: Harry Davidson, 18, (4) 40-1 and Sue Eskridge, 17, (6) 19-1

District 11: Tiller Fraise, 17, (5) 24-1 and Leguma Titchen, 14, (4) 52-1

District 12: Todd Miracle, 15, (4) 39-1 and Libby Ward, 15, (5) 22-1

HGBO Bets: 12% on Augustus, 9% on Isolt and Petra, 8% on Fjord, 8% on Silk and Duna, 6% on Fiberre, Engineer, Aprila, Tread, and Quentin, 3% on Yewwa and Sue, 2% on Rivet, Crochet, Lisa, Tiller, and Libby, 1% or less on Moniter, Fuse, Venice, Harry, Leguma, and Todd.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The twenty-four tributes of varying genders, ages, and skin tones found themselves in the lobby of the visitors' center. Several of them peered out of the windows and open doors, and they were able to get at least some idea of what the arena was like before the games began. Others had no idea what lay outside of the small building, and they would have to escape the bloodbath with their lives to find out. The smell of pine smoke and tree sap was consistent, though, so they all had the idea that the arena involved lots of trees.

When the gong rang, two tributes (Aprila of 5 and Tiller of 11) avoided the bloodbath. The rest of the tributes, unsure of what lay around them, decided that heading into the fray was their best bet.

Augustus lead the charge this year. He was the fastest tribute by a wide margin, and he found himself a weapon before any of the other careers, a spear. Augustus twirled his spear excitedly in hand as he scanned over the droves of outliers. He sprinted toward a smaller boy who was crouched on the tiled floor of the visitors' center, tearing open a pack containing beef strips. The boy swiveled around just as the tip of Augustus' spear entered his neck. He fell onto the pack, staining its contents with his blood, and Augustus quickly left to search for more prey.

 _Engineer Matern, District 5 Male: 24th, Killed by Augustus, Bloodbath_

Fjord, another fast runner, picked up a long awl that was leaning against the cornucopia. In one fluid motion, he grabbed a nearby outlier boy, threw him to the ground, and drove the awl into his forehead. The boy screamed as Fjord cast the metal tip of the weapon farther and farther into his flesh. A stab to the heart was enough to kill him once he was unconscious.

 _Moniter Rojas, District 3 Male: 23rd, Killed by Fjord, Bloodbath_

Isolt and Petra, the duo from 2, ganged up on a weaker girl. They each had axes, and the girl screamed as the blades of the weapons glinted in the electric lights overhead. She held out her arm to shield her face. Isolt's axe buried itself into her wrist, and her entire hand was cut off. The girl fell backward, cradling the stump of her arm, and Petra crunched her axe into her skull to polish her off.

 _Leguma Titchen, District 11 Female: 22nd, Killed by Isolt and Petra, Bloodbath_

After tugging his spear out of Engineer's neck, Augustus fluidly attacked his next victim. About twenty feet away, two district partners were struggling to lift a massive sledgehammer off of the ground. The two partners screamed as Augustus barreled toward them, and they dropped the weapon onto the boy's foot. With the weight holding him down, he was helpless as Augustus skewered his spear through his stomach. As he died, the girl fled into the forest.

 _Todd Miracle, District 12 Male: 21st, Killed by Augustus, Bloodbath_

Duna had run all of the way into the cornucopia, but it was worth it. She now held two wicked-looking hunting knives the length of her arms, and she was eager to test them on her first victim. A nearby outlier screamed as Duna's two knives dug into her chest, and she staggered to the ground, coughing up blood.

 _Fuse Evangeline, District 6 Female: 20th, Killed by Duna, Bloodbath_

Fjord zeroed-in on his next victim. One girl had collapsed inside of the cornucopia, and tears streamed down her cheeks as she cradled herself, having a panic attack as she was unable to handle the stress and pressure of the games. She let out a mewl of pain as Fjord drove his awl into her stomach, and she died swiftly after her lungs began filling with blood.

 _Venice Bardwell, District 8 Female: 19th, Killed by Fjord, Bloodbath_

Isolt and Petra cornered a sobbing girl against the wall of the visitors' center. She begged for them to go away, but they didn't listen. Isolt and Petra grew closer and closer like a pack of hyenas. At once, they both pounced. Isolt's axe found a home in her chest, and she fell to her knees as Petra chopped off her left arm with one fluid swipe of her weapon.

 _Lisa Mchugh, District 9 Female: 18th, Killed by Isolt and Petra, Bloodbath_

Silk made her first kill. She'd been stalking a young boy around the cornucopia for several minutes, and it was only when the boy fell to his knees to grab a pack that Silk went in for the kill. The boy cried out as Silk's knives dug into his chest. He fell at the feet of another career, Duna, who finished him off with her two hunting knives.

 _Crochet Valley, District 8 Male: 17th, Killed by Silk and Duna, Bloodbath_

Augustus finished off the bloodbath. With a single, strong thrusting motion of his spear, he dispatched the nearest boy. The boy crumpled immediately, and Augustus grinned as gore flew through the air. The boy's writhing form was easily stilled with a few more pokes of the 1 boy's spear, and he was completely dead in less than a minute.

 _Rivet Nelson, District 6 Male: 16th, Killed by Augustus, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the careers took hold of the cornucopia. Their pack was completely intact, unlike some other years. Isolt and Petra, the amicable duo from 2, sat in the back of the cornucopia organizing supplies. It would have been dark, but Silk had affixed a flashlight to the ceiling which illuminated the entire interior of the cornucopia. Fjord and Duna ran off together to search the visitors' center for useful supplies. They returned ten minutes later with several bags of chips and a thermos of water that they'd found in one of the desks. Meanwhile, Augustus hunted the lands immediately around the cornucopia. He noticed that the arena was shaped like a spider, with five paths shooting out from the central horn, and he noted this in his mind as he returned to the horn to commence the official hunt.

The outliers spread every which way, some of them heading down the marked paths and some delving straight into the uncharted woods. Fiberre had an awl from the horn. She ran into a thick area of the wood and killed several rabbits expertly; a few impressed sponsors sent her salt to preserve their meat. Aprila alternated between walking and jogging down one of the paths for the entirety of the first day, and she was pleasantly surprised as the first row of tents came into view. The girl raided several of the tents and piled their supplies into one, which she slept in. Tread couldn't believe his luck; he'd managed two axes from the cornucopia, as well as a belt of knives and several slabs of nutritious meat. Venturing down one of the paths brought Tread to an empty site, where he buried himself under a thick layer of cool leaves for the night after sipping water from a nearby lake. Yewwa was one of the hardiest tributes 7 had seen in ages, and that was saying something. Sweat dripped down her face, but she didn't whisper a word of complaint as she trekked through the woods. At nightfall, she collapsed, smeared with dirt and sweat, in a clearing after finding her only pack filled with bread rolls and rope. Quentin's only possession was a jar of green liquid: deadly poison. Luckily for him, he found the area where the warm and well-lit trailers were; he crashed in a large RV, munching on snacks and browsing the channels on television. He always kept the jar of poison in sight for fear of losing it. Harry, the boy who was diagnosed with terminal cancer, shoved all of his supplies into his backpack and ran straight through the woods, having no objective but to place as much distance between himself and the cornucopia. Harry collapsed with exhaustion near a sweet-smelling lake around noon, where he made camp. Sue had a collection of rather useless gadgets: a slinky, a yo-yo, and a container of putty. The girl was extremely disappointed that she hadn't managed to grab anything more useful, but she kept onto everything in case she needed it. Sue rested in one of the tents, and she stuffed one sleeping bag inside of another for extra warmth. Tiller managed to kill a large chipmunk with his bare hands, and an impressed sponsor promptly sent him a shovel. He dug himself a little hole at nightfall, and he dropped inside before covering himself with a layer of leaves. Libby made water her number one priority, as the only thing she had from the horn was an empty thermos. After a few hours of searching, she found a small lake, which she made a stick and branch shelter beside. As long as the girl regularly returned to the lake, water would not be a problem for her. There was relative peace in the arena as day turned into night.

At two o'clock in the morning, Duna woke her allies with a start. It was about halfway through her shift when she saw the two eyes staring at her from the dark, glowing like cats'. Duna reached for her two hunting knives while the other careers slowly grabbed their weapons. Only a few of them actually saw the eyes of the creature, Silk and Isolt among them. Augustus and Petra didn't know what they were up against, but they didn't think Duna was joking about the threat and they got into their ranks.

They didn't have time to breathe. Roaring, the enormous bear mutt burst out of the darkness, attacking Duna. She staggered backward into the nonexistent safety of the careers' camp, but the bear pursued her. At one point, Petra managed to lop off part of the bear's snout. It swiped its talons through the air, and they raked across Petra's chest. Petra fell backward into Isolt's arms, crying as blood spouted from the wound. Augustus tried to draw the bear away from Duna, but it was a futile endeavor. The bear mutt dug its claws into Duna's abdomen and tore open her skin, ripping off strips of bloody flesh. It was a rather nasty sight, and the careers struggled to put it out of their minds as they continued their attempt to off the rogue bear mutt.

 _Duna Rossi-Wilcox, District 4 Female: 15th, Killed by Bear Muttation, Day 2_

The large bear targeted Augustus after Duna's cannon shot sounded. He was the closest career, and the largest one who would make the tastiest snack. Augustus danced out of the way before poking his spear into its flesh. The beast's skin was punctured by a good three or four inches; it stood up on its hind legs, roaring, and unleashed its wrath on the first career it came across: Isolt. Petra screamed as Isolt was lifted into the air, struggling in the strong sandwich of its claws. Isolt was toast. After his cannon shot, the bear slid back into the shadows, its thirst for blood satisfied for the time being.

 _Isolt Joliffe, District 2 Male: 14th, Killed by Bear Muttation, Day 2_

In the morning, the careers were feeling very disheartened. Their once-mighty alliance had been cut down to a mere four members. They were all trying to clean up the ransacked camp. Silk was running to and fro shoving the torn stuffing back into the sleeping bags, trying to take her mind off of Duna and Isolt's gory deaths. Meanwhile, Augustus was caring for Petra. He'd gotten a bit of disinfectant liquid from his sponsors; Petra hissed as Augustus applied the medicine but it ultimately helped her on the way to good health.

They returned to the visitors' center later that day, where they told Fjord everything that had happened. In the time they were gone, Fjord had organized the supplies into six categories, based on which career he thought would be most likely to need them. After hearing the news, Fjord had to bunch everything together into four groups. Their spirits were at an all-time low. Augustus hated seeing everyone so dreary, but he had another trick up his sleeve.

Augustus sprinted into one of the rooms of the visitors' center, a small kitchen, and found a few bottles of whiskey. He ran back to the cornucopia and lifted the bottle into the air, dumping it all into his mouth in one gulp.

"What was that, twenty seconds?" Fjord said. "I can do eighteen!"

"Sixteen."

"Fourteen."

"I'll challenge."

And so the party began. Petra found a CD in one of the back rooms, and she loaded it into the CD player. Cheered on by the festive music, the careers clapped and cheered as Fjord and Augustus raced to down the whiskey in the fastest time possible. Meanwhile, Petra was teaching Silk how to square-dance, an old District 2 tradition, and Augustus broke the ice by stacking the paper cups into the highest towers he could. Silk broke away from the square-dancing ordeal to help him out, and their tower almost reached the ceiling before it fell, landing right on top of Fjord, who laughed and said he was glad it was only paper. Afterward, Fjord started showing Augustus how he did various hand gestures with a six-fingered hand. Their party lasted until nightfall, when they were too tired to celebrate any longer. They were asleep the second their heads hit their pillows, and they didn't even think to set up shifts.

The next day, Day 3, Quentin finally decided to put his poison to use. He'd been contemplating whether his morals allowed him to use it on another tribute, and he eventually decided that nothing was off the table as long as it wouldn't make the gamemakers or President Snow angry. Quentin grabbed the jar of green liquid and set out into the woods.

About ten minutes later, he arrived at the camp of another tribute: Harry from 10. Harry was away, searching for food, and he had left his thermos of water completely unguarded. Working as quickly as possible, Quentin unscrewed the cap of the thermos. He poured about a third of the contents of the poison jar into the thermos. Quentin screwed the cap back on and shook the thermos heavily before ducking behind a large rock, waiting for Harry to come back.

Harry returned about half an hour later. He'd been attacked by a swarm of Tracker Jackers, and it'd taken him ages to make them go away. Harry knelt beside the thermos of water and splashed the cool liquid over his face and into his mouth. Screaming, gasping, and shaking, Harry fell slowly forward as the highly acidic solution ate away at his face and throat, ultimately killing him in less than twenty seconds. Quentin ran out of the shadows and pilfered him of his supplies before fleeing.

 _Harry Davidson, District 10 Male: 13th, Killed by Quentin, Day 3_

The rest of Day 3 was deathless. The careers were at the horn sleeping off their hangovers, so the outliers were free to move around without worrying about the careers. They didn't know this, of course, but it gave many Capitolites peace-of-mind that their favorite outlier tributes were safe for the time being.

Tiller found his way to one of the log cabins. It was very cold and drafty inside, but there were also plenty of blankets and several snacks in the cupboard. He never let his shovel out of his sight. Aprila finally left the tent she was hiding in to search for water. Unsurprisingly, there was a medium-sized lake less than a mile away; she filled a sponsored water canteen with the cool liquid before returning to her tent.

On Day 4, Falcon sent three large swarms of Tracker Jackers into the arena. Three tributes would be attacked, but only one would be killed. Time would tell which of the three tributes would fall at the hands (stingers?) of the vicious wasp mutts.

Yewwa awoke to the faint whining of the mutts' beating wings. She rolled out of the ditch she was sleeping in, and her heart leapt into her throat. The swarm was descending onto her, and several had already landed on her skin. Yewwa grabbed her rope, her only possession other than half a loaf of bread, and prepared to fend off the wasps. She held both ends of the rope in the same hand, creating a loop reminiscent of a lasso. Yewwa swung the rope, beating away a few of the Tracker Jackers. About a fifth of the swarm took the hint that the 7 girl was not to be messed with and flew away. Two of the wasps landed on her cheeks and stung her. She was temporarily blinded from the poison; she hadn't taken enough to give her hallucinations, but it was enough to send her through a world of hurt. She fell onto the dirt after finally fending away the rabid wasps, exhausted from the encounter.

Several miles away, Sue awoke to a nasty surprise. The night prior, Sue had left the entry flap of her tent open to let the breezes in and keep the inside from getting too hot. Sue screamed and scrambled to the back of the tent as the swarm began trickling in through the entry flap. In no time, they had reached her. The exit was hopeless, as it was blocked by the swarm. She grabbed her only blade-like weapon, her slinky, and began cutting her way out of the tent.

Meanwhile, Libby was struggling to hold her breath as long as possible. Having chosen to make camp beside a lake, she was able to simply jump into the water and avoid the Tracker Jackers. But she couldn't hold her breath forever, and she eventually had to come up for air. She took a tiny breath, and she barely escaped the stingers of the wasps before falling beneath the water line once more. She didn't know how long she could keep on like this, but she wasn't going to give up.

On the other side of the arena, Sue was making significant progress cutting her way out of the tent. Unfortunately, she just wasn't fast enough. By the time she'd cut a slit large enough to fit through, wasps had landed on her arms and bare legs. She struggled to swat them away as she forced herself out of the slit. She was overwhelmed in seconds. At once, their spiked stingers dug into her flesh. Sue fell back into the tent, laughing softly, staring all around. The tent was upside-down, no—all of the colors were inverted and polka-dots were swaying here are there. The Tracker Jackers were all wearing funny hats and turning into people she knew, an invisible hand was slamming her against the walls of the tent: needless to say, she was dead in less than an hour, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen in her final moments.

 _Sue Eskridge, District 10 Female: 12th, Killed by Tracker Jackers, Day 4_

Days 5 and 6 were both deathless. The careers did a lot of hunting over the two-day period, but they didn't find any prey. Their pitfall was that they had chosen to return to the cornucopia at the end of the every day, meaning that they had a lot more moving to do than if they had moved their camp around. Augustus, the charismatic leader of the pack, was always looking to raise the spirits of the others, whether by telling jokes or starting games whenever the allies were dreary. He was at the front of their ranks, and his spear would be able to frighten most any tribute. Petra quickly got over Isolt's death, and she walked just behind with Fjord. The two tributes actually made good friends, and they did most things together whenever they had a choice. Silk was in the back, the shy and small District 1 girl that she was. Despite her meager appearance, she was very shrewd, and she managed to embezzle lots of extra food while she was splitting the supplies up at each meal. The pack was functioning much better with four members than with six; while none of them said it out loud, they were secretly thankful for the deaths of Isolt and Duna at the hands of the bear.

Meanwhile, the outliers weren't doing a whole lot. Fiberre was being piled with sponsor gifts, many of which she had no use for. Her rich father's cash had sent her several sleeping bags, a small machine to heat her tent, a pair of sound-cancelling headphones, a few books to keep her occupied, and so much more. Fiberre felt a little guilty having all of these luxuries while the other tributes could have been starving, but she wasn't complaining. Aprila jumped between the tents, raiding each one of its supplies before moving onto the next. In this way, she had a virtually inexhaustible supply of food, though this supply would disappear completely if Aprila wandered too far away and couldn't find her way back to the tents. Tread hunted with a sponsored axe, but he wasn't hunting for tributes. His goal was to purge the nearby lands of mutts so that he could sleep more peacefully. On Day 6, the boy managed to kill a few deer, and he felt more comfortable in his shelter by the lake even though the deer mutts were harmless anyway. After her masterful defeat of the Tracker Jackers, Yewwa was showered with sponsor gifts. The greatest of these was an axe, the weapon of her district, and she practiced with it as she rested in a small cave. Quentin's killing of Harry had gotten him a few loaves of District 7 bread. If he was smart, he would have carefully rationed the bread over the next few days, but Quentin was so nervous that he ate nearly half of it by sunset. Now that he'd made a kill, the Capitol would be expecting him to make more, and he wasn't sure if he was up to that caliber.

Tiller and Libby were both hunting for food when they spotted each other about a hundred yards off. Instead of killing or ignoring each other, they allied. The 11 girl and the 12 boy quickly got to work. Libby packed up her home by the lake and filled her thermoses with as much water as they could hold before walking back to Tiller's log cabin alongside him. Both tributes were glad that they weren't completely alone anymore, and the Capitol was happy that there was an outlier alliance to stir the pot a little.

On Day 7, the career pack struck lucky. After five days without making a single kill, their spirits were so low that even Augustus had a hard time staying cheerful. The portion of the group that was hunting (Augustus, Silk, and Fjord) had settled down for their noon meal when they heard the crunching of leaves nearby. A few minutes earlier, Aprila had seen the careers coming, and she barely had time to duck behind a nearby tree before they settled down. At that point, the girl was staying as still as a stone behind the trunk, praying that the careers wouldn't walk around the tree. If they did and they saw her, she would be helpless.

Aprila swore as a leaf crunched under her foot. Before she could lift a finger, the careers were on top of her. Aprila screamed in terror, struggling to drag herself away, but she wasn't fast enough. Augustus thrust his spear into her chest, and Fjord cackled as he drove his awl into her neck. Petra, who was standing a few feet away, finished her off, approaching and cutting a good inch into her neck with her axe like it was a block of firewood. Aprila died from her wounds soon enough, and the trio left quickly before the body began to stink.

 _Aprila Simonite, District 5 Female: 11th, Killed by Augustus, Fjord, and Petra, Day 7_

Everything that happened with the careers on Day 7 paled in respect to what happened with Tiller and Libby. Tiller was beginning to grow feelings for Libby; in fact, he was falling head-over-heels in love. He hadn't spent that long a time with any girl before, and his girl smarts weren't enough for him to realize that Libby didn't share his feelings. In fact, he was getting on Libby's nerves. But Tiller wasn't smart enough to realize that; he thought Libby liked him back, and he was excited.

The next day, Day 8, Tiller was furthering things even more. They were sitting beside each other eating breakfast when Tiller suddenly fell onto Libby. Before she could protest, Tiller pressed his lips against hers and began passionately smooching her. Libby tried to politely get out, but Tiller didn't listen. In fact, he just figured her movements were due to the thrill of the romantic experience.

"Please get off of me," Libby said firmly, finally finding her voice. "And don't do that again."

Tiller got to his feet and staggered backward, taken aback with shock. In his mind, it was headline news that his affection was unrequited. Tiller simply said, "Bye, then," grabbed up a few supplies, and ran in an arbitrary direction, abandoning his ally.

After Tiller disappeared, Libby fell backward into the branch shelter she had assembled a few hours earlier. She was glad to be free of that annoyance. In fact, Tiller was almost completely erased from her memory already.

She went running the moment she heard his screams.

Libby burst into a clearing and couldn't believe her eyes. The careers had caught him: Petra was holding onto Tiller's left side, and Augustus was clutching his right. Tiller struggled and kicked, but he wasn't strong enough to escape. Libby fell behind a nearby tree trunk to avoid being seen as they went in with their weapons. There was a crunch as Petra buried her axe into his chest, and Augustus' spear rattled inside of his throat.

 _Tiller Fraise, District 11 Male: 10th, Killed by Petra and Augustus, Day 8_

Libby let out a cry of terror from behind the tree trunk—her position was revealed. The careers dropped Tiller and raced toward her, and Libby stumbled backward, mind racing as she prepared to fight the careers. They fell into their ranks—Augustus in the front, Petra and Fjord behind, and Silk in the back. Libby held out the only weapon she had, a long knife, and begged that the careers not come any closer.

Augustus just laughed and ran forward with his spear. Knowing she had no chance of escaping on foot, Libby fought back. She swiped the air with her knife, barely nicking the skin on Augustus' neck. Hissing with fury and pain, Augustus fell to the ground.

Before Libby knew it, Petra was knocking her to the ground. The 12 girl toppled backward like a domino, Petra on top of her. They rolled around for several seconds, wrestling for their lives. Meanwhile, Fjord and Silk stood back. It was common career rule that nobody steal another's kill, and Libby's life was rightfully Petra's to take.

About a minute later, Libby inflicted a severe wound. She thrust her knife upward and buried it into the flesh in Petra's neck. Petra fell, gurgling, as blood pooled up in her mouth. With her last ounce of energy, Petra cast the blade of her axe into Libby's side, and her last words were a curse to the girl's name.

 _Petra Wodtke, District 2 Female: 9th, Killed by Libby, Day 8_

That left the final eight: Augustus Braun and Silk Edgerton from District 1, Fiberre Monson from District 3, Fjord Lee from District 4, Tread Waite and Yewwa Branch from District 7, Quentin Clifford from District 9, and Libby Ward from District 12.

Libby groaned, rolling around on the leafy forest floor. She fought with every cell in her body to cling onto life, but the wound Petra had inflicted was too severe for her to survive for long. She passed away two minutes later, the blade of Petra's axe still buried solidly into her side.

 _Libby Ward, District 12 Female: 8th, Killed by Petra, Day 8_

Little of excitement filled the long hours of Day 9. After eight days of intense summer head, Falcon began cooling down the arena slightly. The cool breezes were pleasant, and the temperature averaged sixty degrees Fahrenheit. The careers returned to the cornucopia after sleeping the night away in one of the log cabins. Augustus, Silk, and Fjord returned to the cornucopia as soon as the sun rose. They'd left the supplies unguarded for long enough, and they needed a supply restock anyway. At the cornucopia, the Capitolites got their first good look at how each career was faring.

Augustus, the strongest of the tributes, was charging through each day as strong and optimistic as ever, and his positive attitude earned him quite a few sponsors, one of whom sent him a newer and sleeker spear. Silk was growing a little disheartened from always being treated as inferior to her allies, but she didn't complain. She just followed the rules and went with the flow of things. Fjord was growing extremely antsy and impatient; he had promised his family that he would try to make the games as quick as possible, and he was eager to start another hunt with his allies. All of his requests were overruled by the stronger Augustus, who suggested that they take the whole day to rest at the horn.

As night fell, torrential rainfall poured down onto the arena. Those tributes who hadn't drunk in days scrambled to fill whatever container they had with the rainwater. The rain was actually extremely chilly; anyone who didn't have a shelter would find it difficult to sleep for the cold. One tribute negatively affected by the rainfall was Quentin. He'd left one of the windows of his RV open, and some of the rain came in and landed in his unscrewed jar of poison, diluting it significantly. He would not realize his mistake until the next morning.

Meanwhile, Fiberre was struggling from the cold. She'd been used to always having her warm house to retreat to whenever rain fell in District 3, and being out in the open was really taking its toll on her spirits. Luckily, she found shelter in one of the RVs about an hour after sunset. Fiberre had no idea that the RV was she was sleeping in was adjacent to the one where Quentin was living; they were unknowingly less than twenty meters away from each other for the entire night.

Fiberre awoke with a start the next morning. Quentin had awoken bright and early to conduct a search of all of the RVs, hoping to get supplies. Quentin barged into the RV where Fiberre was hiding, and the 3 girl screamed, scrambling for a nearby window. As she struggled to open the latch, Quentin fumbled with the lid of his jar of poison.

Fiberre's hands were shaking too much for her to push the window hard enough to open it. The girl screamed and slid to the ground as Quentin splashed about a third of the jar's contents onto her back. The highly acidic solution ate away at the back of her neck and abdomen, revealing her ribcage and the tissue around. Her remains were very unsightly. Quentin tried to avoid looking at them as he pillaged the dead girl of her million sponsor gifts sent by her rich father.

 _Fiberre Monson, District 3 Female: 7th, Killed by Quentin, Day 10_

As Day 10 turned into Day 11, and Day 11 turned into Day 12, and Day 12 turned into Day 13, nothing much was going on in the arena. This year truly did have one of the weakest crops of outliers, and none of them were willing to actively stir the pot of the games. Quentin was the only one actively searching for prey other than the careers, but even he was exhausted and discouraged after going so long without putting his poison to use.

Around noon on Day 13, something strange happened. All rainfall in the arena ceased suddenly, and, slowly but surely, the lakes and rivers of the campground arena dried up. Tread, Yewwa, and Quentin, the only three remaining outliers, all noticed this change quickly. Tread had fallen asleep the night prior with his feet dunked into a cold stream, and he woke up in the morning to the sensation of bugs crawling over his legs. The once-swift and cool stream was now a dry bed. Quentin took longer than the others to figure out that the arena's water had suddenly disappeared; he didn't leave his RV for the entire day, and his curiosity was only piqued when the sink refused to pour out any water, instead burbling as though its pipes were filled with air.

Meanwhile, Yewwa was struggling to fend off the swarms of Tracker Jackers all around her. She was like a magnet for the wasp mutts, and she could never go more than half a day without being attacked. Yewwa was always able to take a quick dip and wait for the wasps to go away, but with the lakes and rivers dried up this would no longer be an option.

At noon on Day 13, Head Gamemaker Falcon Thorne's voice boomed across the arena. All six of the survivors could hear him, of course. The acoustics of the arena were exceptional.

"As precisely noon tomorrow, a feast is to be held at the cornucopia. Please think twice about failing to attend. This will be the only announcement." At once, a beacon of light shot into the air, displaying the location of the cornucopia to all.

On Day 14, all of the remaining tributes decided to head to the feast. Augustus and Fjord, the strongest remaining careers, weren't going to pass by an opportunity to rack up a few more kills. Silk had similar motives. Having always been overshadowed by the flashier careers, she was eager to prove herself.

Tread, Yewwa, and Quentin all had different motives for attending. After several days without a drop of water, Tread felt a raging thirst, and he felt he may die from dehydration or possibly starvation soon unless he showed up. Quentin was getting more and more used to the concept of killing, and with his jar of poison he was hoping to kill at least one other tribute during the feast. Yewwa wasn't originally planning on showing up, but at dawn she fell out of a tree and dislocated a bone in her elbow. She eventually managed to correct the dislocated bone, but doing so took so much effort that she had torn open the skin and she was bleeding fiercely. Yewwa knew that infection could be lethal in the games, and she figured it was best to curb infection altogether by grabbing some sort of medicine from an unoccupied corner of the cornucopia.

The tributes assembled around the horn. A large hedge had been planted surrounding the visitors' center, and this would slowly sink into the ground once the flashing numbers above them reached zero. A ten minute grace period had been declared before the feast, during which time the tributes were not permitted to hurt or kill each other.

The gong rang, and the tall hedge sank into the grassy ground. The tributes bolted forward. Augustus, Silk, and Fjord picked up newer weapons; Augustus a longer javelin, Silk a sword, and Fjord a much sharper and sleeker awl.

Yewwa had ducked into one of the rooms of the visitors' center far away from the cornucopia, hands shaking as she took inventory of a few packs she'd snatched from the horn. She screamed as the door came bursting down. Fjord was standing there, and he cackled somewhat maniacally at the sight of the virtually defenseless girl. Yewwa snatched up a pair of scissors; this hardly counted as a weapon, but it was better than nothing. Fjord pounced, knocking her to the ground on her back. She was dead as Fjord drove his sharp awl into her forehead.

 _Yewwa Branch, District 7 Female: 6th, Killed by Fjord, Day 14_

Fjord raced back into the lobby of the visitors' center and felt the bite of Tread's axe in his gut. Tread had seen Fjord racing down one of the hallways a minute or so prior, and he'd been waiting for him to return. Fjord fell against the nearest wall and slowly slid down it. His mouth was wide open to scream, but no sound could come out. As soon as he was dead, Tread tore his axe out of his abdomen.

 _Fjord Lee, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Tread, Day 14_

Augustus and Silk ganged up on Quentin. Quentin had ducked into the dark inside of the horn, and his hands moved at the speed of light as he grabbed up several packs. Quentin ran out of the horn just as Augustus' javelin entered his chest. Instinctively, Quentin threw the remainder of his jar of poison in an arbitrary direction. Silk screamed as the poison splashed her from head to foot, and it began eating away at her flesh in seconds. Silk was dead in less than a minute.

 _Silk Edgerton, District 1 Female: 4th, Killed by Quentin, Day 14_

In the seconds since being stabbed by Augustus, Quentin had begun flopping around on the floor of the visitors' center like a dying fish, splashing his blood everywhere. The sticky red beads had splashed onto the horn, the supplies, and the walls, and it looked like someone had popped a balloon full of red liquid.

 _Quentin Clifford, District 9 Male: 3rd, Killed by Augustus, Day 14_

Tread was kneeling just outside of the visitors' center, stuffing loaves of bread into a pack, when he realized that he was one of the only two competitors left. His senses were up, and he whipped his head around just as Augustus' javelin entered his neck. Tread fell to one side, groaning softly, as his blood stained the grass and flowers red. Augustus stood by and watched as he bled out over the course of about ten minutes, and then the 1 boy was the only remaining tribute.

 _Tread Waite, District 7 Male: 2nd, Killed by Augustus, Day 14_

"Augustus Braun of District 1, you are the victor of the sixty-seventh annual Hunger Games!" Caesar and Claudius screamed, their voices accompanied by the jolly symphony of trumpets.

Augustus just grinned and wiped the blood off of his javelin.

 _Augustus Braun, District 1 Male: Victor of the Sixty-Seventh Hunger Games, Day 14_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Augustus was happy to bring District 1 its eleventh victor. He now placed them ahead of District 4, meaning that they were superior to them even if District 2 was superior to them both. True to the Augustus spirit, more money was spent on the celebrations in District 1 than had been spent on any victor prior, and he was just happy to bring jollity to so many people.

Augustus moved into the Victor's Village of District 1, the eleventh to do so.

His victory tour was a work of art, as he turned out be a spectacular public speaker and made many moving speeches, especially in District 7 and District 9.

Augustus would live to the age of thirty-four, the shortest lifespan of any victor up to that point. Augustus would often invite dozens or even hundreds of party guests to his house in the Victor's Village for all occasions, and he was always the life of the party, even more so than a usual host. Cashmere, Gloss, and many other District 1 victors would often find it hard to sleep with his loud music playing late into the night. Being one of the most handsome victors yet meant that he would often be sold to Capitol women for their personal enjoyment, but he was one of the few victors that actually enjoyed it. Augustus had a crazy life, but he enjoyed it thoroughly. Unfortunately, the endless party that was his life was ended far too soon. Around the time of the eighty-third Hunger Games, one of Augustus' party guests slipped a bit of poison into his beer. The killer was never caught, and there is no element of the man's death that remained undisputed. In his lifetime, he would never marry nor have children, fearing that the obligations of having a spouse would get in the way of him living his life to the fullest.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Augustus settles into the Victor's Village of District 1, next door to Gloss.

Mason Kittridge has his fifth child, a strong girl named Alsalla.

Margaret Cartmill's daughter, Faye, is born.

Valerie Easton bears a son named Cassius.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: With the posting of this chapter, the word count of this story should exceed 500,000 words. How does that even happen!? That's almost twice the length of the Hunger Games trilogy and almost as long as War and Peace. I can't thank you enough for all of the support you've given me across this journey so far, and it means so much to me that people read and review this story. You're all amazing!**

 **With that said, we need to have a little talk (sound of chair moving across floor). This streak of career victors is growing ridiculously long, and I have gotten many reviews saying that the story is growing boring with so many career victories. I completely agree. I've promised time and time again that the amount of career victors will drop off significantly after the third Quarter Quell. But I still want there to be a good blend of career victors and outlier victors at the end of the century. So I'm doing more career victors now so that I can do less later. I promise that we'll have an outlier victory very soon. Okay, stern cjborange is gone. Regular me is back :D**

 **Now onto the actual chapter. In my opinion, this was one of the more bland chapters, as I didn't feel anything much stood out. Nevertheless, Augustus was a fun victor and definitely a party animal, and I hope you've enjoyed reading the chapter! The campground arena also worked well for me, because I hadn't used Tracker Jackers in a long time.**

 **This is probably the longest author's note I've ever left on a chapter before, so I'll end it here. We'll be seeing a familiar face next year, even if he's only mentioned once by Katniss in the first novel. Whatever happens, you can count on a great avalanche next year :D**


	69. The 68th Hunger Games

**The 68th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The sixty-eighth Hunger Games was on the minds of all as soon as Augustus thrust his javelin into the willowy Tread's neck in the finale of the sixty-seventh. After several of what could be considered the most well-executed and satisfying games yet, the Capitol was caught up in a full Hunger Games frenzy. Everyone wanted to look and be like some of their favorite past victors, and merchandise sales burst through the roof as victors like Cashmere and Sally started a myriad of new clothing fads. The Capitol TV broadcasting network began a Hunger Games marathon sixty-seven days before the reapings of the sixty-eighth games, with one games playing each day. Every scrap of footage from the reapings to the chariot rides to the training center was shown in the marathon, and nearly sixty percent of the Capitol population tuned in at one point or another, according to the most commonly cited statistics. Head Gamemaker Falcon Thorne returned for his third year in the position, and many were eager to see what he would create next. So early in his career, Falcon didn't look to have any games formula that he consistently followed; each games was a wild card, it could be said. Nobody disliked this—if anything, it just made the population of the Capitol more excited for what was to come. Given how crazed the Capitol was at the time, it was only fitting that Falcon released a trailer clip. The clip, which lasted exactly sixty-eight seconds, was a very creepy one. Howling winds played as the camera displayed an aerial shot of a snowy, icy-cold landscape. Every few seconds, a loud cannon shot would play. Twenty-three cannon shots sounded throughout the clip, representing the deaths of twenty-three tributes. The trumpets blared, and the clip ended abruptly in a cloud of purple smoke. The clip intrigued many, as the purple smoke seemed very out-of-place in the snowy arena. Many predicted some kind of monster mutt with poison breath would call the arena home, but nobody could be sure until the games began.

The arena this year was a very dangerous one. It had one of the harshest natural landscapes the games had seen yet. The arena was a massive snowy mountain, made of a hard and slippery rock. The cornucopia, made of what looked like plant fiber, was affixed to a shelf of rock on the side of the mountain. All of the weapons provided were made out of stone. The most common weapons were knives, though swords, hatchets, and spears were not uncommon. There were also many sleeping bags and hand warmers; the tributes would need them to survive in the cold landscape. The terrain got harsher and harsher as one moved farther and farther up the slope; packs of vicious wolf mutts hung around, and they would not hesitate to take a bite out of any unsuspecting tributes. The slope had many trees for firewood and shelter, but only up to a point. There was a horizontal line cutting the mountain in half where all plant growth abruptly stopped. The only plants that could survive above this line were ugly lichens with long barbells that would be nearly impossible to remove. The most curious feature of the arena, though, were the strange pools scattered around the mountain. The pools were small, about ten yards in diameter, but they were comfortably warm, heated by some unseen source. Plants thrived around the pools like oases in a vast desert. The pools let off a creepy curling purple mist. This explained the purple mist in Falcon's trailer clip. As it turned out, the pools would slowly and painfully kill anyone who bathed in their waters, and even the purple mist would kill if inhaled for too long. Falcon expected that many tributes looking for a drink or a wash would perish from the poisoned water, the most beautiful things in the arena yet the most dangerous.

The pack deviated from their typical six-career model this year, though not so much as to drastically change the games. The District 1 male was a classic: tall, blonde, muscular, and very handsome. While he was shier than most, he was one of the fastest runners the academy had ever seen, and given that the academy had been supplying careers for nearly six decades that was saying something. The chosen female volunteer, the eighteen-year-old Organdy Mauve, was killed in a car accident on her way to the reaping. As a result, a tiny and pudgy girl with hardly any neck was sent into the games. This fifteen-year-old girl only managed to earn a four, and she had an intense fear of water after a playmate drowned when she was five. District 2 provided the strongest pair, and they would both fight their way fiercely through the games. The male was District 2's mainstay, the super muscular sword fighter who would never turn down an opportunity to show off his skills the audience, whereas the female was a stunning dark-skinned girl who had undoubtedly earned her promotion into the games with her insane throwing knife skills. Both loved the attention from the Capitol, and one could say they were alike in many ways. District 4's tributes were actually up to par with those from 2. The male was a spectacular bowman, and he was relaxed and unconventional and many took a liking to him. He'd been training for the games since the age of three, meaning he had a whopping fifteen years of experience, more than any career in the past decade. Meanwhile, the District 4 female was grey-eyed girl who was very shy and awkward, but in a cute way, and she liked spears. The training scores of the five-piece pack were pretty average: two tens and three nines.

Many of the outliers were shy or forgettable, but there were still a few high scorers to make the games interesting. Titus from 6 was almost seven feet tall, handsome, muscular, and charismatic. He was the full package, having scored a ten and five-to-one odds, and he was the early favorite. Yaxley from 9 earned the second highest score. He earned an eight by displaying his sickle skills, which he'd been honing in on from working in the fields of District 9 for over a decade. He was pretty shy when he stepped out of his comfort zone, but when he was around people he liked he was very talkative and social. Only three sevens were earned: Thomasina from 5, Thimble from 8, and Tucson from 12. This meant that four of the five strongest outliers had T as the first letter in their names, a fact that amused many. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. There was only one volunteer outside of the careers. Beatrix from 6 had been living a very sheltered life with her rich parents in 6. They'd never told her what the games were and had never let her watch them, and her parents never let her leave the house for fear that someone else would tell her. She just assumed the Hunger Games was some kind of fun game show hosted in the Capitol. The fourteen-year-old Beatrix volunteered out of sheer curiosity, and it was only when she had boarded the train that her mentor spilled the beans to her that she had signed herself up for a death match. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Domino Waller, 16, (9) 6-1 and Iuna Mosier, 15, (4) 47-1

District 2: Rockson Wescott, 18, (10) 4-1 and Nimona Tagiuri, 17, (9) 6-1

District 3: Techson Matthew, 18, (6) 20-1 and Jimena Parkinson, 17, (5) 24-1

District 4: Indus Patel, 18, (10) 4-1 and Azura Littlefield, 18, (9) 5-1

District 5: Norris D'Angelo, 16, (4) 42-1 and Thomasina Rao, 18, (7) 16-1

District 6: Titus Ezekiel, 17, (10) 5-1 and Beatrix Carey, 14, (5) 28-1

District 7: Forest James-Harmon, 12, (3) 56-1 and Juniper Nuzzo, 13, (3) 51-1

District 8: Thimble Lawson, 17, (7) 17-1 and Danielette Shaven, 18, (6) 21-1

District 9: Yaxley Dirk, 18, (8) 10-1 and Fflur Wyland, 14, (3) 48-1

District 10: Takota Luther, 16, (5) 25-1 and Zanna Macintyre, 16, (4) 43-1

District 11: Simon Sicily, 15, (4) 46-1 and Angelou Claudel, 14, (5) 28-1

District 12: Tucson Morgan, 18, (7) 15-1 and Notwednesday Sprouse, 18, (6) 19-1

HGBO Bets: 12% on Rockson, 9% on Indus, 8% on Domino and Nimona, 7% on Azura and Titus, 6% on Yaxley, 5% on Thomasina, Thimble, and Tucson, 4% on Techson, Danielette, and Notwednesday, 2% on Jimena, Beatrix, Takota, and Angelou, 1% or less on Iuna, Norris, Forest, Juniper, Fflur, Zanna, and Simon.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Many of the tributes were shivering from the moment they could see the snowy mountain arena. Snow whipped all around them, sometimes digging into their skin and causing discomfort, and the howling of the wind was awful. The slippery rock landscape around the tributes was seemingly barren of all life. Tributes hailing from colder districts, such as District 1, District 7, and District 12 would certainly have an advantage this year.

When the gong rang, all twenty-four tributes decided to head into the bloodbath. The snowy wasteland around them would be harsh, and nobody wanted to be supply-less in the difficult weeks to come.

Rockson lead the charge this year. Despite the added weight of all his muscle, he was surprisingly nimble, and he was able to reach the cornucopia without slipping or sliding at all. Rockson picked up a sword and swung around on one foot, ready to face the oncoming droves of outliers. A nearby girl screamed as the boy flung his sword into her chest, and she fell onto her elbows, wheezing. The wound grew wider and wider the more she flailed around, killing her in mere seconds.

 _Fflur Wyland, District 9 Female: 24th, Killed by Rockson, Bloodbath_

Domino, another speedy runner, found a machete sitting in a bed of moss about twenty feet from his pedestal. He picked up the machete and twirled it in hand as he raced toward the nearest girl. The girl saw Domino coming just in time to make a run for it. She turned around to flee, but her ankle slipped and she fell to the ground, hissing in agony. Domino thrust the machete into the back of her neck, cutting off blood flow through her brain.

 _Angelou Claudel, District 11 Female: 23rd, Killed by Domino, Bloodbath_

As Angelou fell, Indus spotted a bow sitting on a stone countertop in the cornucopia. Falcon hadn't been planning on including any bows in the horn, but he made the exception for Indus. Indus picked up the bow and fired a volley of three arrows at a nearby boy like the dexterous archer he was. The boy let out a cry as two of the arrows dug into his chest, one for each lung.

 _Norris D'Angelo, District 5 Male: 22nd, Killed by Indus, Bloodbath_

Titus from 6 had spent the first few minutes of the bloodbath racing to and fro to gather knives. When he had too many knives to carry in his arms, he decided to put them to use. Despite never having trained for the games, he didn't seem to mind killing, which would undoubtedly give him an advantage if he survived the bloodbath. Titus flung the first of his knives into the chest of a nearby girl, and she fell, knocking down her district partner in her descent. As the girl died, Titus prepared to attack the boy who was trying to wiggle out from under her weight.

 _Juniper Nuzzo, District 7 Female: 21st, Killed by Titus, Bloodbath_

On the other side of the cornucopia, Nimona was flinging throwing knives at a smaller boy like he was a target. Her first throwing knife nicked the boy's shoulder, and Nimona cursed as she hurled her second and third knives in unison. One of the knives landed in the small boy's neck, and the other in his thigh; he promptly collapsed, screaming, and the snow melted around him from the kiss of his warm blood.

 _Simon Sicily, District 11 Male: 20th, Killed by Nimona, Bloodbath_

Titus turned toward the second of the two tributes he was attacking. The boy wasn't strong enough to escape from underneath the weight of Juniper's corpse, and he was helpless as Titus plunged one of his knives into the side of his neck. Despite having made two kills, Titus stuck around the bloodbath for a few minutes afterward to gather more knives and other supplies.

 _Forest James-Harmon, District 7 Male: 19th, Killed by Titus, Bloodbath_

Rockson laughed with amusement as he drilled his sword into a girl's chest. The blow wasn't strong enough to crack any ribs, but the 2 boy had chosen the perfect point of entry such that the flat blade lodged itself between two of her ribs. The girl was coughing up blood as soon as the blade protruded from her back, and Rockson wiped the sword off of his blade as he watched her die swiftly.

 _Notwednesday Sprouse, District 12 Female: 18th, Killed by Rockson, Bloodbath_

Domino was toying with his machete, passing it between his hands. All the while, he was crouched behind a crate inside of the cornucopia, waiting to pounce on any incoming prey. A scared boy came speeding into the horn in seconds. Just as quickly, Domino leaped upward. The boy was too stunned to scream as the machete pierced his flesh, grinding against his bone rather disgustingly as snow blew into the horn.

 _Takota Luther, District 10 Male: 17th, Killed by Domino, Bloodbath_

Rockson pounced onto a girl from a richer district. She wasn't the strongest girl in the world; the career boy easily managed to wrestle her to the snowy ground. She begged for him to leave her alone, but Rockson wouldn't listen. He sawed his sword into her chest, and the girl tried to punch him the face with her last bits of energy but failed.

 _Jimena Parkinson, District 3 Female: 16th, Killed by Rockson, Bloodbath_

Nimona had gathered up her throwing knives when she felt pain run through her back. Unbeknownst to her, a strong boy had been following her around the bloodbath since the gong, waiting until she wasn't looking so that he could kill her. The blade had only gone a few millimeters into her body, not nearly enough to be lethal. Nimona roared with fury and deftly hurled a whopping four throwing knives into his abdomen.

 _Thimble Lawson, District 8 Male: 15th, Killed by Nimona, Bloodbath_

Indus made the final kill. After gathering up a whole new quiver of arrows, he fired one of the projectiles at a nearby girl. The arrow landed in the palm of her hand. She screamed out a curse of pain and tried to tear the arrow out of her hand, but two more arrows were in her abdomen by the time she tore the first arrow out. For every one she removed from her body, one or two more seemed to enter. The girl fell to the snow, crying softly, until she passed away.

 _Zanna Macintyre, District 10 Female: 14th, Killed by Indus, Bloodbath_

Those were the only deaths to occur during the first day. The careers took hold of the cornucopia. Domino found a snow shovel in the horn and started shoveling the deep snow away from the cornucopia. It would be extremely difficult to get any work done if they were always knee-deep in the cold stuff. Domino was a hard worker, and he had a good portion of the clearing clear of snow by the time night fell. Rockson was unwilling to stray from his rapt exercise routine, even in the death match that was the games. His sponsors sent him a few weights, which he lifted in the back of the horn to keep himself warmed up. Nimona and Indus sorted supplies in the horn. Indus was mostly sorting the weapons, whereas Nimona dealt with the other supplies. Searching through the piles of supplies, Nimona eventually found enough sleeping bags and coats for all of her allies, and they gratefully piled on the extra layers. Azura was pretending to sort rations, but she was really just sitting outside the horn with her chin resting on her knees. She was having doubts about volunteering; after watching the bloodbath firsthand, she wasn't sure she was up to doing any killing. The careers didn't hunt on the first day, unwilling to be out and about before they knew more about the arena.

Meanwhile, the outliers spread every which way, mostly travelling up the side of the slope. Iuna received the most screen time, being a non-career despite being from a career district. She hadn't stuck around at the bloodbath for long, and all she's grabbed before fleeing was a backpack of rope, a bowl of beef strips, and a stone knife. After a few hours of making her way up the mountain, she collapsed in a copse of scraggly bushes, shivering despite being wrapped with her only pack. Techson tactfully made his way up the slope and fell with exhaustion beside one of the hot water pools. He prepared to drink the water, but saw the strange purple vapor rising from its surface and decided not to trust it. He rested in a small fissure after opening his pack and finding it filled with clean water and a few mechanical parts. Thomasina was a rational girl, but even so the stress of the games was making it hard to think. It was hours before she realized she was running in circles. Embarrassed, she made a crude shelter out of bits of wood she found about a hundred meters uphill from the horn. Titus jogged up the mountainside for much of the day. Despite his physical strength, the climb was exhausting. A few minutes after noon, the 6 boy fell into a small cave and organized his supplies: the about thirteen knives he had, a sleeping bag, two peaches, and an empty water thermos. Beatrix was absolutely miserable. She'd only known what the games really were for a few days. She fled the bloodbath screaming with nothing but her bare hands. Deathly afraid of the careers, the girl forced herself up the mountainside for several hours before collapsing near one of the hot pools, crying quietly to herself. Danielette was facing trouble with the ugly lichens that littered the mountainside; they clung to her skin and clothes like alive velcro. Around noon, she slipped on a bit of melted snow and fell face-first into a patch of the things; it was excruciatingly painful, and it took hours of painstaking work to pick them all out. The girl quickly made camp after that, sleeping on a sort of horizontal pathway that wound around the whole mountain. Yaxley, while one of the strongest outliers, was a bit traumatized after watching all of the carnage that took place during the bloodbath. He had a small stone hatchet and a bit of first-aid spray from the bloodbath, and he set up camp as soon as he was a good distance away from the cornucopia. Tucson had a pickaxe, the weapon of many District 12 tributes like himself, and he dug it into the snow to hoist himself up particularly steep areas of the slope. He was a very religious boy, and as soon as he set up shelter he asked the sponsors for a holy book. He spent the rest of the day praying for the souls that had been silenced in the bloodbath. There was relative peace in the arena as night fell, the thirteen tributes lying on, resting against, or clinging to the face of the rocky mountain.

The second day was deathless. Tensions were already rising in the career pack, as without the charming and funny 1 girl they had in most years they were getting very angry and unnerved. Rockson was eager to go hunting the hour the sun rose; he'd promised his mother and father during the goodbyes that he'd start flexing his muscles, both figuratively and literally, to the Capitol as soon as he could. Azura and Nimona were both unwilling to hunt this early in the games: Azura just claimed she needed more time to "gather her thoughts" whereas Nimona didn't want to risk what might be out in the snowy arena until they got to know it more. Domino tried to remain impartial, and Indus sided with Rockson, not wanting to see the bad side of the strongest tribute in the games. To settle the dispute, Domino and Indus proposed a deal. Every day, they would send out a mini hunting party consisting of only two members, who would have to return to the horn by nightfall unless circumstances were dire. They all agreed to the proposal, and Rockson and Indus went out together to hunt, leaving the girls and Domino to stay at the horn. Even though their arguments had been quelled for the time being, the careers were seeming to dislike each other more and more every minute. All packs had to split at some point, but it was looking like this pack would have one of the earliest splits in a long time.

The rest of the day passed swiftly, though there was still enough excitement to keep the Capitol entertained. One of the large packs of wolves was hunting on the west face of the mountain when they smelled human blood. Thomasina awoke in the late morning to the howling of the wolf mutts. She peered out of her shelter, and a scream caught in her throat at the sight of the horrid mutts with silver fur, their teeth glistening in the silver sun overhead. Thomasina grabbed the only weapon-like thing she had, a bowl, and prepared to fight off the mutts. She whacked enough wolves over the heads to send them away, but a few of the braver wolves would not give up. Thomasina fended off the mutts for thirty or forty minutes, and only then did the last few take the hint and dash away. The wolves were all exhausted, and so was the 5 girl; she collapsed back into her shelter soon after for another few hours' good rest. Most of the other tributes stayed in their hiding spots, with the exception of Danielette. She was indescribably frazzled from her numerous encounters with the horrible spiny lichens. She'd rolled into a few large patches in her sleep, and her coat took hours to purge of the tiny plants. Pledging she would not stop until every single one of those horrible spiny plants was out of her sight, Danielette traipsed a few more hundred feet up the mountain before falling in a small cave with her supplies.

Not much of note happened on Day 3 either. Given the tensions of the pack, they were very apprehensive about hunting. Rockson and Indus returned to the cornucopia at five in the morning, nearly half a day after the promised nightfall. It hardly made a difference, and it was such a petty thing to get mad at, but Nimona was furious. She liked everything perfect and by a fixed schedule, and she couldn't believe her allies had the nerve to deviate from the plan they'd agreed to, especially considering they had no good excuse for being late and had just been too tired to make the journey the night prior. This wasn't their only concern, though. Domino, the only District 1 career given that Iuna wasn't in the pack, was terrified. If two district partners left together, he would be left with another set of district partners, and he thought they would off him. Domino went to the greatest lengths he could to ensure the two tributes that hunted were from separate districts, and he won the fight: the two girls, Nimona and Azura, went off together while the others stayed at the horn.

Nimona and Azura had only been hunting for a few hours when they saw movement nearby. Even through the snowstorm, they could see him. Techson from 3 was sitting on a boulder, munching on an apple he'd been sponsored a few minutes earlier. The apple covered his whole field of vision, and by the time he'd hungrily munched it down the two career girls had reached him. Technson fell backward off of the rock as Nimona hurled two throwing knives into his chest. As the boy wept, Azura took a step backward. Her heart hurt terribly for the poor boy, and she couldn't bear to watch as Nimona finished him off. After his death, Nimona turned away and told Azura to follow. Azura obeyed quietly, realizing truly just how unprepared she was for the games.

 _Techson Matthew, District 3 Male: 13th, Killed by Nimona, Day 3_

Once again, not much happened as the day came to a close. It was extremely difficult to deny that this year had one of the shiest and most forgettable outlier crops in a while. Falcon was hoping to draw out the inactivity just long enough that the thrill would be intensified when things of excitement actually transpired. For the past few days, Tucson had been pacing nervously around. He was horribly undecided about what to do; hunting would certainly increase his odds of winning, but was it sinful to preserve preserve own life at the price of others'? Tucson consulted his holy book several times but was unable to reach a decision. After the encounter with the wolves, Thomasina fled down the side of the mountain. A few minutes before nightfall on Day 3, she bumped straight into Beatrix, the District 6 girl. Thomasina tried to assure Beatrix that she wouldn't hurt her, but she wouldn't listen. All she knew was that there were other tributes nearby and she needed to get away from them. Beatrix made her way down the slope for the remainder of the time until nightfall, and she tumbled to a stop near a tall snowdrift for the night.

Meanwhile, Titus had started to hunt. He was easily the most popular outlier, and was well-liked by everyone for his dynamy and charisma. The bareness of the landscape was beginning to disturb him a little, and the creepiest thing that happened that day was when Titus fell suddenly fell onto the snow-smeared rock muttering nonsensical words. Nobody knew then what would come of this, and everyone assumed it was just a fluke. The games were stressful, after all. They could not have been more wrong. They would see.

In the wee morning hours of Day 4, Iuna left the safety of the scraggly bushes she'd been returning to for days. They were getting very uncomfortable to say the least, but that wasn't her only problem. She needed to find some kind of warmth soon, lest she die of hypothermia. After eating the last of her beef strips with her freezing fingers that were numb with cold, Iuna set out to hunt. She was a decent knife user, but nevertheless she dreaded what would happen if she came across a very strong outlier or, worse, a trained career.

Day 4 was also the day that the fibers holding the pack together finally broke. Domino, Nimona, Indus, and Azura awoke to find that Rockson had fallen asleep halfway through his shift. Nimona scowled and approached him. He was her district partner, but the hate in her eyes didn't show it. She wasn't just mad. She was furious.

"Leave. I'm done with your career-less antics," Nimona spat, lips curling into an angry frown.

"You can't just break up the pack like that," Rockson objected.

"Oh, so you want to fight me? I'll show you why I earned a nine."

Rockson just laughed. "A nine? I earned a ten. Don't bother starting a fight. It'd be suicide."

Before the others could react, the two District 2 tributes clashed. Neither of them were holding back; Rockson was strong, but Nimona was nimble and he could never seem to catch her. Terrified, Domino and Indus scuttled to the back of the horn. Azura was screaming for them to stop, but they wouldn't listen. Before long, they were using more than fists. It was a full-on death match, and the others knew there was nothing they could do to stop it without being killed themselves. After nearly five minutes, Rockson triumphed over Nimona. One heavy thrusting motion of his fist crushed her windpipe, and Nimona crumpled to the snow, dying swiftly without any oxygen to keep her body running.

 _Nimona Tagiuri, District 2 Female: 12th, Killed by Rockson, Day 4_

Rockson let out a whoop of triumph, and he turned around to face his allies just as the machete entered his chest. During the fight, Domino, Indus, and Azura had been debating in the back of the horn what to do with him. They eventually decided to off the crazy Rockson, and it was Domino who volunteered for the job, flinging his machete into the chest of his ally. Rockson was dead seconds after the blade pierced his muscular chest, falling onto his dead district partner that he had killed seconds prior.

 _Rockson Wescott, District 2 Male: 11th, Killed by Domino, Day 4_

After the deaths of Nimona and Rockson, peace was mostly restored in the pack. The now-dead careers' rivalry had been what was drawing them apart instead of together, as they had each been resorting to taking sides to please their stronger allies. Now that they were both dead, Domino, Indus, and Azura resumed a sort of mutual truce. Indus took over as the leader of the pack, the only tribute other than the dead Rockson with a ten, while Domino was his right hand man. Azura was getting more and more depressed each day as she lamented over how much she regretted ever volunteering. She would be the first picked off at the pack's true split, if she survived that long.

Day 5 was the most miserable day yet for the outliers. Issues like hypothermia and hunger were really setting in, and the poisonous pools were getting slowly more and more lethal in due time. Iuna from 1 was scared out of her wits as the pools started popping up in places she hadn't seen before; her intense fear of water was leading her to avoid them at all costs. Weirdly, Iuna's hydrophobia gave her an advantage, as she was avoiding the poisoned water. Thomasina was pretty famous in the Capitol for having fended several wolves away with just a bowl. Humorously, a sponsor sent her a stone bowl covered with spikes that Thomasina could strap to her hand. She spent the whole day practicing with the new weapon about halfway up the mountain, wanting to start preparing for any encounters with other tributes as soon as possible. Crazy Titus was getting more and more crazy with each passing day; he was now stumbling around the mountainside uttering nonsense as he tried to "kill" rocks and sticks. Even out of his right mind, he knew what his knives were for, and he seemed eagerly excited to kill. Beatrix, who was still a sniveling mess, was trying her best to tug at the heartstrings of the Capitol by telling stories of her life in 6. She should have known that pity never earns any tribute sponsors, and nobody really knew that many tears could be expelled by a human in such a short period of time.

Danielette was like a magnet for the awful lichens, and she was falling into them multiple times a day. As night fell, she decided that she had had enough. Danielette searched tirelessly for water, and she found herself beside one of the hot pools giving off purple mist around sunset. She didn't care that there was a chance the water could be poison. She was wanted a quick wash to rinse the spines off of herself. Understandably, she was unwilling to remove her clothing, so she just sank into the pool fully clothed. Danielette screamed as the poison began entering through all of the cuts and scrapes on her body. She begged for help at the top of her lungs and fought to drag her way to shore, but her organs were shutting down so quickly that she was unconscious in seconds and dead in a few more.

 _Danielette Shaven, District 8 Female: 10th, Killed by Poisoned Water, Day 5_

As exciting things transpired with the tributes from the lower-numbered districts, those from the higher-numbered districts were largely forgotten. Despite having scored an eight, Yaxley from 9 had been almost completely forgotten by the audience and by Caesar after five whole days of inactivity. After nightfall on the fifth day, Falcon sent a single wolf mutt to his camp to stir the pot a little. Yaxley put his hatchet that he'd owned since Day 1 to its first real use, slicing off a good chunk of the wolf's snout. It fell backward, whimpering, and it was scared enough to flee and leave Yaxley alone for the rest of the day. Tucson of 12 was struggling with hypothermia. His lips and fingers were blue, and he seldom moved more than a hundred yards from his camp in days. The colder he was, the harder it was for Tucson to find warmth, and he wound undoubtedly die unless he could break the vicious cycle, and very soon at that.

The next day, Day 6, Iuna began forming a plan. She'd been struggling to stay relevant for days, but no opportunity had come to do anything that would make her one to remember. Even the novelty of the whole "reaped tribute from a career district" thing had worn off mostly, and she got less and less screen time each new day. As a last resort, Iuna promised the Capitol that she would raid the cornucopia of its supplies at some point in the next few days. Their interest was piqued, as none of them thought she was lying. No matter what Iuna felt, she couldn't back away now; she had to set out to the horn sometime soon.

Titus hunted for his fourth consecutive day. Nobody thought it was possible, but he was getting crazier than ever before, muttering about strange creatures who were watching from hidden places and screaming that the snow was going to swallow him. At noon, he settled beside one the poison pools. He noticed a small rodent take a sip of the water and die immediately, and Titus spent the next hour gathering up more rodents before dunking them into the pool to watch them die. At that point, there was no denying that he was literally insane, but the Capitol couldn't get enough of it. They like his bloodthirstiness, and if anything his sponsorship just increased.

Titus was hunting in some of the flatter and less rocky areas of the mountain face when he saw movement nearby. It was Beatrix from 6, and she had no idea that her insane district partner was just nearby. Beatrix didn't have time to breathe before Titus pounced out of the shadows, wrestling her to the ground. She screamed and tried to escape from under his weight, but the boy was simply too strong. He stabbed her with his knives, and she perished in less than a minute.

After Beatrix was dead, Titus got to his feet, panting. He turned to pillage her of supplies, but then decided against it. He was about to do what would go down in history as one of the craziest actions ever performed in the Hunger Games. Titus knelt beside the dead Beatrix and sank his teeth into her chest so savagely that blood was already staining his teeth. He yanked his head back, tearing out the strip of flesh, and he began chewing. In no time, Titus had begun tearing out her innards and stuffing them messily into his mouth, splattering himself and the dead girl with blood and other unidentified bodily fluids. It was the first time cannibalism had ever occurred in the Hunger Games, and it took Falcon and his team a painstakingly long amount of time to censor the kill before it was broadcasted to Panem.

 _Beatrix Carey, District 6 Female: 9th, Killed by Titus, Day 6_

That left the final eight. They were Domino Waller and Iuna Mosier from District 1, Indus Patel and Azura Littlefield from District 4, Thomasina Rao from District 5, Titus Ezekiel from District 6, Yaxley Dirk from District 9, and Tucson Morgan from District 12.

The small number of Capitol officials who were let in on the true details of Beatrix's death couldn't believe it at first. But they watched as Titus wiped his mouth, a crazy glint in his eye, and washed himself from head to toe with snow to clean off the blood. He resumed hunting soon after, craving another taste of human flesh. The vast majority of the Capitol still loved him, as the whole cannibalism part had been edited out of the final clip, which showed Titus simply killing Beatrix with a knife and then leaving. The 6 boy was not playing with a full deck of cards.

On Day 7, Iuna was forced to postpone her plan to raid the cornucopia when heavy hailstones began pouring onto the mountain. Some of the hailstones were the size of golf balls, and none of the tributes were willing to be out and about in the dangerous weather. Iuna gathered up her knife and rope and ducked into a clearing laden with moss and boulders that was shielded by a single tree. She was startled by a cannon shot soon after.

A few hours prior, Indus and Azura had left the horn to hunt, while Domino stayed to guard the supplies. The hailstorm had developed so suddenly that the 4s didn't have time to return to the cornucopia. At the first signs of hail, Azura beelined for a small cave nearby, and Indus followed her inside. The strange thing about the cave was that it was lit by an eerie glow. It didn't take them long to discover where the glow was coming from. One of the steaming purple pools was in the back of the cave, and the mists were being thrown against the walls and making hissing sounds uncannily like human screams. The careers' sponsor counts were at an all-time low after several days without kills, but Azura had just the plan to remedy this.

Indus turned around, and Azura removed most of her clothing, except her underclothes for decency's sake. She added that if she wanted to get sponsors she might as well look pretty for them, and Azura dunked herself into the hot pool. She was screaming in seconds as the highly acidic poison began eating away at her skin and entering through the various cuts all over her body. Indus turned back around and raced to help her. Azura extended her hands, and Indus tugged her out the pool. The girl collapsed, gasping and shaking, on the shore. Whole chunks of her flesh had been eaten away by the poison; she was nowhere near dead, but there was no way she could function properly with so many grievous wounds. Indus nocked an arrow in his bow and fired it straight into the girl's heart, delivering her from her agony and misery quickly.

 _Azura Littlefield, District 4 Female: 8th, Killed by Poisoned Water and Indus, Day 7_

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. It continued to hail late into the night, so none of the tributes were willing to leave their shelters. Indus hung around in the cave for the rest of the day, steering clear at the purple pool where Azura's corpse lay. Around noon, Thomasina had an encounter with the wolf pack. It wasn't hard to get rid of them, as she was a great tree-climber and the wolves had no hope of reaching her at the top boughs. They just watched Thomasina, teeth glistening and mouths foaming, before they left upon the decision that their time would be better-spent on some other tribute. Yaxley left his shelter and walked in a circular direction around the mountain, holding his pack above his head to shield himself from the hail. He collapsed in a small fissure at nightfall. Tucson was there, and the two allied. Tucson spent the day sharing his holy book with Yaxley, and they were pleased to find that they shared similar faiths. Time would tell how the alliance of the two boys would turn out.

Day 8 was deathless. Temperatures in the arena began to increase from the ten or twenty degrees they had been for the whole games to thirty or forty degrees. Many of the tributes liked the relative warmth of the arena, and they tried to do as much as they could during the day in case it didn't last. Indus made his way about a hundred yards down the slope and met up with Domino at the cornucopia. He filled him in on the details of Azura's death, and afterward they shared lunch in the back of the horn, where the snow had only accumulated a few inches.

On Day 9, the crazy Titus attacked his next two victims. He'd been hunting for days, but his visibility wasn't very good because of the hail and the snow. Now that the sun had warmed up and the storm had died down, he could see much better. Titus was sitting cross-legged in a field of boulders when he heard the sounds of two tributes softly snoring nearby. Yaxley and Tucson had fallen asleep in that little fissure of theirs the night prior, and they were sleeping soundly, unaware that Titus was ten feet away. Titus got to his feet and peered into the fissure, a grin spreading over his face. He grabbed a few of his favorite knives, ready to do some more killing.

Yaxley awoke, screaming, as Titus buried one of his knives into his shoulder. His screaming and violent contorting due to the agony quickly woke up Tucson. Tucson was one of the most loyal tributes the games had seen yet, and there was no way in Panem he was going to flee without making sure Yaxley was safe as well. Tucson grabbed his ally's hand and tried to hoist himself and his ally out of the fissure. They collapsed together into the snow, dazed. It was only then that they realized Titus was standing right above them. Yaxley was quickly losing consciousness due to the sheer amount of blood that was leaving his body, while Tucson was gagging and retching into the snow, struggling to drag himself away along with his ally. Titus dispatched them both with a few quick flicks of his knife collection before kneeling beside them, preparing to do more cannibalism.

There was no questioning the boy's insanity. He used his knife to saw off the hand of the dead Yaxley and the arm of the dead Tucson. He disassembled their bodies into at least twenty separate pieces, and then he began rearranging them like pieces of a puzzle. He placed Tucson's head on Yaxley's torso, Tucson's foot on Yaxley's leg; the creature he was left with had the head, feet, and hands of Tucson and the torso, arms, and legs of Yaxley. He rested for few minutes before digging into his Frankenstein creature, cackling madly. Titus had reduced the tribute count to five.

 _Yaxley Dirk, District 9 Male: 7th, Killed by Titus, Day 9_

 _Tucson Morgan, District 12 Male: 6th, Killed by Titus, Day 9_

Falcon and his team were struggling to edit out the cannibalism in his kills, and at that point many people in the Capitol were growing skeptical as to why certain aspects of Titus' kills looked artificially edited in and how some parts were cut completely. It would be centuries until full video footage of Titus' kills was discovered, as all of it was thought to have been destroyed soon after.

Later that day, Iuna made a strange request. She asked the sponsors for white makeup and makeup brushes. Her mentor, Cashmere, sent her some, and the nation watched curiously to see what she would make of them. Iuna moved all of her supplies to a cave and affixed her only flashlight to the ceiling, illuminating the rocky cave's entire interior. Iuna soaked the makeup brushes in the white makeup and began dabbing herself up and down in it. Once every square inch of her skin was covered with the white makeup, she looked like a ghost. This would allow her to better blend into the snow during her raid of the cornucopia.

Early in the morning of the next day, Day 10, Iuna left her cave and made her way down the slope. The tiny cornucopia grew larger and larger as the 1 girl grew nearer and nearer. By the time she reached it, a snowstorm had started back up. Iuna was nearly impossible to see through the snow with her new white outfit. Iuna swirled with the cohort of snowflakes to the cornucopia, the white powder layered so heavily over her skin that it was nearly impossible to see her. Indus was asleep in the back of the horn, while Domino was sleepily standing guard.

Iuna wasn't planning on killing either of the tributes, but she was planning on gathering up loads of supplies. Moving as quickly as possible, she leaned over and picked up two empty packs. She had begun filling them with knives when the wind stopped howling and the storm began to die down. Iuna cursed softly, and without the sound of the wind the sound of the knives clattering against each other inside the pack could be heard. Domino leaped to his feet, newfound thrill surging through him, and he raced toward Iuna. Iuna reached into the pack and pulled out two of the knives, holding one in each hand and warning her district partner not to come any closer.

Domino lashed out with his machete, and Iuna easily deflected his blow. It was just beginners' luck, and if she hadn't been able to knock the machete away from her the wound would have easily been able to kill her. Shocked at her sudden burst of energy, Domino froze in the spot; this was just what Iuna needed to win the duel. The 1 girl darted forward, thrusting both of her knives through his neck. Domino screamed as he died, awakening Indus from inside of the horn.

 _Domino Waller, District 1 Male: 5th, Killed by Iuna, Day 10_

Iuna didn't stick around to face Indus. She grabbed up her packs and knives and sprinted away from the horn, sticking to areas where there were already lots of footprints so Indus wouldn't be able to track her. Indus was shocked to see his dead ally lying in the snow, coated with blood, and he vowed to catch the killer and seek his revenge at one point or another in the last few days of the games.

On Day 11, it was clear that Falcon had made a decision regarding Titus. Over the last few days, his popularity had taken a swan dive. Uncensored clips of a few of his kills had been leaked to the nation, and the Capitol witnessed for the first time just how crazy the 6 boy was. Titus had been one of Falcon's favorite tributes, but he was forced to listen to the popular public opinion and kill him off. He could have just blown him to smithereens at any moment, but he wasn't going to kill a tribute that blandly in the final four.

At exactly noon, the final four tributes felt faint tremors from far beneath their feet. Bits of snow were sliding down particularly bare areas of the mountain face. Iuna was sleeping in about a foot of snow when she felt herself sliding downward along with a huge tide of the white stuff. She panicked and tried to get to her feet, but she was instantly knocked back to the ground. Crying, Iuna grabbed onto a nearby tree, holding on for dear life as the snow tried to tug her down.

Feeling the tremors, Thomasina jumped out of the crook of the tree she had been living in for days. She was one of the richer District 5 citizens, and she spent a lot of her time at school. One of the things she had learned about in her years was avalanches, and she knew that that bare tree would have no chance of standing through a falling wall of snow. Thomasina tried her best to move in the opposite direction of the tremors, though she was actually moving closer to them by mistake.

About an hour later, the true avalanche began. Titus was resting, face and arms smeared with blood and bits of human guts, on a flat shelf of rock about halfway up the slope. A sound like a barreling train woke him up, and he looked upward to see the enormous tide of snow coming down toward him. Abandoning his supplies, Titus scrambled downward. Even with adrenaline pumping through his veins instead of blood, there was no way the 6 boy could outrun the avalanche. He was overtaken in seconds, and the snow washed him away. He came to a stop a good hundred feet downward. Titus panicked and inhaled a whole mouthful of snow. He had no idea which way was up, and he was quickly running out of oxygen under the snow. He put his hands over his mouth and spit into them. Titus "swam" through the snow in the opposite direction that the saliva ran, but the snow was too packed and the boy was too tired. The insane cannibal boy died about two minutes later.

 _Titus Ezekiel, District 6 Male: 4th, Killed by Avalanche, Day 11_

Toward the bottom of mountain, Indus awoke too late to be saved. He was a heavy sleeper anyway, and he was so far away from the tremor that he didn't feel it hard enough to be awoken in time to flee to safety. He only woke when snow from the avalanche flooded into the horn. Indus leapt to his feet as the cold snow poured over his ankles. He fought his way to the mouth of the cornucopia, but the snow was up to his waist by the time he did. In no time, he was being throwing around in the snow; he had basically zero chance of survival once the horn was completely submerged. He and all of his supplies were left to rot away underneath the now settling avalanche snow. The finalists had been determined, but he was not one of them.

 _Indus Patel, District 4 Male: 3rd, Killed by Avalanche, Day 11_

The last two tributes struggled to keep warm as Day 11 came to a close. Thomasina was buried under a good ten feet of snow by the time it all settled. She kicked every which way until her head finally broke the surface and she took a huge breath of fresh mountain air. By the time she managed to hoist herself out, she was drenched with melted snow. A sponsor gave Thomasina a blanket, and she collapsed, shaking, on a slab of rock. It was several minutes before she realized there were only two tributes remaining. Iuna had a similar story. When she saw the avalanche coming, she grabbed onto a nearby boulder and refused to let go as the snow piled up around her. When the rumbling finally stopped, Iuna fought her way to the surface, and she collapsed, gasping and retching, into a small cave.

Falcon had originally had his heart set on ending the games soon after the avalanche, but the finalists were in such bad states that he decided to wait another day or so. Sponsors sent each of the tributes new gloves, coats, and warm soup to keep them warm as night fell.

In the early morning of Day 12, Thomasina awoke to a horrible stinging sensation all over her body. The gamemakers were lightly electrocuting her with her tracker; while it wasn't enough to kill her, the agony was unbearable. Thomasina screamed as the electrical shock coursed through her body once more, and she crawled over the ground, trying to drag herself away from the electric shock. Iuna received a similar surprise on the other side of the mountain. They were crying out from the pain as the finalists dragged themselves toward each other, and they spotted one another around three in the evening. It was time for the finale.

The finalists both had their supplies destroyed in the avalanche, so two parachutes fluttered down to them, each one containing a knife. Iuna and Thomasina bit their lips with anxiety as they circled around each other. Neither of them wanted to kill the other, but neither of them wanted to be the one to be killed either. Several minutes went by without either girl laying a finger on the other. To remind them of the urgency of the situation, Falcon caused a nearby wolf mutt to howl loudly. In seconds, the tributes were racing toward each other.

They clashed and fell to the snow. Iuna swiped madly through the air with her knife, and Thomasina struggled to fend her off with her own knife. Iuna had scored a four and Thomasina a seven, but the seven was for her mechanical smarts and not for her battle smarts. The tributes eventually separated and bounced away from the each other, stumbling through the snow like balls in a pinball machine being piloted by a maniac. Thomasina let out a yelp as her head bumped on a heavy rock, and Iuna swallowed hard as she drove her knife into her neck. In seconds, Thomasina was on the ground, writhing with agony. Iuna just stood by and watched the girl live her painful last moments.

 _Thomasina Rao, District 5 Female: 2nd, Killed by Iuna, Day 12_

"Iuna Mosier of District 1, you are the victor of the sixty-eighth annual Hunger Games!" Caesar and Claudius shouted, accented by Thomasina's cannon shot.

Iuna wiped a tear from her eye, already trying to shove the newly-minted memories of the games out of her mind.

 _Iuna Mosier, District 1 Female: Victor of the Sixty-Eighth Hunger Games, Day 12_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 1 wasn't sure how to respond to the crowning of their twelfth victor. In any other instance, this would have been a cause for celebration; they now exceeded District 4 in terms of victor count. However, Iuna was one of the shoddiest victors the district had ever seen; she was small and flabby and did nothing much but cry for most of her victory tour. She was also the first ever reaped District 1 tribute to win the games, and the first non-career tribute from the luxury district to even make it to the finale. The only reason she'd been able to survive as long as she did was because her intense fear of liquid water kept her away from the poison pools. Iuna herself hated all of the attention she received, as she was shy and introverted and loathed being treated like a celebrity. She wasn't considered particularly attractive by any means, and she was one of the few District 1 victors to never be prostituted.

She moved into the Victor's Village of District 1, the twelfth victor to do so.

Her victory tour was a disaster, as she was unable to do anything but cry throughout her speeches.

Iuna would live to the age of sixty-eight, dying from a stroke around the time of the one-hundred twenty-first annual Hunger Games. In her lifetime, she would never marry nor have children. She was one of the few District 1 victors to suffer from PTSD, and for the rest of her life she would often have horrible panic attacks where she would collapse and scream for hours on end. In her twenties, she suffered from severe schizophrenia, and her mental illnesses were so severe that she attempted suicide dozens of times in the first decade after her victory. Her sister Locketta was the only person who could really calm her, but even she often had trouble soothing her panic attacks and sometimes had to physically restrain her. Iuna lead one of the dreariest lives of any victor in the first Hunger Games century, a very sad example of the way the Hunger Games could change a girl.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Iuna moves into the Victor's Village of District 1, in the house next door to Cashmere's home.

Mags Flanagan suffers a stroke that will render her mute for the rest of her life. The last words she speaks are to two of her adopted children, and the words themselves are never revealed.

Mason Kittridge's wife gives birth to their sixth child, a girl named Susanna.

Flux Stafford, the victor of the seventh annual Hunger Games, dies from sudden respiratory failure.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Iuna! She was a super sad victor, especially with everything that happened after her games, but the good news is that the streak of career victors is now over (I'm not counting Iuna as a career victor because she wasn't trained despite being from District 1).**

 **Was there anyone you liked other than Iuna? And what did you think of Titus? I'm not going to lie, his kills were super fun to write. Maybe I should get checked out XD This whole chapter was super fun to write. I just wrote and wrote and the words poured from my fingers.**

 **Please stay tuned for the many more games and victors that are to come. The canon cut-off point is so close I can taste it :D**


	70. The 69th Hunger Games

**The 69th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Coriolanus Snow, President of Panem, was furious over the outcome of his mighty Hunger Games the year prior. It would have been a huge hit if not for a certain 6 boy. Indeed, Titus ruined the games for a lot of people; many Capitolites had run out of the theaters they were viewing the games in holding their mouths with their hands. Psychopathic antics weren't new to the Hunger Games and to Panem, but it was hard to deny that Titus had taken this a smidge too far. It was President Snow's own wife, the young and beautiful Magnolia Asher, who made the suggestion to ensure that no tribute would "pull a Titus" ever again. Whenever a death occurred, a hovercraft would descend and use its powerful electrical pulses to remove the tribute's body from the arena. It was a genius idea, but there were several loopholes. Wouldn't it be distracting to have the hovercraft constantly snatching up dead bodies during the bloodbath? What if a tribute shot down the hovercraft itself? A conference consisting of President Snow and his wife, about half of the gamemaker team, and several of the career victors came to the conclusion that the hovercraft would wait until the end of the bloodbath to remove all of the cooling corpses, similar to the way the cannon shots waited until the bloodbath ended to fire The hovercraft that they used was the result of months of hard work from hundreds of District 6's strongest men and women. Made of a metal that was virtually indestructible even by explosives, a force field was wrapped around it like a second skin. Anything thrown at the craft would hit the force field and bounce back, returning to its place of origin and leaving the flying vehicle unscathed. Head Gamemaker Falcon Thorne returned for another year in the position. President Snow was looking for more intimidating games than ever before, but Falcon was young and imaginative and didn't slow down for a second. Coriolanus didn't punish him for the whole Titus escapade of the year prior, as he had done a rather good job of concealing the information from the general public. But he did receive a sinister warning from the president of Panem; if a slip-up like that happened again, it wouldn't just be Falcon's job that would be in danger.

There was a certain level of artistic dedication that went into designing the Hunger Games arenas, and even the simplest of arenas never failed to fascinate many. The arena of the sixty-ninth games was one of these deceptively simple arenas. The tributes would find themselves surrounded by mile after mile of rolling sand dunes, constantly being beat down upon by the hot desert sun. The cornucopia was made out of dusty stone, and the inside of the horn was one of the only shady places in the arena. Its weapons largely consisted of knives and spears. Patches of cacti were everywhere, and a tribute could never walk for more than a few seconds without coming across one. The spines of the cacti were designed by some of the Capitol's top biologists to cling onto anything they touched and relentlessly grab on. The cactus flowers were the only source of food in the arena; the pink blossoms had oval-shaped, tightly packed petals, and they were surprisingly high in water content. There were only two kinds of mutts in the arena: snakes and scorpions. The snake mutts could be as small as one foot or as long as ten feet, and their undulating coils left trails in the sand like tire marks on a lawn. The snakes' venom was extremely poisonous, and it was enough to kill any tribute in minutes. Meanwhile, the scorpion mutts were just as terrifying. As long as a human arm, the scorpions were glossy black and had arched tails topped with vicious stingers. Both their stingers and pedipalps could inject poison into the scorpions' prey. The only way to get water in the arena was to dig down. If a tribute dug a hole deep enough, they would find water flooding into the hole they had dug. Temperatures in the arena could easily be triple digits during the daytime, but at night it could cool to fifty to sixty degrees Fahrenheit. The tributes would do most of their work in the cool of the night, but this was also when most of the snakes and scorpions were out hunting, so unexpected surprises weren't off of the table.

After the five-member pack of the year prior, the careers reverted to their typical six-member model, and each of the three career districts provided a strong boy and girl to compete in the games. District 1's tributes were both tall and slim, and they were both very attractive. The boy was the youngest at only sixteen, but he had the natural ability to make any audience fall in love with his wit and charm. He was a fierce warrior whenever spears were available, and he would be dangerous. The girl was the daughter of District 1 royalty, but she was more hard-working than the rest of her family. She was stunningly beautiful and a master archer, though her limited skill set held her back from scoring the ten that career tributes often lusted after. District 2 provided the strongest batch, and they both scored tens. The boy stood at a whopping six foot eight, and with a handsome young face and an extremely muscular frame he earned plenty of sponsors before the games began. While not exactly cocky, he did like to toot his own horn whenever other tributes were around. The female had eyes that were so dark grey they were almost black, and she was shadowy and cold both in appearance and demeanor. Her eyes were like ice, and she was a ruthless killer. District 4 put on a varied showing. The boy was the weakest this year, only earning an eight, but he had the classic surfer look that Capitolites craved, and he was very chill and easy-going and unconventional. The girl was small and slim and extremely fast, making her nearly impossible to catch. Despite her meager form, she managed an astounding ten, as she was quite pretty and could work magic with weapons like spears and bows. The training scores of the pack were average: three tens, two nines, and one eight.

The outliers were more memorable than the year prior; there were many memorable personalities and strong tributes. Bethany from 9 was the strongest outlier, earning an eight. She'd been working fifteen hour shifts every day in a field in the south of the district, yet she barely earned enough to keep herself, her mother, and her five siblings alive. She wowed the sponsors with her sickle and scythe skills, and was extremely dexterous. Three sevens were earned: Ryder from 6, Oakley from 7, and Luna from 10. One of these tributes, Ryder, had been an orphan since age thirteen; he'd spent the past seven years learning how to survive on the streets of District 6, and survival was instinct for him. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. Wildflower from 11 was another memorable outlier. She was the only twelve-year-old tribute in the games, and her last wish before entering the arena was for meals to be given to the homeless of her district. This request was denied, but the girl tugged at the heartstrings of many nonetheless. This year had another legacy tribute: Matisa from 8, who was the cousin of Victor Cecelia Rieffel. She only scored a four, but she was still one to be remembered. The only volunteers this year were the six careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Cosmo Linscott, 16, (9) 7-1 and Cendrillon Reyes, 18, (9) 6-1

District 2: Draco Silveraja, 18, (10) 3-1 and Nyx Blackmore, 17, (10) 4-1

District 3: Rodney Brown, 15, (4) 34-1 and Dervilia Cotton, 17, (5) 24-1

District 4: Angler Lavin, 18, (8) 9-1 and Kodaline Fayette, 18, (10) 4-1

District 5: Spring Pariseau, 18, (6) 19-1 and Alaska Pipes, 14, (3) 48-1

District 6: Ryder Martinez, 17, (7) 13-1 and Kathlin Haslett, 17, (5) 25-1

District 7: Oakley James, 18, (7) 13-1 and Florida Rowena, 16, (5) 27-1

District 8: Roark Taylor, 16, (4) 33-1 and Matisa Rieffel, 16, (4) 34-1

District 9: Wilder Thornton, 13, (3) 51-1 and Bethany Salter, 18, (8) 11-1

District 10: Alexander Westlake, 16, (3) 46-1 and Luna Chan, 18, (7) 16-1

District 11: Klaus Sanderson, 17, (6) 22-1 and Wildflower Maisel, 12, (3) 56-1

District 12: Dennis Abelton, 18, (5) 23-1 and Moriah Systema, 15, (4) 35-1

HGBO Bets: 11% on Draco, 10% on Nyx, 8% on Kodaline, 7% on Cosmo and Cendrillon, 6% on Angler, 5% on Bethany, 4% on Ryder, Oakley, and Luna, 3% on Spring and Klaus, 2% on Dervilia, Kathlin, Florida, and Dennis, 1% or less on Rodney, Alaska, Roark, Matisa, Wilder, Alexander, Wildflower, and Moriah.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The cameras that were recording the scene perfectly captured the terrified looks on the tributes' faces as they saw the rolling desert sands for the first time. The year prior, the tributes from cold districts had an advantage. This year, however, the tributes from hotter districts, like District 2, District 5, and District 10, would almost certainly have at least slightly higher odds than those from the other districts. Though, as was often true in the Hunger Games, only time would tell.

When the gong rang, a single tribute fled: Alexander from 10. As Alexander sprinted into the desert, the other twenty-three tributes surged forward, gathering around the horn for the bloodbath.

Draco lead the charge this year, winning the footrace to the cornucopia by leaps and bounds. There weren't any swords nearby, so he swept up two twin knives and prepared to do some cold-hearted killing. A nearby boy screamed as Draco sawed the first of his knives into his forehead, and the second into his abdomen as he fell.

 _Rodney Brown, District 3 Male: 24th, Killed by Draco, Bloodbath_

Nyx reached the horn a few seconds later and took a bow from an ornate countertop inside its shade. She began firing as soon as she left the shade of the cornucopia. One of her arrows landed into the neck of one girl, and she staggered to the ground, moaning with agony, her reflection bright in the eyes of her killer.

 _Florida Rowena, District 7 Female: 23rd, Killed by Nyx, Bloodbath_

Kodaline gritted her teeth as she dueled with a strong boy from an outlying district. They each had spears, and they were both very good, but the boy's meager three days of practice couldn't compare to the career girl's years of training. Kodaline thrust her spear into his neck after about a minute; he fell, sinking into the sand, his blood shining in the light of hot sun.

 _Klaus Sanderson, District 11 Male: 22nd, Killed by Kodaline, Bloodbath_

After wrenching his knives out of the limp body of his first victim, Draco pounced toward a nearby girl who was struggling to escape the cornucopia with a heavy backpack and jug of clear water. The girl dropped her supplies as Draco plunged his knives into her neck, piercing her windpipe and chipping a few of the bones in her neck. Cackling, the 2 boy sped off to look for even more prey.

 _Matisa Rieffel, District 8 Female: 21st, Killed by Draco, Bloodbath_

Cosmo took a spear, and he heard soft crying from nearby. A girl had collapsed inside of the cornucopia, crying into her arms. Cosmo tackled the girl, quickly dispatching her with a few thrusting motions of his spear. She was dead in seconds without flinching a millimeter.

 _Moriah Systema, District 12 Female: 20th, Killed by Cosmo, Bloodbath_

Cendrillon, the extremely wealthy 1 girl, swept up a belt of throwing knives. A few moments later, she deftly hurled two of the knives at a nearby outlier. She collapsed to the sand, gasping and shaking, and she landed at the feet of another career, Kodaline. Kodaline thrust her spear into her torso, instantly shutting down several of her organs, and there was no way she could survive from there on out.

 _Dervilia Cotton, District 3 Female: 19th, Killed by Cendrillon and Kodaline, Bloodbath_

As Dervilia fell, Nyx attacked her next outlier. She'd been stalking a small boy around the cornucopia for minutes like a hunter stalks an animal in the woods. The boy knelt down to tear open one of his packs, and Nyx pounced, firing a volley of two arrows. The boy let out a gasp, the last sound he would ever make, as the arrows wormed their way into his head and skewered his brain.

 _Wilder Thornton, District 9 Male: 18th, Killed by Nyx, Bloodbath_

Angler had been unable to land a kill yet, but as he surveyed the quickly emptying cornucopia field, knives in hand, he spotted a crawling boy just outside the ring of pedestals, slowly bleeding out from a spear wound inflicted by Cosmo. Eager to show off his might to the audience, Angler sprinted toward him. The boy struggled to drag himself away, but he wasn't nearly fast enough to get out of his sight. Angler thrust his knives into his abdomen, offing him swiftly.

 _Spring Pariseau, District 5 Male: 17th, Killed by Cosmo and Angler, Bloodbath_

Draco made his third kill. Nearby, a boy from the poorest district was starting away from the horn, wiggling over the uneven surface of the hot desert sand. He didn't make a sound as Draco hurled both of his knives. The 2 boy watched with satisfaction as the blades arced through the arrow before burying themselves into the top of the boy's head, killing him in seconds.

 _Dennis Abelton, District 12 Male: 16th, Killed by Draco, Bloodbath_

Kodaline made the last kill. A few minutes earlier, she'd stabbed an orphan boy in the torso with her spear, and he'd wiggled underneath a crate, slowly dying as he was shielded from the sight of the others by the walls of the crate. Kodaline popped the crate off of him, and his small form splayed outward. She finished the job she'd started ten minutes earlier by killing him with her spear. The boy was seconds away from death anyway, and he barely felt it.

 _Ryder Martinez, District 6 Male: 15th, Killed by Kodaline, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the careers moved away from the cornucopia so the hovercraft could retrieve the cooling corpses of the dead. After returning, they all crowded together into the shade of the horn. There wasn't one of them who wasn't dripping with sweat, and being in close quarters made them even hotter despite the shade the roof of the horn provided. One of Nyx's sponsors sent her a battery-run box fan, and she affixed it to the back of the horn to keep herself and the others cool. The District 1 tributes, Cosmo and Cendrillon, sorted the food rations in the back of the horn. Given how scarce food was in the desert, they were careful to keep from losing any, even going so far as to lay blankets down on the ground so the food wouldn't fall down into the sand and be lost. Angler was sorting weapons, almost all of which were spears and knives, though there were a few bows and other weapons. Draco and Nyx, being from District 2 (a hot, desert district) suggested that they dig down to find water. The 2s and Kodaline grabbed shovels and dug into the sand, hoping to strike lucky. True to their wishes, water was flooding into the hole. Nyx returned with as many thermoses and iodine capsules as she could carry. Draco and Kodaline scooped the seemingly unlimited water supply into the thermos and began purifying it. The career pack didn't hunt on the first day, as they were all exhausted from the bloodbath and didn't want to risk heat stroke until they were properly hydrated once more.

Meanwhile, the outliers wobbled over the sand, scattering around the hot desert arena. The temperature was one-hundred six degrees, unbearably scalding for many. Alaska had managed to grab a thermos full of water, a peach, and a knife from the cornucopia. She sprinted east for a few hours before collapsing in a dusty square populated by scruffy bushes. She knew the water would be best left for later when she needed it more, and she stared at it tantalizingly for the entire evening. Kathlin fled from the bloodbath carrying two throwing knives and a loaf of bread. At noon, she found herself in the shade of a large boulder. The shaded area was cool, even cold, and the girl munched on a bit of her bread before falling asleep. Oakley collapsed with exhausted in a patch of very fine, power-like sand. He consulted his handbook on edible plants and learned that the cactus flowers were edible. They tasted a little bitter, but they were food nonetheless. Roark fled from the cornucopia carrying only a few meager supplies. Using his only knife, he killed off two snake mutts that wandered into his home near a tall sand dune. Impressed at how perfectly he'd slayed the snakes, sponsors sent Roark a day's supply of water. Bethany, the strongest outlier, wasn't as well-armed as she'd been hoping she would be after the bloodbath. All she'd managed to grab was a sealed bowl of dried beef strips and a very stubby spear. She set up camp in a ditch in the shadow of a tall, skeletal tree, vowing to hunt the next morning. Alexander sprinted east, constantly removing his shoes to shake out the hot sand. As the only tribute who had decided to avoid the bloodbath, he naturally had the disadvantage. He dug down using his hands to find water, and an impressed sponsor sent him a small thermos inside which to collect the liquid before he slept in the shadow of a field of boulders. Luna couldn't believe her luck; she'd managed two spears and a thermos of water from the cornucopia, as well as some twine and a pack of dried fruit. She jogged for the entirety of the day, taking long breaks in cool areas to hydrate, and at nightfall Luna fell into a large, scruffy bush. Wildflower, the only twelve-year-old in these games, walked briskly away from the horn. By the time night fell, her shoes were torn in several places and sand was pouring in like water into the ship of the fifty-first Games. The girl fell far away from the horn, hoping nobody would find her, and she began to fashion a new pair of shoes with a few supplies she'd managed from the horn, as well as some fibers from the more hydrated plants of the arena. There wasn't much conflict in the arena as day turned into night.

As the sun rose on Day 2, Alexander woke with a start. Two snake mutts, as golden as the sun that was rising higher and higher into the sky with each moment, were slithering toward him. The boy fell back, intimidated as the sight of their undulating coils. His only possession was the thermos he'd been sponsored the evening prior; he was as good as defenseless. Alexander shakily grabbed up a nearby rock and held it above his head, ready to attack the snake mutts if they came any closer. The first mutt lunged toward him so fast that he barely had time to jump out of the way. Hissing with fury, the other snake joined in, and Alexander's breathing accelerated significantly at the sight of their pupils, slit-shaped and shining with bloodlust. He brought down the rock and almost hit the nearest snake mutt. It was able to slither out of the way, and Alexander grabbed another rock as the snakes drew closer. With one well-placed throw, he was able to pin one of the snakes to the ground, and it let out a hiss and shot poison through the air like water out of a sprinkler. He managed to kill the second snake a few minutes later by rolling one of the boulders on top of it, and it was dead in seconds.

Alexander sat down cross-legged, panting with exhaustion from the encounter. Suddenly, a stroke of genius found him. The snake mutt he'd pinned to the ground with his rock was still hissing and firing poison from its fangs. Alexander swept up his thermos and slurped down the last few drops of water that were inside. He held the thermos under the snake's fangs, watching as the sparkling venom filled the container. When the snake mutt finally ran out of venom, Alexander smashed it to death and closed the thermos. He had a good cup of the snake's venom trapped in his thermos.

Meanwhile, not much of note was transpiring with the career pack. They were getting alone much better than the career pack of the year prior, that was for sure. Draco and Nyx of 2 were the leaders, and despite being district partners they acted somewhat cold toward each other. Perhaps they saw each other as competition, and even the others tried to stay away from them for fear that they might lash out like the 2s of the sixty-eighth games. Kodaline tried to ensure fairness in the pack, rationing out the food equally to herself and all of her allies. Many admired her for her loyalty and value of fair play, but how her unique career personality would change as the tensions rose higher and higher was anyone's guess. Cendrillon, the rich girl from 1, mostly stuck to herself. She didn't want the others to think she was taking sides, as she figured that would be dangerous. Cosmo and Angler had been buddies since the training center; even though their training scores were one point apart, they still got along well. Cosmo was starting to be looked down upon by his allies for hanging out with the boy that had only scored an eight, and without knowing it he was rushing higher and higher on the list of careers to be picked off at the split. True to their promise, the pack went hunting a few minutes after sunrise, being sure to bring lots of water with them. Kodaline stayed behind to guard the horn, and she sorted the supplies and shoveled sand out of the cornucopia as the day wore on.

Alexander was sloshing his thermos of poison nervously between his hands when he heard the footsteps and casual conversation of the careers from nearby. A quick peek told him that the careers were about forty yards in one direction, and he quickly ducked behind a sand dune. The careers, who were engaged in conversation, didn't notice the flash of his tiny frame before it disappeared. Alexander waited with bated breath as the careers settled on the face of the sand dune for their midday meal. As they ate, Alexander moved farther away, hoping to be out of sight by the time they got back up.

He'd been walking for a few minutes when the thought of his poison thermos suddenly occurred to him, and he turned back around. Sure, it would be risky, but how could he pass up the opportunity to attack the career pack, especially in a manner that required zero use of weaponry of any sort of hand-to-hand combat? By the time he reached the dune, the pack was just about ready to get up. Cosmo, Cendrillon, Draco, Nyx, and Angler perked up at Alexander's cries. As they ran over the dune toward his screams, Alexander ran in a circle around it, dropping at the careers' camp. He unscrewed all of their thermoses and poured the snake venom into each of them before running like mad in the opposite direction, praying that it wasn't obvious he had been there.

It took the careers nearly half an hour to accept that whoever had been making the screams was gone. They returned to their camp with low spirits, their prey having escaped from right under their noses. Thirsty from the exercise, each of them unscrewed their thermoses and splashed the cool water into their mouths. The snake poison Alexander had slipped into the water didn't fail to do its job. It was somewhat comedic to watch as the five careers instantaneously fell forward, letting out a few moans before they died within the span of a minute.

 _Angler Lavin, District 4 Male: 14th, Killed by Alexander, Day 2_

 _Cendrillon Reyes, District 1 Female: 13th, Killed by Alexander, Day 2_

 _Cosmo Linscott, District 1 Male: 12th, Killed by Alexander, Day 2_

 _Draco Silveraja, District 2 Male: 11th, Killed by Alexander, Day 2_

 _Nyx Blackmore, District 2 Female: 10th, Killed by Alexander, Day 2_

The rest of Day 2 passed swiftly. The five cannon shot firing in rapid succession terrified most of the tributes into staying still for the remainder of the day. The last time that many tributes had died at once was nearly thirty years ago in the fortieth Hunger Games, when Beetee Latier electrocuted the six careers to death in the span of a few minutes. Alexander was sprinting over the sand when the cannon shots rang in his ears. Knowing the five careers were dead, he turned sharply on his heel and sprinted back toward the camp of the careers. By the time he reached the camp, their bodies had been carried away by the hovercraft, and the supplies were all his. It was far too much to carry, and the items were somewhat overwhelming. Alexander found a tent in a pack that had once belonged to Cosmo. He expanded the tent and moved the supplies inside it. With dozens and weapons are more food and water than he could drink in the longest Hunger Games, Alexander was truly feeling more confident than ever before.

One tribute that was not feeling confident was Kodaline, the 4 girl. The five cannon shots proved to her that there was some dangerous threat capable of killing all five of her allies in an instant, and she was extremely apprehensive about hunting after that, especially given that she was the only remaining career in the arena. Kodaline continued organizing the horn, hydrating often, until night fell. She slept in the back of the cornucopia, and she tied a long rope to her ankle. The other end of the rope was stretched like a tripwire across the cornucopia's entrance. If any intruders hit the tripwire, Kodaline would be awakened to fend them off, or, even better, kill them.

Day 3 was deathless. The outliers were frightened even further upon seeing the faces of Cosmo, Cendrillon, Draco, Nyx, and Angler in the sky; they all assumed there was some horrendous mutt that had killed the five of them, and none of them wanted to be out and about while this imaginary mutt was doing its nasty business again. Oakley had been developing his own unique cuisine over the past few days. He'd started out just picking the cactus flowers and eating them, but by Day 3 be was organizing them into ornate shapes and sprinkling them with seasonings he'd been sponsored. Oakley's aunt was a chef back in District 7, and he figured he might as well take a little time to remind himself of home.

Kathlin had just consumed the last few crumbs of her loaf of bread when she perked up at the sound of snapping pincers. About ten meters to her left, a trifecta of glossy black scorpions was scuttling toward her, and the distance between them was shrinking fast. Kathlin picked up her two throwing knives and fled in the opposite directions. Her running speed only slightly exceeded the speeds of the scorpions, and she couldn't run forever. When she was finally forced to fight, she was given a false first impression. With one blow, she managed to crunch a scorpion mutt in half with one of her knives. She figured the other two mutts would be easy kills as well, but she was wrong. While she was finishing off the first mutt, the other two had closed in on either side of her. Kathlin screamed as one of them dug its sharp stinger into her flesh. Arm throbbing, adrenaline powered her away from the mutts, and she collapsed in a ditch dripping with sweat. The flesh around the sting was turning an ugly green, and it was oozing puss. Kathlin's world was already growing foggy from the poison. She wasn't the strongest girl the games had ever seen, but a certain sponsor must have seen potential in her, because the antidote came drifting down to her in seconds. She downed the antidote, safe from the poison, and she quickly fell asleep.

Mere minutes after midnight on Day 4, Wildflower of 11 woke with a start. Even in the dark, she could see them: the shining eyes of a snake mutt slithering toward her. The girl gasped and grabbed her knife, backing slowly away. She was surprised at how cool the desert was at night, but she was too terrified to appreciate it fully. By that point, Wildflower could hear the hissing of the snake, see it flaring and pulsing with the bloodlust of a predator. She slowly continued to backed away, and the snake trained its eyes on her.

The mutt lunged so quickly that Wildflower didn't have time to react. She held out her twelve-year-old hands in a futile attempt to keep the snake away from her body, but it was hopeless. The mutt sank its teeth into her neck, and she staggered to the ground, slamming her head onto a nearby rock. If the poison was enough to kill all of the careers in mere minutes, Wildflower was a goner. The snake slithered back into the darkness, leaving Wildflower to perish from the grievous wound it had inflicted. She made a desperate attempt to choke out her last words, but they blended together into an unintelligible gargle.

 _Wildflower Maisel, District 11 Female: 9th, Killed by Snake Muttation, Day 4_

That left the final eight at sunrise on the fourth day: Kodaline Fayette from District 4, Alaska Pipes from District 5, Kathlin Haslett from District 6, Oakley James from District 7, Roark Taylor from District 8, Bethany Salter from District 9, and Alexander Westlake and Luna Chan from District 10.

The remainder of the fourth day was relatively uneventful. The snakes and scorpions of the arena seemed to be falling into a stupor, taking a break from their mechanical lives of attacking tributes. Alexander was feeling extremely guilty lying in his cool tent with all of the supplies he could ever need while the other tributes could all be starving to death for all he knew, but he wasn't complaining. He tried to move the shelter around regularly and get out and about as much as possible to keep himself relevant.

An hour or so before noon, Alaska from 5 and Roark from 8 bumped into each other. They had both exhausted their water supplies, and the only weapons they had were small knives. Instead of attacking each other, the two tributes allied. They got along well, and they armed themselves to the teeth in case intruders should arrive. At two in the evening, Roark tripped in a small hole and fell face-first into a large cactus plant. He tried to keep his cries quiet as Alaska plucked the needles from his skin one by painful one. By the time his face was clean, night had fallen. Going without water for yet another night, the allies made camp in a bowl-shaped area formed by four identical sand dunes.

As night fell, the terror most of the tributes felt from the always-dangerous career pack was starting to wear off. They knew from the death recap that Kodaline was the only one of the six careers who remained, and she wasn't likely to be hunting any time soon if it meant leaving the cornucopia open for anyone to take. Four days into the games, Bethany hadn't made much progress. All she had left was the collapsible spear she'd grabbed from the cornucopia in the first fifteen minutes of the games. The girl had figured out long ago that she could find water by digging down, but she had no way to store it and had to scoop it up with her hands. Bethany was jumping around the outskirts of the arena, though she never came too close to the force field for fear of a gamemaker threat. On the other side of the arena, panic was transpiring. Kathlin had assumed that the antidote sponsored to her would completely cure the wound inflicted by the scorpion mutts, but she was wrong. The one she was given was a weaker antidote, and while it could delay Kathlin's death it could not prevent it completely. The ugly purple line of poison was running through her veins, closer and closer to her heart, and Kathlin was panicking, running to and fro trying to do anything impressive that would warrant a sponsor gift. Oakley had furthered his cuisine even more; using a few sponsored herbs, he was weaving and folding the oval-shaped cactus petals into entrancing patterns and designs, enhanced by the sponsored herbs. One sponsor sent him a thermos of water, of which he greedily chugged down a quarter before stopping for the night. Despite this, Oakley was dangerously close to the cornucopia (less than a mile) and cryptic sponsor notes would no doubt begin pouring in.

On Day 5, Kodaline finally gave into the pressure of her sponsors and went hunting. She'd been putting it off for days because she was leery of leaving the horn unguarded. At the suggestion of a sponsor who was known for liking District 3 tributes, Kodaline assembled a trap that would alert her if any tribute came near the cornucopia. She took a thin bit of almost invisible string and cut it into several pieces. She tied one end of each piece of thread to each of the horn's most valuable supplies, and the other ends were all tied onto the "hub" as she called it. Whenever one of these strings was pulled, the "hub" would activate, alerting her by causing the alarm in her pocket to beep. Confident that the horn was safe, Kodaline trekked north. She was sure to bring lots of water, a wise choice; the desert landscape was unforgiving.

The fifth day was not without conflict, however, and Kodaline wasn't the only one who was hunting. Bethany from 9 awoke to the scuttling of three of the scorpion mutts. Using her spear, Bethany killed all three of the scorpions in seconds. An impressed sponsor sent her a much sleeker and more effective spear. After a few hours of practice, her motivation to hunt was re-kindled. She sharpened the point on a rock to ensure it would be at its best if she ever needed to use it, and then Bethany sprinted in an arbitrary direction with her spear and a few supplies.

Bethany fell at five in the evening in a patch of large bushes. However, she wasn't the only one there. Luna, a forgettable girl who had done nothing of note since the games began, had been crouched in the bushes when she had heard Bethany's footsteps. Panicked, Luna had ducked behind a large rock. At that point, she was still ducking there, sweating from heat and fear and praying that she wouldn't be seen or heard. She had two spears and Bethany only had one, but Bethany had scored higher and Luna hadn't had much practice given how much time she'd spent on more important things such as hydration and feeding herself.

Luna cursed under her breath as dust from the surface of the rock began to build up in her nose. A sneeze was coming on, with nothing she could do to stop it. She clapped her hands over her mouth, but this only amplified the sound, causing it to come out as a long snort. Bethany looked up from her meal and spotted Luna's small form fleeing. She snatched up her spear and chased after her. The chase lasted for nearly an hour. At six, Luna crumpled to the sand with exhaustion. She tried to get back to her feet, but it was like trying to run in a dream; her feet seemed to be made of lead and superglued to the ground. Every slight movement caused her muscles to burn like fire. She turned around with a gasp as Bethany's spear entered her neck, skewered through the flesh and out the other side. Bethany swallowed down the small amount of bile that had built up in her mouth and left the scene quickly so the hovercraft could collect the body of her first victim.

 _Luna Chan, District 10 Female: 8th, Killed by Bethany, Day 5_

The next day, Day 6, was deathless. Several of the tributes' water supplies had run dry, leading them to go to drastic measures to keep themselves hydrated. Kodaline returned to the horn soon after the sun rose. She'd already consumed all the water she'd taken with her to hunt. On the way back to the cornucopia, she spotted Oakley from 7 about fifty yards away. Kodaline chased him for half an hour, but he finally managed to escape, ducking into a small ditch until she passed. Once she was out of sight, Oakley fled farther away from the cornucopia, not wanting to be near when Kodaline decided to hunt once more. Alaska and Roark were keeping a surprisingly low profile. They didn't want to get so little screen time that they were forgettable, and they didn't want to stir the pot so much that they became targets either. They simply moved around the arena, resting in shady areas, feeding themselves on sponsor food and drink. Kathlin had been begging the Capitol for a better antidote for the snake bite she had sustained, but it didn't come. She was so dizzy she could barely stand, and the poison was so bad that she would pass out for hours at a time. Kathlin wiped off her hands and grabbed her only knife, vowing to do whatever it took to get the medicine she needed.

Meanwhile, Alexander was moving farther away from his tent than ever before. He still had a few inches of liquid in his thermos of snake poison, and he didn't intend to let it go to waste. Given his determination and bravery juxtaposed with the fact he'd only scored a three, it became clear to all that he hadn't shown his true potential in his private session.

Alexander returned to his tent at nightfall, and he froze on the spot despite the heat of the desert day. A dust devil—a whirlwind of sand, was forming right next to his tent. It didn't look very large, but it soon could be given how fast it was growing. Alexander ran a few feet forward and grabbed a few supplies, trying to save as much as he could before his camp was bowled over. It was great to have a tribute to root for, but the Capitol didn't like how massive of an advantage Alexander's supply stockpile gave him. Alexander crouched to the ground fifty meters away, watching as his camp was buried under the sand that was torn up by the dust devil. When it finally settled, he ran forth to investigate. He dug through the sand for hours and only found a few buried supplies. The sand was so tightly-packed that it hurt to dig through. It was like searching for buried treasure, except the sand was as chunky and hard as gravel and the stress of the death match that was the games was weighing on him every moment.

Day 7 had some action. Alexander was up bright and early to continue digging for his lost supplies. He pawed through the remnants of the dust devil and only managed to find a small pack of sand-logged food after a few hours. Discouraged, he fell to the sand, regretting how much he'd taken for granted the luxuries of all the supplies he'd had before. On the other side of the arena, a tribute's life was slowly ending. Oakley had gone nearly three days without water, and the thirst was so intense that it took the form of a horrible burning sensation spreading through his mouth and neck. One moment, he was trudging dutifully over the sand, unwilling to give up. The next moment, he tipped over his breaking point and collapsed in a heap, unable to do anything but cry and beg for the water that he knew wouldn't come. His death was slow and painful, and every second of it was recorded by the cameras all around him.

 _Oakley James, District 7 Male: 7th, Killed by Dehydration, Day 7_

Kodaline kept up on her hunt. She hadn't found any prey yet, but she told herself every few minutes that prey could be just over the next sand dune and she'd never know if she gave up right then. It was somewhat depressing to watch as she trudged over the rolling desert, jaw set and lips formed into a solid line, all alone since her five allies had been poisoned to death five days prior. She'd grown attachments to several of the other careers during training, and she would have mourned them if not for the fact that she knew presidents and gamemakers alike hated tributes mourning the losses of other tributes in the games.

Kodaline's determination payed off. Alaska and Roark, allies, had split up hours earlier to search for food. Roark had just discovered a patch of bushes bearing dry, withered red berries when Kodaline jumped out of nowhere. Roark screamed and staggered backward, tumbling down the sand dune he was standing on top of. He rolled down the sandy slope like an unravelling mummy before coming to a stop at its base. His eyes, nose, and mouth were filled with sand. He got to his feet and fled in an arbitrary direction, unable to see but far from having given up trying to escape Kodaline.

Half a mile away, Alaska heard Roark's screams and raced toward them out of instinct. She knew it was stupid and would only add her name to the list of those who perished in the games, but she didn't think she could live with herself knowing she'd let her ally die without doing anything to help. Alaska burst into sight just as Kodaline thrust her spear into a crying Roark's chest. The boy let out a short gurgle, and his cannon shot was loud.

 _Roark Taylor, District 8 Male: 6th, Killed by Kodaline, Day 7_

Kodaline smirked, wiping the blood off of her spear, as Alaska froze in place. Before the outlier girl knew it, the career was tackling her to the ground. Alaska fought back with her fists, but she was too panicked to aim properly and none of her attempted blows even came near the girl's muscular form. Alaska fell still as Kodaline sedated her with two thrusting motions of her spear, and she was dead in a few seconds more.

 _Alaska Pipes, District 5 Female: 5th, Killed by Kodaline, Day 7_

Day 8 was deathless, and the final four milled about. Kodaline retreated to the horn; with the finale so near, she wanted to be as close to the cornucopia as possible when it transpired. She sharpened her spear and did everything else a good career did with spare time. Kathlin had been searching relentlessly for anything that would warrant a sponsor gift, as by the looks of things she was less than a day away from death unless she found the proper antidote for the scorpion sting she's sustained days prior. Bethany started moving toward the horn, but as she did the mutts grew thicker and thicker. Before long, she couldn't walk ten minutes without a swarm of snakes or scorpions trying to kill her. As the strongest outlier, Falcon was struggling to keep her relevant, as he didn't want the others to overshadow her given the potential she had to make a good underdog story. Alexander collected more snake poison in preparation for the finale. When a swarm of the snakes attacked him on the morning of Day 8, he killed three and trapped the fourth. It shot its venom into his thermos, and he killed it once it couldn't produce any more. By the time the day ended, Alexander had filled the thermos nearly halfway full of venom.

The morning of Day 9, it became clear that Kathlin was hopeless. She rolled around in the sand, watching through tear-clouded eyes as the poison surged even farther through her veins. At eight in the morning, the poison reached her heart. Kathlin tensed up; it was like every muscle in her body had turned to steel; then a burning sensation set over her that caused her to scream with agony. Then she suddenly went limp, feeling like she was sinking into the ground and falling asleep. The venom worked its deadly magic all in the course of about a minute, leading to the girl's death and leaving only three tributes in the arena.

 _Kathlin Haslett, District 6 Female: 4th, Killed by Scorpion Muttation, Day 9_

The next death occurred mere minutes later. Kodaline left to go hunting once more; her mentor Cashmere sent her a note that it wouldn't do for her to lie around inside the cornucopia and wait for prey to come to her. Carrying her spear, she travelled south, sticking to high areas whenever she could to have the best view of the surrounding terrain.

She'd only hunted for ten minutes or so when she spotted another tribute on the horizon. Bethany fled in the opposite direction as soon as she caught her first glimpse of Kodaline surging toward her. Bethany stayed low to avoid being seen, and for a bated minute she thought she'd escaped the girl. So suddenly that she didn't have time to breathe, Kodaline leapt out of nowhere, tackling her to the ground. Screaming, Bethany fought against the career girl, and she struggled to wiggle out from underneath her weight. Once, she had her spear inches from her neck, but she pushed it to the side just in the nick of time, and she managed to escape.

Bethany reached into her pack for the serrated knife she'd been sponsored the day prior and held it in front of her, warning Kodaline not to come any closer. Kodaline just laughed and shook her head. She knew the girl had no hope of escaping her, and it amused her immensely to see her opponent feigning absolute confidence. Kodaline was the tribute that'd changed most since the start of the games; at first she'd taken on a motherly and timid persona, but now she was a cold-blooded killer, and not afraid to show it to the audience.

Bethany screamed as Kodaline tackled her once more, knocking her knife out of her hand. All attempts at escape were hopeless, and Bethany could do nothing but scream for help as the girl sawed her spear into her abdomen, killing her swiftly.

 _Bethany Salter, District 9 Female: 3rd, Killed by Kodaline, Day 9_

The crowd of twenty-four tributes was officially narrowed down to the final two, and it contained the two most beloved tributes of the year. Kodaline wasn't just an ordinary 4 girl; she'd been displaying her vibrant and spontaneous personality since the start of the games, and she was very tall and slim with blonde hair, the opposite appearance of many District 4 citizens. There was no doubt she would make a great addition to District 4's lineup of victors. Alexander was the true underdog. He'd been living with his poor merchant mother after his father died in a tractor accident three years prior, and he'd killed five out of the six careers despite only scoring a three. If he won, he would be the second outlier in history to kill all six careers, the first being Beetee Latier of the fortieth games.

On Day 10, intense dust devils began in the north and south. Alexander was in the north, and Kodaline was in the south, and the storms drew the tributes together. They spotted each other over one another's horizons at eight in the morning, and the clashed in the middle of the desert, the blazing sun beating down upon them as the epic finale took place.

Being from a career district, Kodaline had the advantage. She used her spear like a third arm, and with her first blow she managed to puncture at least a centimeter into Alexander's arm. The boy reeled, stumbling backward, and he tripped, falling to the sandy ground. Kodaline stood above him, smirking and bringing down her spear. Alexander rolled to once side, leaping around the girl, and reached into his pack.

Kodaline figured Alexander was reaching for a second weapon, and she was surprised when he pulled out this thermos. What she didn't know was that the thermos was filled with several inches of snake venom. Kodaline screamed as the boy splashed her from head to foot; she staggered to the ground, moaning, as whole chunks of her flesh were eaten away by the venom. Alexander watched with earnest as she died, and it was only after her cannon shot sounded that he truly realized he was a victor.

 _Kodaline Fayette, District 4 Female: 2nd, Killed by Alexander, Day 10_

"Alexander Westlake of District 10, you are the victor of the sixty-ninth annual Hunger Games!" Caesar and Claudius chimed.

Alexander just set down his thermos and peered up at the sun, the same sun he would see once he returned home to District 10.

 _Alexander Westlake, District 10 Male: Victor of the Sixty-Ninth Hunger Games, Day 10_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Alexander was happy to bring District 10 its second victor. Mrs. Cartmill was getting overwhelmed caring for so many new tributes year after year, and she was glad to have Mr. Westlake to share her duties with. Alexander was one of the craftier victors that District 10 would have, and many admired him for his poison tactics that he used in his games. Having only scored a three, Alexander was the lowest-scoring victor up to that point, tied only with Misty Sablone of the fifth games.

He moved into the Victor's Village of District 10, occupying the second house.

His victory tour was nothing of note, though all three of the career districts showered him with ill-will.

Alexander would live to the age of sixty-nine, dying from cancer four months after the one-hundred twenty-second annual Hunger Games. He would never marry nor have children, and he would take up the vice of alcohol to quiet his demons. Over time, he would develop into a rather poor example of a victor, and he would make good friends with fellow alcoholic victors Penelope, Chaff, and Haymitch. Many suspected him either to be asexual or a hermit, as he would have no known relationships with women or men in his lifetime.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Alexander moves into the Victor's Village of District 10, across the street from Margaret's home.

Margaret Cartmill has twin daughters, Hazel and Mavis.

Valerie Easton's fourth and final child, Pickson, is born.

Cashmere Linden gives birth to her first child, a girl she calls Salandra.

Slate Ogston, the victor of the twelfth annual Hunger Games, dies from an asthma attack.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)

* * *

 **A/N: Wowza, this chapter took a long time! Life got a bit hectic so I didn't have a whole lot of time to write, and there was a part in the middle of the chapter where I just didn't have any motivation to keep writing. But I powered through, and I can now say that the writer-ly inspiration we all know and love is back! :D**

 **I hope these games were surprising! Especially the quintuple career kill made by Alexander on the second day. It was really fun to type out all those uninterrupted death strips.**

 **And for a bit of trivia: the italicized strips are supposed to represent the cannon shots, hence the name 23 Cannons. When I wrote the first draft of the first chapter, I put all of the bloodbath death strips at the end of the bloodbath (like how the cannons wait until the end of the bloodbath to fire), but I thought it looked too cluttered and messy so I decided against it.**

 **Next up is Annie, one of the last canon victors before we dive head-first into uncharted territory. After her there's only Johanna and that District 2 boy who beats his final opponent with a brick (does he count as a canon victor if he's only shown for a few seconds in the film?)**


	71. The 70th Hunger Games

**The 70th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

As the seventh Hunger Games decade came to a close, the Capitol, and indeed all of Panem, was in turmoil. President Coriolanus Snow was celebrating his seventy-first birthday out with his wife Magnolia Asher when Magnolia abruptly fell out of her chair—dead. The roasted chicken and tuna she was eating was carefully inspected, and there wasn't a drop of poison anywhere in the meal. Every customer in the restaurant was interrogated by peacekeepers, and every single one of them claimed to be using the bathroom at the time of the murder. Magnolia's body was kept in a freezer in one of the Capitol's top labs to prevent any decay, but despite dozens of autopsies and investigations by the scientific team working in the lab they were unable to determine her cause of death. She was young and healthy as anyone, and the death was as out of the blue as anything could be. Come games time, the hunt for the killer would have to be put on hold, as everyone's attention was diverted to speculations about the careers, mutts, and supplies of the newest arena. Falcon Thorne returned for another year as head gamemaker; the only thing needed was a strong team and lots of materials to build the arena and the figments of his imagination would be emptied into the nightmares of district children. Despite the hype for the games, Falcon didn't release a trailer clip; he wanted to build up the Capitol's anticipation as much as possible, like carbonation against a cork.

The arena this year was a very creepy one; the tributes would find themselves in the ruins of an old Roman city. The cornucopia was only vaguely horn-shaped, and it was made of hundreds of bounders that were stacked together in such a way it seemed the tiniest touch would cause it to crumble. All around the tributes, the ground was covered with crumbly grass, and well-worn stone pathways wound their way through the ancient city. Where grand buildings had once stood, there were piles of dusty rubble. The only things in-tact were the statues. There were thousands of marble statues everywhere in the arena, depicting everything from presidents to gamemakers to tributes from past Hunger Games. The eyes of the statues had a strange tendency to follow the tributes as they walked past, and they were able to spook even the bravest tribute. On the far end of the arena, a gigantic mountain towered over the arena. Falcon originally considered making it a volcano, but ended up deciding against it. The mountain was strangely picturesque, and its slopes were easily climb-able. The top of the mountain was actually shaped like a bowl, and it held the largest lake to ever appear in a Hunger Games arena up to that point.

The careers were a pretty varied bunch this year, for several reasons. District 1's tributes were polar opposites. The male was a handsome dark-skinned boy with dark grey eyes and a demeanor that was whole shades of intimidating. He was also dangerously cunning and could manipulate almost anyone to do his bidding. Meanwhile, the girl was tall and slender with the classic blonde hair and blue eyes, and she had a playful smile and a cute laugh. District 2 offered the strongest pair. The boy was a steadfast classic, the super muscular boy who loved swordplay, and he was all about bringing honor to his family and to his district. The girl was one of the few red-haired District 2 tributes, and she stole the show with her beauty and mastery of weaponry. She would be dangerous. A nasty cold was running through District 4 at the time of the reapings; as a direct result, there were very few candidates for volunteer and both of the tributes were weaker. The boy was an oddball, very quirky and always looking to make others laugh, and he had District 4's classic curly brown hair. The girl suffered from a number of anxiety disorders, and she was very emotionally unstable and didn't talk much. Weirdly, she and her district partner got along well, and they were constantly comforting each other in the days leading up the games. The training scores of the pack were average: two tens, three nines, and an eight.

There was a strong enough outlier pack, and there were several memorable tributes. Two eights were earned. Railson from 6 had been working with hammers and screwdrivers from an early age, and he was very muscular. He had stamina, determination, and resilience to rival some of the best victors yet. Meanwhile, Seraphina from 9 was a girl who was more laid back and unconventional and very pretty, and she earned her eight by displaying her skills with traps and the like. Sevens were earned by Voltanna from 5, Cedar and Eileen from 7, and Stephani from 12. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. Mouse from 3 was another standout. He was like a human calculator, able to multiply five-digit numbers together in seconds. He'd mastered calculus at the age of eleven and many suspected he was a literal genius. Voltanna from 5 was another prodigy. She was born to be a musician; she'd been playing the entire string family since she was five, and she'd published eight symphonies and an opera that had premiered in the Capitol. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: the mentally-ill Rodger Calvert from District 11. He'd been abused his entire life, and, in a rare moment of clarity, volunteered for his cousin believing his life had little worth left. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Alistair Vilche, 18, (9) 6-1 and Blessing Franzen, 16, (9) 8-1

District 2: Gerome Walder, 16, (10) 3-1 and Orestilla Keen, 17, (10) 3-1

District 3: Mouse Saraceno, 15, (4) 37-1 and Socketta Pagett, 12, (4) 44-1

District 4: Swordfish Rindos, 18, (9) 6-1 and Annie Cresta, 18, (8) 10-1

District 5: Electrician Farmer, 17, (6) 20-1 and Voltanna Caite, 18, (7) 13-1

District 6: Railson Kirstmel, 18, (8) 12-1 and Martina Naftali, 15, (5) 26-1

District 7: Cedar Smilow, 18, (7) 13-1 and Eileen Pine, 16, (7) 15-1

District 8: Batiste Kropog, 16, (5) 24-1 and Lindsey Ciders, 13, (4) 41-1

District 9: Ethan Olivola, 17, (6) 19-1 and Seraphina Barret, 16, (8) 11-1

District 10: Hay McKinley, 16, (6) 21-1 and Dove Armidale, 12, (3) 52-1

District 11: Rodger Calvert, 14, (4) 38-1 and Suzette Mock, 18, (4) 35-1

District 12: Harris Melcher, 13, (5) 28-1 and Stephani Santos, 17, (7) 16-1

HGBO Bets: 12% on Orestilla, 11% on Gerome, 9% on Alistair and Blessing, 8% on Swordfish, 7% on Annie, 5% on Railson and Seraphina, 4% on Voltanna, Cedar, Eileen, and Stephani, 3% on Electrician, Ethan, and Hay, 2% on Martina, Batiste, and Harris, 1% or less on Mouse, Socketta, Lindsey, Dove, Rodger, and Suzette.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Before the bloodbath began, the cameras showed a sweeping view of the ruined Roman city. With so many recognizable features, it was hard to cover them all, and the cameras mainly focused on the colosseum and the picturesque mountain that loomed over the arena.

When the gong sounded, two tributes avoided the bloodbath: Lindsey from 8 and Stephani from 12. The rest of the tributes headed into the fray in hopes of gathering useful supplies to help them through the difficult weeks to come.

Swordfish won the footrace to the cornucopia, as despite lacking in some other areas he was an admirably fast sprinter. He swept up a spear that leaned against the cornucopia, glistening in the light of the overhead sun. Turning sharply on his heel, Swordfish thrust the spear into the neck of a nearby girl, and she fell, screaming. Her blood splattered against a nearby statue of Victor Technik Hartline as she died.

 _Socketta Pagett, District 3 Female: 24th, Killed by Swordfish, Bloodbath_

Gerome had been hunting for a sword for several seconds when he spotted one glimmering just inside the horn. He picked up the weapon and deftly thrust the blade into the back of a nearby boy who'd scored an eight. As he fell, Gerome smiled, having eliminating a very large threat from the competition.

 _Railson Kirstmel, District 6 Male: 23rd, Killed by Gerome, Bloodbath_

A younger boy was kneeling in the center of the cornucopia field, taking inventory of the contents of a bright orange pack. He was about to flee when Orestilla burst out of the nowhere. The boy was too shocked to fight back as the girl speared her sword through his abdomen, using so much force that the tip protruded from his back.

 _Rodger Calvert, District 11 Male: 22nd, Killed by Orestilla, Bloodbath_

Alistair had run all of the way into the cornucopia for a belt of throwing knives, and he began throwing as soon as the belt was clipped securely around his waist. A nearby outlier screamed as two of the knives dug into his chest; he tripped over his own feet and staggered to the ground, weeping softly as Alistair polished him off with just one more knife.

 _Batiste Kropog, District 8 Male: 21st, Killed by Alistair, Bloodbath_

Gerome and Orestilla teamed up to take down the three tributes that were inside of the cornucopia: Cedar and Eileen from 7 and Martina from 6. All three of the tributes were fast, and it wasn't an easy task to kill them all. At the sight of the 2s, the three tributes scrambled for the mouth of the horn. Martina screamed as she ran right into Gerome's blade, and she fell, knocking down Eileen in her descent. She died as Eileen struggled to wiggle out from underneath her weight.

 _Martina Naftali, District 6 Female: 20th, Killed by Gerome, Bloodbath_

On the other side of the cornucopia, Annie tackled a lanky boy to the ground. Despite her numerous mental afflictions, she wasn't afraid of killing. The boy let out an earsplitting screech as Annie dug both of her twin knives into his chest. He struggled to cling onto life, but in less than a minute he was as dead as the old Roman civilization.

 _Harris Melcher, District 12 Male: 19th, Killed by Annie, Bloodbath_

Inside of the cornucopia, Orestilla and Gerome attacked the girl trapped underneath Martina's dead body. She tried to drag herself away, but it was no use. Gerome flung his sword into the back of Eileen's neck, promptly cutting of the blood flow through her brain. Orestilla quickly finished her with a single thrusting motion of her sword, and they wiped their weapons clean as her eyes rolled back into her head.

 _Eileen Pine, District 7 Female: 18th, Killed by Gerome and Orestilla, Bloodbath_

Orestilla tackled Cedar, the third tribute trying to escape. He was mere seconds from fleeing to safety when Orestilla grabbed up a nearby pack and threw it with all of her might. Cedar gasped as the pack knocked him to the ground, and he rolled right into the point of Orestilla's sword as she and Gerome cackled with triumph.

 _Cedar Smilow, District 7 Male: 17th, Killed by Orestilla, Bloodbath_

Swordfish made his second kill. He swapped out his spear for a mace, and a nearby girl froze with shock as he demolished a statue of Theresia Cloud. The resulting cloud of rubble was so thick that the girl couldn't see Swordfish lunging toward her. The 4 boy swung the mace into the side of her head, causing it to explode like a rotting melon, and she was killed instantaneously.

 _Suzette Mock, District 11 Female: 16th, Killed by Swordfish, Bloodbath_

Blessing hadn't made a kill yet, but as she surveyed the cornucopia field she spotted a dark-haired boy crouched inside of the horn, slowly bleeding out from a knife wound inflicted by Alistair, the 1 girl's senior by two years. Blessing fired a volley of two arrows. Her aim was perfect; the boy was seconds away from death anyway, and he barely felt it.

 _Ethan Olivola, District 9 Male: 15th, Killed by Alistair and Blessing, Bloodbath_

Annie's knives claimed another life. She'd been quietly following a boy from a low-numbered district for several minutes when he noticed her. Gasping, the boy ran to safety, but he wasn't fast enough. Annie tackled him, driving one of her knives through his neck. Blood pooled up in his mouth, bubbling from his last breaths, and the career girl quickly abandoned the boy's swiftly cooling corpse.

 _Electrician Farmer, District 5 Male: 14th, Killed by Annie, Bloodbath_

Gerome finished off the bloodbath. He was sword-dueling with a clever boy from an outlying district when he made a devious move, confusing his opponent by swinging his sword to the side and then slashing the blade into his hip when he turned. The boy fell against a statue of a male tribute from some games or another. The others watched as Gerome drove the sword deeper and deeper into his flesh, triggering the eleven loud cannon shots.

 _Hay McKinley, District 10 Male: 13th, Killed by Gerome, Bloodbath_

With the cornucopia bloodbath at its conclusion, the six careers moved away from the horn so the hovercraft could gather the bodies of the dead. Afterward, they all went about their business. Alistair went about sorting the weapons. There didn't seem to be any theme this year; all of the classic Hunger Games weapons were provided in equal amounts. He ended up sorting them into three categories: projectile (bows, throwing knives); melee (swords, maces); and miscellaneous (poisons, nets). Blessing was spending less time being productive and more time displaying her body to the Capitol, including by posing beside the statues and washing herself in a small pool near the horn. The others mostly scowled at her. So far, she was shaping up to be the ditzy 1 girl who gets offed by her allies in the first week, but they weren't going to kill her yet, when there were so many outliers remaining. Gerome and Orestilla, the stony pair from 2, found the perfect way to let their destructive impulses out of their systems. They each grabbed maces and began demolishing the statues in the immediate vicinity of the horn. This would give them a better view of the arena, and it let them show off their strength to the Capitol early on. They did not stop until all of the nearby marble statues were flattened. Swordfish and Annie sorted rations in the back of the horn, telling jokes and engaging in light-hearted conversation. They were one of the closest-knit pairs the Hunger Games had seen yet, and the cameras never showed one without the other. Many found their platonic chemistry cute, and sponsors sent them a loaf of salty District 4 bread that they shared. Around noon, the pack went hunting, leaving Alistair to guard the horn while they were away.

The outliers spread out from the horn, scattering themselves amongst the ruins of the Roman city. Mouse and Voltanna, the math and music prodigies respectively, had allied prior to the games. They sprinted down one of the winding paths for most of the day. When the sun fell, they collapsed in the ruins of a blacksmith shop after tearing open their packs and finding them filled with water, rope, and loaves of bread. Lindsey sped toward the mountain in the far west. Deathly afraid of the careers, she pushed herself seven miles away from the horn before falling against a statue of Misty Sablone. Seraphina followed a thick stream she'd found winding through the roman city. After a few hours, she found the place where the streams all collected: a crystal-clear pool surrounded by temples to several water gods and goddesses. The girl ducked into one of the temples for the night, munching on rye bread. Dove fled into the northern ruins of the Roman city, and the most in-tact building she could find was a temple to Ceres, the patron of the Harvest. There was a good amount of food on the alter, and it made for a tasty feast for the 10 girl. Stephani waded through a smaller stream, a tributary of one of the larger rivers. The water was shallow enough to only barely cover her ankles, and the cool sensation was pleasant for the girl as she wandered closer to the mountain in the distance. A few minutes before nightfall, she assembled a makeshift shelter on the bank, in the shadow of a cluster of trees.

Day 2 was deathless. The careers were eager to hunt, ravenous to thin the crowds of outliers and end the games as quickly as possible. The portion of the pack that was hunting, Orestilla their leader, wound their way down one of the paths that led them away from the cornucopia. At noon, they followed Lindsey's soft snores to her sleeping form. A stick snapped under Blessing's foot, and Lindsey woke screaming. As it happened, she was incredibly fast, and she lost the pack in less than a minute. Falcon was eager to see what Mouse and Voltanna were capable of, so he sent a swarm of faun mutts after them—little men with the legs of goats and knobby horns. The duo fended them off for twenty minutes or so before they took the hint and retreated. The mutts were battered and exhausted, and so were the two tributes; they quickly returned to their shelter to catch up on their sleep. Stephani moved even closer to the mountain that towered over the arena. It was a long journey for even the strongest outlier, but the girl was strong and resilient and didn't give up for a second. She reached the foot of the rock feature a few minutes before nightfall, and she rested in a small cave, not wanting to scale the mountain until she had her full energy back.

Day 3 was not as uneventful. The career pack broke camp at dawn and commenced their hunt soon after. They were searching the southern ruins of the arena when they heard the soft snores of two tributes. They assembled into their ranks (Orestilla in front, Gerome and Swordfish just behind, Blessing and Annie in the back) and quietly moved forward. Voltanna had to fight with all of her willpower to keep from screaming as she awoke to the footsteps of the pack. She reached over inside of the sleeping bag she shared with her ally and patted Mouse twice on the back to wake him up, hissing for him to be quiet. Mouse didn't hear her, instead sitting up and yawning loudly. The pack lunged, and the two tributes sprang to their feet, racing away from the vicious careers.

The duo came to a river, and they jumped in. They were both good swimmers, so they were hoping to reach an area of the river where the careers couldn't follow them. The thing was, they could throw their weapons. Voltanna cursed as one of Swordfish's spears grazed her shoulder, drawing a few drops of blood. As Mouse and Voltanna scrambled farther and farther down the bank, four out of the five careers hurried after them, with one exception. Annie was hanging back. Her heart hurt terribly for the poor tributes, and she couldn't bring herself to lay her knives on anyone so young. She watched through tear-clouded eyes as Orestilla and Gerome thrust their swords through the torsos of each of the allies, and Annie realized truly how unprepared she was for these games.

 _Mouse Saraceno, District 3 Male: 12th, Killed by Orestilla, Day 3_

 _Voltanna Caite, District 5 Female: 11th, Killed by Gerome, Day 3_

On Day 4, temperatures rose in the arena. Falcon hoped the heat would drive the tributes out of their save havens and into more dangerous areas where they could gather water. He may have gone a little overkill; temperatures peaked at one-hundred degrees Fahrenheit at noon. The careers returned to the cornucopia at daybreak, as they wanted to fill in Alistair about everything they had done while they were away and they needed a supply restock anyway. The sweltering outliers moved around more than ever before, never wanting to stay in the stuffy heat of the ruins for too long a stretch. Stephani started up the mountain at dawn, and by noon she'd reached its peak. It was as though the top of the mountain had been sliced clean off, and the world's largest ice cream scooper had been dug into what was left. The lake at the top of the mountain was extremely peaceful, and Stephani was so tired from the journey upward that she quickly fell asleep to the sound of lapping water.

Lindsey reached the foot of the mountain at three in the evening. She gathered her supplies and prepared for the long climb when—was it just her imagination, or was one of the statues moving? She grabbed a piece of stone and held it in her grasp, prepared to throw it if danger was imminent. The statue was moving, and it was drawing closer and closer to her. Lindsey tried to scramble, but her feet were locked to the ground by electrical currents inflicted by her tracker. The statue, which was modeled after a female tribute from some games or another, held out its hands and opened them. In one hand, there was a small figurine of a winged lion. The other hand held a statuette of a vicious-looking green serpent.

"Choose one," the statue uttered.

Lindsey's eyes jumped between the winged lion and the serpent, and she eventually settled on the winged lion, liking its golden color. The statue nodded and instantaneously crumpled to ash. Little did the girl know that her choice was causing chaos on the other side of the arena.

The careers had just stopped for their noon meal when the roar of the lion mutt blasted in their ears. They grabbed their weapons and frantically looked around, able to hear the lion's roars but without any clue to its location. The lion was flying overhead, and Alistair was the first to notice the flap of its leathery wings. The 1 boy looked upward just as the winged lion pounced, wrestling him to the ground. Alistair's limbs flopped like a dying fish as the growling lion dug its claws into its chest. Orestilla and Gerome had run right to the mutt, and they were struggling to keep it still so they could puncture its flesh with their swords. Annie couldn't bear to watch as Alistair was torn apart. The 4 girl prepared to run into the skirmish, but Swordfish held her back. The 4s and Blessing ducked into a nearby pile of rubble, shaking and waiting to see what would come of the 2s' attempts to seduce the rogue mutt.

It soon became apparent that Alistair was hopeless. In seconds, the lion was tearing off strips of his bloody flesh and shoving them into its mouth. As gore flew through the air, Orestila and Gerome fell back into the ruins of the Roman city, unwilling to risk their lives any more as Alistair let out his last breaths.

 _Alistair Vilche, District 1 Male: 10th, Killed by Winged Lion Muttation, Day 4_

They all assumed that the lion would be content having killed one of them, but they couldn't have been more wrong. This mutt wasn't one to quit while it was ahead, and it would not stop ruthlessly inflicting carnage until its own heart stopped beating. Orestilla and Gerome screamed and scattered as the lion smashed the ruined temple they were hiding behind with one swing of its mighty paw. Chunks of debris were sent flying, and the duo only barely managed to escape in time. Shards of stone hit their backs, inflicting small cuts and scrapes, but nothing major. At that point, it was obvious that all five of them had to chip in if they wanted the mutt dead. Swordfish screamed out a proposal to the others: the five of them would assemble in a circle around the mutt. When it lunged toward a tribute, the two allies on either side of that unlucky tribute would each leap inward to help out. While those three were distracting it, the other two would kill it from behind. It was a sound plan in theory, but the lion was roaring so loudly that none of the others could hear him.

While the careers were all suffering from varying degrees of misery in the life-or-death situation, the pitiful Annie from 4 was the worst. The stress of the games was driving her mad. She'd slid down against the exterior wall of a nearby building, crying and screaming and begging to be sent home. Her refusal to participate in the effort to off the mutt meant that the others had to compensate for the absence of yet another member; four were now doing the work of six.

All seemed to be going fell at first. The devious Gerome recalled that mutts often had poor reflexes, and he sent the winged lion crashing into a cluster of statues by diving to the left at the last millisecond. Its wings were so damaged that it was unable to fly, but it quickly recovered from the minor setback, exploding out of the pile of rubble and diving toward the nearest tribute. A scream caught in Orestilla's throat as it bounded toward her, and she quickly leaped upward, landing on top of the lion. It roared with fury and jumped up and down, trying to buck her off. The 2 girl held onto its mane, but despite her best efforts she just wasn't strong enough to keep on. In seconds, she was sent flying off, and she landed with a crash about ten meters away.

What happened next was one of the oddest events to transpire in the first Hunger Games century. So quickly that none of them had time to breathe, the lion turned to the right and opened its maw wide. It closed its mouth around the nearby Swordfish's head and yanked it off. The empty stump of his head spouted blood as his cannon sounded, and the lion mutt tossed Swordfish's head like a baseball, and it landed out of sight.

 _Swordfish Rindos, District 4 Male: 9th, Killed by Winged Lion Muttation, Day 4_

Many screams followed Swordfish's cannon shot, but they weren't his. They came from his district partner, Annie. Watching her friend's decapitation right in front of her eyes was the straw that broke the camel's back for the girl. The traumatized Annie held her face in her hands as she abandoned the pack, racing at top speed toward the mountain in the distance. The two able-bodied members of the pack took down the lion admirably quickly. Gerome constantly prodded at the beast's flesh with the point of his sword, but it was Blessing who inflicted the blow that killed the lion. Gerome punched it in its maw; it opened its mouth to roar, and two of Blessing's arrows buried themselves into its throat. Without the ability to breathe, the lion mutt was dead in just a few moments.

Blessing and Gerome rushed to find Orestilla. She was crumpled in a pile of gravel, crying as blood oozed from everywhere on her body. Gerome had decent medical skills, and he wrapped up his district partner with a little gauze sent by sponsors. It quelled the bleeding a tiny bit, but it wasn't nearly enough to heal her. Gerome shakily whispered to her that she should savor her last day on Earth. Blessing and Gerome carried Orestilla to the horn and dropped her on a stretcher, where they took turns spoon feeding her and deciphering the last words she uttered to her friends and family back in District 2.

Meanwhile, Annie was racing toward the mountain without slowing down. There weren't words to describe the sheer terror that was closing its fist around her. At nightfall, she collapsed at the base of the mountain, crying to herself and covering her ears as if to block out Swordfish's final cries, which still rang in her ears hours later. Annie was too miserable to do anything but drag herself in circles over the rock and demand that the memories of Swordfish's decapitation leave her forever.

Nobody in the nation of Panem predicted it, but Day 5 was the last day in the arena. Eight tributes were left in the arena as the sun rose, but only one would remain as it fell. The day would transpire with one of the biggest blunders to ever occur in Hunger Games history, one of the biggest failures, faux pas, and fallacies that human error would ever create. It involved the lake contained by the mountain's flat top.

When Falcon and his team designed the mountain months prior, they used the agreed-upon metric system, using meters and kilometers to describe the dimensions of the rock feature and using liters and kiloliters to describe the volume of the mountaintop lake. However, the builders who brought the arena into reality used customary units, like gallons, feet, and miles. This caused several misalignments in the structure, and in fact made it so that the slightest tremors would cause the lake to spill onto the arena below.

Falcon had been planning since the start of the games to make earthquakes a reoccurring theme in the arena; every day, tremors would occur, becoming more and more intense with each new day. Unaware of the disaster that was about to take place, he triggered the first of the earthquakes. The epicenter was about a mile west of the cornucopia, and it was so faint that only a few tributes felt it. Dove poked her head out of the temple to Ceres and glanced nervously around. She eventually dismissed the light rumbles as figments of her imagination and went back to what she was doing. On the mountain, however, chaos was ensuing. Stephani was about halfway up the slope when a groan louder than she had ever heard in her life filled the air. The top of the mountain was collapsing, and water from the lake was running down the sides of the cone like little lava out of a volcano. Stephani turned to flee, but she was zigzagging down the slope carefully and therefore slowly.

It happened all at once. With an enormous groan, the walls of the lake busted, and waterfalls of water splashed down the sides of the mountain, blocking out the sun for those on the slope. Stephani screamed as the first splash descended onto her, engulfing her. The water rushed eastward to engulf the ruined Roman city, carrying Stephani with it. The 12 girl was deposited after half a minute in a pile of rubble. She kicked to the surface of the choppy water, taking a deep breath, but the surface of the water was violently churning and she wasn't a very good swimmer. Her lungs filled with water over the course of the next minute, and her life was the first to be claimed as the floodwaters were unleashed onto the arena.

 _Stephani Santos, District 12 Female: 8th, Killed by Drowning, Day 5_

Lindsey was in the lower areas of the mountain when it began grumbling. Knowing that it couldn't be a good sign, she made her way down the slope as quickly as possible, racing back toward the village. She'd watched enough Hunger Games in her days to know that the groans of the mountain couldn't be a good thing, and she suspected some sort of volcano like that of the second Quarter Quell. She reached the village just as the lake busted, sending millions of gallons of water rushing down onto the arena. Lindsey's eyes landed on a nearby tree with a wide trunk. Using a few sharp rocks like the claws of a cat, she scaled the trunk and held on for dear life, praying the tree would hold strong as the floodwaters churned underneath her.

Annie had spent the night prior in a small cave near the base of the mountain, crying into her hands. As the mountain creaked like a sinking ship, Annie peered out of the cave to investigate. One of the small streams was splattering down right next to the cave, sending droplets of water flying in all directions. She knew something bad was about to happen, and she only took the bare necessities with her as she raced down the slope. She was a hundred feet from the bottom when the floodwaters caught up to her, and Annie was swept away by the current. She kicked for the surface, gasping, and swam against the forces of the flood, grabbing onto a large boulder nearby. If Annie were from any district other than District 4, she would have had no chance of survival, but her eighteen years of life in the fishing district ensured that she was a stronger swimmer than most tributes could ever claim to be. It was agony to keep her head above the surface, but she kept telling herself not to give up, to win the games for Swordfish.

Dove heard the evil sounds the mountain made and barricaded herself into the corner of the decrepit building she was hiding in. She figured the sounds were being made by a mutt, and she hoped the imaginary mutt wouldn't think anyone was home if she hid well enough. Her screams of panic were loud as the freezing floodwaters splashed into the building. Leaping to her feet, she waded to the entrance. The water was two feet high and rising fast—it was coming in torrents, crashing over rooftops and sweeping statues clean off of their stands. Dove paddled toward high ground, trying not to scream as the water rose higher and higher. In minutes, she was too exhausted to go any farther, and she sank like as stone to the bottom. Escape was hopeless from the start.

 _Dove Armidale, District 10 Female: 7th, Killed by Drowning, Day 5_

As the mountaintop lake drained onto the Roman city, the careers were in a panic. They'd only woken up as the wall of water pummeled the arena in full force, and they screamed, jumping on top of the cornucopia. Pulses of water hit the sides of the horn and crashed upward, and Blessing and Gerome huddled together on the roof. It was only after several seconds that they realized Orestilla was missing. Due to her injuries inflicted by the winged lion mutt, she couldn't reach safety fast enough to escape the rising waters, and she drowned inside of the cornucopia as her allies waited with earnest above her.

 _Orestilla Keen, District 2 Female: 6th, Killed by Winged Lion Muttation and Drowning, Day 5_

Blessing and Gerome yelped as the cold lake water splashed onto their feet. The entire cornucopia was submerged, but the water didn't stop there; it just kept rising, and the careers had to evacuate to the horn to find a safer area of the arena. The duo paddled toward high ground, determined to survive, whatever it took.

The gamemakers' control room was a scene of pure mayhem. There were gamemakers running to and fro, sweating as alarms sounded all around them. Falcon's first command was to blast several holes in the ground, stopping the water for a few minutes as the holes flooded. As the gamemakers riffled through the arsenal of explosives they had in store, they found that there weren't any which could fall through such a thick layer of water and only explode after touching bottom. The gamemakers were helpless as they watched a situation that they could in no way prevent or avert. The games would have to play out naturally, without interference from the team.

Seraphina was resting in the temple to a water goddess when she heard the rumbles of the far away mountain. Suspecting a deadly mutt like a few tributes before her, she barricaded herself in the temple as the shakes grew louder and louder. The first splashed of water engulfed the temple in seconds. With water pouring in through every open crevice, it wasn't long before water was up to the girl's waist. Seraphina waded toward the entrance, and by the time she evacuated the temple it had completely flooded. Seraphina rocketed to the surface and spat out a mouthful of water before paddling toward an area of the arena where the water looked calmer, praying she would survive the horrible disaster.

Back at the cornucopia, the lives of Gerome and Blessing were ending. Admittedly, they'd awoken too late to be saved, and escaping the rising waters was hopeless no matter how hard they paddled. Finally giving up, Blessing clutched a statue of Magnet Lisagor, struggling to stay rooted as the currents tried to sweep her away. Gerome wasn't as lucky. The water had covered his head, and he was being throwing around underneath the surface as if being pummeled by invisible hands. He drowned in minutes as his ally Blessing clung onto her life twenty meters off.

 _Gerome Walder, District 2 Male: 5th, Killed by Drowning, Day 5_

Despite her determination to survive, Blessing couldn't last long. A minute after Gerome's death, the mountaintop lake had completely emptied. Slowly but surely, the waters began to calm, and the 1 girl thought she was strong enough to swim to high ground now that the currents weren't as vicious. Big mistake. She let go of the statue and was immediately tugged downward, her head knocking against the foot of the statue. She was unconscious in seconds, and she fell prey to drowning minutes later.

 _Blessing Franzen, District 1 Female: 4th, Killed by Drowning, Day 5_

Over the past few minutes, Annie had been precariously making her way back toward the Roman city. She might let go of the statue she was clinging to and paddle for ten seconds or so before grabbing onto another to rest. It was a slow method of travel and an inefficient one, but it was better than staying still. Annie reached the first crumbled building about thirty minutes after the rupturing of the lake, and she climbed on top of it. Now that more water had stopped entering the city, the level stopped rising. Annie sat cross-legged on the roof of the building and watched as the water level lowered and lowered.

All in less than an hour, the horrible disaster was over. From there, the gamemakers started draining away the floodwaters, and what they had left was a hideous slippery mud-splattered landscape that was only vaguely recognizable as the Roman city it had once been. As the fifth day wore on, the final three moved about with their heads hanging. Annie made her way to the center of the city, passing by dripping buildings and broken statues. It was one of the dreariest scenes ever shown in Hunger Games history, and what was even more depressing was the fact that none of it had been planned, the destruction of the arena had only been due to a mathematical error on the part of the head builders. Lindsey waited several hours before dropping from the tree she'd climbed. She spent the rest of the light hours of the day fashioning a weapon by banging rocks together until they split and formed sharp edges. As darkness fell, Lindsey rested near the outskirts of the city, surrounded by some of the few statues that had managed to withstand the flood. Seraphina returned to the water temple in hopes of recovering some of her supplies, but it soon became apparent that nothing was left. Everything inside of the temple had been swept away, and despite Seraphina's best efforts to recover the lost supplies they remained just that—lost.

Now that so much action had transpired in the span of the fifth day, Falcon figured he may as well end the games quickly. The seventieth Hunger Games were going to be a flop however he played his cards from there on out, and his entire team agreed that crowning the victor as soon as possible would be their best bet at offering the Capitol some sort of satisfaction.

It was ten o'clock that night when young Lindsey awoke to a strange sound. It was almost as though stone were being scraped against something soft, but the noise seemed to be coming from several identical sources at once. She peeked out of the pile of rubble she was hiding inside of and instantly regretted her decision. The horde of statues that she'd fallen asleep next to had come alive, and they were marching toward her. Lindsey screamed and leaped to her feet, and she turned around just as the sword of a statue modeled after Brutus Cordley entered her gut. Lindsey screamed and spun around and around. More and more statues were coming to life and crowding around her, and she was helpless as they tore and beat her to bits. The finale had begun.

 _Lindsey Ciders, District 8 Female: 3rd, Killed by Statue Muttations, Day 5_

It was somewhat fascinating to watch as clusters of statues all around the arena started moving, coming to life and creeping toward the two remaining tributes. Annie screamed as a statue reached its arm into the small cave she was inside of. By the time she'd managed to fully wiggle out into the open, there were a good two dozen of the statue mutts closing in on all sides. She shakily drew one of the knives that hadn't slipped out during the flood and quickly realized it would be useless against the statues that were made of marble. She pocketed the knife and snatched up a heavy rock, bowling in one direction as fast as her legs could carry her. Three mutts lunged toward her, and Annie kicked one of them in the torso, sending the mutt reeling. Her red hair fanned out behind her as she chipped off one of the mutts' hands with her rock. The mutt collapsed to the ground, appearently dead. The coast clear, Annie headed toward the cornucopia, knowing the finale was nigh.

Seraphina was sleeping near the water temple when the creaking of the living statue mutts awoke her. She ducked into the shadows, drawing a knife she'd been sponsored a few hours prior, and waited for further clues about whatever mutts were nearby. She barely had time to deflect as a hand shot out from the darkness, and it yanked out a few of the girl's hair strands. Seraphina bolted away from the marble hand and ran straight into another statue mutt, modeled after some District 2 tribute from a past Hunger Games. She just barely managed to duck under its sword, and Seraphina bolted toward the cornucopia with the mutts trailing behind.

Annie and Seraphina reached the horn at about the same time. The two girls hastily climbed onto the cornucopia, and they were quickly greeted by a horrible banging that made them feel queasy; the dozens of live statue mutts were banging against the horn beneath their feet, and it was shaking so hard that the two girls had to struggle to keep from tumbling off of the sides. Small parachutes zipped down to each of the finalists carrying daggers, and they drew their weapons, circling each other and never breaking eye contact.

As it turned out, this was one of the shortest finales of any Hunger Games. Annie was the first to lunge forward, and her first blow shocked Seraphina so much that she lost her footing, toppling off of the side of the horn. The statues crowded around her, struggling to get closer and closer to her screaming form. She was dead in minutes, and then Annie was the only remaining tribute.

 _Seraphina Barret, District 9 Female: 2nd, Killed by Annie and Statue Muttations, Day 5_

"Annie Cresta of District 4, you are the victor of the seventieth annual Hunger Games!" Caesar and Claudius shouted, backed up by the symphony of trumpets.

The 4 girl wiped a tear from her eye, already trying to forget everything she'd witnessed in her games.

 _Annie Cresta, District 4 Female: Victor of the Seventieth Hunger Games, Day 5_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 4 was somewhat humiliated to accept Annie into their growing victor lineup. Being a career district, the district prided itself on its vicious and cold-blooded victors, but Annie was the first who "broke the mold" so to speak. Nevertheless, her victory was accepted as legitimate by the Capitol. Being a substantially attractive victor meant that she would be forced to cater to the whims of the highest-bidding Capitolites as they saw fit.

She settled into the Victor's Village of District 4, the eleventh victor to do so.

Her Victory Tour was a disaster. District 9 showered her with hatred and ill-will, and even her own District 4 gave her the cold shoulder.

Annie would live to the age of seventy-five, dying from an aneurism four and three-fourths months before the one-hundred twenty-seventh annual Hunger Games. She was one of the more traumatized victors; for the rest of her life she would often cover her ears and blurt out random sounds as though trying to drown out the cries of the other tributes as they were swept away. She would marry Finnick Odair, the victor of the sixty-fifth Hunger Games, and anyone could tell that the couple was deeply and passionately in love. Sometimes one another's words of encouragement or even simple company was the only thing keeping them from breaking.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Annie moves into the Victor's Village of District 4, the eleventh to do so.

Margaret Cartmill gives birth to her fifth child, Mavis.

Cashmere Linden's daughter, Silk, is born.

Dina Wilmarth, the victor of the fifteenth annual Hunger Games, drowns to death in the bathtub of her Victor's Village home.

Maria Dutra, the victor of the twenty-eighth Hunger Games, dies after being strangled by her shower curtain.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's Annie! We sadly didn't get to see a lot of her because her games were so short, but I'm glad I've gotten out the next chapter in my Hunger Games chronology! I don't think this chapter is making any Top 10 lists though, as it was only natural given the unexpected nature of the flood and everything that none of the characters really got a chance to shine.**

 **And to cheer us all up a little, this story has passed its one year anniversary! Woohoo! I'd try to draw a cake using text symbols but the fanfiction formatting will probably murder any image I try to assemble XD**

 **Next up is a victor I've been looking forward to writing for a super long time, the one, the only Johanna Mason! The books describe her as having feigned weakness for most of her games, so sadly we won't get to see a lot of Johanna being her awesome Johanna self. But I've been doing lots of planning to ensure that those games will be as thrilling as they can be, so stay tuned for that!**

 **P.S. The 71st games might take a little longer because I'm working on the enormous bloodbath chapter for my SYOT, so don't think something is wrong if the update takes longer than usual ;)**


	72. The 71st Hunger Games

**The 71st Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

After the flood fiasco of the year prior, Head Gamemaker Falcon Thorne "retired" under the pressure of his peers, and, most of all, the dastardly President Snow, who kept the throat of the nation strangled for another year, sending his best peacekeepers to silence rebellion and drain the bank accounts of the districts. While his career hadn't been the longest (Falcon held the steering wheel of the games ship for a meager five years, whereas the retired Feodore Elliot held the position for ten) he had been responsible for some of the most thrilling games yet, and he would be missed. As the seventy-first Hunger Games rolled around, it became urgent that a new head gamemaker be selected to fill the vacated post, and there was no clear-cut winner. In his time as head gamemaker, Falcon had preferred to treat each of the minor gamemakers equally, giving each a different job to do as the games transpired. This was virtually unheard of, as most head gamemakers preferred to have a second-in-command who would take over once they retired. It was customary that the president of Panem select the new head gamemaker, and after sorting through the hundreds of auditions he announced the name of the new head gamemaker to all. Celesta Mirthe was a very young woman, scarcely thirty years old, and she was very pretty, with piercing blue eyes and golden-blonde curls. Celesta was very much a lover of fantasy, liking the unseen and unseeable, and this would most certainly show in her first arena. She quickly appointed her gamemaker team, and construction of the arena began shortly after as the Capitol waited with anticipation and terror festered the districts in slow succession.

The arena this year was a surreal place to even imagine, and seeing it come to life as a Hunger Games arena was the crowning moment of Celesta's career. At first glance, the arena seemed like a normal backyard spring garden. There were colorful flowers everywhere, and planter boxes, trowels, and pots of seeds were strewn all over the place. It was only when the tributes would enter it that everyone would realize how strange it was. Everything was massive; the petals of the flowers were easily two meters long, and the plants towered over the tributes like trees. This gave the tributes the impression that they were the sizes of ants. The mutts of the arena almost entirely consisted of bugs; everything from dragonflies to ladybugs called the arena home, and the bugs were the size of the tributes. Water could easily be obtained via the many small lakes and streams around the arena, and all of it was safe to drink. Rainfall was also plentiful, and it was safe to drink as well. Food and water would not be of concern for the tributes this year.

The careers were a bunch of screwballs this year. District 1 was the only district that provided two well-trained careers. The boy was actually one of the poorer citizens of District 1, but he was muscular from working in the jewel mines and very handsome and resilient, and he was quite funny and calming. The girl was all-in-it-for-the-honor and was constantly sticking to the typical career formula, seeing it as a way to honor the tributes that had taken the path before her and forge her own path toward victory. There was a major mishap in District 2 this year. The designated male volunteer, eighteen-year-old Clayton Tipspin, freaked out at the reaping and didn't volunteer. As a result, a smaller and weaker boy who only scored a six was sent into the games. In a bout of district chivalry, the girl broke away from the career pack vowing to protect her district partner and bring him home. Heavy storms battered District 4 for the few weeks leading up to the reaping, and as a result the academy had to call off the selection process of a male and female volunteer. Despite never being trained, the reaped boy scored a seven with his trident talents, as well as his skills with traps and the like, and he was decently good-looking. The District 4 girl was the one who stole the show this year. She had been training for the games since the age of five and refused to let the stupid storms stand between her and victors' row. This Rilletta girl assembled a small raft and paddled over the churning floodwaters for nearly five hours to reach the academy, where she stood submerged to the chest and refused to leave until the academy would guarantee her place as a volunteer. She was so feisty and edgy that the gamemakers were forced to hand her an eleven, and she was stunningly beautiful and very dangerous. The training scores of the careers weren't the best. The pack's three members earned an eleven, a ten, and a nine. As for the three not in the pack, a nine, a seven, and a six were scored.

There was a decent outlier crop this year, and there were many unique personalities and memorable tributes. Pumpkin from 11 was the first outlier in years to score a nine. He was over six feet tall and muscular, and he was extremely skilled with sickles and scythes. The 11 boy also had a wide range of survival skills stretching from water purification to fire starting to identifying edible bugs. Elmer from 7 earned an eight, though it was almost a nine; he was one of 7's more charming and charismatic tributes, and he was their steadfast classic, liking hatchets and axes. Sevens were earned by Cordaire from 3, Franco and Ireland from 9, and Vicuña from 10. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers. Mekhi from District 5, who volunteered out of desperation. She was ill with terminal cancer, and she knew that her only hope of treatment was to win the games. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Jewelson West, 17, (10) 4-1 and Khlassa Patton, 17, (9) 5-1

District 2: Fletcher Sanders, 16 (6) 20-1 and Junia Bailey, 18, (9) 6-1

District 3: Pixello Shepherd, 15, (4) 33-1 and Cordaire Vick, 18, (7) 15-1

District 4: Coast Danielson, 18, (7) 11-1 and Rilletta Cillate, 18, (11) 3-1

District 5: Steem Hidalgo, 18, (6) 19-1 and Mekhi Kirk, 16, (5) 24-1

District 6: Chassis Lott, 15, (5) 26-1 and Gasoline Delegarza, 14, (3) 48-1

District 7: Elmer Redmond, 16, (8) 9-1 and Johanna Mason, 18, (4) 31-1

District 8: Cloth Alford, 14, (5) 25-1 and Theodora Nott, 13, (3) 52-1

District 9: Franco Brannon, 18, (7) 15-1 and Ireland Sanborn, 17, (7) 14-1

District 10: Joey Mccrary, 12, (5) 27-1 and Vicuña Bartholomew, 17, (7) 13-1

District 11: Pumpkin Venegas, 18, (9) 6-1 and Sun Abreu, 16, (4) 34-1

District 12: Nyckell Keene, 17, (4) 33-1 and Bluebell Ripley, 18, (5) 23-1

HGBO Bets: 19% on Rilletta, 13% on Jewelson, 12% on Khlassa and Junia, 7% on Pumpkin and Elmer, 5% on Coast, 3% on Cordaire, Franco, Ireland, and Vicuña, 2% on Steem, Mekhi, Chassis, Cloth, Joey, and Bluebell, 1% or less on Pixello, Gasoline, Johanna, Theodora, Sun, and Nyckell.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Confusion reflected on the faces of the players as they saw the arena for the first time. Many of them couldn't tell if they had become smaller or if everything else had become bigger, and many of them outstretched their arms as if checking that they were in their original flesh. They all felt like little ants in the garden that was the arena, and twenty-three of them would be smushed before the victor was crowned.

When the gong rang, a single tribute fled the bloodbath: Chassis from 6 didn't want to risk running into the fray and instead decided to take his chances with what he could find into the arena. As Chassis fled into the jumble of giant garden plants, the other twenty-three tributes surged toward the cornucopia.

Rilletta grinned roguishly as her fingers wrapped around the sleek trident she had requested from the gamemakers. Twirling sharply on her heel, she hurled the trident at a nearby girl. The girl screamed as the points of the weapon dug into her chest, and Rilletta ran to her side to retrieve her trident as the bloodbath began in earnest.

 _Mekhi Kirk, District 5 Female: 24th, Killed by Rilletta, Bloodbath_

Khlassa had been passing her spear anxiously between her hands for a minute or so when a weaker girl ran right into her by accident, knocking her to the ground. The outlier screamed as Khlassa rolled out from underneath her, and the next moment Khlassa was shoving her spear into her chest with admirable poise. Blood flew everywhere, and the 1 girl moved on quickly in pursuit of more victims.

 _Bluebell Ripley, District 12 Female: 23rd, Killed by Khlassa, Bloodbath_

Jewelson picked up the youngest tribute in these games and threw him to the ground like nothing. The small boy groaned and tried to get to his feet, but he wasn't fast enough. Jewelson snatched up two nearby serrated knives and shoved them into his chest in rapid succession, and the only twelve-year-old in the seventy-first Hunger Games died shortly thereafter.

 _Joey Mccrary, District 10 Male: 22nd, Killed by Jewelson, Bloodbath_

Having wrenched her trident out of the deceased Mekhi's chest, Rilletta fluidly attacked her next victim. Two dark-haired boys were tussling over a butter-yellow pack nearby, and they were so preoccupied that they didn't notice Rilletta until it was too late. The vicious career girl thrust her trident's three prongs into the abdomen of the first boy, and he bled out as the other boy (Pixello from 3) fled screaming.

 _Nyckell Keene, District 12 Male: 21st, Killed by Rilletta, Bloodbath_

Khlassa made her second and third kills in rapid succession. Two rather foolish girls were trying to kill her under a flag of truce, but they had no hope of triumphing over the girl that had been training for years. One of the girls stumbled and cursed, and the next instant Khlassa had plunged the point of her spear into her chest. She staggered to the ground, knocking down the other outlier girl in her descent, and Khlassa made quick work of her with one more thrusting movement of her weapon.

 _Sun Abreu, District 11 Female: 20th, Killed by Khlassa, Bloodbath_

 _Gasoline Delegarza, District 6 Female: 19th, Killed by Khlassa, Bloodbath_

In an act of unwavering district loyalty, Junia from 2 refused to leave the side of her district partner Fletcher. A very wiry girl nearby had armed herself with a belt of throwing knives, and she crept toward Fletcher, wanting to kill him to make a splash and impress sponsors. Before she could, however, Junia noticed, and she threw herself between the girl and Fletcher. The girl was dead as Junia worked two knives of her own into her neck, and she gurgled loudly before falling with a loud noise.

 _Cordaire Vick, District 3 Female: 18th, Killed by Junia, Bloodbath_

Only one more death would occur before the bloodbath was over. Junia and Fletcher were fleeing north, but Rilletta intercepted them, not wanting them to escape and pull off an Iuna Mosier-like gambit. Rilletta cackled as she wrestled Junia to the ground. Junia screamed, "Go! Go!" and Fletcher fled screaming as Rilletta slid the prongs of her trident into the 2 girl's neck. She had died to protect her district partner.

 _Junia Bailey, District 2 Female: 17th, Killed by Rilletta, Bloodbath_

Those were the only deaths to occur that day. Jewelson, Khlassa and Rilletta got along well, and they armed themselves to the teeth. Given the pack had only three members this year, they didn't waste time dilly-dallying at the horn. They left Jewelson behind and went out to hunt, but less than a minute later Khlassa fell into a small hole and sprained her ankle. Rilletta had to practically drag the 1 girl back to the horn, and they refrained from hunting for the remainder of the first day while Khlassa healed. Fletcher fled screaming after witnessing Junia sacrifice herself for him, and after about an hour he climbed up a tall flower and rested in the center, gently swaying back and forth. He was supply-less, and it wasn't very responsible of him to be relaxing aimlessly while he could have been gathering food. Pixello forayed the north end of the garden. He found a hole like a cubby in the side of the hill, and he crawled inside. The hole was infested with human-sized bugs, and Pixello darted out of the hole screaming with the dragonfly mutts trailing behind. It was hours before he lost them, and he collapsed beside a stream, taking a few sips before falling asleep from exhaustion. Coast munched on rye bread as he jogged over the soil of the garden, ducking behind flowers and other plants whenever he heard noises. Once he'd eaten about half of his loaf, he rested beside a tree sapling that was easily his height. Steem had a spear and a magenta-colored pack, and he found a small hole that may have once been inhabited by an earthworm or other creature. He smeared his pack with dirt to make it stand out less before cramming himself and his supplies into the hole for the night. Chassis, the only tribute to avoid the bloodbath, ventured south, and it wasn't long before he found himself at a thin stream barely the width of his hand. He took a few sips and wiggled down into the gigantic pebbles near the stream, somewhat uncomfortable from rubbing against the stones. Elmer, the second highest scoring outlier, was weaponless, but he impressed the sponsors by slaying a ladybug mutt with his bare hands at three in the afternoon. An impressed sponsor sent the 7 boy a hatchet, and the pleased tribute fell in a ditch veiled by flowers and overgrowth. Johanna was surprisingly well-off for someone with such a low score; her collection included a hatchet, some beef jerky, and a packet of flammable powder. She settled by a small fountain and sipped the clear water greedily before going to bed. Cloth's only supplies were a fold-up spear and a thermos of water, and he had a cold. Knowing that the money would be better-spent later, his mentor Cecelia held back the medicine he so desperately wanted. The boy found a pond and leapt across the lily pads, falling asleep to the sound of lapping water. Theodora had originally been planning to flee the bloodbath at the start, but on a whim she'd grabbed up a stopwatch. She did random things with it, starting and stopping the time, as she wandered aimlessly through the garden. At nightfall, she found a porcelain pot filled with berries, and she climbed into the pot munching on the sweet fruit that was the size of her. Franco had been journeying east for quite some time when he found a birdhouse nailed to a small tree. He climbed inside and fell asleep, but he woke up screaming soon after. An enormous bluebird mutt had entered the birdhouse, and it was chirping and pecking at the seed. Franco coaxed it out over the course of nearly ten minutes, and he did his best to plug up the hole after that. The boy had a creepy habit of acting out his dreams, and in the throes of his nightmares he flailed his limbs around the porcelain birdhouse. Ireland munched on jam and some sponsored District 9 bread as she crept in an arbitrary direction. When night fell, her eyes landed on a planter box, and Ireland crawled inside, finding the sensation of the warm soil oddly soothing. Vicuña received a terrifying surprise when she unknowingly wandered into the midst of a pack of Venus Fly Traps. They all reached toward her in a struggle to eat her, and the girl fled crying. Pumpkin had a sickle and a handbook on insects. The handbook told him that most of the arena's insects were edible. He spent hours stalking a purple butterfly mutt through the garden before killing it, and he munched on the wings for the rest of the day. There was relative peace in the garden arena as day turned into night.

The second day was deathless, but it was not entirely uneventful. Khlassa's sprained ankle had healed by noon due to extensive medicine delivered by sponsors who wanted them to get hunting as soon as possible. Though she said she was fine, the others didn't want Khlassa hunting with her injury; the 1 girl reluctantly agreed to guard the horn, and Jewelson and Rilletta hunted. As the duo ventured away from the cornucopia, they started to get on each other's' nerves. Jewelson was the stereotypical joking and calming 1 boy, but Rilletta was more serious, and at one point she even threatened to kill him unless he stopped with his "career-less antics". She was joking, of course, but this still scared Jewelson enough to make him follow her commands for the rest of the day and stop fooling around. Around noon, they spotted a strong tribute, Franco. Grinning, the careers chased after him for nearly an hour. Finally, Franco wound his way back to the birdhouse that was his home. Franco was small enough to fit through the entrance of the birdhouse, but the muscular careers were not; his safe haven was inside the small porcelain structure.

Pixello woke at dawn beside the river he had fallen asleep next to, safe and sound. He was relatively content with a stable source of food from the plants and berries of the garden, but he knew it would be a big mistake to stay still. Pixello planned to head north after a quick breakfast; this did happen, but not in the way he expected. He munched on some berries and waded into the river. It turned out he had underestimated how fierce the water currents would be; Pixello was swept off his feet, and in seconds he was being carried north down the river. He fought his way back to shore, but he wasn't strong enough. No amount of kicking and struggling of the small boy could save him. He came to a stop at the source of the river nearly twenty minutes later, but what he didn't know was that he was less than fifty yards from another tribute, Vicuña from 10. Pixello and Vicuña spotted each other often but didn't bother to investigate, as neither thought the other was worth bothering when there were so many tributes left.

Day 3 was one of the most eventful days of the seventy-first Hunger Games; it hosted three deaths, and the day was action-packed from start to finish. After two days, Chassis wandered away from his home at the riverside. Little did he know that just nearby, there was a swarm of nearly a hundred person-sized bug mutts trapped in a chamber tucked beneath two saplings. Chassis was wandering in the direction of the bug prison, and the gamemakers immediately silenced the bug mutts as he drew close, not wanting him to be scared off by their buzzing and humming. It was rigged so that when Chassis pulled on a small vine, the rocky foundation of the chamber would collapse, and the bugs would be unleashed onto the arena. The chorus of the bugs' humming started up once more, but it was so quiet that Chassis wasn't sure if the noise was merely a figment of his imagination or not. Walking toward the sound to investigate, he tugged back the rigged vine, and all hell broke loose.

The swarm of nine or so dozen dragonflies, ladybugs, and bumblebees came bursting out of their prison, and Chassis staggered backward, dumbfounded with shock. A dragonfly whose tail was as long as his torso darted toward him, and the boy made a beeline for the riverside, where he could leap into the water and avoid death from the massive mutts. Sadly, he couldn't reach it in time. He tripped on a root and fell flat onto his face, and he was overwhelmed by the swarm of insects in seconds. They beat at him with their wings and nipped a little at his flesh, and Chassis died swiftly, the first to experience the wrath of the released insect mutts as they tore over the arena.

 _Chassis Lott, District 6 Male: 16th, Killed by Insect Muttations, Day 3_

Fletcher heard the faint rumble of the swarm and set down the rock he was sharpening. For days, he'd been fashioning the stone into the perfect weapon; it was a remarkably effective method of taking his mind off of the dead Junia, and it was fun enough anyway. Fortunately, he was one of the earliest noted of the invasion, and he had a sufficient amount of time to get to safety. Fletcher carried the rock with him, his only possession in the world, and booked it toward a small cave he'd discovered that he knew was safe. Fletcher rolled into the cave just in time, and the mutts desperately attempted to break through the earthen seal, to no avail. Fletcher crawled to the back of the cave, keeping on sharpening the knife-shaped stone in the dark.

Elmer of 7, the second strongest outlier, was warned of the oncoming siege by a sponsor note cryptically warning him to find a place flapping wings couldn't reach. Elmer was a clever boy, and he decoded the ciphered message in minutes. He heeded the warning. After mere minutes, he found a garden statue that looked like a weeping willow tree. He wiggled underneath it, holding onto the stem of the plant for extra stability as the mutts tried to get through the umbrella-shaped tree. It wasn't long before the bug mutts took the hint and abandoned ship, leaving Elmer alone. They had bigger fish to fry.

Pixello and Vicuña had been glancing at each other for most of the early part of the day when they finally got up the courage to propose an alliance. This was all less than fifteen minutes before the insect invasion, and they were sitting cross-legged getting to know each other when they saw the great swarm of bugs descending like a dark cloud. Pixello screamed and prepared to hide, but the logical Vicuña knew what to do. She pulled Pixello east, toward the Venus Fly Traps she'd discovered back on Day 1. The Venus Fly Traps swung their jaws around, eating up the bugs as they tried to attack the allies. The swarm was scared away quickly, the allies unscathed.

But not everyone survived the attack. The portion of the pack that was hunting, Jewelson and Rilletta, were notified of the oncoming bevy of bugs too late to be saved. A sponsor sent them a note warning them of the mutts along with a dish of jelly, but the hungry duo simply discarded the note to eat the sugary snack. The duo cried out with shock as the humming grew louder and louder. Jewelson jokingly suggested aliens, but Rilletta did not find this funny. In fact, the 4 girl had switched into "battle mode". She was ready to kick some insect butt.

The first insect, a rather pretty ladybug, was easy work for Rilletta. She crunched its left wing under the prongs of her trident, and it hissed and crumpled to the soil of the garden, unable to move with its wing so elaborately damaged. Jewelson was killing off the bugs as well, but Rilletta was the star of the show. She was a killing machine, and she had a certain poise to her than only "eleveners" as they were called could display. Unfortunately, the story didn't end well for her ally. While Rilletta was occupied offing a fuzzy bumblebee mutt, two attractive emerald-green dragonflies rammed into Jewelson at the same time. The 1 boy fell screaming, but his shouts of agony were drowned out by the whining of the bug herd. Jewelson died from a combination of the dragonflies' venom and the nipping of the other bugs, and after his death the swarm departed to search for more meals.

 _Jewelson West, District 1 Male: 15th, Killed by Insect Muttations, Day 3_

On the other side of the arena, the spiky-haired Johanna from 7 was up to something peculiar. She pulled out the flammable powder she'd grabbed from the cornucopia during the bloodbath and pulled it into an area veiled by vines so that none of the cameras could see her. The gamemakers tried to fly in a few drones to see what she was up to, but Johanna threw rocks at them to knock them out of the air.

The thirteen-year-old Theodora fled crying into her hands as soon as the swarm came into view. She knew the perfect hiding spot; her porcelain pot filled with berries. She used the handle of the pot like the rung of a ladder, and she hoisted herself into the pot, burrowing down into the sour red-colored berries. Theodora anxiously munched on the small fruits until the swarm passed.

Coast fell out of the sapling he was resting in as the swarm came into sight. Despite his dangerously late warning, he had a good chunk of time in which to find adequate safety. Coast knew that water would be his best friend; for obvious reasons, the mutts couldn't reach him if he was underwater, and he was a good swimmer having spent nearly two decades in 4. At first he was picky about where he swam, but as the insect mutts grew closer and the urgency heightened he knew he had to make his choice soon. He jumped into a smaller pool and quickly sank to the bottom. He didn't think the insect mutts were that smart; he had been planning to swim as far away as possible before coming up to breathe, rinse and repeat until the mutts were recalled by the gamemakers. The thing was, these mutts were smarter than Coast gave them credit for; they could see him moving under the surface of the water, and they followed him. At the opposite end of the pool, Coast broke the surface the same second a bumblebee stinger entered his neck. Shaking from the poison, Coast sank to the bottom, his lungs swelling and contracting, causing him to inhale nearly a gallon of water. Needless to say, he had drowned in less than a minute.

 _Coast Danielson, District 4 Male: 14th, Killed by Insect Muttations and Drowning, Day 3_

Then, the only tribute left to face the mutts was Johanna Mason. She'd been working on that secret project of hers for nearly an hour when the swarm of giant insects arrived at her location, and she finished just in time to reveal her work to all. She held one stick in each hand, and each was coated in a thick layer of her flammable powder. For minutes, she'd been starting a fire, and as soon as she touched the points of her sticks to the flames they caught ablaze like torches. Johanna sped into the midst of the mutts and swung the brilliantly flaming sticks around and around, incinerating a ladybug's wing immediately. The smoke produced by the fire was enough to make several more insect mutts drop dead, and the others hissed somewhat cinematically, cringing at the smoke and fleeing as their mouths frothed with fury. The 7 girl kept on waving the flaming sticks like some kinds of magic wands, and she only stopped when the flammable powder had burnt out. By that time, the bodies of the mutts lay in shambles around her, and the lucky ones that had fled weren't coming back for her any time soon. Johanna collapsed on the spot, panting from exhaustion, but there was an undeniable grin on her young face. This was the first of many events that led the Capitol to believe she had not been showing her true potential in training.

Day 4 was not nearly as eventful. In the morning, Rilletta quickly returned to the horn. She'd been on the edge about whether to make the trip to the cornucopia the night prior, but had ended up deciding against it, warned by a sponsor that she should wait until the bug mutts were sedated for sure. Rilletta and Khlassa sat inside of the cornucopia and downed a sort of tea that Khlassa made from the petals of a few flowers; her parents were florists back in 1. The duo didn't hunt on the fourth day, and they were unsure how long they would be milling around before finally making a decision about hunting with a pack so small.

After pushing away the dead bodies of the bug mutts that surrounded her, Johanna went to great lengths to ensure that the flaming sticks were completely extinguished. From her years in 7, she knew how quickly fires could spread if left unnoticed for too long. She scored up the dirt around the area in search of any hot remnants, but her paranoia was quickly quelled with the reassurance that there wasn't going to be any fire, at least not today. At daybreak, Theodora wiggled upward through the jar of berries and tries to climb out. The problem was, the rim of the porcelain pot was too high, and the girl was trapped inside. Panicking, she tried to assemble the berries in a taller pile to hoist herself out, but any mound she tried to assemble merely tumbled under her weight. For the time being, Theodora was trapped in the pot. Come nightfall, she figured her worries would best be left to the next morning, so she wiggled once more to the bottom of the berry-filled jar for bed.

Day 4 was not deathless, however. Pumpkin from 11, despite having scored an astounding nine, had stayed mostly under the radar for the first three days, not wanting a target painted on the back when the crowd of tributes was so large. But now that there were fewer tributes alive in the arena, he figured it couldn't hurt to get in a few hours of hunting. Sickle at his side, he traipsed through the misty morning, searching for prey. It was less than five minutes before he found his victim. Out of the corner of Pumpkin's eye, he saw a bright flash of color: Steem's magenta-colored pack. The boy was resting in the small earthworm hole, awarding himself with a lie-in after a long day of work on Day 3, and he was helpless as Pumpkin approached. Steem was shocked into consciousness as the blade dug into his shoulder, and he screamed, struggling to escape the hole and make a run for it. Pumpkin wouldn't let him get away; in his panic, the boy jumped out of the hole, straight into his sickle. Pumpkin swallowed the small amount of bile that had come up his throat as Steem died in the course of about two minutes, and the 11 boy didn't stick around long after pilfering him of his meager supplies, including his magenta pack and its contents.

 _Steem Hidalgo, District 5 Male: 13th, Killed by Pumpkin, Day 4_

The fifth day was much of the same. Celesta wasn't a head gamemaker who liked to draw games out beyond their natural length; any day she would prefer a shorter, burst-of-action games over a longer, les thrilling one.

The half of the tributes that were left woke up to a pleasant sensation on the morning of the fifth day: rain. Those who hadn't drunk in days rushed to fill whatever containers they had with the cool water. They chugged it down gratefully, and there wasn't much movement at first. The cameras had a bit of fun with Franco, who was absolutely certain that the rain was poisoned, and he refused to lay a finger wherever it collected. Perhaps the most humorous reaction came from Cloth from 8, who sprinted around the arena with his mouth facing-up, giggling with his jaws wide-open to allow the cool rainwater to pour in.

The rain was a blessing for the tributes, but after a while something started to happen oddly reminiscent of the games of the year prior—flooding. Ireland was the first tribute to experience the flooding. She was snoozing the warm morning away in her soil-laden planter box when water started sloshing onto her. While she was asleep, water had been building up around the planter box, and by the time she realized the urgency of the situation there were hundreds of feet to dry land. Fortunately, Ireland was a good swimmer, and she paddled to safety through the cold floodwaters. The rains brought out a sleeping dragonfly mutt that hadn't seen daylight since the start of the games, and it attacked Elmer somewhat out-of-the-blue. The 7 boy fended it off admirably quickly, earning him a sleeker hatchet and quite a handsome supply of food to last him for several days. Despite the occasional squelchy step, the tributes were happier than they'd been in a long time.

But one tribute was anything but happy. Theodora was resting in the bottom of her porcelain pot of berries when floodwaters rushed in. The level was rising at an alarmingly fast rate; while she was asleep, the pot had grown more and more submerged, and she only realized it as the rainwater spilled over the lip. She tried to wiggle her way up through the mound of berries and out of the pot but was overtaken in seconds. Once she was submerged, Theodora struggled to retain precious oxygen, but it was hopeless from the start. She was the only tribute to perish on the fifth day.

 _Theodora Nott, District 8 Female: 12th, Killed by Drowning, Day 5_

The rest of the day passed swiftly. The cameras mostly focused on Johanna, and she moved frequently to keep from being forgotten, giving the gamemakers a lot to show. Now that the tribute count had been whittled down to eleven, Johanna was getting more and more confident; she seemed to have a sort of eagerness to do everything, and even her stride was happier somehow. All anyone knew was that this girl was a curious creature, but nobody could tell whether she was a weaker tribute or a stronger tribute masking her true potential behind a veil that consisted of her low training the score and the tears she'd wept in the pre-games. If she was trying to intrigue the audience, there was no doubt she was succeeding.

Day 6 was another one of the more eventful days in the arena; three deaths occurred between dawn and dusk, and the tribute count was shrunk from eleven to eight. Even though rainfall largely stopped, the floodwaters didn't recede; like a sponge, the earth had a limit of how much it could hold. Celesta's plan for her games was for the waters to rise and rise, gradually drawing the last few tributes to the arena's highest point—the cornucopia.

At noon, Cloth came to a stop on the shore of a lake that seemed familiar; it was the lake he'd seen after escaping the bloodbath all the way back on Day 1, having hopped over the lily pads to get to the center, which was guarded on all sides by water. Cloth remembered how fun it was to jump over the lily pads and wanted to try it again just for a bit of amusement to diffuse the stress of the games. Cloth stepped onto the first lily-pad, which was big enough to fit an elephant, and all was going well at first. He distributed his body weight rather well. When he stepped onto the second lily pad, however, there was a slip-up. Since it was far away, he had to use a one-foot-and-then-the-other approach rather than a both-feet-at-a-time one. When he set down his left foot, the lily pad immediately capsized, and the small boy was sent plunging down into the freezing cold pond. Hyperventilating, Cloth lunged to the surface and made a desperate attempt to get back aboard the lily pad. But with all of his weight on one side, it just kept flipping over and over. Cloth was a decent swimmer, but not a great one, and his death was the second consecutive drowning death in the games.

 _Cloth Alford, District 8 Male: 11th, Killed by Drowning, Day 6_

Rilletta and Khlassa, the only two careers left in the games, had been milling around the cornucopia for days, unsure of what to do. The vicious and bloodthirsty Rilletta perpetually wanted to go hunting, but Khlassa kept warning her against it; she said it would be too risky for just one of their members to go hunting, as there would be a significantly lower chance of survival if their victims decided to fight back when there was only one member. A sponsor note urged them to make their decision soon, and Khlassa reluctantly agreed to let Rilletta go hunting by herself.

She'd been hunting for about three hours when the gamemaker gods found her a match, or, two matches, rather. The duo of Pixello and Vicuña had moved about a mile away from their original home after the flooding had covered the Venus Fly Traps, and they'd been living inside of a decorative garden statuette of a gnome house ever since. Rilletta spotted the house in the center of a clearing, and, grateful for a chance to rest, decided to eat her noon meal inside. Needless to say, there was a lot of terrified screaming as the 4 girl barged right in on the duo preparing lunch themselves. Pixello and Vicuña lunged for the windows. Fortunately, Rilletta hadn't been training her whole life to be slow; she had spider senses, and the fastest reflexes of a tribute 4 had seen in ages. Before Vicuña had reached safety, the prongs of Rilletta's trident were buried into her chest. She collapsed, and almost knocked down Pixello, but he slid out of the way, and to Rilletta's great displeasure managed to slip out of the window as his ex-ally bled out behind him.

 _Vicuña Bartholomew, District 10 Female: 10th, Killed by Rilletta, Day 6_

Rilletta thundered out of the gnome house and stalked after the 3 boy, who was booking it toward a knot of saplings that would hide him from sight until he could catch his breath. Of course, the girl caught up to him in seconds. Pixello screamed as Rilletta grabbed him by the scruff of his neck like a kitten and hurled him back down like nothing. The damp, soil ground provided enough give that none of his bones were broken, but of course he wasn't in a state to help himself as the prongs of Rilletta's trident entered his chest.

 _Pixello Shepherd, District 3 Male: 9th, Killed by Rilletta, Day 6_

That left the final eight: Khlassa Patton from District 1, Fletcher Sanders from District 2, Rilletta Cillate from District 4, Elmer Redmond and Johanna Mason from District 7, Franco Brennan and Ireland Sanborn from District 9, and Pumpkin Venegas from District 11.

Day 7 was the first deathless day since Day 2 nearly a week prior, and it was easily the most uneventful yet. In the morning, Rilletta left her gnome house and ventured back to the horn, where an angry Khlassa was waiting. Khlassa didn't like how her ally was taking all of the initiative, and she had a particularly distaste for Rilletta's bossy attitude. The 1 girl hadn't hunted in days and wanted to get out and about, doing what she'd been training for for years. Rilletta, who needed a rest, was glad to sleep off the morning at the horn while Khlassa went hunting. Her number one target was Fletcher from 2. The pack hadn't seen hide nor hair of him, and she was paranoid he was pulling off an Iuna Mosier, so she was determined to eliminate him from the competition as quickly as was possible. Fletcher refused to leave the flooded area of the arena, even when he was knee-deep in the floodwaters, and he rested and fed himself on water and a bit of sponsored food. Elmer kept hunting with his hatchet in hand, and at nightfall he settled in a hole in the side of a mound built around an enormous sunflower. Johanna was getting antsier by the hour, unable to stay still. Over the days, sponsors had sent her two twin hatchets and more food and water than she could consume in the longest Hunger Games in history. There was constant pressure from the sponsors and from her mentor to start hunting, but Johanna seemed to be waiting for something, and she would not budge until this something happened. Franco was solidifying his archetype as the most paranoid tribute in the games; he constantly glanced behind his back and jumped at the slightest sound, and he didn't eat anything without consulting his handbook on edible plants. He acted out his nightmares as much as ever, thrashing around and around in his sleep. Ireland ventured through the garden and stumbled across a bush that bore deadly nightlock berries. Knowing they could come in handy later, the girl scooped some of the berries into her pouch, wearing a pair of gloves to keep the lethal nightlock berries from touching her skin. Pumpkin took a break from hunting, and he pointed out stars and constellations to pass the nights and tracked the path of the moon and sun the days. A famous Capitol astronomer, Tanaquil Silverson, sponsored him a compass so he could find his way around more easily.

After the uneventful slip-up that was Day 7, Day 8 was greatly eventful, with three deaths. The first occurred in the early morning, hours before the sun rose. In one particularly horrible nightmare, Franco was rolling here and there, smearing his body from head to foot with soil. As it turned out, throughout the night he'd swallowed a lot of dirt, and he was expelling the foul contents of his stomach through both ends of his digestive system, groaning. He opened his mouth to scream, but couldn't; the bile had clogged his throat, and he awoke choking. Franco clawed at his throat, mind racing to think up a scheme to keep from choking, but with oxygen deprivation thinking clearly was becoming more and more difficult. Franco was dead in less than a minute, the first of the three to perish on the eighth day in the arena.

 _Franco Brannon, District 9 Male: 8th, Killed by Choking on his Own Bile, Day 8_

Franco's cannon shot awoke most of the tributes and mutts of the arena, but most of them fell back asleep quickly. There was one exception: Khlassa from 1. She knew she'd been away from the horn for far too long, and she wanted to make the journey back in the cool of the night rather than the heat of day. Her journey was about halfway completed when she had a moment of sudden realization she was grateful occurred sooner than later. If she arrived at the cornucopia while Rilletta was still asleep, she might attack her, not recognizing her as her comrade and ally. Not wanting a slip-up like that to happen, Khlassa rested about a hundred yards away from the horn, quietly whistling traditional District 1 tunes to keep her occupied as the gem of the sun rose into the sky.

But she wasn't the only one awake in the arena. On the other side of the oversized garden, Ireland from 9 was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She remembered something her father had told her when she was a little girl back in District 9; nightlock berries had the potential to kill within sixty seconds of ingestion, and there was no stopping its effects unless an antidote could be downed in seconds. Ireland reached into her pocket and pulled out the leather pouch filled with chunks of the poison berries and then replaced it. She wasn't feeling up to killing a tribute with her bare hands, and she figured making a kill indirectly would put less strain on her moral compass, even though she was ending the same number of lives either way.

It wasn't long before Ireland found her first victim. She heard the gruff snores of a sleeping boy, and she stayed dead still as if to make sure they weren't figments of her active imagination. Heart hammering a million miles an hour, she tiptoed toward the snores. Pumpkin from 11, the strongest outlier in the games, was sprawled out on all-fours on the soil; it wasn't a bad camouflage technique, as the boy's dark skin blended well into the earth. Ireland bit her lip tentatively and crept toward the sleeping boy, taking infinite care not to make a sound. If Pumpkin awoke, she would be as good as dead. Ireland donned her gloves, reached into the pouch, and pulled out a chunk of pure nightlock with a volume of about a cubic inch. Ireland quickly slipped it into Pumpkin's mouth before turning to run like mad.

Pumpkin awoke, gasping and shaking, as the nightlock poison ate away at his tongue and throat, and the highly acidic berry crept down his throat. In no time, he was contorting in a rather disturbing manner. Ireland bit her lip from the safety of a nearby planter box, and, true to her father's word, it was less than sixty seconds before his cannon shot sounded. The body was carried away, and Ireland zoomed toward the supplies he had left behind, including his sickle. She just tried not to think about what she had just done as she went about her day.

 _Pumpkin Venegas, District 11 Male: 7th, Killed by Ireland, Day 8_

Noon arrived on the eighth day in the arena, and the 7s weren't doing much out of the ordinary. Elmer was back to hunting after a much-needed break, and he was using his compass more than ever to find his way around. In fact, he didn't know how he'd gotten around without it before, and with only six left in the games it would most certainly come in use. Johanna barely moved, if at all, but the gamemakers kept her around simply because of how intriguing she was. One moment, she was giggling and smirking, running her fingers through her spiky black hair, and the next moment she would be relaxing against some plant without a care in the world. Johanna was once again giving off the aura that she was waiting for something, and even eight days into the games nobody had a clue what that was.

The third and final death of Day 8 occurred around nightfall. Khlassa had finished her trek to the horn, where she met up with her stronger ally Rilletta, and they ate before quickly going back hunting. Rilletta was eager to hunt after so long hunkering down inside of the cornucopia, and she left as Khlassa stayed behind to sort some of the food. Rilletta headed east, the direction where there was the most flooded land; she figured more tributes would be hiding there because they thought nobody would be expecting them to, but Rilletta thought she was one-step ahead of them, and a laugh of pleasure tumbled from her lips at the sight of he whom would soon be her first victim.

Fletcher leapt to his feet, screaming at the top of his lungs with terror, as Rilletta charged out of nowhere, and he barely had time to deflect her first trident blow. Fletcher stumbled toward the knife he'd fashioned out of a rock, but once he grabbed it he truly realized how useless it was against the 4 girl's superior weapon. Fletcher wasn't the weakest boy the games had ever seen, and he put up a fair fight, but he couldn't match the skills of the 4 girl that bespoke years of practice. In twenty seconds, Rilletta had trapped Fletcher against the ground. The boy begged for mercy, but Rilletta didn't hear a word he said; her delicate laughter was enough to drown out the finer edges of his words. He was dead as soon as the prongs entered his chest, and then there were only five tributes in the arena.

 _Fletcher Sanders, District 2 Male: 6th, Killed by Rilletta, Day 8_

Day 9 was the coldest day these games had seen; temperatures peaked at fifty degrees around noon, and the morning dew actually turned into frost from the intense chill. Ireland had spent the night near the camp of the deceased Pumpkin, and she was now moving westward toward the cornucopia. She didn't move very far, as there were a relatively large five tributes left in the games so the finale wouldn't be for a while, but it was a start. Rilletta broke camp at dawn and made the routine journey to the cornucopia, where she met up with Khlassa. As it turned out, Khlassa had sprained her wrist the day prior, and even worse, it was her dominant wrist—her fighting wrist. Rilletta had nothing better to do (she was too exhausted to hunt) so she used a bit of the horn's medicine to secure her up and get her on her way back to good health. Khlassa wasn't sure if she would recover by the time the finale started; Rilletta estimated six or seven days, and if she could draw out of the games long enough for her wrist to heal than the 1 girl might have had a shot at victory.

About two miles south, Elmer from 7 was concocting a plan. Despite being one of the highest-scoring outliers in the games, he hadn't really done anything spectacular, and he knew if he wanted to stay relevant he needed to make a splash. Probably inspired by Iuna Mosier's cornucopia raid that led to her victory, Elmer packed up his supplies and briskly walked toward the horn. His plan was a standard one, but an effective one—take all the supplies he needed and kill one of the careers on the way out. He hadn't been keeping good track of the death recaps and didn't know which two were alive, so it would be risky.

The cornucopia came into Elmer's sight a few minutes before midnight, and the finer details got clearer through the darkness of the night as he got closer. Rilletta was standing guard, but as she saw Elmer coming she ducked down into the shadows so as not to be seen. Elmer didn't see her and figured both were asleep, and as he snatched up packs and supplies he was completely unaware that the strongest tribute in the games was two or three seconds' walk away, and very much awake. Elmer screamed as Rilletta burst out of the shadows, tackling him to the ground and knocking away most of the supplies he'd piled in his arms. Deeper back in the horn, Khlassa awoke to the sound of their duel and scuttled to a safer area of the cornucopia. Rilletta was doing well enough fighting Elmer by herself, Khlassa told herself, and she was too tired to be much help anyway.

Rilletta's first real blow sent Elmer's hatchet flying, but he quickly regained it with surprising poise, and he whirled around to thrust the blade into his opponent's chest. Rilletta, the trained career she was, saw his move coming and ran in a circle around him while he snatched his hatchet, so that when he turned back around there was nobody there. Elmer muttered, "what the," and then Rilletta's trident was buried into his neck, the handle sticking out of the flesh at an awkward angle and sparkling in the moonlight. Now only female tributes were left.

 _Elmer Redmond, District 7 Male: 5th, Killed by Rilletta, Day 9_

On the other side of the arena, Johanna grinned at the sight of her district partner's face in the sky, and, smirking uncannily broadly, got to her feet. She'd been waiting for Elmer's death for days, and now that most of the stronger outliers were out of the running Johanna felt it was time to show her true colors. As Johanna grabbed her hatchets and stalked off to look for prey, the cameras captured the unmistakable glint in her eyes that only some of the most beloved careers in history genuinely donned. If nothing else, everybody knew one thing for sure: this Johanna Mason from District 7 was not one to be forgotten.

The first half of Day 10 was deathless. At the cornucopia, the career pack split, but it was one of the most peaceful splits in ages. Khlassa suggested that it was too late in the games for their duo to continue. Rilletta agreed, and Khlassa gathered up as many supplies as she could carry before sprinting away from the cornucopia. Her wrist had healed in two days, nearly a week short of the estimated eight or nine. Khlassa headed into some of the thicker areas of the garden, figuring prey was unlikely to be hiding in the more open areas, and at noon she settled in a seed-strewn clearing for lunch.

Meanwhile, Ireland was gathering up more nightlock berries. After killing Pumpkin, the flow of sponsor gifts toward her had increased tenfold, and she figured if she wanted the flow to remain constant she had to keep employing her nightlock strategy. Tributes from Alexander Westlake to her proved to the Capitol that poison was one of the deadliest weapons in the Hunger Games, which was why prices for it were so high it was almost never sponsored to tributes by even the richest Capitolites. Ireland had to gather the berries herself, and it was more than a little difficult; there were very few bushes bearing nightlock berries in the arena, and those that she did find were so large that she couldn't reach the berries. At six in the evening, she discovered a bush with the round black berries low enough that she could reach. Pleased that the whole day had not been wasted, Ireland tore off chunks of the nightlock and stuffed them into her pouch, making sure to thoroughly clean off her gloves afterward.

Johanna had been hunting for nearly eight hours when she heard a tribute's soft snores. Suppressing a grin, the 7 girl tiptoed toward the sound, and it became impossible to hold back a giggle of pleasure. Khlassa was lying against the stem of a pretty pink flower, snoozing the afternoon away contentedly. Johanna crept toward the District 1 girl, taking infinite care not to make a sound; she knew that a single stumble would awaken the girl and give her a lot more trouble than she had started with. Khlassa was dead as soon as the blades of Johanna's axes sawed into her chest, and she didn't even flinch. She'd been carrying a lot of supplies on her; two thermoses of water, a strip of beef, a green apple, headache medication, infection cream, two spears, and a baggie of iodine capsules. Johanna stuffed all of the supplies into her pockets and left the scene, not wanting to be around if any other tributes followed the sound of the cannon shot.

 _Khlassa Patton, District 1 Female: 4th, Killed by Johanna, Day 10_

Day 11, Johanna wasn't giving the audience an easy time catching her on camera. The thing was, given her popularity everyone wanted her to get the most screen time, but she had other plans. The 7 girl spent most of the day hunting for cameras and hurling her hatchets and spears at them to destroy them, so the gamemakers had to sneakily send in drone cameras to capture footage of her. She knocked most of them down, but a few drones evaded her with more clips of her cocky smile and cold eyes.

Meanwhile, Rilletta hunkered down in the horn; she knew it was never a good idea to keep still for long, but she didn't want to risk being away from the cornucopia when the threat came that was meant to drive the finalists toward the center of the arena, and she refused to actively stir the pot as the eleventh day drew to a close.

The last tribute of the final three, Ireland, met her doom at eleven at night. Similarly to her district partner, the dead Franco, Ireland had a tendency to move a lot in her sleep. Given the proximity of the finale, her nightmares were worse than ever, and she was literally flopping around and flailing her limbs as if to fend off an attacker. This led to her downfall, surprisingly enough. Before going to bed, Ireland had left her pouch of nightlock berries slightly open, and in her sleep the 9 girl grabbed the pouch and poured its entire contents into her mouth. She woke up screaming, scrambling to throw the berries back up, but in seconds her vision was already beginning to fade. Ireland was ultimately dead in less than a minute. The nightlock berries she had intended to take to the finale spelled her doom.

 _Ireland Sanborn, District 9 Female: 3rd, Killed by Herself, Day 11_

Now only Rilletta and Johanna were left in the games. At the cornucopia, Rilletta smirked to see Ireland's face in the sky. During training, she'd taken a strong disliking to the girl, and she was glad her final opponent wasn't a lame tribute like her. That was when she realized that the only tribute beside her was the even lamer Johanna, who had done nothing but cry throughout training. She had no idea that Johanna had been hiding a rather vicious identity, and Rilletta didn't much bother to practice for the upcoming finale. The girl would be an easy opponent to beat down, unless, she told herself, she drowned in her own tears before she even reached her.

Across the arena, Johanna laughed softly due to the cannon shot. She and Rilletta were the only two left in the games. It was one of the biggest score differences of two finalists; Johanna only had a four, whereas Rilletta had a huge eleven, a whopping seven points higher! Johanna kicked herself up from the sapling she was resting against and hauled herself and her supplies toward the cornucopia. Johanna didn't really give a crap about getting a good night's rest. There would be plenty of opportunities for those in the Victor's Village if she managed to kill Rilletta.

The next day, Day 12, the flooding was awesome. Rains fell in torrents, and the gamemakers poured even more water onto the arena through underground pipes. By noon, the size of the land had easily been divided by ten; there was less than two square miles' dry land to walk on. Rilletta smirked delicately and got to her feet as Johanna charged toward the horn. The finale had begun.

Their weapons clashed in midair, and at first there was no clear-cut winner. As the two most beloved tributes in the games dueled for their lives and for the Victor's Crown, neither seemed to be able to leave a mark on the other. Rilletta came close, the rightmost prong of her trident missing Johanna's shoulder by inches, and the outlier girl swung deviously around, swinging her axe toward Rilletta's neck. Rilletta ducked, and Johanna stumbled away, having received a relatively deep gash from a passing blow of her opponent's trident.

The floodwaters rose and rose, and it wasn't long before water was creeping up around the finalists' feet. They were ankle-deep in the rainwater by the time the victor was crowned. Johanna managed to slice off one of Rilletta's pinky fingers with her axe. The 4 girl reeled, and Johanna picked up a nearby crate, filling it with water and hurling it at her. Rilletta staggered to the ground as the water splashed her from head to foot, and Johanna promptly buried her two hatchet blades into her chest. Rilletta let out a stream of quiet curses, and then Johanna was the only remaining tribute.

 _Rilletta Cillate, District 4 Female: 2nd, Killed by Johanna, Day 12_

"Johanna Mason of District 7, you are the victor of the seventy-first annual Hunger Games!" Caesar and Claudius shouted together.

Johanna's lips curled into a dainty little smile as she swung her hatchets through the air in celebration of her victory.

 _Johanna Mason, District 7 Female: Victor of the Seventy-First Hunger Games, Day 12_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 7 was happy to receive their third victor, placing them ahead of Districts 8, 9, and 10 and removing them from the club of districts with only two victors. In her games, she'd played a deceptive role that even districts like 3 and 5 would have been proud of. In real life, she was much more vulgar than she'd been in her games, and she was never afraid to express her unadulterated opinion about anything, whether or not it was called for. But all wasn't well after her games; the Capitol admired her for not only her spunk, but also her looks, and this condemned to a life of serving as the personal enjoyment of wealthy Capitol men as they saw fit. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Johanna was one of the first victors to resist President Snow's efforts to prostitute her, and it wasn't a shock that in less than a year she found herself alone, without family nor friends to turn to for emotional support.

She moved into the Victor's Village of District 7, the third to do so.

There was an attempt on her life in District 4, but overall her victory tour wasn't much.

Johanna would live to the age of eighty-one, dying from septic shock two months after the one-hundred thirty-fourth Hunger Games. She wouldn't marry, but she would adopt twin daughters.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Johanna settles into the Victor's Village of District 7, across the street from Blight.

Cecelia Rieffel gives birth to her second child, Paige Rieffel.

Enobaria Rigatti becomes headmistress of District 2's academy.

Gloss Linden marries Capitol supermodel Freesia Heavens.

Molly Toliday, the victor of the third annual Hunger Games, dies from heart disease.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)

* * *

 **A/N: I hope you enjoyed this! This one had a heck of a lot of detail, and it wasn't even intentional. I guess I just got really into this one, and I loved being able to transform Johanna from her sniveling coward form to the Johanna we all know and love!**

 **Stay tuned for next year! I've got a fun arena for that one that I haven't seen anywhere before, and I can't wait to get it out to all you awesome people :D**


	73. The 72nd Hunger Games

**The 72nd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The seventy-first Hunger Games was not a games to forget; with sixteen bloodbath survivors, plenty of twists and turns, and a cunning, likeable victor, it had been one of the most thrilling games yet in many opinions. As a direct result, many were eager for the young and lively Celesta Mirthe to lead the games for another year. To the Capitol's disappointment, however, Celesta retired after only one year in the position. The seventy-first games had been such a masterpiece that she didn't want to risk touching it, and even so she didn't like the risk of "mysterious disappearance" that came with having the job for any lengthy period of time. After her retirement, her second-in-command, the cunning and mysterious Seneca Crane, stepped up to the games throne, ruling over the minor gamemakers and dominating the design of the seventy-second's arena. Complete with light bluish-gray eyes, dark hair, and intricately-styled facial hair, Seneca was one of the most intriguing head gamemakers yet, to say the least, and he was a man who liked smaller bloodbaths that left plenty of survivors to be messed around with afterward. President Coriolanus Snow ruled the nation for another year with an iron grip that led even the bravest of district rebels cowering in fear. After two years, the murder of his wife Magnolia Asher was still unsolved. Only one new piece of evidence came about—a trace of a strange substance on an ornate crystal hair-comb in her purse. Upon later investigation, the chemical was found to be a bit of stray makeup that had found its way into her hair and onto the comb in turn. Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith returned as the hosts, and the charismatic duo could lighten the mood anywhere and make anyone laugh. Around the time of the seventy-second games, the two started up a daily talk show, where they discussed everything from the latest gossip about victors to speculations about future games to coverage of past Hunger Games, and their charisma was enough to make all of their viewers eagerly await Hunger Games season like children waited for Christmas.

The arena this year was an extremely complicated one, but ambitious was Seneca Crane's middle name, and he was willing to throw a little risk into the mix in order to have a thrilling first games. In essence, the tributes found themselves in a zoo that looked to have been abandoned for a hundred years. The gift shop served as the cornucopia; it was a circular brick building with several entrances, and inside the shelves were lined with food and water and everything else that would bring life in the arena. The gift shop was the only thing completely in-tact in the arena. Everything else was rundown and many of the buildings had even collapsed. The aquarium was to the north; it looked like it had once been an enormous glass building, but had since shattered, flooding the area around, and it was hot and muggy and not a very great place to live. The tropical rain-forest region was to the east; it was modeled after a jungle, with tall trees that had papery bark winding their way into the sky. The south was the African savannah, an expansive grassland where temperatures could reach the hundreds. There were also several broken-down safari vehicles that held water in cloth thermoses and binoculars. Finally, the west was home to the arctic animals of the zoo; temperatures were freezing, and cold lakes were inhabited by penguin and salmon. Polar bear mutts were everywhere, but despite their intimidating appearance they would pose no threat to the tributes unless they were bothering their young. With the aquarium, jungle, savannah, and arctic all meshed together in a such a small space, it was one of the most hectic arenas yet; a thrilling Hunger Games seemed almost unavoidable this year.

After the insanity of the disjointed three-member pack of the year prior, the careers were back to normal for the time being. District 1's tributes were both sexy and tantalizing and rather skilled. The boy, Amazingus Fantasticness, was the first of the three Fantasticness siblings to compete in the games. Like his siblings, he was taller and more slender but still very handsome, and he was a renowned model who starred in many Capitol ads. The female was shier than most but was stunningly beautiful, and she had an enthralling sense of mystery plaguing her that intrigued many. District 2 put on the most stellar showing, determined to impress after the embarrassing slip-up of the 2 pair from the year prior. The male was a stunning dark-skinned boy who lifted weights, and he had a charming smile and a warm laugh that made the sponsors swoon. He was also one of the few openly LGBT tributes. Meanwhile, the girl was more laid-back and unconventional, and she was always one who liked to tell jokes and lighten the mood. She was also a legacy tribute, the daughter of Victor Nolan Wrack. District 4 put on a varied showing. The boy was the youngest this year at only sixteen, but he still packed a punch; he was one of the fastest swimmers District 4 had seen in ages, and he had the surfer look that Capitolites craved. His district partner, his senior by one year, had some of the largest muscles of a female tribute in history, and she was rather masculine and only considered particularly attractive by a few. The training scores of the pack were nothing special: three tens, two nines, and an eight.

There were five memorable outlier tributes this time around. Two fraternal twins, Maple and Sequoia from 7, were reaped. They allied prior to the games, hoping that the arena this year had something to do with trees, which would be their element. The two were nearly indistinguishable except for the length of their hair, and even their own mother sometimes had difficulty telling them apart. Two of the outliers scored eights, the highest scores of the year. Indre from 3 was much tougher than the rest of her rich family, and she was almost flawlessly skilled with the entire array of survival skills, from fire starting to water purifying to edible bugs. She was also quite muscular and an avid user of knives. Bentley from 6 had darker hair and eyes that hinted toward his heavy Asian heritage, a new look for 6 and a stark contrast to their usual crop of brown-haired, freckled kids. Spears were his style. Five sevens were earned outside of the pack: Cartier from 5, Maple and Sequoia from 7, and Markos and Roxan from 10. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. Another standout came from District 9: A profane gangster named Nestor was reaped, and knowing he was pretty much resigned to death in the games he spent his last few days cussing off the careers and the other tributes he didn't like. Another point of curiosity this year was the ages of the tributes: not a single tribute younger than fifteen was sent into the games, though this was from sheer coincidence more than anything. The words "I volunteer as tribute" weren't heard anywhere other than the career districts. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Amazingus Fantasticness, 18, (9) 6-1 and Sephora Robert, 18, (10) 4-1

District 2: Remus Daley, 17, (10) 3-1 and Odette Wrack, 16, (9) 7-1

District 3: Huxley Reeves, 15, (4) 39-1 and Indre Cubbard, 16, (8) 10-1

District 4: Niles Howell, 16, (8) 11-1 and Caylee Gray, 17, (10) 4-1

District 5: Cartier Morrison, 18, (7) 15-1 and Audrey Stone, 15, (3) 57-1

District 6: Bentley Robinson, 18, (8) 9-1 and Gianne Keller, 17, (5) 24-1

District 7: Maple Canopies, 18, (7) 13-1 and Sequoia Canopies, 18, (7) 14-1

District 8: Azlon Garrett, 15, (5) 26-1 and Atasia Moore, 18, (5) 23-1

District 9: Nestor Cunningham, 16, (4) 35-1 and Ginette Watkins, 16, (4) 36-1

District 10: Markos Foiled, 17, (7) 15-1 and Roxan Matthews, 18, (7) 14-1

District 11: Bryce Pittman, 16, (3) 52-1 and Olive Riley, 15, (5) 25-1

District 12: Randall Hudson, 18, (6) 21-1 and Talielle Frazier, 15, (4) 29-1

HGBO Bets: 15% on Remus, 12% on Sephora and Caylee, 8% on Amazingus and Odette, 5% on Niles, 4% on Indre and Bentley, 3% on Maple and Sequoia, 2% on Cartier, Markos, and Roxan, 1% or less on Huxley, Audrey, Gianne, Azlon, Atasia, Nestor, Ginette, Bryce, Olive, Randall, and Talielle.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

As the countdown dwindled, the cameras showed a sweeping aerial shot of the four different climates of the zoo and some of the wildlife within. The arena had been completed just in time for the games, and it had been perfectly crafted without being confusing or overdone; Seneca was confident his first games would be one to remember.

When the gong rang, two tributes fled from the get-go: Gianne from 6 and Atasia from 8. The other tributes didn't want to risk having to survive with only their bare hands and decided to head into the bloodbath.

Remus led the charge this year, the fastest career tribute by a wide margin. Surprisingly, the dark-haired 12 boy was able to match his pace. The career threw open the door of the gift shop and thundered inside. He swept up two machetes and turned sharply on his heel. The 12 boy ran right into the knives, and he staggered to the ground, face morphing into an expression of agony as blood dripped out of his mouth and nose.

 _Randall Hudson, District 12 Male: 24th, Killed by Remus, Bloodbath_

Niles was the next career to arm himself; despite lacking in some areas, he was an incredibly fast sprinter. The boy grabbed a spear and pounced toward a boy who was perusing the wooden shelves of the gift shop, stuffing supplies into his pack at his leisure. He was knocked off of his feet from the force of Niles' blow, and he shoved his spear into his chest with so much force that the point protruded from his back.

 _Huxley Reeves, District 3 Male: 23rd, Killed by Niles, Bloodbath_

Seneca hadn't been planning to supply any tridents in the horn, but had decided to make an exception for Caylee. The muscular and masculine-looking 4 girl locked her fingers around the only trident in the gift shop, turning it slightly to watch it glisten in a beam of sunlight through an open window. A nearby outlier screamed as the prongs dug into her chest, and Caylee quickly threw a cloth onto her pool of blood to keep it from spreading too much before heading off in pursuit of more victims.

 _Talielle Frazier, District 12 Female: 22nd, Killed by Caylee, Bloodbath_

Amazingus snatched a hatchet from a shelf in a dark corner of the gift shop, and he turned around at a shuffling sound. The youngest tribute in these games had grabbed two knives and had been attempting to ambush the 1 boy and eliminate competition early. Amazingus just smirked delicately and swung the blade of the axe into her side. She was gone in moments.

 _Audrey Stone, District 5 Female: 21st, Killed by Amazingus, Bloodbath_

Remus made his second kill. As he surveyed the quickly emptying gift shop, he noticed a younger girl sweeping the entire contents of one of the shelves into a green pack she'd hastily unzipped. The career approached, and she whirled around just as Remus' machetes entered her chest. He tore the blades out of her abdomen messily, drawing even more blood, and in seconds her heart stopped beating.

 _Ginette Watkins, District 9 Female: 20th, Killed by Remus, Bloodbath_

Odette, wielding a sword, had been stalking an outlier boy around the gift shop for half a minute or so when he started for the exit. He turned the handle, but then Odette leapt out of nowhere, knocking him to the ground. The door opened up, and the two rolled outside, where the 2 girl quickly triumphed with a stab of her sword.

 _Azlon Garrett, District 8 Male: 19th, Killed by Odette, Bloodbath_

On the other side of the gift shop, Caylee scared two allied district partners into a corner with her trident, and Sephora joined in on the fun. The career girls started teasingly back and forth in front of them, and it was only when they started to make an effort to fight back that they actually went in for the kills, Sephora digging her arrows into the boy's chest and Caylee's trident working its way into the girl's lower torso.

 _Bryce Pittman, District 11 Male: 18th, Killed by Sephora, Bloodbath_

 _Olive Riley, District 11 Male: 17th, Killed by Caylee, Bloodbath_

The rest of Day 1 was deathless. The careers, their pack unbroken unlike some other years, went about their business. As had become typical of District 1 tributes in recent years, Amazingus and Sephora stayed close together and engaged in casual conversation as they sorted rations. Sephora was one of the most mysterious tributes 1 had seen in ages, and whenever she talked it was always spacey and she always had a dreamy glint in her eyes. Niles sat in a corner of the gift shop, pretending to be sorting rations but not really doing anything. The stress of the games was getting to him like it did to many tributes, even careers—he was beginning to question whether his moral compass permitted killing tributes, and he was growing unsure of his decision to volunteer into the games. Odette and Caylee started moving supplies from the outer shelves to the center of the gift shop, where they sat to be sorted later. Meanwhile, Remus, the strongest career, was doing a quick hunt of the areas right outside the gift shop. As temperatures were high, he brought lots of water, but when he spilled his thermos he figured it would be best to return to the horn as opposed to risking it out in the heat without a trustworthy water source. Upon his return, the pack went on their first hunt, minus Odette, who guarded the gift shop.

The outliers scattered across the arena, heading in all four directions. Indre escaped north with two spears and a small box of iodine pellets that jingled in her pocket. The muggy desolated aquarium section of the zoo wasn't easy to bear, but Indre was a strong girl. She scooped some of the water into a red plastic cup she found in a half-flooded trash bin, and she dropped the iodine tablets into it before bed, letting the chemical do its magic over the night. Cartier didn't have much from the horn, only a butter-yellow pack that contained a throwing knife and a bit of jam. He moved to the savannah, and he found a watering hole where he quickly fell asleep after greedily quenching his thirst. Bentley fled into the overgrown jungle with the twin spears he'd managed from the horn. Around noon, he tripped and fell into a pile of glass shards from a rundown animal enclosure. The 6 boy did manage to pull all the shards out of his skin, but he didn't want to risk moving around anymore and rested with his feet in a small pond with cool leaves layered over the rest of his body. Gianne fled screaming into the arctic wasteland from the second the gong sounded, traumatized by all the carnage she knew was taking place behind her back. When she was able to calm down, she miraculously managed to snatch a salmon out of a cold lake. She killed it with a rock, and an impressed sponsor sent her a bit of salt to preserve it once she collapsed in a slightly-warmer-than-the-outside cave for the night. Maple and Sequoia settled in the tropical rainforest, glad that at least part of the arena featured trees—being from 7, trees were their element. While Maple splintered apart the trunks of a few trees for material to build shelter, Sequoia gathered a basketful of edible cocoa beans for her and her twin brother to eat later. Atasia had been venturing through the savannah for a good three hours when she discovered one of the broken-down safari vehicles. She found a backpack of rope and a fresh peach in the glove compartment, and she slept crouched down in the abandoned vehicle once darkness fell. Nestor, the gangster boy from 9, waded agonizingly through the waist-high floodwaters of the aquarium as fish that were every color of the rainbow swam around him. He eventually found a restroom that was elevated by a few steps, and the inside was one of the only dry places in the north sector of the zoo. Markos and Roxan, the tributes from 10, had allied prior to the games. After two games in a row that utilized flooding to kill tributes and drive them together, they were paranoid and wanted to get to high ground where floodwaters would have a hard time reaching them. They both had knives amongst scant food and water stores, and Markos and Roxan collapsed at the end of the day at the crest of a hill that overlooked the windswept savannah. Peace largely reigned supreme as day turned into night.

Day 2 was much of the same. Most of the tributes had fallen into their daily routines already. The careers trekked through the windswept savannah from dawn to dusk. While there wasn't any in-fighting in the pack, it was extremely difficult to maintain order with a group so large. Remus and Caylee, those with the highest scores, decided to metaphorically split-up the pack; Remus was to watch over Amazingus and Odette (though she was guarding the horn at the time so she wasn't to be worried about) while Caylee was to keep Sephora and Niles whipped into shape. Around noon on the second day, Niles was more fretful and leery than ever. At random times he would suddenly stop talking and moving, almost like he had to restart his body every hour or so. Niles was extremely conflicted about whether or not his moral compass allowed him to do the things he was doing, and he was more unsure than ever about his decision to volunteer into the games. Surprisingly, his district partner Caylee gave him a fair bit of emotional support; despite the two-point difference in their scores, Caylee whispered Niles words of comfort and helped him out with his chores out of district loyalty.

The rest of the day passed swiftly. Bentley had an incident later in the day when a duo of jaguar mutts attacked the crude log structure he had assembled. He woke up screaming as one of them ran its rough and slobbery tongue down his leg, and he grabbed his twin spears. Despite still healing from the glass cut wounds he'd sustained on Day 1, he made an admirable effort to scare off the mutts, and he succeeded. It was half an hour before the jaguars took the hint and retreated. As soon as their flicking yellow tails were out of sight, Bentley moved from the tropical rainforest to the aquarium, unsure if he could survive any further mutt attacks from the jungle creatures.

The only other incident to transpire before the day was out occurred mere minutes before nightfall. Atasia had left the broken-down safari vehicle at dawn and wandered aimless through the savannah for nearly twelve hours. She yelped and screamed bloody murder as her foot landed in something thick and gooey—quicksand. Atasia struggled to get out, but the quicksand held her in place like chains bound to her feet. She finally managed to wrestle her way to shore, and she was so exhausted she fell asleep and didn't wake up until noon the next day. When she did wake up, it was from the three cannon shots that fired in rapid succession.

The hunting party of five broke camp at daybreak and commenced their hunt after a quick breakfast. Sephora and Amazingus were a little peeved at how useless they felt—they both felt as if Remus only cared about himself and Caylee only cared about herself and the sniveling Niles. As such, they turned to each other for validation, and their chatting was far louder and more energetic than was considered ordinary for any two people.

The strong, allied duo of Roxan and Markos from 10 were woken up by the loud chatting of Amazingus and Sephora. Markos sprang to his feet but immediately fell back down; the pack was about thirty yards away, and if they were very quick and stealthy they might be able to escape. Markos gently shook Roxan awake and alerted her to the seriousness of the situation. Immediately, the 10s hid their supplies and scuttled west like crabs, making every attempt to keep the levels of their bodies below that of the tall grass so they wouldn't be seen.

Of course, they couldn't make it far. Remus pointed out their stupidly sidewinding forms, and in a fraction of a second himself and the other four hunters had broken into runs. Abandoning all attempts to remain unseen, Markos and Roxan sprang to their feet, darting toward safety. Roxan, the faster runner of the two, sprinted from the scene without looking back. After nearly twenty minutes, she collapsed near a small watering hole, thinking she was safe. What she didn't know was that Amazingus and Sephora had split off of the pack to follow her while the rest of the careers followed Markos. Roxan took a sip from the watering hole, and when she saw the reflections of the 1s standing over her she didn't even have time to scream. Two of Sephora's arrows had been lodged into her back, and as her blood squirted from her body Amazingus finished her with his hatchet.

 _Roxan Matthews, District 10 Female: 16th, Killed by Sephora and Amazingus, Day 3_

About half a kilometer away, Markos was fleeing for his life as Remus, Caylee, and Niles chased after him (Niles falling behind the others, only joining in on the chase because he knew he'd be kicked from the pack or worse if he didn't). The 10 boy was a fast runner, but of course he couldn't flee forever. When the careers began to grow tired, Markos dove sideways, wriggling down into the dry savannah soil as if he could sink into the earth and hide until they went away. He was screaming as soon as Caylee's trident had entered his chest, and the 4 girl wore a delicate smile as she tore out the prongs, ready to go in for the kill.

About a hundred yards away at the gift shop, Odette heard Markos' screams. She knew it was stupid, but she sprinted toward them. It was just some outlier who had fallen into a hole or something. All she needed to do was polish them off and then go back to what she was doing like nothing had happened. Big mistake.

Odette arrived at the scene in minutes. Instead of killing him quickly, Remus and Caylee had been circling Markos like vultures, wanting to impress the sponsors a little before ending his life. Finally, hands clamped to the open gashes on his torso, Markos climbed agonizingly to his feet. At that exact moment, Odette ran right into him, toppling him to the ground like a domino. Not recognizing her, Caylee buried her trident straight into the back of Odette's neck. It was only after her cannon fired and the blood stopped flowing from her body that Caylee realized she had killed a fellow career. Victor Nolan Wrack's daughter was not going to follow in her dad's footsteps.

 _Odette Wrack, District 2 Female: 15th, Killed by Caylee, Day 3_

Meanwhile, Markos was struggling to wiggle out from underneath the 2 girl's dead body. Blood was splashing around him in torrents, though he could barely see it because of the black dots in his vision as a result of the blood loss and organ failure. He was gone in moments. Remus and Caylee left the scene to find Amazingus and Sephora, and Niles trailed behind, crying into his shirt sleeve.

 _Markos Foiled, District 10 Male: 14th, Killed by Caylee, Day 3_

The disjointed career pack journeyed to the horn soon after finding each other. Amazingus and Sephora were as talkative as ever; their back-and-forth conversation consequently tried the nerves of Remus, who shushed them and said some not-so-nice things about how annoying they were being. Remus wasn't a mean person in principle, but he was sour at the time; he saw himself as the pack leader, yet Caylee had more kills than him, and he was bursting with envy.

Day 4 was much less eventful. The careers spent the entire day at the horn, sorting supplies and catching up on sleep. Every hour Niles was growing more and more fretful to the point that even Caylee couldn't calm him. He would sometimes disappear for hours at a time just to cry before showing back up and refusing to talk to the others. He was the weak link in the pack, but the only reason he wasn't dead yet was that he wasn't needed—with so many pack members still alive, one or possibly two members could slack off and there wouldn't be much difference in the group's efficiency. Niles would be in for a terrible fate when their numbers dwindled and more and more pressure was put on his shoulders, and he dreaded that day.

After fleeing the jaguar mutts on Day 2, Bentley had been running on and off for the entirety of the third day, and now on the fourth day he discovered one of the broken-down safari vehicles. Any other tribute would have taken the supplies inside and left, but being from 6 Bentley had a plan. At first he used mere sticks and stones to do his work, and when sponsors caught on to what he was doing they sent him a cart of wrenches and tools to help him out. He had opened the hood of the vehicle and was now connecting wires and replacing old pieces. In mere hours, Bentley was almost completely sure he had fixed the vehicle. He wanted to wait until the next day to test it because he was exhausted from all the work, and the Capitol had to wait on the edges of their seats for a little bit while Bentley caught up on well-deserved sleep.

In the tropical rainforest, allies Maple and Sequoia had a close scrape with death. They had split apart to hunt for food when a bored Maple threw a rock upward, hitting the trunk of a tall, thin tree. What he didn't know was that the tree was inhabited by a dozen sleeping toucan mutts with razor-sharp beaks. Maple screamed and staggered away from the agitated toucan mutts, making a beeline for the safety of the duo's wooden shelter. Half a mile away, Sequoia heard his screams and ran to his side, only for half of the flock to break off and follow her. The twins from District 7 tore into their shelter five minutes later and held the entrance closed until the flock left, and even then they stayed inside for several minutes in case there were any stragglers.

Meanwhile, in the arctic wasteland, a certain Gianne Keller was not very happy. She was beginning to seriously regret her decision to skip the bloodbath; she was on the verge of death from both starvation and hypothermia; the only thing holding her back from tumbling over the precipice was the fish that she caught in the stream by her cave shelter. Despite lacking in many other areas, Gianne had an extremely swift hand and could catch almost any fish as she saw fit. It she kept up her inactivity, however, the gamemakers would have no choice but to do something with her, and there was a good chance that something wouldn't be a good thing for the girl.

In the early morning of Day 5, a kill was made. Despite being the outlier with one of the highest scores, Indre from 3 had remained almost completely inactive for the first four days of the games; she didn't want to make such a splash in the first few days that the others would paint a target onto her back. Now that the tribute count had dwindled to thirteen, though, Indre felt comfortable starting to bump off tributes. She packed up her supplies, including her red plastic cup that she used for water purification, and traipsed into the thick of the hot, muggy aquarium.

It wasn't long before Indre spotted her first victim. The gangster boy from 9 had left the bathroom he'd been living inside of for a few days to relieve himself when Indre came into view (the toilets inside didn't work, or he'd have just gone inside). Nestor zipped up his pants and scrambled into the safety of the bathroom, thinking he had remained unseen. But Indre followed behind him, and he was cornered. The boy tore the moldy toilet seat out of one of the stalls and hurled it at the 3 girl, but she easily ducked out of the way. Nestor was ultimately helpless as the girl buried her two spears into his chest. After his death, Indre shoved his body outside so it could be collected and then took over the bathroom as her new home.

 _Nestor Cunningham, District 9 Male: 13th, Killed by Indre, Day 5_

The morning of Day 6, Niles from 4 finally broke away from the pack. He'd lied awake the entire night crying and decided he just couldn't bear to be around Sephora, Amazingus, Remus, and Caylee, whom he saw as heartless, cold-blooded killers, any longer. Before the others awoke, Niles grabbed a few supplies and sprinted away from the gift shop, moving for the comforting darkness of the tropical rainforest.

The rest of Day 6 was uneventful. The careers awoke to the realization that Niles was gone, and they all had varying reactions. Caylee was distraught at the loss of her little district partner, and she didn't do much for most of the day. Remus used this as a foothold to climb his way back up to the title of pack leader; with Caylee refusing to carry out most of her duties as co-leader, Remus was responsible for everything, and he liked the feeling of being in power. For most of the morning, Niles fled to the tropical rainforest, and at noon he found a village of small earthen cabins that smelled sweet. Niles' grandmother was from the Capitol, and she sponsored him a loaf of District 4 bread that he munched on anxiously. Indre had grown in popularity after killing Nestor the day prior, and a sponsor sent her a grappling hook, which came in useful to drag herself around particularly thick and swampy regions of the aquarium. Cartier, the least popular tribute left in these games, finally exhausted the jam supply in his butter-yellow pack, and he was forced to go hunting. He settled next to a different watering hole, hoping that prey would come to him. Bentley had completely repaired the broken-down safari vehicle by dawn on the sixth day, and he was eager to start driving it. To his pleasure, the thing roared to life and began chugging over the savannah the second he turned the key. In the arctic, Gianne was beginning to turn blue from hypothermia, and even eating dozens of fish each day couldn't keep her warm. She could have just moved to the nearby tropical rainforest, but hypothermia was preventing her from thinking straight. Maple and Sequoia, now the most popular outliers after their epic escape of the toucan mutts, started hunting with their hatchets, wanting to thin the crowd of tributes and end the games faster. They didn't find any tributes, however (they were the only ones in the tropical rainforest quadrant of the zoo) and they returned to their trusty shelter at nightfall. Atasia was paranoid out of her wits after nearly dying in quicksand a few days previously. Wherever she walked, she always darted her eyes back and forth as if trying to spot anything trying to "sneak up on her".

And the next day, somebody did sneak up on her: Bentley from 6. The 6 boy was driving his renovated safari vehicle casually through the savannah when he spotted a flash of Atasia's fiery red hair, and it was this that spelled her doom. If she'd kept her hair covered, the girl might have had time to scramble to a place where Bentley couldn't see her. Bentley revved the vehicle up to top speed and chased after the 8 girl, and she fled screaming. She was overtaken by her killer in seconds. It took all of his willpower to keep from vomiting as the vehicle ran over her body, flattening her limbs instantly and pressing them into the dirt. If she had been carrying anything useful on her, Bentley never knew; he didn't want to stay around the girl's dead body any longer than he had to and chose to leave quickly.

 _Atasia Moore, District 8 Female: 12th, Killed by Bentley, Day 7_

In the arctic quadrant of the arena, Gianne was nearing death. She was growing loopy from hypothermia and that made it much harder to catch the fish that had kept her alive since the beginning of the games. It was all she could do to cower in the pitiful cave that was her home as the seventh day melted into the eighth, watching as frostbite turned her fingers blue then black, hoping that death would take her quickly.

As Gianne clung onto life, chaos was ensuing on the other side of the arena. The portion of the pack that was hunting (Amazingus, Sephora, and Remus) were resting near a watering hole in the savannah. What they didn't know was that they had trespassed on the territory of a fierce lion mutt, and it would be furious when it came home. The golden-maned beast returned to its watering hole at dawn holding a multitude of small animals in its maw. Its first growl of fury as it spotted the careers was loud enough to wake all three of them at once, and they scrambled for their weapons, nervously assembling in the cool morning air as the lion mutt grew closer and closer.

The lion mutt made the first move, leaping forward and lashing out with its left paw. Amazingus screamed as the mutt pounced onto him, and there was nothing he could do as it tore him to shreds. Sephora fell back, distraught at the sight of her best friend being mauled to death. When the 1 boy's cannon sounded, the lion mutt drew away. The first of the Fantasticness siblings had been cut to ribbons in a matter of seconds.

 _Amazingus Fantasticness, District 1 Male: 11th, Killed by Lion Muttation, Day 8_

"Leave my land. You're not welcome here."

Sephora and Remus whipped their heads around, searching for the owner of the gruff voice. But the voice was coming from the lion mutt. As it opened its maw, the words poured out, low and husky and filled with rage. It was the first non-human mutt in games history capable of human speech.

Sephora began formulating a response, but Remus silenced her. As it turned out, the 2 boy wasn't just strong. He was dangerously clever, and he had the perfect plan to eliminate the lion mutt.

"What's your name?" Remus asked.

"I am the Grand Lion," it said. "Men have feared me for centuries. My hide is impenetrable by even the sharpest spear. Your weapons will bounce off of me like stones. And you have trespassed on my land. Savor your last few seconds on Earth."

Remus raised his eyebrows, and Sephora fell back in confusion. But Remus wasn't confused. He had a plan.

"Really?" the career boy said matter-of-factly. "You don't seem that intimidating."

The Grand Lion roared so loudly that the earth seemed to tremble, and even Remus covered his ears. But he was resilient.

"How dare you offend the Grand Lion?" it roared.

"Hey, hey, hey," Remus said. "The truth is, another lion came here before you. He had no respect for you, the Grand Lion. He wanted to fight you to prove you were no stronger than him. But he couldn't stay. So he told us to tell you what he truly thought."

"Where is this other lion now?" roared the Grand Lion. "I will not stop until he is dead."

Remus smirked. "He's in the lake."

And the Grand Lion peered into the watering hole, and sure enough saw his reflection in the glassy surface. The Grand Lion bared his teeth, and so did his reflection—the other lion. In moments, the Grand Lion had dove into the lake, wrestling with the water as if attempting to strangle its own reflection. Sephora and Remus watched earnestly as the mutt drowned itself. Soon after its death, the duo returned to the gift shop, Remus in the front and the traumatized Sephora trailing behind.

Moments after the Grand Lion's death, another life was lost. Gianne had been clinging onto life for several painful hours, but she couldn't survive much longer than that in the bitter chill of the arctic. Her last words were unintelligible, and they would never be deciphered.

 _Gianne Keller, District 6 Female: 10th, Killed by Hypothermia, Day 8_

Day 9 almost outdid Day 8. Starting very early in the morning, heavy rains began to fall onto the arena. The dark clouds started over the aquarium before spreading over the entire zoo arena, and with the first crash of the thunder the rains began pummeling down like bullets. Niles was quiet once more after crying almost continuously for several days, and he watched out of the glassless window of his cozy jungle hut as it rained outside. The gamemakers did a bit of research on Niles and found that his mother and father were Hunger Games fanatics who had been abusing him since an early age to "shape him up" for the games and had been forcing him to train daily against his will. The Capitol mostly kept Niles around for his sob story, but even that armor couldn't shield him for long unless he made a splash sooner than later.

In the savannah quadrant, Bentley was going on another casual ride in his safari vehicle when the dark clouds rolled in. He just shrugged and kept humming his tradition District 6 tune to himself, not bothered in the slightest by the rainfall. Half an hour later, the wheel landed in a puddle, splashing water upward and into the vehicle. Bentley cried out and reeled backward, inadvertently tugging the steering wheel sharply to one side. Bentley and the safari vehicle were sent careening down a forty-five degree slope. The 6 boy screamed and held onto the seat for dear life, and the car landed in a field of quicksand moments later. In seconds, the vehicle was sinking, and it was going fast. As the front seats began to flood with quicksand, Bentley fought his way to the back. He started panicking when he realized the doors weren't working. He broke a window with one of his spears and fought his way out just as the safari car was fully submerged. After the incident, Bentley fought his way through the rain to a small cave, which would be his new home until he found somewhere cozier to stay.

When the careers decided the time was ripe to start hunting again, Caylee volunteered to go out by herself. There was a constant, neck-and-neck battle between Caylee and Remus for the position of pack leader, and the 4 girl desperately wanted to take any opportunity she could to surpass the feats of the 2 boy. Remus and Sephora were both exhausted and didn't really complain; Caylee promptly left the horn, heading for the tropical rainforest.

It was less than an hour before she stumbled across the well-made wooden shelter of Sequoia and Maple Canopies. The fraternal twins from 7 were broiling a variety of vegetables in a silver pot they'd been sponsored. Caylee was drawn to the scent of the broiling soup like a fly to a sugar bowl, and as the well-camouflaged shelter came into sight a delicate grin plastered itself onto her pretty face. Maple and Sequoia shrieked with horror as Caylee burst into their hut, and they banged at the back wall, trying to break out. Sequoia had just managed to punch out a hole big enough to fit through when Caylee buried the prongs of her trident into her neck. Sequoia moaned and gurgled sickeningly, falling onto the ground with her arms outstretched beside her horrified brother.

 _Sequoia Canopies, District 7 Female: 9th, Killed by Caylee, Day 9_

The final eight had been formed: Sephora Robert from District 1, Remus Daley from District 2, Indre Cubbard from District 3, Niles Howell and Caylee Gray from District 4, Cartier Morrison from District 5, Bentley Robinson from District 6, and Maple Canopies from District 7.

Maple did a double take, tears pooling up in his eyes at the sight of his twin sister's lifeless body, her eyes as empty as the windows of an abandoned house. Without thinking about what he was doing, he dove at Caylee, but there was of course no way he could triumph over the trained 4 girl. The cameras showed him dead, three gashes obviously made by Caylee's trident in his torso, in no time. Caylee stayed inside their shelter the rest of the day, enjoying the deliverance from the constant feeling of the cool rain on her shoulders. She only returned to the gift shop the next morning.

 _Maple Canopies, District 7 Male: 8th, Killed by Caylee, Day 9_

Day 10 had a singular peak of excitement. Despite being the strongest tributes in the games, Sephora, Remus, and Caylee weren't without contest; they had Indre from 3 and Bentley from 6 to worry about. Both had scored eights, and since the beginning of the games they had been the pack's top threats. They'd been assuming they would both die from mutts or the like sooner or later, but both of these strong outliers had managed to evade death for ten entire days. Eventually, the pack had to metaphorically slam their fists onto the table. They had to go out and kill them themselves. Then there was Niles, who was enjoying his fourth day away from the pack in his small hut in the heart of the jungle. For all they knew, he could be pulling off some Iuna Mosier-like gambit, and they were determined to kill him soon. With three main targets and three careers, it only made sense to split for the time being. They hid many of their most treasured supplies and left the horn completely unguarded for the first time ever. They were certainly trying their luck, but they all agreed that it would be worth it if they could kill at least one or two of their three main targets.

Sephora of 1 had been assigned by her stronger allies to comb through the aquarium in search of prey. The aquarium was pretty much unanimously the worst place to be; it was so hot and muggy she could only barely breathe, and the mosquitoes were awful. To make matters worse, over the course of the games fields of algae and mold and Snow knows what else had burst into life on the surface of the water. The stench was unbearable, and she couldn't wait to just make her kill and get herself out of that forsaken place.

Mercifully, she found her victim sooner than she'd anticipated. Sephora was slogging through the waist-high water when she spotted three distinct markings in a squishy, unstable island nearby. Were those markings made by—grappling hooks? The 1 girl noticed a trail of the marks and followed them to the elevated, unflooded restroom. Indre was sleeping in one of the stalls as Sephora quietly marched inside. The 3 girl was awoken almost instantly by her footsteps, and Sephora had no idea she wasn't alone in the restroom…

In a fraction of a second, Indre pounced off of the toilet seat and grabbed onto the top of the stall, dragging herself over it and landing on the ground right next to Sephora. Sephora screamed as Indre buried her spears into her chest. The others were too far away to hear her. Reinforcements were not coming. Indre swallowed the bile that built up in her throat as she dragged the career's corpse outside to be collected by the hovercraft.

 _Sephora Robert, District 1 Female: 7th, Killed by Indre, Day 10_

Day 11 was deathless. Remus and Caylee regrouped at the gift shop and made the official decision that with only six tributes left it was time to split. A sponsor sent them a cloth bag filled with two cubes, each one bearing one of their names. Remus drew a cube at random; he would be the one to leave the gift shop, whereas Caylee would stay behind. The 2 boy gathered up a handsome supply of weapons, food, and water and headed off into the savannah soon after.

As for the outliers, there was a lot of movement but little action. Indre was exhausted and somewhat battered from her skirmish with Sephora, and she rested in the back stall of the abandoned restroom munching on sponsor foods. After several days of inactivity and a note from his sponsor warning him that he was one of the career pack's top targets, Niles left his earthen hut and strolled aimlessly through the tropical rainforest, occasionally stopping to munch on cocoa beans. Cartier was continually "moving" around to keep from fading into the background, but he was really just tracing circles around the watering hole. He was too scared to move far away from it for fear of losing it, and besides he liked the feeling of comfort the lapping water provided. Bentley spent the day searching for a new safari vehicle after his old one sank into the quicksand, and he found one early in the morning. He took out his crate of tools and worked at the vehicle for most of the day to get it working again; it would not be finished until the next morning, but he'd gotten most of the more strenuous work done by the end of the eleventh day.

By the morning of Day 12, Niles had left the rainforest and ventured into the savannah, and at that same moment Bentley put the finishing touches on the safari car. He lugged himself and his supplies inside and revved up the engine. After about half an hour, he spotted the small Niles about a hundred feet away and started chasing after him. Despite the 4 boy's small size, he was incredibly fast, and he managed to evade being run over by Bentley despite his best efforts.

Only one death occurred before Day 12 was over. While Caylee stayed at the horn sorting weapons, her ex-ally Remus wandered through the savannah in pursuit of prey. Around four in the evening, he spotted the willowy Cartier at the base of a steep slope to his right. The outlier boy had no idea that the career boy was so near, and he was blissfully unaware of what was about to happen. Remus' gaze landed on a large boulder nearby, and he knew just what to do. Using all of the strength he could muster, Remus shoved the boulder to the top of the slope and sent it rolling down. Cartier heard the thumping of the boulder too late to be saved; he turned around just as it bowled him over, flattening him against the ground and killing him in seconds.

 _Cartier Morrison, District 5 Male: 6th, Killed by Remus, Day 12_

Day 13 was jam-packed with excitement; it hosted a total of two deaths, reducing the tribute count from five to three. In the morning, Remus sprinted down the slope and collected all of the supplies Cartier had before he died; it wasn't much, just a throwing knife, but it was better than nothing. Temperatures in the savannah quadrant of the zoo were higher than ever, and he was longing for some shade, so he spent most of the day in a smaller cave, passing his machetes back and forth between his hands.

After Bentley had fallen asleep the night prior strapped to the seat of his safari vehicle, Niles crawled out of the small dirt hole that was his home, smiling somewhat. The tricksy boy had a clever plan; he figured he had no chance of winning the games against such tough opponents and wanted his last move to be something that would make everyone laugh. Niles followed the sound of rushing water to a stream lined with rocks. He gathered up as many of the rocks as he could and returned to Bentley's vehicle. He then piled the stones of varying color and shape around the wheels, even lodging some underneath to restrict the movement of the car even further. Once he was sure that the car wasn't going anywhere, Niles stifled a giggle, satisfied he'd been stealthy enough to keep Bentley from waking up while he executed his master plan.

As Niles turned to flee, his foot hit one of the rocks, and he cursed, falling forward onto his face. Bentley was instantly awoken, and he leapt out of the seat of the vehicle. Niles let out a bloodcurdling scream as the muscular Bentley grabbed one of the larger rocks and slammed it down into his face. There was a crunch of bone, and the boy was sent unconscious immediately. Over the course of the next few minutes, Bentley beat the pitiful boy to death. By the time he was finished, his head was a misshapen blob smeared with blood.

 _Niles Howell, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Bentley, Day 13_

Moments later, another cannon sounded, and it came from the aquarium. Indre was snoozing away in the restroom when she picked up on a sickening gurgle from underneath her feet. It was a trick Seneca had been saving for the end of the games, and it was quite possibly one of the most humorous deaths in games history up to that point.

Indre sped for the exit but only made it halfway there; she froze, dumbfounded with shock, as all three of the toilets literally exploded. Shards of porcelain flew every which way; Indre held her arms in front of herself to shield her face. One of the shards missed her heart by mere inches, and another buried itself into her wrist. She didn't even have time to breathe before water started exploding out of the toilets, splashing over the floor and walls and sweeping her straight off of her feet. Indre was carried toward the exit and sent careening down a nearby slope. She was deposited with a plop in the murky water of the aquarium, and she was so panicked that she inhaled two whole lungfuls of water. Indre's passing marked the first toilet-related death in Hunger Games history, and it would not be one to forget.

 _Indre Cubbard, District 3 Female: 4th, Killed by Drowning, Day 13_

Day 14 turned out to be the final day in the arena. The first half of the day was strangely uneventful as the final three milled about in nervous preparation for the finale. Remus left his cool cave and practiced with his machetes for much of the former half of the day; a few generous sponsors pooled together their funds to send him a bit of body armor that would deflect most minor blows. Caylee stuck around at the gift shop, practicing with her trident and several other weapons that could come in handy.

Around noon, Bentley's day went from good to bad. He'd originally had the idea in his head of cinematically driving into the finale and bowling over his final competitor, but this idea was demolished as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The air around him stank of ozone and rust. Bentley dove to the left and rolled out of the vehicle just in time. Seconds after his escape, a lightning bolt descended from the sky and blasted the car to smithereens. Bentley was far enough away that he wasn't killed, but he had come very close; he was out for nearly two hours before regaining consciousness. He moved toward the gift shop with his two spears, the only things he'd managed to escape with before his car was blown to bits.

As it turned out, Bentley wasn't the only one to be struck by lightning. Remus and Caylee received similar shocks. About two-hundred yards from the cornucopia, Remus noticed the clouds flickering above him. He knew from his training that in a lightning storm it was best to stick low to the ground. He ran for about half a minute before dropping in a ditch, and just in time; an arm of lightning slammed into the ground where he had been seconds before, and he felt his hairs stand up all over his body.

Bentley and Remus had been lucky enough to survive their lightning strikes, but the third of the three finalists was not so lucky. Caylee was relaxing contentedly inside of the gift shop when the gamemaker gods blew the building to bits. With a roof over her head, she hadn't been able to see the lightning forming. Her body was incinerated almost instantly. District 4 would not have a victor this year.

 _Caylee Gray, District 4 Female: 3rd, Killed by Lightning, Day 14_

Remus and Bentley met up at the site of the ruined gift shop minutes later. Remus was almost completely unfazed by everything that had transpired in the past few hours, and with his machetes and a bounty of other weapons he was confident he could take down his final opponent.

While Bentley was technically conscious, being so near the lightning strike had made his brain a little fuzzy; he couldn't really speak and his movements were difficult to control.

Remus made the first blow, lashing out with both of his machetes in rapid succession, and Bentley reeled; even without complete health, he still had human instinct on his side. The 6 boy decided to take the risk of launching one of the spears, and this risk paid off—the point of the spear buried itself into Remus' shoulder, and he roared, dropping his machetes and lunging toward Bentley as blood sprayed from his shoulder.

Both tributes were defenseless, and all of the weapons that would have normally been supplied had been destroyed in the lightning strike that had also killed Caylee. Groaning slightly, Remus snatched up one of the bright-red bricks that had been thrown out by the explosion, and the rest is history, one of the most iconic finale kills in Hunger Games history. Remus slammed the brick into Bentley's head, and he let out a short mewl of pain before falling into absolute unconsciousness. Remus lifted his brick back into the air and brought it down once more with all of his earthly strength, smashing in the 6 boy's skull. He was dead from head trauma in moments.

 _Bentley Robinson, District 6 Male: 2nd, Killed by Remus, Day 14_

"Remus Daley of District 2, you are the victor of the seventy-second annual Hunger Games!" Caesar and Claudius shouted, Caesar sounding happy and Claudius a little disappointed; Caesar had liked Remus whereas Claudius had favored Bentley.

Remus dropped the bricks and closed his eyes stoically, the sun gleaming across his dark skin as the hovercraft descended to collect him.

 _Remus Daley, District 2 Male: Victor of the Seventy-Second Hunger Games, Day 14_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Remus was a district hero after winning and earning District 2 its eighteenth victor. He was considered a stereotypical career by many, but it turned out that he was cleverer than most and was shrewder and more cunning than almost any victor that had come before him. He would take the job of an entrepreneur, owning multiple businesses during his lifetime, most of which would make him a fair amount of money. He didn't really need the money; as a victor, the Capitol was always giving him enormous sums of money just for existing, so he would send much of his profits to the poor of District 2. He wasn't nearly as devoted to philanthropy as fellow victor Victor Xhang, but the two would become great friends nonetheless.

Remus settled comfortably into the Victor's Village of District 2, the eighteenth to do so.

His victory tour was okay; he was an alright public speaker who knew how to please a crowd. District 6 was furious, however—they'd been so close to victory with Bentley Robinson.

Remus would live to the age of ninety, dying from cancer around the time of the one-hundred forty-fifth annual Hunger Games. He wouldn't marry, but it seemed he had a decades-long romantic and sexual relationship with Victor Xhang. He drank huge amounts of alcohol, but not because his games traumatized him; he just like to drink. He also enjoyed smoking cigars on his porch every evening.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Remus moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, next door to Victor's home.

Cecelia Rieffel has her third child, Oliver Rieffel.

Cashmere Linden's third child, Gild, is born.

Sapphire Waber, the victor of the second annual Hunger Games, dies of liver cancer.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Come on, yell at me. What the heck, Cjborange? Two weeks without an update? Sorry about that long wait. I've been spending quite a lot of time planning for my SYOT and just dealing with, ugh, real life.**

 **Here's Remus! I hope you can forgive me for yet another District 2 victor, but like Katniss says they do win the majority of games. And to give you a bit of perspective, this is the games Katniss watches on the train to the Capitol. And then Caesar says, "this is the moment you never forget—when a tribute becomes a victor". Apparently it's popular "fanon" that those games are the 73rd, but that conflicted with my head canon so I just had to—shift it over a bit.**

 **Stay tuned for the 73rd, the wait for which hopefully shouldn't take nearly as long as this one. As it's the last games before the canon cut-off point, I hope I don't spoil it by making it take forever :D**


	74. The 73rd Hunger Games

**The 73rd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

After the kills and thrills of the year prior, Seneca Crane returned to the post of head gamemaker. To his delight, the masterpiece of the seventy-second games was extremely well received, and with the coveted third Quarter Quell on the horizon the Capitol was thrown into another one of the Hunger Game crazes that popped up every decade or so. Every time one of these crazes came about, they brought a myriad of new fads with them—colored skin, glitter, and the like, and this time it was face paint. Augustus Braun, the party animal of the sixty-seventh, was widely cited as the one to start the fad when he posted a clip on his social media of his face painted intricately like a tiger. In no time, the other District 1 victors had begun painting their faces like animals, and given the Capitol's state of always wanting to be like the victors it became the hottest trend in days. Prices for face paints skyrocketed in the Capitol, and as more victors began promoting different brands the list of the top hundred suppliers could never stay consistent for more than a few hours or even minutes. That Tuesday, April 13, however, a damper was put on the Capitol's cheer. Seneca Crane's wife, the elegant and beautiful Delphina Pine, was found dead in her sitting room, slumped lifelessly against the plush purple sofa, an obvious bullet hole in her chest. Her body was taken to a high-tech freezer to prevent decay as every square inch of her was combed over for evidence. The case was uncannily reminiscent of that of three years prior—the death of Magnolia Asher, President Coriolanus Snow's late wife. Upon further investigation of the murdered Delphina's home, it was found that a nearby window had shattered; when the larger shards of glass were reassembled, it became obvious that a bullet hole had been created in the glass. The entire house was marked with caution tape as it was inspected for any trace of a bullet, but none was found. The bullet had been shot through the window and then… vanished. But it couldn't have vanished, of course. Every adult knew that magic wasn't real. There was something fishy going on, and nobody could shake the thought out of their heads that the deaths of the two young women had been carried about by the same person…

The arena this year was undoubtedly more terrifying than any that had come before. Seneca was young, bombastic, and sharply imaginative; all it took was a loyal team of gamemakers and a strong crop of builders and the horrors of his imagination would be emptied into the nightmares of district children. There would be no shortage of closets and corners checked for monsters during these games, that was for sure. The arena seemed to be suspended in perpetual darkness; it would be tough to define day and night in the always-nighttime arena. The cornucopia was located on a tall black mountain in the center of the arena, and the mountain was made of tough stone that was nearly impossible to break. Thunderclouds circled overhead, rumbling menacingly. As a tribute made their way down the mountain, they would find the slope riddled with monsters; witches with warts on their noses that could shoot red sparks from their fingertips, and banshees, who lived in crudely-fashioned stone cabins and had screams that would bring excruciating pain to anyone in earshot. The few trees that had managed to take root on the evil slope were fruitless and in fact looked like the bony hands of skeletons attempting to crawl out of their prisons deep within the ground. The rest of the arena spread out from the mountain, and it was so thick with fog a tribute could barely see five feet in front of their face. In essence, it was a forest, but it was spookier than any forest imaginable; there wasn't a single leaf on the thousands of trees, and stones carved with strange runes were scattered here and there. There was also no shortage of mutts in the dark woods—characters of legends that could drive the tributes crazy. Occasionally the tributes would see strange visions in the thick fog, visions of terrible things, and to top everything off, shadows would occasionally flicker across the full moon, giving the impression that a massive beast was flying overhead. This was not the stunningly beautiful arena Seneca Crane was famous for.

The careers were a particularly unique bunch this year, and the composition of the pack hadn't really been seen ever before. District 1 offered forth two good-looking tributes that scored well, but for wildly different reasons. The male, Awesomeness Fantasticness, was the second of the three Fantasticness brothers who would compete in the games. Like his brothers, he was tall and slender and a lover of spears and swords, though he could fight with several different weapons well. He had less of a sense of humor than his brothers as well. The female was the weakest of the bunch this year, a lesser in weaponry but an extraordinarily manipulative girl. She even seduced one of the top gamemakers, earning her a ten instead of an eight. That gamemaker was later tried and fired for his actions. District 2's tributes were both wily and perky, a startling contrast to 2's usual crop of cold-booded fighters. The boy was the descendant of several prominent rebels from the Dark Days—somehow the academy never caught wind of this in the five years he had been training there, and this would cause problems later on. Meanwhile, the girl somehow displayed polar opposites; she had blonde hair, which was nearly nonexistent in 2, and she was sexy and tantalizing while being cute with a playful smile at the same time. 4 provided the weakest pair, but they were both good enough warriors. The boy was somewhat high-and-mighty, and he saw himself as the undisputed leader of the pack despite the fact that he was tied with two other tributes for highest score. He did score a ten though, as he was swifter than most and had dexterity to rival even District 1. The chosen female volunteer from 4, Sharka Nightengale, freaked out at the reaping and didn't volunteer. In recent years, the academies had started to choose backup volunteers in case the chosen one refused to volunteer, and so the somewhat-weaker-but-still-well-enough-trained Pila was sent into the arena. The training scores of the pack were great: three tens and three nines.

This year had one of the strongest outlier crops in ages; it had become apparent by then that a healthy group of outliers could have just as much impact on a Hunger Games' memorability factor as its career tributes, and as such many of the reapings were rigged such that lots of strong contenders showed their faces. An astonishing two tens were earned! Apollo Reinold and Kaelyn Ritter from 6 had been best friends since they could crawl, and they'd both put on a fair bit of muscle from years of work in the metalworking factories of 6. They were the first outliers to score double digits since Titus five years previously. There were also two eights, both of them earned by healthy, capable tributes. Zircon from 3 was one of the few District 3 tributes who earned their high scores not through brains, but through sheer strength; he towered over the rest of the outliers and had an extremely sculpted body that made the sponsors swoon like flies around a sugar bowl. Meanwhile, Rosanna from 12 was stunningly beautiful and a master of pickaxes, and throughout the pre-games she never failed to repeatedly bring up her loyalty to the Capitol. Rosanna was 12's best stab at victory in ages. Quite a few sevens were scored as well: Salix and Sucra from 7, Martha from 8, and Ranger from 10. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. The final standout was a sad one: Margot Lyce from District 10 had been completely blind and deaf from birth, and at the age of thirteen her odds of surviving the next few weeks seemed slim to none. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Awesomeness Fantasticness, 18, (9) 7-1 and Splendour Iufala, 18, (10) 6-1

District 2: Drusillus Rhodes, 18, (10) 4-1 and Katya Paine, 17, (9) 5-1

District 3: Zircon Miliken, 18, (8) 9-1 and Codi Somers, 12, (2) 79-1

District 4: Coral Monson, 17, (10) 4-1 and Pila Teofila, 17, (9) 7-1

District 5: Orval Prescott, 15, (5) 24-1 and Venetta Asbury, 16, (5) 23-1

District 6: Apollo Reinold, 18, (10) 5-1 and Kaelyn Ritter, 18, (10) 5-1

District 7: Salix Snodgrass, 17, (7) 13-1 and Sucra Nowak, 18, (7) 14-1

District 8: Dominic Crocker, 15, (5) 27-1 and Martha McLeoyd, 15, (7) 15-1

District 9: Robbyn Obrayan, 16, (4) 32-1 and Synthia Callister, 16, (4) 31-1

District 10: Ranger O'Riley, 16, (7) 15-1 and Margot Lyce, 13, (2) 82-1

District 11: Boazine Rykeheart, 18, (6) 20-1 and Deandre Barrows, 13, (4) 36-1

District 12: Webster Coalman, 14, (5) 27-1 and Rosanna Ansbach, 18, (8) 11-1

HGBO Bets: 11% on Splendour, Drusillus, and Coral, 9% on Apollo and Kaelyn, 8% on Awesomeness, Katya, and Pila, 7% on Zircon and Rosanna, 3% on Salix, Sucra, Martha, and Ranger, 2% on Boazine, 1% or less on Codi, Orval, Venetta, Dominic, Robbyn, Synthia, Margot, Deandre, and Webster.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The sour-smelling wind was cold and biting as it whipped across the faces of the tributes. As clouds swirled and thunder crackled around them, many of them crossed their arms to maintain precious body heat. They were standing on the flat peak of the mountain, and they were precariously close to the edge; one or two steps backward, and anyone would be sent careening down the dangerous slope. The cornucopia, which was dimly-lit with several lanterns, stood in the center of their circle, bursting with weapons and larger stores of food and water than usual.

When the gong rang, all twenty-four tributes made the decision to head into the bloodbath. Nobody wanted to be helpless in the completely barren-looking terrain.

Apollo and Kaelyn from 6 made the first kill. Awesomeness' pedestal was situation between theirs, and they dove toward him at once, overwhelming him from both sides. His allies were too busy sweeping up weapons to pay any attention to his cries of help as Apollo punched him hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him instantly. Seconds later, Kaelyn appeared holding two machetes; Apollo took one, and the 6s polished off the 1 boy swiftly.

 _Awesomeness Fantasticness, District 1 Male: 24th, Killed by Apollo and Kaelyn, Bloodbath_

Things were looking a bit more familiar over at the cornucopia. Coral, the fastest runner of the pack, grabbed up an oaken bow and quiver that were sitting near a large boulder about halfway between his plate and the cornucopia. Coral threw the quiver over his back and fired a volley of two arrows at a nearby girl; his aim was perfect, and the girl's screams were already choked by the sound of blood.

 _Venetta Asbury, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Coral, Bloodbath_

Katya had run all of the way into the cornucopia for a belt of throwing knives, and she started throwing as soon as the belt was clipped securely around her middle. A nearby outlier screeched as two of the throwing knives dug into his chest. He staggered to the ground, coughing up blood, as Katya ran to his side to retrieve her knives.

 _Boazine Rykeheart, District 11 Male: 22nd, Killed by Katya, Bloodbath_

Splendour picked up a willowy girl and threw her to the ground like nothing. There was a sickening crack as several of her bones broke upon contact with the hard, slippery stone of the mountaintop. As she struggled to scramble away, Splendour grabbed a spear, and her desperate attempts to escape were futile.

 _Sucra Nowak, District 7 Female: 21st, Killed by Splendour, Bloodbath_

Having wrenched both of his arrows out of the dead Venetta's abdomen, Coral fluidly attacked his next victims. About ten yards away, two district partners with locked arms were attempting to escape down the west slope with a spear and pack of wire. The male let out of a scream as one of Coral's arrows planted itself into his back; the female turned around, horrified, as the second arrow entered her mouth, digging through her throat and poking out of the back of her neck.

 _Robbyn Obrayan, District 9 Male: 20th, Killed by Coral, Bloodbath_

 _Synthia Callister, District 9 Female: 19th, Killed by Coral, Bloodbath_

Rosanna Ansbach, the stunningly beautiful girl from District 12, scooped up a pickaxe that had been placed there by the gamemakers specifically for her. Despite having never actively trained for the games in her life, she didn't seem to mind killing, and she didn't pass up the opportunity to make a kill as a girl with a high score ran straight past. She screamed as the point of Rosanna's pickaxe dug into her chest. In moments, she was writhing on the ground rather disgustingly, and she was gone in moments more.

 _Martha McLeoyd, District 8 Female: 18th, Killed by Rosanna, Bloodbath_

After pillaging Martha of the few supplies she had been carrying at the time of her death, Rosanna sped toward safety. Before she could reach it, however, she was intercepted by Katya and Pila, who didn't want the strongest outlier to escape the bloodbath with her life. Rosanna had great reflexes, but even so she wasn't keen enough to outsmart the two trained careers. In no time, Katya had landed a throwing knife into her shoulder. Rosanna collapsed like a rag doll, screaming in pain. The 4 girl made the last move, skewering her spear through her chest and killing District 12's best shot at victory in ages.

 _Rosanna Ansbach, District 12 Female: 17th, Killed by Katya and Pila, Bloodbath_

Pila started away from the 12 girl's corpse to look for more victims when Drusillus from 2 tackled her out of the blue. Pila stared, mouth wide-open, at the boy she had thought to be her ally as he grabbed the spear out of her hands and snapped it underfoot. Pila screamed for help as Drusillus grabbed the scruff of her neck and dragged her to the edge of the mountain. The rebel boy thrust his sword into her chest, knocking her over the edge. Pila tumbled two-hundred feet down the slope before landing in a field of sharp rocks that skewered through her head on all sides and pierced her brain. Drusillus watched from above, cackling madly as her corpse fell farther and farther down the slope before disappearing from sight. After her death, the 2 boy left quickly. He didn't want to be around when the careers deduced he was the one who'd abandoned the pack and killed a fellow career in the process.

 _Pila Teofila, District 4 Female: 16th, Killed by Drusillus, Bloodbath_

The careers were quick to notice the absences of both Drusillus and Pila, and they were keen to investigate. Not wasting any time messing around at the cornucopia, they left Splendour to stand guard and ventured swiftly down the slope. Two hours later, Katya and Coral arrived where Pila's torn, battered body lay. Coral gingerly flipped her over, revealing the blatant sword wound on her back. "Traitor," Coral breathed as he and Katya shared morose eye contact. A career had never abandoned the pack so early, and what was even scarier was the fact that Drusillus was most likely armed and on the move. Katya and Coral didn't dilly or dally. They went hunting straight away, wanting to eliminate the threat as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the outliers scattered, heading down the mountain and some even making it to the base. Drusillus made his way tactfully down the northern slope, immensely pleased with himself for pulling off his killing of Pila right under the noses of his ex-allies. He rested at the base of the mountain once he was too tired to go on, making doodles in the dirt with his sword. Zircon made it all the way down the black mountain in a few hours and delved into the dark forest that surrounded the rock feature on all sides. In hours, he became too freaked-out to walk any more, and he settled in a clearing with his only possessions, a broadsword and a bread loaf. Codi, the twelve-year-old girl from District 3, fled the bloodbath crying. She had absolutely nothing but her bare hands and the clothes on her back, and as soon as the horrid cornucopia was out of sight she fell into a pitiful little cave, crying herself to sleep. Orval had a grappling hook and two knives. He made it down the eastern slope and explored the eastern foothills before settling between two boulders that would hide him from view. Apollo and Kaelyn reached the foot of the mountain and found a swift, short stream: a tributary of one of the larger rivers that wound their way around the central mountain. They had hit the jackpot; they had a collection of knives, two spears, several thermoses of water, a first aid kit, and much more. They eventually discovered a roomy cave veiled by black vines, which they made their home. Salix sprinted down the mountain, almost tripping on the way down. All he had was a tin of saltine crackers, and he settled dangerously close to the stone house where the banshees lived. Dominic was terrified; all he had was a spool of twine and he was alone in the dark, rainy arena. To make matters worse, he had a gaping wound on his shoulder made by one of Katya's throwing knives, and he was losing blood fast. The 8 boy staggered to ground level and collapsed in an old gated graveyard, begging for the sponsors to help him. Ranger was moving away from the cornucopia when he spotted a small shape nearby: Margot Lyce, his blind and deaf district partner, was curled up into a ball on the cold, hard ground, crying and writhing miserably. Ranger felt bad for the poor girl and scooped her up in his arms, carrying her to a dry patch of trees about half a mile away before setting her down. He knew he couldn't lug her around everywhere he went; he had done enough to help the pitiful girl. Once Margot was safe, Ranger departed. He found himself in the same graveyard as Dominic, but strangely the two didn't notice each other for the remainder of the day. Deandre wandered through the shadowy forest and was met with a glorious sight: a warm-looking gingerbread house with walls and roof of candy. Deadre fell inside, leaving her water thermos and knife in a corner, and munched on candy until she couldn't fit any more inside of her. Webster fled the bloodbath screaming after witnessing his ally Venetta being shot in the torso by Coral from 4. Mere minutes after the bloodbath ended, Webster made a wrong move and fell forward, screaming. He tumbled fifty feet down the slope before coming to a stop on a flat shelf of rock, too tired and battered to move on and slowly losing blood.

When the sun rose on Day 2, Drusillus left his cave at the base of the mountain and made a start toward the eastern foothills. The 2 boy, who'd named himself "The Career Killer" wanted to start hunting as soon as possible; he hadn't killed any tributes in the bloodbath before Pila in order to make it even more jarring, and now he had to make up for all the kills he had passed by. Unfortunately, Drusillus had overestimated the amount of tributes that would be in the foothills. The only tribute within a mile radius of him for most of the day was Orval, but he was almost completely hidden from sight comfortably situated between the two large boulders he'd found the day prior. It was hard to define day and night in the always-dark arena, so Drusillus had to use the temperature to judge when it was noon, and in turn when it was time to eat lunch.

Far, far away, on the slope of the mountain, a chorus of screams rose up: screams that were made by both tribute and legendary creature mutt. Several sponsor notes had warned Salix of how dangerously close the banshee house was, but by Seneca's request the notes were all either incredibly cryptic or written in cipher. After receiving three notes, Salix finally decided to put more than just a fleeting thought into decoding the messages. He ate a few of his saltine crackers for breakfast and then perched himself in an area lit by the lightning. He worked at the cipher for a good half hour before deciding to take a short break. He packed up his things and ventured slightly west, unknowingly moving closer and closer to his doom.

In no time, he had reached the house of the banshees, and he was drawn toward it as if by some sort of magic spell. Attracted by the flowery smell issuing from the open window, he slid the door open and slunk into the cabin. Salix screamed and turned around to flee: three hump-backed, woman-like mutts with black cloaks and faces stripped of flesh stood before him, all reaching toward him with their skeletal fingers. Their first screeches sent Salix collapsing to the ground in agony (the gamemakers were really just shocking him with his tracker, but it gave the effect that it was the banshee's screams that were responsible for his suffering). It was nearly a minute before the ugly creatures humored his demands for them to end the pain. With a few final, haunting howls, the humanoid mutts drew silver daggers from their cloaks and ended him.

 _Salix Snodgrass, District 7 Male: 15th, Killed by Banshee Muttations, Day 2_

The 7 boy's cannon shot was an ominous sign for many; the crowd was already thinning, and they all knew that danger was afoot. The only tribute without a clear reaction was Webster. Over the night, his fall wounds had healed slightly, but they were still slowly drizzling blood; to make matters worse, some of his wounds were starting to get infected; yellow pus had a tendency to curl out of his skin whenever the wind blew too suddenly, and Webster could do nothing but cry softly and wait for the reaper to take him.

Webster wasn't the only tribute that was facing hardship, though. Both having made kills, Apollo and Kaelyn were proving to be an extremely formidable duo. The gamemakers were eager to test their skills. Seneca used electrical pulses to send a swarm of bat mutts with glowing red eyes into the veiled cave that was their home. When the attack started, Apollo was resting while Kaelyn was sleepily standing guard. They were woken up by the furious whining of the bats instantly, and Apollo leapt to his feet in the back of to cave to join his trusted ally Kaelyn in the effort to take down the furry mutts. It was twenty minutes before the cave was silent and still once more; in total, they'd killed about a third of the swarm, while the others had taken the hint and retreated.

The second death of the day occurred at about five o'clock in the afternoon. After a long day of hunting, Katya and Coral were returning to the cornucopia; they had underestimated how much food they would need to take with them and had already exhausted their supplies. Less than one-hundred meters from the cornucopia, Katya perked up, hearing a soft crying sound from nearby. She and Coral followed the sound to a small cave, and inside was the miniscule Codi from 3. The twelve-year-old girl that had only scored a two in her private session turned her head slowly upward, staring at Katya with wide, tired eyes. She mouthed the word "please" at the bottom of her voice, and Katya was more than happy to comply. Codi just wanted freedom from the terror of the Hunger Games, and she finally got what she wanted as two of Katya's throwing knives dug into her chest. She and Coral returned to the cornucopia, where Splendour was sorting supplies to fill the empty hours of her day.

 _Codi Somers, District 3 Female: 14th, Killed by Katya, Day 2_

In the graveyard that lied at the foot of the mountain, Dominic and Ranger received a nasty surprise. They still hadn't spotted each other the course of the day despite being in the same foggy graveyard, and they experienced the terrors the gamemakers had to offer individually. Ranger was resting against a tombstone when his entire body felt frozen, like somebody had poured a bucket of ice water on top of him. Standing in front of him was the tall, flickering ghost of a man with a bowler's hat and a fine suit. He was holding a briefcase as well. Ranger dragged himself backward, but the ghost didn't respond; it just stared at him with its wide, mysterious eyes.

On the other side of the graveyard, Dominic was presented with the light-blue ghost of a woman wearing a hoopskirt from the eighteenth century, long before the Great Disaster that flooded half the world and led to Panem's formation. He grabbed up a nearby rock and threw it at the woman, but it simply passed through her and landed with a thud a ways on; she was made out of air. Both tributes in the graveyard were unnerved enough that they would certainly leave it soon.

Once most of the tributes had finally managed to fall asleep, the third cannon shot of the second day woke them right back up again. Between noon and nine at night, Zircon from 3 had been walking in a wide circular direction around the mountain, wanting to cover as much land as he could. Mere minutes before midnight, Zircon saw something peculiar: two large boulders standing alone in the foothills. It took Zircon about a minute to reach the large stones, but once he was close enough he easily made out the form of Orval's chest rising and falling as he rested comfortably between them.

Once he'd adequately steeled himself for the difficult task ahead, Zircon lifted his broadsword behind him and thrust it forward, straight into Orval's heart. He let out a little gasp, the last sound he would ever make, and that was all. Now only half of the tributes remained.

 _Orval Prescott, District 5 Male: 13th, Killed by Zircon, Day 2_

Day 3 was slightly less eventful but was still enough to keep the Capitolites satisfied. In the morning, the careers departed from the cornucopia, leaving Katya to guard. As Splendour and Coral ventured down the slope, their vastly differing personalities quickly became apparent. Splendour was all about looks, and she was constantly making sexy poses for the sponsors and brushing her hair with a comb she'd been sponsored a few days earlier. All of it really got on Coral's nerves, but he didn't say anything, at least not yet; Splendour's looks were the pack's main way of getting sponsors, and he didn't want to eliminate that when there were so many outliers left.

In the forest, Apollo and Kaelyn left their veiled cave to go hunting. The duo divvied up their knife collection and spear collection so that both were armed. The thing was, as soon as they climbed out of the narrow entrance to the cave, they were stuck—they had no idea where to hunt first. A sponsor note advised that there were more tributes in the east, but that it would be even better if they could go back to the mountain and hunt there. This led to quite a bit of disagreement between the 6s; Apollo wanted to stay in the woods and foothills, while Kaelyn wanted to hunt on the mountain face. They ended up tearing their sponsor note up and picking a random piece to decide where they would hunt. Kaelyn got her way, and they ventured toward the looming black mountain. Apollo wasn't very happy, but the decision had been made fair and square and he didn't want to risk the death of the group by arguing with his ally.

Drusillus, the bloodthirsty Career Hunter, had been waiting at the base of the mountain for several hours. He was desperate to live up to his name and kill at least one of the careers before the day was done, and he eventually came to the conclusion that he would have to do the moving himself. The traitor boy stalked his way up the mountain, swinging his sword back and forth at his side, as the cornucopia's lantern-lit form grew better-defined with proximity.

At noon, Drusillus settled in a small grove of skeletal trees for lunch, and to his surprise another tribute was there. The blind and deaf Margot from 10 was curled up in a ball nearby, too constricted by the stress of the games to move and find water. She was also distressed after finally deducing that Ranger, her guardian angel, was gone, and she was quietly begging out for him to come back. If Drusillus felt even a little bad for the handicapped girl, he didn't show it. He promptly skewered his sword into her chest; just because he was the Career Hunter didn't mean he couldn't kill outliers as well.

 _Margot Lyce, District 10 Female: 12th, Killed by Drusillus, Day 3_

As Margot's cannon shot sounded, Webster Coalman once again had no reaction. Lying face-down on the mountain, his wounds had become even more severely infected. Some of the yellow streaks in his skin had turned orange or even red, and strange new growth was sprouted across his legs and face. He was on the brink of death from dehydration, and the only reason the cameras showed him anymore was to keep Capitolites on the edge of their seats about whether dehydration or infection would claim his life first.

Deandre had remained almost completely inactive for the three days of games so far. She'd been content hidden away inside her warm little gingerbread house, munching on sweet treats and forming her diet into one that no dentist would approve of. What she didn't know was that the owner of the house, an ugly witch with a wart on her nose, was away, and she would be furious when she returned home to find that her home had been trespassed on.

Diandre screamed and blanched, starting for the exit, as the large black cauldron in the corner of the gingerbread house began to froth madly with some sort of green liquid. A person's shape was rising out of the cauldron; she could make out her hat, her long nose, her broomstick. Diandre screamed even louder as the witch cackled madly. She held out her ugly green fingers, and red sparks jumped between them for a few minutes before firing out and hitting Deandre straight in the heart. The outlier girl loosed her grasp on the half-turned doorknob and slid to the ground. At least it was a quick death, her mentor later told the press.

 _Deandre Barrows, District 11 Female: 11th, Killed by Witch Muttation, Day 3_

In the graveyard at the foot of the mountain, Dominic and Ranger received their next round of horror. While they were asleep the night prior, a massive hedge had risen out of the ground, trapping them inside of the cemetery and dubbing them prisoners to the terrors within. Despite their best attempts to climb the hedge, it was simply too tall and unstable. Shortly before the death recap, the two boys perked up at a clattering noise. They were on opposite ends of the graveyard, but they could still see it; the old, white cohort of skeletons tromping from one end to another. Because of the hedge, they couldn't have come into the graveyard from someplace else; they had to have risen straight out of the ground. Dominic fell behind a tall tombstone as two skeletons broke off from the pack, dancing in front of him. Dominic plugged his ears to block out the rattle, tears of frustration streaming down his cheeks.

Meanwhile, Ranger was making an actual attempt to kill the skeletons. The thing was, when he tried to punch one in the stomach, its bones merely spread apart, and his fist passed right through the gap. When he tried to strangle its neck, its head just sank into its ribcage so that no neck remained. Ranger sat cross-legged on the ground, unsure of what to as the demons bogeyed around him.

Day 4 was just as eventful as the three days that had come before it. These games were moving by incredibly quickly, much more so than the games of the year prior; Seneca was seriously considering ending the games in the first week just to see how the Capitol audience would react. The ever-watching President Snow couldn't get enough of Seneca's plan to kill off two to four tributes a day until the victor was crowned; he knew spontaneity was the best way to keep people's attention on the games.

The first death of the day occurred early in the morning. The poor little Webster had been suffering on the mountain face for four days, too beaten up to lift a finger, and he finally succumbed to a combination of blood loss and organ failure. The day began with his cannon shot.

 _Webster Coalman, District 12 Male: 10th, Killed by Blood Loss and Organ Failure, Day 4_

In the graveyard, Dominic and Ranger finally saw each other. As it stood, each of them had been sticking to the far ends of the graveyard, so they never came into contact with each other. Around noon, they saw each other for the first time. A small mutt was jumping to and fro in the center of the graveyard. Ranger and Dominic both ran toward it, but by the time they reached it the mutt had scampered away. The boys were in one another's sights, and they moved tentatively and anxiously toward each other before shaking on an alliance. Ranger and Dominic shared their supplies, and Dominic finally managed to put his shoulder wound on the path to healing using some medicine Ranger had snatched from the cornucopia. They spent most of the day trying to escape the hedged-in graveyard, but it seemed like a lost cause. They hadn't given up hope yet, however.

Meanwhile, Drusillus left the home of the dead Margot and continued his journey to the cornucopia to ambush the career pack. For obvious reasons, the path up the mountain took much longer than the path down; not only did he often slip and slide, but he had to take frequent breaks to keep from dropping from exhaustion; the journey was trying even for a tribute as strong as the 2 boy. Drusillus made it about two-thirds of the way up the slope before he was just too tired to go on, and he fell into a small mist-filled cave, toying excitedly with his sword.

The career pack lost a member before the day was over. Splendour, Katya, and Coral were milling about at the top of the mountain. They were all too tired to hunt, but not tired enough to just relax for the entire day; their excitement and laziness pretty much cancelled out and created a sort of tense stupor. Katya occasionally sorted weapons and practiced with her throwing knives while Coral exclusively walked in circles around the horn.

The one career who stood out, though, was Splendour. She hadn't given up trying to impress the Capitol; she was strutting about and contorting herself into somewhat explicit poses for the Capitol men. It was working—she was getting a steady flow of sponsor supplies, but it ultimately spelled her doom as well. As the thunderstorm above began to settle down, Splendour hoisted herself onto a large rock, leaning on one elbow and smiling her pretty smile for the viewers. Though the rain had stopped, the rock was still damp, and as Splendour tried to roll off of it she rolled too far and tumbled off the side of the mountain. Katya ran to help her, but she arrived too late to save the girl. Splendour skidded hundreds of feet down the mountain, bouncing around and breaking her neck on a particularly sharp stone. She stopped breathing in pretty much no time. The three careers were down to two.

 _Splendour Iufala, District 1 Female: 9th, Killed by Breaking Neck, Day 4_

The final eight had been formed: Drusillus Rhodes and Katya Paine from District 2, Zircon Miliken from District 3, Coral Monson from District 4, Apollo Reinold and Kaelyn Ritter from District 6, Dominic Crocker from District 8, and Ranger O'Riley from District 10.

The remainder of the day only featured one point of note. Apollo and Kaelyn were hunting once more, vowing to return to their veiled cave home by nine that night. Their daily routine was very rigid and they were beginning to fade into the background; in any other case, Seneca would have killed them, but he wasn't about to eliminate his number one chances of fitting in a memorable outlier victor after Remus Daley's career victory the year previously. At nine, Kaelyn returned to their shelter as promised; she waited awake for nearly an hour for Apollo to come home, but he didn't. As it turned out, Apollo had gotten lost, and he was so frustrated with his inability to find home that he almost cried. The spooky sights and sounds of the forest weren't helping with his paranoia. A sponsor note gave him directions back to Kaelyn, and he mouthed out words of thanks as he followed the instructions to the safety of the cave.

On the morning of Day 5, Drusillus finally arrived at the cornucopia, his thirst for blood stronger than ever. Katya and Coral had just woken up and were sleepily starting to and fro across the mountain's flat top putting things in order. Drusillus reached the top of the black mountain and ducked behind a large boulder that hid him from sight, unsheathing his broadsword and running over battle tactics in his head. A few minutes later, Coral ventured down the west slope to hunt. Katya was now alone at the cornucopia, completely oblivious to the fact that her killer was mere meters away.

Katya screamed with sheer terror as Drusillus leapt out of nowhere and tackled her to the ground. Coral, who had only made it a few feet down the slope, heard his ally's high pitched screams. Coral burst to Katya's side just as Drusillus shoved the end of his broadsword into her chest. She was gone in moments.

 _Katya Paine, District 2 Female: 8th, Killed by Drusillus, Day 5_

Saliva dripping from the corners of his wide-open mouth, Drusillus staggered away from Katya's dead body. As he swung his sword menacingly back and forth, Coral was exploding with fury at the death of his ally. Coral charged forward so quickly that Drusillus barely had time to sidestep, but he did manage to do so in the nick of time. As Drusillus stumbled to the left, the 4 boy fit an arrow into his bow and fired it at the traitor boy's heart. Drusillus simply cackled as he slid out of the arrow's path, and the projectile promptly landed with a clatter a ways back.

Despite the failure of his first arrow, Coral wasn't one to give up after a minor setback. As Drusillus chuckled with amusement, the career boy fit volley of two arrows into his bowstring simultaneously. By the time Drusillus realized what he was doing, it was too late for him to dodge. Both of Coral's arrows landed into his neck, and he collapsed, choking out curses for the few seconds of his life that remained.

 _Drusillus Rhodes, District 2 Male: 7th, Killed by Coral, Day 5_

After the hovercraft collected the body of his fallen opponent, Coral staggered back to the cornucopia. He'd sustained several small cuts and injuries throughout the skirmish; for the time being, he was not in hunting condition. The thought didn't even pass his mind that he was the only remaining career until he was resting on a small cot about an hour later, and he just laughed shortly, pleased he wouldn't have to kill any of them himself.

The remainder of the "day hours" passed with a singular peak of excitement. In the small cave that was their home, Apollo and Kaelyn had been sleeping closer and closer together for the past few nights, and when Drusillus' cannon fired they looked up from what they were doing and stared into each others' eyes. With only six tributes left, they knew one of them would have to die soon, and before that happened they wanted to get done what they had been building up to for days. A good half dozen drone cameras were sent into the cave to capture high-quality footage of the romantic scene as Apollo and Kaelyn drew closer and closer. They were far too close—they could see all the specks of grime on each other's faces—and then they kissed. It was a quarter of a minute before they finally drew away, and then they giggled awkwardly, preparing for the truckload of sponsor gifts that was about to be poured onto their shoulders.

Only one more death occurred before the day was done. Since the start of the day, Zircon had remained rather quiet as he hunted through the fog-laden forest and the foothills. He hadn't made a kill since Day 2, but the gamemakers kept him around because they saw potential in him to be District 3's first victor in a quarter of a century.

At eight in the evening, Zircon pulled aside a curtain of branches and found himself before a tall hedge; the wall around the graveyard. He cut open a hole with his sword and carefully stepped inside. The mist was even thicker in there then outside; even with his flashlight on full brightness, he had to squint to see more than a few feet in front of his face. Allies Ranger and Dominic heard him coming and shuffled behind a tall gravestone, but unfortunately they weren't fast enough. Zircon spotted them thrashing before they could still their flailing limbs, and he went in for the kill without hesitation. Zircon slashed his broadsword, and Dominic crossed his arms in front of his face to shield his upper body from the blow. The point slashed across his arm, digging out a gash that was a good half inch deep, and Dominic screamed. A nearby flock of midnight-black ravens cawed and flew away as his screams grew quieter and quieter before fading forever into nothingness.

 _Dominic Crocker, District 8 Male: 6th, Killed by Zircon, Day 5_

While Zircon had been distracted killing off Dominic, Ranger had managed to scuttle away to the edge of the graveyard. Zircon swore he had seen another tribute with Dominic, but Ranger was a good hider; he managed to remain out of sight. Eventually, the 3 boy gave up and left through the entrance he had cut out for himself. Ranger silently slipped out after him, free from the yard of tombstones for the first time in days.

For the rest of the night, Ranger ventured aimlessly under the starless black void of the sky, muttering traditional District 10 poetry to himself to keep himself occupied. Despite his best efforts to cling onto rationality, he couldn't help but get a little unnerved by all of the shadows and howls that were sounding around him in the forest. In about an hour, he came to the candy house that belonged to the witch. He peeked inside and spent the next half hour fleeing from the red sparks that issued from the witch's fingertips. He hadn't gone completely insane yet, but only time would tell what would happen as more and more pressure was put onto his young shoulders.

On Day 6, Coral finally decided he was well enough to go hunting once more. He'd allowed himself a fair share of resting and healing and it was time to do what he had been training for since an early age. The 4 boy trekked down the mountainside and came to a stop beside a wide stream. He wasn't skeptical of the water; being from District 4, he knew how different the water would be if it was harmful to him. Coral sipped the water greedily for several minutes and took a quick moment to relieve himself before hunting for real for the first time in days.

It was half an hour before Coral needed to take a break. Even a boy as strong as him needed to rest occasionally, and the place he found to relax inside of was… a large cave with a narrow entrance veiled by vines. Apollo and Kaelyn were inside, toying with the bajillion sponsor gifts they'd gotten after their kiss, and Coral peeked into the cave and grinned at the sight of the two tributes. Kaelyn screamed and scuttled toward her weapon as Coral leapt into the cave, smirking delicately, eyes glistening in the light of the one flashlight that kept the cave lit.

Apollo reached for his knives and spear, but Kaelyn stopped him, tears in her eyes.

"I… I'll hold him off. Get out of here. I don't have anything to go home to. Win this for me!"

The gamemakers did a bit of research and found the 6 girl really didn't have anything to go home to; Kaelyn's mother had died giving birth to her eighteen years prior and soon after her father had abandoned her on the streets because he couldn't care for her. Since then, she'd lived in an airport, constantly trying to keep out of the sight of the peacekeepers.

Apollo didn't want to leave Kaelyn alone, but when he saw the sad and terrified shine in her eyes he knew he had to honor her request. Apollo crawled out of the cave as Coral pounced at Kaelyn, cackling. The 6 girl made a valiant effort to fight back but was ultimately doomed against the trained career. Apollo, who was peeking around the entrance of the cave, cringed as Coral buried two arrows into his ally's shoulder. Blood splashed over the walls and floor as she gurgled and died.

 _Kaelyn Ritter, District 6 Female: 5th, Killed by Coral, Day 6_

Coral turned around just as Apollo's spear entered his chest. The District 6 boy had been waiting at the entrance of the cave so he could ambush his ally's killer and kill him in turn. The spear pierced his heart with almost impeccable precision. Without so much as a flinch, Coral fell against the wall of the cave and slid to the ground. The few breaths he managed to force out were his last.

 _Coral Monson, District 4 Male: 4th, Killed by Apollo, Day 6_

The rest of Day 6 passed uneventfully. The final three tributes all milled about in anxious anticipation of the imminent finale. Zircon left the dark forest and began venturing toward the mountain, wanting to be as close to it as he could when the finale began. Apollo was traumatized by his sweetheart Kaelyn's death, but he found that moving around was a reliable way to keep his mind off of the graphic images that haunted his mind. Ranger was just growing more and more crazy as the day wore on; he kept mumbling something about the shadow man coming to kill him, and he was perpetually attempting to "kill" sticks and dead leaves. He was slowly but surely cracking under the pressure of the games, and his story from then on would be an interesting one no matter what happened.

Day 7 proved to be the last day in the arena. Seneca Crane had a devious ruse in mind to drive the last few tributes together, and he felt that its reception would be superb. In fact, it would be—it may have rivaled the sixty-eighth games for the title of most creative method used to drive the finalists together.

All three of the tributes let out little whimpers of shock as all of the fog around them was attracted toward them like they were magnets—it was almost like the fog was being spun around them, being stretched and pulled tight—there was a flash of movement and color—and then scenes were being displayed in the fog. Scenes of terrible things—the worst memories of the tributes. Zircon was taken back to his eighteenth birthday, when he mortally wounded a mother, father, and three children in a car accident because he had gotten intoxicated partying too hard with friends earlier that day. He saw the moment that night when he had to throw the rope angrily in the trash because it kept snapping. Apollo saw, in vivid detail, the moment his abusive older brothers had cornered him against the wall of their living room, saying they were going to murder him. He remembered his father not bothering to answer his screams because he was too occupied smoking on the porch. Ranger re-lived the moment when he saw his best friend Matthew hit in the chest by a punt football out of his second-grade classroom window. He saw the moment his teacher urged the class to remain calm as she sprinted out of the room and did CPR on the poor boy for half an hour, even long after his pulse had disappeared. The memories were so vivid, so real, that the tributes began stumbling over the ground, screaming. They had to get out of this horrific terror-fest at any cost. And the only way to do that was to beat down their final opponents and be the only man standing in the arena.

At least, two of the three tributes followed that line of thinking. Poor Ranger, who had been steadily going crazy over the past twenty-four hours, finally broke at the sight of the memory that he had been trying to suppress for eight years. Screaming with terror, Ranger grabbed a sharp rock and drew a heavy line down his arm, and the same for the other arm. He fell onto his back, tears running down his face as he bled out over the course of two hours. The memories would never haunt him again.

 _Ranger O'Riley, District 10 Male: 3rd, Killed by Himself, Day 7_

Zircon and Apollo had been expecting the visions to go away as soon as they started moving, but they were wrong; wherever they walked, the horrible images from their pasts followed them. The boys spotted each other at the base of the mountain about an hour later, and they charged toward each other. The horror fog around them dissipated at once so the cameras could capture higher-quality footage of the duel. A victor would be crowned soon.

Zircon made the first move, lashing out with his broadsword. While the sword was the better weapon, Apollo had a spear and several knives; while his spear was invaluable, his knives were much more disposable. As Zircon made his devious move, Apollo discreetly grabbed a knife and hurled it at Zircon. It nicked his shoulder and kept on flying, and both tributes cursed, Zircon with pain and Apollo with frustration.

Apollo's next move disarmed Zircon of his sword; he pulled a clever move, snatching the boy's wrists with both hands and twisting so that he had no choice but to drop the sword. Disarmed, Zircon opened his mouth wide with shock, but no sound came out. Apollo drilled two knives and the spear into his chest in rapid succession, and Zircon shook violently on the stone ground before fallings till.

 _Zircon Miliken, District 3 Male: 2nd, Killed by Apollo, Day 7_

"Apollo Reinold of District 6, you are the victor of the seventy-third annual Hunger Games!" Caesar and Claudius cheered together as the thunderclouds dissipated and revealed the hovercraft floating above.

Apollo sighed, already trying to shove the gory and graphic images of the games out of his mind.

 _Apollo Reinold, District 6 Male: Victor of the Seventy-Third Hunger Games, Day 7_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 6 was overjoyed to receive their fourth victor with Apollo. Their last victor was exactly fifty previously ago with Ashlyn Breston, and after many years of their tributes being mentor-less the transportation district finally had hope for a bright future. In districts like 6 where victors were so far and few, each victory was considered a major cause for celebration; even the Capitol had to donate quite a lot of money to keep their celebrations running for months afterward. Apollo was somewhat shaken up after his games, but only for a few years; around the time of the eightieth Hunger Games, he had grown out of his PTSD. From then on, he made it his goal to integrate into Capitol society and eliminate the memories of his games once and for all, and he succeeded; he melted into the Capitol society and enjoyed it thoroughly.

He moved into the Victor's Village of District 6, the fourth to do so.

His victory tour was spectacular, and it was a cause for celebration in District 6.

Apollo would live to age seventy-four, losing a long battle with diabetes around the time of the one-hundred twenty-ninth Hunger Games. He would marry and have two strong daughters, and though fleeting memories of his games occasionally attacked him he would lead an overall happy life.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Apollo moves into District 6's Victor's Village, occupying the not-so-recently vacated first house.

Margaret Cartmill gives birth to her sixth child, Eva, but she dies mere hours into her life.

Cashmere Linden's fourth child, Greatson, is born.

Isaac Crandall, the victor of the ninth annual Hunger Games, is electrocuted to death by one of his mechanical projects.

Blaze Skalnik, the victor of the fourteenth annual Hunger Games, dies from HIV.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)

* * *

 **A/N: Happy October guys! I hope I wrote this spooky Halloween arena well, and I hope a District 6 victor is refreshing after so long without one! Don't worry, I promise in the future there will be a lot more outlier victors and a lot fewer career victors.**

 **Alright. We can't ignore the elephant in the room any longer. The seventy-fourth Hunger Games is up next, complete with the characters we know and love from the books as well as a few unnamed ones you'll get to know hopefully soon! I know I've said this a lot, but don't think I've died if that chapter takes longer than usual; as it's undoubtedly the single most heavily anticipated chapter of this story to date, I don't want to write it averagely.**

 **See you all next time here on 23 Cannons. Cjborange, out :D**


	75. The 74th Hunger Games

**The 74th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Head Gamemaker Seneca Crane returned for his third year. Given the ever-increasing popularity of the games, he was constantly being put under more pressure to outdo his predecessors, but Seneca was young and idealistic and didn't slow down for a second. About four months before the games were set to begin, Seneca replied to a team of paparazzi that the arena this year wouldn't be an extremely complicated one; he didn't want the games prior to the highly-anticipated third Quarter Quell to overshadow. Time would tell what twists and turns the genius minds of him and the minor gamemakers would churn out. Meanwhile, the mysterious killer that had been killing an influential woman every year since the seventy-second Hunger Games made yet another strike. Wystella Mayberry, the woman who had been designing the chariot outfits for District 2 tributes for nearly three decades, desperately called emergency services and reported hearing strange footsteps from the upper floor of her house. The call ended abruptly with Wystella's high-pitched scream. By the time emergency personnel arrived at the scene, her lifeless form had slumped itself against the wall of the bathroom she had been hiding in. The killer, whoever it was, had broken the lock of the door and created the obvious bullet hole in Wystella's chest. If you could call it a bullet hole. The bullet was nowhere to be found. The only obvious piece of evidence was the sawdust on her upper body, but most dismissed this as merely bits of debris from when the door was busted down. Caesar and Claudius were back again as the charismatic duo commentating the games, and with the third Quarter Quell so near they were in higher spirits than ever before. Meanwhile, President Coriolanus Snow kept his iron grip as tight as ever around his domain called Panem, ensuring that the citizens of the districts stayed in line and sending his best peacekeepers to quiet rebellion wherever it sprang up.

Seneca Crane seemed to go back to square one with this year's arena; the terrain, mutts, and supplies were almost identical to those of the first ever Hunger Games. The tributes would find themselves in a bright-green forest teeming with life. The cornucopia was large and silver and bulkier than normal, and its supplies largely consisted of bows, spears, and knives. Despite the forested terrain, there were no axes provided. One of the main liberties that Seneca took with this year's arena was adding many more water sources. A large lake sat just beyond the silver cornucopia, and dozens of rivers sprouted from the lake, undulating through the forest. In turn, each of these rivers had hundreds of tributaries, meaning that water was immediately accessable almost anywhere in the arena. Near the cornucopia, the forest was much brighter and more open; the mutts almost entirely consisted of rabbits, squirrels, bluebirds, and chipmunks. There were also some deer. As one moved farther away from the cornucopia, they would find many more unique mutts, including mockingjays and bright-pink birds clearly inspired by those from the second Quarter Quell. There was also no shortage of the deadly wasps with hallucinogenic poison commonly referred to in those days as Tracker Jackers. There were also many bushes bearing black berries, but the tributes would have to be very cautious; while some of the berries were safe to eat, many were deadly nightlock, which could kill within minutes if not seconds of consumption. Finally, a relatively small field of waist-high wheat lied to the north. The wheat would provide a steady source of food to any tribute, but the mosquitoes, ticks, and other pests were a definite downside.

The careers were a good-enough group this year, and they all scored well. District 1 provided their usual batch of beautiful kids. The male, Marvelous "Marvel" Fantasticness, was the third and final of the three Fantasticness brothers to compete in the Hunger Games. He was slender and lithe and very handsome, and he was quite the jokester as well. Meanwhile, the female was more of an airhead, but she did certainly have a daring nerve to her that intrigued much of the audience. Her tribute token, a jeweled ring, was found to produce a poisoned spike whenever the jewels were twisted in the proper order. She claimed she had no idea it could produce the spike, but it was confiscated anyway. District 2's tributes were both feisty and spirited, and they would undoubtedly be a formidable pair. The male was the typical all-in-it-for-the-honor career tribute, and he had a heavily sculpted upper body. He was also one of the best swordsmen the academy had seen in ages. Meanwhile, the girl had spunk to rival the Hunger Games gods, and she was ruthless and sadistic and an extremely deadly tribute despite her young age. 4 provided an okay pair, though neither of them were particularly good-looking or memorable. The male was one of the few District 4 tributes who couldn't swim, but he made up for it with his sheer speed. He was easily the fastest runner in these games, and he could sometimes be socially awkward but in a cute way. The girl, Sharka Nightengale, had a name that was quite familiar. The year prior, she'd earned the spot of volunteer, but had freaked out at the reaping and refused to shout the words. This year, the academy was willing to give her a second chance. The scores of the pack were slightly lower than average: two tens, three nines, and one eight.

This year had one of the strongest groups of outliers in ages, and with so many high-scoring tributes it seemed very possible that one of them might take home the Victor's Crown. One nine was earned. Thresh from 11 was a massive brute of a boy, nearly seven feet tall and bearing almost two-hundred pounds of sheer muscle. He'd been laboring in the fields of 11 since an early age to support his three siblings and mentally disabled mother, and the sponsors swooned over him like butterflies over the finest flowers in Panem. An astonishing three eights were earned as well. Drew from 5 was admirably determined and passionate, and he was great with a sickle and also was decently talented with trap-building and the like. Carvis from 7 was a stunning, dark-haired boy who could work magic with hatchets, and he could always raise the mood and make anyone laugh. Finally, Peeta from 12 was the handsome, blonde merchant son of a renowned baker, and he could lift hundreds of pounds and had a knack for knives as well. Niko from 3, Finch from 5, Jason from 6, Meredith from 7, and Lylith from 9 were the tributes that scored sevens this year. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. Despite scoring relatively low, Prongson from 10 was a standout. He had Polio, and his left leg was paralyzed. Another standout was Primrose Everdeen, a twelve-year-old girl from District 12. Her sister Katniss staggered forth to volunteer in her place but was denied the opportunity due to rowdy behavior. Primrose only managed to score a two, but she was still one to remember. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: the red-haired girl from District 9 named Lylith Joud. She'd grown up in a cult and had been accused by her community of being a witch due to her hair color. Her execution by burning was sentenced for the day after the reaping, and she volunteered to escape it all. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Marvelous Fantasticness, 17, (9) 7-1 and Glimmer Rambin, 17, (8) 10-1

District 2: Cato Hadley, 16, (10) 3-1 and Clove Kentwell, 15, (10) 3-1

District 3: Niko Andrews, 14, (7) 16-1 and Nettie Hanson, 13, (3) 67-1

District 4: Bodhi Fitzgerald, 18, (9) 6-1 and Sharka Nightengale, 18, (9) 6-1

District 5: Drew Dinning, 18, (8) 9-1 and Finch Crossly, 15, (7) 24-1

District 6: Jason Mitchell, 16, (7) 15-1 and Tamora Faye, 17, (5) 24-1

District 7: Carvis Olive, 17, (8) 10-1 and Meredith Powell, 16, (7) 15-1

District 8: Charle McCanister, 14, (4) 29-1 and Savannah Castillo, 14, (3) 65-1

District 9: Tarun Dixon, 15, (4) 28-1 and Lylith Joud, 14, (7) 17-1

District 10: Prongson Iglesi, 18, (5) 22-1 and Susan Gardner, 16, (3) 60-1

District 11: Thresh Agora, 18, (9) 7-1 and Rue Crimmond, 12, (4) 35-1

District 12: Peeta Mellark, 16, (8) 11-1 and Primrose Everdeen, 12, (2) 77-1

HGBO Bets: 16% on Clove, 15% on Cato, 11% on Marvelous and Bodhi, 10% on Sharka, 7% on Glimmer, 6% on Thresh, 4% on Drew, Carvis, and Peeta, 2% on Niko, Finch, Jason, Meredith, and Lylith, 1% or less on Nettie, Tamora, Charle, Savannah, Tarun, Prongson, Susan, Rue, and Primrose.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

It was an agreeable temperature as the twenty-four tributes rose up into the arena on their pedestals. All around their plates, the colorful forest teeming with life sprawled outward. While the arena was stunningly beautiful, it wasn't particularly unique. Seneca would not let the simplicity of the arena get between him and a thrilling games, however.

When the gong rang, two tributes sprinted away from the get-go: Prongson from 10 and Peeta from 12. As Prongson and Peeta sped into the woods, the other twenty-two surged forward and started scooping up supplies.

Clove sprinted at the head of the onrush, bolstered onward by adrenaline and the sight of the throwing knives she'd requested from the gamemakers a few yards away. Clove snatched up the knives and spotted a smaller boy struggling to escape west with a pack containing loaves of bread. The boy screamed as two of the knives dug into the back of his neck, and he staggered to the ground, never to rise again.

 _Tarun Dixon, District 9 Male: 24th, Killed by Clove, Bloodbath_

As Tarun fell, Bodhi from 4 took a spear and pounced toward a sniveling girl from the technology district. She screeched and held her arms in front of her face to shield herself from the boy's blows, but her efforts to ward off her killer were futile. Bodhi skewered his spear through her neck, and she fell, gurgling, as blood poured out of her mouth and nose.

 _Nettie Hanson, District 3 Female: 23rd, Killed by Bodhi, Bloodbath_

Thresh from 11, the strongest outlier in these games, grabbed a sickle and clutched onto it so tight that the leather handle actually molded to the shapes of his fingers. He wanted to kill at least one career during the bloodbath to make a splash and impress the sponsors. Thresh leapt toward the nearby Bodhi, and the 4 boy didn't have time to sidestep. He opened his mouth wide as if to scream, but all the wind had been knocked out of him from the hard blow Thresh had dealt to his abdomen. As Bodhi made a desperate attempt to stumble to safety, Thresh buried his sickle into his back. His blood glittered across Thresh's dark skin like rubies.

 _Bodhi Fitzgerald, District 4 Male: 22nd, Killed by Thresh, Bloodbath_

Clove retrieved her knives from the dead body of her first victim, and she was quick to make her second kill after that. A girl with her hair in pigtails had collapsed to the ground nearby, slowly bleeding out from a wound inflicted by Sharka. Clove quickly ended the girl's life, hurling a knife deftly into her abdomen. She was gone in moments.

 _Tamora Faye, District 6 Female: 21st, Killed by Sharka and Clove, Bloodbath_

Marvelous and Glimmer from 1 ganged up on a miniscule girl from one of the poorest districts of the nation. Marvelous grabbed the wisp of a girl straight off of the ground and hurled her back to the ground with all the strength he could muster, putting so much stress on her neck that it almost cracked. As the girl groaned, struggling to make sense of what was going on, Glimmer fired two arrows from her bow, ending her life.

 _Susan Gardner, District 10 Female: 20th, Killed by Marvelous and Glimmer, Bloodbath_

Cato hadn't made a kill yet, but as he surveyed the quickly emptying cornucopia field he spotted a perfect first victim. The youngest tribute in the games had collapsed at the foot of her plate, rocking back and forth and screaming with terror. She was having a panic attack, unable to move or think, traumatized by the carnage that was transpiring around her. Cato lumbered toward her with his sword and buried it into her torso. She was gone in an instant. She didn't even flinch.

 _Primrose Everdeen, District 12 Female: 19th, Killed by Cato, Bloodbath_

Sharka had been stalking a slightly chubby boy around the cornucopia field for a good five minutes when she finally went in for the kill. The boy whirled around with shock, and his head knocked into Sharka's bow so hard that he nearly blacked out. He was quick work for the career girl.

 _Charle McCanister, District 8 Male: 18th, Killed by Sharka, Bloodbath_

Clove made the final kill. A boy was hiding inside of a crate in the cornucopia, hoping to stay unseen throughout the bloodbath and come out once it was all over. Unfortunately, the eagle-eyed Clove had no problem spotting him through the netted edge of the crate. The 2 girl threw open the crate, and the boy screamed, struggling toward safety. Clove hurled a throwing knife into his heart, eliminating his life almost instantly.

 _Jason Mitchell, District 6 Male: 17th, Killed by Clove, Bloodbath_

Once the bloodbath was over, the careers went about their business. As had become typical of District 1 tributes in recent years, Marvelous and Glimmer stayed close together and engaged in casual conversation as they did their chores, mostly sorting rations. They didn't seem to have very compatible personalities—Marvelous was the jokester while Glimmer was the flirtatious airhead District 1 so often provided—but they got along well against the odds. Meanwhile, Clove stalked back and forth, never letting her allies out of her sight. She was a natural-born leader, and she was so ravenous and spunky that the others didn't bother to tell her she was being bossy. Meanwhile, Sharka went with the flow. She wasn't a girl who liked to pick sides. She just did what the others told her to. They sent Cato out to do a little hunt to make sure there weren't any outliers hiding around, and once he returned they went hunting for real, minus Glimmer, who volunteered to guard the supplies.

Meanwhile, the outliers scattered, heading in all four cardinal directions. Niko fled north with a pack of mechanical supplies and a bucket. He came to a stop at a small stream around noon, and he fidgeted curiously with his supplies, trying to figure out a way to win the games like Beetee Latier. Drew and Finch from 5 had allied prior to the games, and it quickly became apparent that they were a dangerous duo. They had a collection of several bows and swords from the bloodbath, and they settled near a wide river. As Finch assembled a sturdy shelter, Drew killed a few chipmunks. Unwilling to risk starting a fire, they chose to chew the raw meat until their jaws were sore. Carvis munched on rye bread as he sped toward the wheat field in the distance. He liked how easy it was to remain hidden in the tall wheat, and when it was time to go to bed he folded a few stalks over his sleeping bag to hide himself from view. Meredith was extraordinarily nimble, and she was as quiet as a mouse as she sped over the foliage. She filled up her thermos with water from a small pool and then climbed a tall willow tree, resting in the lowermost bough with her thermos and hatchet. Savannah hated how cold the arena was; coming from a rich family where there was always warmth, she couldn't bear the cold, biting feeling. Fortunately, she'd grabbed a few matches from the cornucopia, and she started piling up firewood as soon as she settled for the night. Lylith, the girl who'd been accused by her cult of being a witch, had nothing but a throwing knife and a package of edible green gel. At nightfall, she came to a muddy field of damp earth, and she smeared herself with dirt and grass until she blended in perfectly with the landscape. Prongson hobbled east; with his crippled leg, he couldn't move nearly as fast as the others. He wasn't a very smart boy and almost ate nightlock berries several times. It was all he could do to pile the leaves over his body to keep himself warm for the night. Thresh moved to the wheat field, having gathered a sickle and a pack that contained food and medical supplies. He used his sickle to mark a heavy circle in the ground—marking his territory. Anybody who trespassed on his land would be sorry. Rue ran into the forest and assembled a slingshot as soon as the cornucopia was out of sight. Knowing that animal guts were often stretchy and flexible, Rue killed a squirrel mutt and used its longest intestine as the elastic in her slingshot. She slept in a tree, clutching her handiwork for dear life. Peeta had been sponsored two throwing knives for his strength and good looks. He jogged west for a few hours and found a bush of edible berries. He stuffed his face and then fell into a nearby cave, falling asleep in seconds.

Less than two hours after midnight on the second day, a young girl's earsplitting screams pierced the peaceful silence of the forest. After nearly half an hour of messing around with her matches, Savannah finally managed to get a fire going. Despite not being the most intelligent tribute the games had ever seen, she knew the basic principles of how fire worked, and in no time she had assembled a sort of teepee shape that let in enough oxygen to keep the hungry flames a 'burning. Savannah was so distracted by the heavenly feeling of being warm after so long being cold that she didn't hear the footsteps of the careers moving toward her.

Savannah gasped and turned around. Cato and Clove stood at the front of the pack, grinning, while Sharka and Marvelous were just behind them. All four were holding their weapons. Savannah screamed and tried to stumble away, begging for them to leave her alone, but they didn't listen. Cato requested the kill from his allies, and they all stepped back, leaving him to do the dirty work. Savannah gaped at him, dumbfounded with shock, as Cato's sword wormed its way into her torso. She fell, gulping and blubbering hopelessly.

 _Savannah Castillo, District 8 Female: 16th, Killed by Cato, Day 2_

The rest of Day 2 passed swiftly. Niko sat with his back against a broad-trunked tree, absentmindedly fidgeting with his technological parts and passing his bucket between his hands. At one point, he seemed to have a sudden stroke of inspiration. He used the bucket to dig out a hole in the ground, and he placed the bucket into the hole before packing the dirt back around it. It soon became clear what he was trying to do—he wanted to run an electrical charge through the bucket so that any tribute that stepped into it would be electrocuted. The problem was, he needed a generator, and his mentor Wiress couldn't pool together enough money to give him one. Niko's tribute trap would have to go on hold for the time being.

Drew and Finch received a nasty shock around noon on the second day. It just so happened that the land they'd chosen to settle on belonged to a flock of the cotton-candy-pink birds with long beaks, and needless to say they were not very happy when they returned home and found that their land had been trespassed on. Drew was sleeping in the shelter and Finch was standing guard when the first pink birds flew out of nowhere. Finch awoke Drew, and they proceeded to fend off the bird mutts for nearly half an hour before every bird in the flock had either died or taken the hint that they weren't to be messed with and flown away.

The tail end of the day had only one point of excitement. Meredith had been resting in her willow tree for most of the day, and around eight in the evening the strap that was holding her onto the bough slipped. Meredith screamed as she slid sideways off of the branch, but by astounding luck she'd managed to grab onto it with both her hands before she could fall completely. Panting, Meredith dragged herself back onto the branch. If her reflexes had been an instant slower, she could have died.

Day 3 was a tad bit more eventful, with two deaths. Thresh stayed put in the wheat field, feeding himself by shaking the seeds off of the stalks and pouring them gratefully into his mouth. He thought he was alone in the field, but another tribute was there with him: Carvis from 7. In turn, Carvis had no idea Thresh was there; they both thought they were alone and consequently didn't make much of an effort to remain hidden as they went about their business. On the third day, however, Carvis met his end. He was strolling toward one of his prime water sources when he noticed Thresh's camp. Curiously, the 7 boy veered off course and started toward the area that the 11 boy had cleared with his sickle. Thresh was away gathering water himself, and he returned moments after Carvis made himself at home. Carvis leapt ten feet into the air as Thresh came into view. He tried to run, but his chances of outrunning his much stronger peer were slim to none. He buried his sickle into his back, and Carvis fell face-forward onto the dusty wheat. His last words were the lyrics to an old District 7 folk tune.

 _Carvis Olive, District 7 Male: 15th, Killed by Thresh, Day 3_

The careers returned to the cornucopia for a supply restock. They filled in Glimmer on everything that had happened while they were gone and refilled their packs with food. By this point in the games, the careers' very different personalities were beginning to shine through. Clove was perpetually ravenous to hunt, and while Cato was much of the same he didn't really want to put as much grandeur into everything as she did. Marvelous and Glimmer were the typical duo from 1, and all the while Sharka hung around without much of a definite personality at all. It turned out that she'd been training with the dead Bodhi from an early age, and she was a bit shaken up at the death of her boy crush. She was too timid to put her say into anything; she just went with the flow and did what a 4 girl should.

In the woods, Rue finally put her slingshot to use. For the first few days of the games, she hadn't really been doing much other than lying around, but now that the crowd of tributes was thinning she felt obligated to do something more than just exist. Despite her young age, she wasn't faint of heart. Rue left her treetop home on the third day and started hunting for small animals—food. She was perfectly content living off of berries but knew it wasn't a very healthy diet. About an hour later, Rue spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. Thinking it was just a deer or other animal, she loaded a stone into her slingshot and launched it in the direction of the movement. Unfortunately for her, the thing she saw wasn't just an animal. It was Peeta from 12. Peeta was strolling through the leaf-strewn woods when Rue's stone landed at his feet. He was a little unnerved but ultimately thought nothing of it. Sometimes there were rocks in woods. Big deal. The bored 12 boy grabbed up the stone and threw it back in the direction it had come from.

Rue spotted the stone sailing back toward her too late to be saved. She let out a short gasp before the rock hit her in the head. Rue had a few pre-existing minor injuries in her skull, and by some freak accident the stone had hit the spot on her head where the most trauma would be caused to her body. Peeta was a strong boy; he'd given Rue more than just a concussion. Rue died from internal bleeding over the course of nearly nine hours, finally being taken by the reaper minutes before the end of the third day.

 _Rue Crimmond, District 11 Female: 14th, Killed by Peeta, Day 3_

In stark contrast of the three days prior, Day 4 was deathless. The careers got along well enough, and despite a few arguments there wasn't any in-fighting. Marvelous and Glimmer were close friends but they kept growing more and more distant as Glimmer's very 1 female-esque personality began to shine through. Meanwhile, there was a constant duel going on between Cato and Clove as to who would be pack leader. Clove had about half a percent more bets than Cato, so she claimed she should be the leader, but Cato refused to submit to her. They spent the entire day trying to outdo each other, even if through the stupidest things like how they walked and what they ate. Neither wanted the other to die, per se—there was just that bit of angst that came from any tribute being put under the stress of the games.

Between the outliers, there was a lot of movement but little action. After several days of pooling together sponsor funds, Wiress finally managed to send Niko a generator to run an electric charge through his pail. In minutes, it was finally working, and Niko rested nearby, feeding himself on berries and sponsor foods as he waited for prey to arrive at his trap. Drew and Finch very temporarily split up. Finch sprinted to the cornucopia as a spy and checked up on what the careers were up to. It was just Cato, guarding while his four allies were away. Finch returned to camp and notified Drew, and they promptly moved toward the large lake just beyond the cornucopia for a cool wash. They couldn't stay for long, though, and left quickly. Meredith hopped between the treetops, not wanting to stay still for more than a few hours at a time for fear of fading into the background. She did kill a mockingjay with her hatchet, which earned her a few sponsors, but she didn't trust the bird to be edible and left its dead body alone. Lylith kept re-applying mud and leaves onto herself whenever it naturally washed off, and she rested in a field of flowers for much of the day feeding on berries. Prongson, who'd been hobbling hopelessly east for days, sustained a grievous injury on the fourth day. The monotone color of the forest floor was robbing him of his depth perception, and without any prior warning Prongson tripped and tumbled down a forty-five degree slope. The fall tore open his skin in several spots, and he lie at the bottom, too tired and battered to move. Thresh hung around in the wheat field, occasionally moving to the forest to hunt for small animals whenever he felt his diet of wheat was getting plain. In any other instance, he would have been considered lazy, but for a tribute as strong as him his stillness just showed how dedicated he was. Peeta was being strangely inactive for a boy so strong; it was hours after Rue's death before be finally realized that he might have been the killer. He felt awful about himself and rested in a small cave for the entire night, not crying but just staring into the oblivion of the night sky as if lost in thought.

The only really exciting thing that happened on Day 4 happened just before nightfall. Meredith and Lylith had been less than a quarter mile from each other for nearly two days, and Seneca finally drove the two together. A chipmunk mutt that stood between the two tributes began to thrash wildly, agitated by the Capitol's electrical pulses. Meredith and Lylith both raced toward the animal, but by the time they reached it, it had burrowed into the ground. Meredith and Lylith walked slowly toward each other, and Meredith proposed an alliance. The games were taking their toll, and both girls were grateful not to be alone in them. They told each other stories about their lives and eventually determined that Meredith had the better camp. Lylith sped back to her home to gather her few supplies , then raced back to Meredith, her new ally.

Day 5 was similarly deathless. Having laid at the base of the leaf-strewn slope for half a day, Prongson finally build up the energy to move. He was too battered to walk for more than a few minutes at a time, and when his energy ran out he had to literally drag himself over the forest. Bugs and dirt smeared themselves all over him, but it was worth it to keep moving; if there was one sure-fire way to get killed in the Hunger Games, it was to stay still.

Meanwhile, tensions were rising in the career pack. At least, they were with one member. Despite having fairly earned the spot of volunteer, Sharka Nightengale from 4 felt like she didn't fit in among the other careers. She had no aversion to killing, but she didn't like how snarky her allies were getting, particularly Glimmer and Clove. Sharka spent as much time away from her allies as possible, debating whether or not she should break away. She knew from past games that careers who deserted most often received horrifically painful deaths in return—was it worth the risk to her? The question turned itself over and over in Sharka's mind as she guarded the horn for the day.

The real highlight of the fifth day transpired miles away in the leafy depths of the forest. Meredith and Lylith were sitting cross-legged eating lunch and talking to each other when they heard the familiar beep of a sponsor gift from nearby. They found that the parachute was holding a single can of odd-smelling, transparent liquid. It turned out that the liquid had cost thousands of dollars to sponsor, and it was the most valuable sponsor gift given in these games so far; somebody liked the two girls.

Meredith grabbed the can, curiously watching the liquid flow as she tipped the container from side to side, and Lylith snatched up the accompanying note. It turned out that the liquid in the container was one of the most flammable substances known to mankind. A large house coated with the fluid could be engulfed in flames in seconds with the use of a single match. Realizing how valuable it was, Lylith stowed it away in the bottom of her pack. She and Meredith thought out loud and whiled away the day talking about what they could do with the flammable liquid. But they both knew very well what it had been sent to them for. And they would have to do it. What kind of tribute could pass up the opportunity to destroy the entire cornucopia and all of its supplies?

Early in the morning of Day 6, a cannon shot rolled across the forest and the wheat field. Niko from 3 bolted awake from a terrifying dream right into another. Lying in front of him was the disfigured, lifeless body of Prongson Iglesi. It didn't take Niko long to figure out what had happened. His electrical trap had worked well; Prongson, dragging himself along, had dropped his arm into the pail, and in an instant his entire body had been engulfed by the electrical current. Niko brought his knees up to his chin as the hovercraft took Prongson's body. The whirlwinds of emotions that attacked outliers when they made their first kills wasn't any less gut-wrenching when the kill was made indirectly, it would seem.

 _Prongson Iglesi, District 10 Male: 13th, Killed by Niko, Day 6_

The second cannon shot of the day fired mere minutes later. Peeta was resting in a small cave, munching on a few drop biscuits he'd been sponsored, when he heard the footsteps of the careers. The 12 boy suppressed a scream and scrambled to the back of the cave. All the hairs rose up on his neck as Glimmer, Marvelous, Cato, and Clove started into the cave. Fortunately, Peeta had lodged himself into a dark corner; the careers would be hard-pressed to spot him unless one of them shone a light straight onto him. Peeta watched with sheer terror, struggling to keep from breathing too loudly, as the careers set out their supplies and began eating their noon meal.

It turned out, Peeta wasn't just a good-looking boy. He was very strong as well, both physically and mentally, and he managed to ignore his squirming stomach and remain still and silent until the careers packed up camp. As soon as the last career, Marvelous, disappeared from sight, Peeta let out a sigh of relief that filled the cave. Wrinkling his eyebrows curiously, Marvelous peeked back into the cave, swearing he'd heard something, and shined his light directly onto Peeta. Peeta screamed as Marvelous called his allies back to the cave. Escape was hopeless; the cave's only exit was blocked by four well-trained kids. His final goodbyes strung together into an almost unintelligible droning noise before Marvelous thrust his spear into his torso. He was long gone.

 _Peeta Mellark, District 12 Male: 12th, Killed by Marvelous, Day 6_

Day 7 featured a thrilling burst of action around noon. Finch and Drew left their lakeside camp at dawn with the purpose of hunting for food. They returned hours later with several bluebirds, squirrels, and mockingjays they'd killed. The question then was whether to start a fire. At first, Finch was adamantly against giving away their position with the trail of smoke, but Drew showed her a trick he'd mastered in training. By punching out part of the fire ring and placing a large, flat stone in the opening, they could cause the smoke to go outward instead of upward. Finch was a little leery but ultimately trusted her ally. As Drew began assembling the fire ring, Finch ventured into the woods to hunt even more. Drew was alone at the camp.

It turned out that Drew wasn't a very responsible fire-watcher. Figuring the fire was far enough away from any trees to catch anything on fire, he sprinted about a half a minute to the lake for a drink of water. Unfortunately, while he was gone several sparks landed on the leaf of an almost-dead tree nearby. As the leaf turned black and began to crumble, the flames only spread. Drew returned about five minutes later to find the entire branch engulfed in flames. He grabbed up his pack and tried to beat out the flames, but it was no use; the fire was spreading too quickly.

Drew screamed Finch's name, and the 5 girl rushed to his side. She was too terrified to say "I told you so." It turned out that Finch was a clever girl who managed to think straight despite her panic. A sponsor sent them a pail, and Finch instructed Drew to dig a trench around the tree. As Finch rushed to fill the pail, the boy did as he was told. When one of them splashed water onto the tree, it would flow down into the trench, where they could scoop it up and use it again.

Breathing hard, Finch reached the lake, and she filled the pail to the brim with cold water. She was about halfway back to camp when she tripped and poured out the bucket's entire contents. Cursing, she ran back to the lake to gather more, hoping that Drew was alright back at camp.

At the burning tree, it was only minutes more before Drew decided to desert. He hadn't thought about the possibility of the fire spreading to other trees, and as soon as the leaves of nearby plants began to wither away he knew all chances of putting out the flames were hopeless. Drew abandoned ship, screaming, sprinting toward the lake where he would be safe.

All of Drew's screaming had attracted the attention of the nearby career pack, and, grinning, they'd rushed toward his terrified cries to polish him off. Drew was about halfway to the lake when he was intercepted by the pack. Clove instantly leapt toward him with her throwing knives, but he dodged the blades, barely missing one of Glimmer's arrows and a slash of Cato's sword. As Cato spun around to make another slash, Drew stumbled back toward the fire. His only hope would be that the pack would be too scared to follow him. In minutes, he came to the site of the burning trees. Cato and Clove looked a little leery but followed him into the smoke. Glimmer and Marvelous were just behind. It wasn't long before the group unanimously decided it wasn't worth putting their lives on the line to kill Drew. Cato, Clove, and Marvelous fled back toward the cornucopia, and unfortunately they'd forgotten about Miss Rambin in their scramble to escape. A burning log had fallen and landed on Glimmer's leg, pinning her to the ground. She died moments after her lungs flooded with smoke.

 _Glimmer Rambin, District 1 Female: 11th, Killed by Suffocation, Day 7_

Surprisingly, Glimmer's death was the only casualty caused directly by the wildfire. This didn't mean that there wasn't a lot of action, however. As Marvelous, Cato, and Clove sprinted back to the cornucopia, Cato smacked into a hive of Tracker Jackers before he could sidestep. The angry wasp mutts flew out of the hive and chased after the pack, and their running speeds increased significantly as the Tracker Jackers followed them. By the time the trio arrived at the cornucopia, the swarm was less than five feet behind them. They screamed for Sharka to bring out their sleeping bags. She hastily obeyed, and the careers shoved themselves into the bags and zipped themselves inside. They had to wait for nearly two hours for all of the wasps to leave.

Niko got lucky when the disaster struck. He was the closest tribute other than Finch and Drew to the location the fire started, so he spotted the fire early and had enough time to run away. However, the boy had severely injured his ankle a few hours prior, so he could only hobble away from the fire. The flames spread much faster than he could run; Niko collapsed into the lake next to the cornucopia just as the tree behind him caught fire.

Drew and Finch, the creators of the disaster, sought refuge in the wheat field. The healthy-looking golden color of the stalks suggested that they were well-hydrated and unlikely to burn. They were sitting cross-legged munching on sponsored granola bars when they spotted the massive Thresh Agora mere yards away. The 5s stayed dead still until he left, and they themselves left quickly after, not wanting to be around when the 11 boy found out his wheat field had been trespassed on.

Meredith and Lylith, the allied girls from 7 and 9 respectively, had only one thing on their minds as the inferno rolled over their camp, consuming their supplies in its ever-hungry rage. They needed to save their jar of flammable liquid at any cost. They woke up to the smell of smoke and only grabbed their most precious things before fleeing. Lylith grabbed her throwing knife and fled west, and Meredith almost did the same before she remembered the flammable gel. Meredith reached into the bottom of her pack and retrieved the gel before following Lylith to safety.

It was mere minutes before Meredith and Lylith spotted another tribute: a tall, blonde boy from the richest district of Panem. Wanting to impress the sponsors, Marvelous had ventured away from the cornucopia to hunt for outliers, who would most likely be weary and off-guard after the natural disaster. Marvelous turned sharply on his heel as a leaf crunched under Lylith's foot. The 9 girl screamed as Marvelous lunged toward her, and she would have died if not for her ally Meredith. Wincing, Meredith plunged the blade of her hatchet into Marvelous' back as his spear reached toward Lylith's torso. The career collapsed, roaring with agony, and he was so off-kilter that he dropped his spear. Meredith quickly took the spear from him, and the duo scrambled in an arbitrary direction as the 1 boy bled out behind them. His screams were futile; he was much too far away from the cornucopia for his screams to be heard. Reinforcements were not coming.

 _Marvelous Fantasticness, District 1 Male: 10th, Killed by Meredith, Day 7_

Day 8 was nearly as eventful as Day 7. It seemed like Seneca had been starting the games off slowly and was now speeding up deaths. Many predicted the finale would occur within the first two weeks. The first half of the day transpired with only one point of note, but it was an important one. Cato, Clove, and the ever-timid Sharka woke up bright and early to go hunting. But they had a problem—with so few members, and having to leave one member to guard the cornucopia, they would be left with an inefficient hunting party of only two.

Fortunately, their dilemma was given an immediate solution. Cato and Sharka left together and came to a stop at the crystal-clear lake, where Niko was humming softly to himself, calmed by the sound of the lapping water. Cato stomped once to get his attention. Niko promptly leapt to his feet, screaming, but Cato calmed him.

"Don't… why… get… leave me alone!" Niko shouted.

"We're not going to hurt you," Cato hissed, putting on a friendly tone that even the most cunning of tributes would have had a hard time pulling off. "We want your help."

"My… help?"

"That's right." Cato's smile widened. "We want you to guard the horn while we go hunting. As a reward you'll get our food and protection. But this only works if you do your job well. Stick to your post, and, if you try to abandon…" Cato chuckled. "We'll make your death slow and painful. Now come on."

Back home in 3, Niko's parents were screaming at him through their televisions screens to make a run for it, and the boy seriously considered it himself, but in the end his curiosity got the best of him. Cato and Sharka returned to the horn and introduced Clove to their new ally. They handed Niko a spear and instructed him to guard to the cornucopia while they were away.

Unfortunately for Niko, the day he was recruited to take care of the cornucopia was the day that Meredith and Lylith pulled off the escapade with their jar of flammable gel. Using a sponsored compass, the two girls found their way to the cornucopia, and they fell into a small cave about thirty yards away turning their plan over and over. Meredith, the lighter and more stealthy of the duo, would cover the supplies with the gel, and meanwhile Lylith would be on the other side of the cornucopia ready to kill any careers that were guarding. Then whoever found a match first would throw it onto the supplies once she was sure both girls were a good distance away.

Meredith Powell and Lylith Joud approached the cornucopia, Lylith in front. She spotted the 3 boy standing in front of the cornucopia holding a spear but reckoned he wouldn't be much of a threat if he tried to attack them. Their plan fell into place perfectly. Lylith grabbed a heavy stone and hurled it to the ground on the right side of the cornucopia. As Niko curiously moved to the right to investigate, Meredith darted to the left and starting coating the supplies with the gel. She found a book of matches quickly. She gave the signal to Lylith, and, after striking the red head of the match onto the box, threw it onto a nearby pack containing loaves of bread.

In moments, the cornucopia was engulfed in a blazing fiery hell. Lylith and Meredith fell back into the forest, shocked as to truly how deadly of a weapon they had used. Niko was frozen to the spot, unable to move for terror. He'd be in for the worst punishment imaginable when Cato, Clove, and Sharka returned. The careers were half a mile from the cornucopia when it went up in flames. They felt the heat of the rolling inferno and doubled back to investigate. They arrived at the cornucopia in minutes. The flames had cooled; what was once the horn and its supplies was a charred black wasteland, and Niko was standing alone a few yards away, quivering and crying to himself. Cato stormed forward, roaring with rage. The 2 boy swept Niko off of his feet, and he tried to wiggle out of his muscular arms but it was no use. There was a sickening snap as Cato grabbed either side of his neck and twisted sharply to the side. The 3 boy fell to the earth with a loud thud, dead.

 _Niko Andrews, District 3 Male: 9th, Killed by Cato, Day 8_

That left the final eight: Cato Hadley and Clove Kentwell from District 2, Sharka Nightengale from District 4, Drew Dinning and Finch Crossly from District 5, Meredith Powell from District 7, Lylith Joud from District 9, and Thresh Agora from District 11.

The remainder of Day 8 wasn't particularly exciting. Realizing how quickly the crowd of tributes was dwindling, Thresh left the tiny wheat field and delved into the forest. He had been stayed mostly still for the first week of the games, but now that the finale was drawing near he stopped playing his defensive game and started playing the offensive game that the others were playing.

By Day 9, it became clear that Cato and Clove had made a decision regarding Sharka. Several sponsor notes had been sent to them over the course of the last few days urging them to bump her off, and even thinking fairly they couldn't deny the fact that Sharka was the weak link in the pack. When they had more living members this wasn't a problem, but now that there were only eight working sets of lungs in the arena the 4 girl was just like a weight the others had to lug around with them.

In the black field of wreckage that had once been the cornucopia, Cato and Clove rose at the same time as the sun. The night prior, they'd told Sharka they'd sleep in, and like they'd expected the District 4 girl was resting contentedly in the ocean-blue sleeping bag that her parents had sponsored for thinking it would remind her of home. Cato grabbed his sword and Clove grabbed her throwing knives. Sharka woke, gasping, as Clove threw two of her knives into her chest. She just shook and groaned, staring at the tributes she had thought to be her friends. Cato polished her off, thrusting his sword into her abdomen soon after. It was a new tactic that was a sharp contrast to the 2 boy's signature slashing style.

 _Sharka Nightengale, District 4 Female: 8th, Killed by Clove and Cato, Day 9_

On the other side of the arena, an alliance was splitting. Drew and Finch from 5 had remained unwaveringly loyal to each other for the entire games, but it was far too late in the competition for their little dynamic to continue. The duo broke camp and split up the supplies evenly amongst themselves in pensive silence. In the next few days, at least one of them would be dead. They split from each other with a tradition District 5 salute, and then they disappeared in opposite directions. Drew headed straight toward the cornucopia, whereas Finch made more of a circular path around the circular arena's center; she wanted to cover as much land as possible in hopes of discovering food or other things of value.

There was still one alliance that refused to split, however. Meredith and Lylith rested in a small cave about a mile away from the cornucopia for the whole morning, telling jokes and just being friends. Nearly a dozen attempts to destroy the horn's supplies had been made in the seventy-four years of Hunger Games, but only a very select few had been pulled off successfully. The two really were a lovable duo. They were both funny and joking with just the right amount of cunning, and boy were they sponsored! By the end of the day, they had two sickles, mounds of water and food, and high-quality sleeping bags, among other things. This was, of course, in addition to the spear they'd pilfered from the dead Marvelous Fantasticness, which they couldn't seem to wipe all the dried blood off of despite their best efforts.

Day 9 was also the day that Cato and Clove abandoned the cornucopia. They gathered up the few supplies that hadn't been completely incinerated by the two outlier girls and travelled in opposite directions, vowing to meet in the wheat field at nightfall. Cato headed east, and Clove headed north, and they both hunted feverishly for much of the day. Both careers were determined to get in a good kill or two before the finale. At sunset, both careers headed toward the wheat field as promised. Cato reached the field first, but to his shock there was another tribute already there. Thresh had been notified of the careers' plans via a series of sponsor notes, and he had travelled back to the wheat field to attack the first tribute that arrived.

Cato was stunned with shock for an instant as Thresh leapt out of nowhere, holding his sickle. But that instant was a short one—having trained at the academy for ages, Cato had fast reflexes, so he managed to dodge the first few swings of the 11 boy's sickle. Both tributes were well-armed, and both were extremely strong; there was no obvious winner. The career versus outlier duel quickly became the only thing televisions around Panem showed; everyone wanted to be watching the moment one tribute emerged victorious. About twenty minutes into their skirmish, Seneca sent torrential rainfall onto the arena, and that was the nail in the coffin for Cato Hadley. Being from rainy 11, Thresh had experience moving around in water. Meanwhile, Cato was from hot, dry 2 and saw dust storms more than rainstorms. Thresh triumphed just as the water passed the tributes' waists, skewering the sharp point of his sickle into Cato's chest as the 2 boy clumsily tried to move around in the several-feet-high waters. His blood painted the floodwaters red. Thresh quickly moved to higher ground, not wanting to be overwhelmed by the rising waters if they continued to move upward.

 _Cato Hadley, District 2 Male: 7th, Killed by Thresh, Day 9_

Day 10 was the last day in the arena. Seneca was a man who liked to end his games quickly, and the seventy-fourth Hunger Games was no exception. Thresh made the first move of the day. After killing Cato from 2 the day prior, he'd haphazardly made camp, too exhausted to move. However, as the sun rose on the tenth day, he had the energy he needed to get moving. This late in the games, Thresh knew it was critical to keep "stirring the pot" so-to-speak whenever possible or his chances of winning would plummet to none. He made a kind of circular movement around the center of the arena in his hunt for prey; with Cato's sword in addition to his sickle, he was far more confident. At noon, he settled on a warm boulder in a clearing, munching on a crescent-shaped loaf of District 11 bread he'd been sponsored.

Little did Thresh Agora know that, as he contentedly nibbled on the warm, flour-coated bread, chaos was ensuing about two miles away. Meredith and Lylith were sleeping in a cave at the north end of the arena when the gamemakers sent a swarm of angry Tracker Jackers in their direction with strong electrical pulses. Both girls woke with shock as the swarm descended on the cave like a hideous, humming raincloud. Lylith, who was closer to the front of the cave, let out an earsplitting scream as five of the wasps landed on her right arm. She managed to pick off three of them, but the remaining two couldn't be torn off of her flesh; they'd both dug their stingers into her skin. Lylith stumbled away from the cave, forgetting about her ally Meredith, who was hunkering down in the back of the cave.

Meredith Powell, however alone she was, wasn't anywhere near defenseless. In the back of the cave there was a sizable, freezing-cold pool where condensation had collected over the course of the entire games. As the first cohort of Tracker Jackers rushed into the cave, Meredith scooped up a handful of the icy water and splashed it onto them. A good ten of them were knocked out of the air, and the remaining three zoomed out of the cave in confusion. Meredith managed to murder half the swarm by splashing them with water, but before she knew it the pool of water was empty. She was in serious trouble.

A short distance away from the cave, Lylith's insides burned with guilt. She was safe from the Tracker Jackers that far away, but she didn't think she would ever be able to live with herself knowing she'd left Meredith behind to die. Her moral compass triumphed over her animal instinct to survive, and she raced back toward the cave without feeling like she was moving her own legs.

But the rescue effort was in vain—Meredith had managed to escape on her own. Trapped in the back of the cave, Meredith knew there was only one way to survive the wasp attack. The mutts wanted flesh, and that was what they would have. The girl grabbed her hatchet, the weapon of her district, and dug it into her left ring finger. Her screams could be heard for miles around and she tore off the finger over the course of about ten seconds. Then, trying to ignore the white-hot agony rolling through her body in waves, she dropped the discarded appendage. The hundred or so Tracker Jackers crowded around the severed finger, too distracted to notice the much larger prey escaping. As long as she could keep the mangled stump of her finger from bleeding out, Meredith was safe.

But Lylith didn't know that her ally had escaped without her, and as she fought her way through the cave, the wasp mutts stinging her from head to foot, she was shocked to find that Meredith was nowhere to be found. Tracker Jacker venom wasn't usually deadly, but in such large quantities it was impossible for a human body to keep working.

 _Lylith Joud, District 9 Female: 6th, Killed by Tracker Jackers, Day 10_

Finch from 5, realizing just how quickly these games were moving along, packed up her things moments after Lylith's cannon shot and made her way toward the cornucopia. Finch was a clever girl. She predicted that, in the games directly before a Quarter Quell, the mutts designed for the finale would be among the most formidable yet. She was correct—the mutts that Seneca had in store would be enough to haunt the nightmares of district children for weeks to come.

Finch arrived at the cornucopia much quicker than she'd anticipated, a mere hour or so later. Clove from 2 was sharpening her throwing knives in front of the wreck of the horn when she spotted the 5 girl coming. Quickly, Clove ducked behind a scorched wooden chest, grinning as her prey drew closer and closer. The crate hid her well; Finch didn't think there was anybody home. Clove didn't pounce out from behind the chest until the outlier girl was ten feet away. Finch blanched and turned to run, but her feet were locked in place. As the career girl drew closer and closer, Finch realized fleeing wasn't an option; she had to fight. She and her ex-ally Drew had grabbed lots of supplies from the cornucopia, but over the days they'd lost most of them. All she had on her was a sword that was far too heavy for her. Clove grinned. She had this kill in the bag.

Clove, unsurprisingly, made the first move, and it was a devious one. She grabbed a throwing knife and pretended to throw it to Finch's right, like she was trying to fool a dog in a game of fetch. Finch fell for the trick, and she dove out of the way of the imaginary knife, right onto the burnt-black crate. Finch fell onto the crate and stumbled forward, landing on her face like an idiot, and it was all over from there. Clove made sure every one of her knives was bloodstained before moving away to let the hovercraft collect the girl's corpse.

 _Finch Crossly, District 5 Female: 5th, Killed by Clove, Day 10_

Clove's fifth kill of the games came right to her. Drew, Finch's ex-ally, was less than a mile away, and when he heard Finch's screams he ran in their direction. Their alliance had ended several days prior, but he still felt an obligation to protect his district partner if she was in danger. Clove chuckled delicately as Drew ran right into her, and they both collapsed in a heap. Drew was so disoriented that he didn't have a hope of defending his life. He was gone in less than a minute after Clove landed a throwing knife in his heart.

 _Drew Dinning, District 5 Male: 4th, Killed by Clove, Day 10_

The next few hours were mostly uneventful. If Seneca wanted, he could have ended the games right then and there, but he wanted to give the Capitolites plenty of time to place their bets on which of the three finalists they thought should win. The four or five hours was mostly moving toward the cornucopia for the tributes. Clove continued sharpening her throwing knives at the cornucopia. At first she was leery about leaving, but a sponsor note reassured her that no danger would be coming for the next few hours. Clove hauled everything she didn't need to a nearby river and dumped them; she didn't want them to end up in the hands of any other tributes. Meredith tried not to groan too loudly as blood drizzled from her severed left ring finger. A sponsor sent her a tiny pack of pain-dulling medication, but that did little to nothing to stop the blood flow. She ended up having to tear off part of her shirt with her hatchet and bind it over the wound to keep the blood in her body. Thresh didn't have a long way to go to get to the cornucopia, so he could have made it in less than half an hour, but he sprinted nonetheless. He wanted to get to the horn as soon as he could to cut down Clove. Then his only competition would be Meredith, who would be easy to cut down.

Seneca had waited long enough. It was time to release the beasts. Seven of the mutts were deposited near each tribute, and they were the most hideous things imaginable. The bodies of the deceased tributes had been forced into the shapes of ugly mutts reminiscent of dogs, and their voice boxes had been cut out and replaced so that they howled like wolves.

Meredith's scream caught in her throat as the first mutt crawled out of the darkness. Before she knew it, the dog mutt with the slim body of Niko Andrews was rearing up to devour her. As Meredith stumbled away, Niko was accompanied by Prongson Iglesi and Tamora Faye. Meredith only ran faster as Nettie Hanson and Rue Crimmond joined the party, and soon after the group was completed with the reanimated corpses of Glimmer Rambin and Peeta Mellark. As the cornucopia drew nearer, more of the mutts fell away from the 7 girl; in the end, only Glimmer and Peeta were left chasing her.

Clove, whose stalkers included Cato Hadley, Bodhi Fitzgerald, Sharka Nightengale, Charle McCanister, Tarun Dixon, Susan Gardner, and Primrose Everdeen, stumbled away from the cornucopia, gasping, as the mutts roared behind her. It would have been unfair if the gamemakers had just let Clove be while the two others were being attacked, so the mutts were instructed to chase her around a bit before eventually leading her back to the cornucopia.

Thresh, unlike the other two tributes, was not so lucky. Marvelous Fantasticness, Drew Dinning, Finch Crossly, Jason Mitchell, Carvis Olive, Savannah Castillo, and Lylith Joud were all on his tail. With so many strong tributes chasing him, it was futile to run. The only ones he managed to kill were Savannah and Finch. Thresh loped off Savannah's ear, and she toppled over, excreting torrents of black muttation blood, as the 11 boy knocked Finch into a pool of water, where she quickly drowned. He was doing his best to fend off Marvelous when Carvis, Lylith, and Drew closed in on him. They tore him to shreds in a matter of moments.

 _Thresh Agora, District 11 Male: 3rd, Killed by Carvis, Lylith, and Drew (Dog Muttations), Day 10_

Clove and Meredith arrived at the cornucopia at the same time, each girl chased by a few hideous dog mutts. Seneca sent the mutts reeling away with powerful electrical pulses; he didn't want them to kill the tributes before they could kill each other. Clove Kentwell was the strongest tribute in these games, and as a feisty, fit, and beautiful girl, she would undoubtedly make a satisfying addition to District 2's expanding lineup of victors. Meanwhile, Meredith was the true underdog. She'd been living in the slums of District 7 with her lumberjack grandfather and prostitute mother after her father died in a forest fire when she was five. She wasn't the strongest tribute the games had ever seen, but with almost all of the non-career districts' citizens rooting for her only time would tell for sure.

Clove made the first move, grabbing two knives out of her belt and throwing one of them at Meredith's arm, not wanting to kill her but just wanting to distract her enough that she could bind her down for a satisfying final kill. Meredith made a valiant effort to fight back, and she succeeded. With the blade of her hatchet, she managed to knock away the 2 girl's throwing knife.

About ten minutes into their duel, Seneca sent torrential rainfall onto the arena. The word "torrential" was not to be used lightly. The rain fell in sheets, faster than was ever natural for rain to fall. In mere minutes, the floodwaters were up to the tributes' ankles; they'd have to kill one another soon or they'd drown. At one point, the girls lost each other through the storm, so they had to be directed back toward each other with lightning strikes.

The finale was not resolved until the water was up to the finalists' waists. Over the half an hour the skirmish had lasted, they'd both sustained major injuries. Clove had a gash in her chest that was a good half-inch deep. She would be dead in minutes if she failed to kill Meredith first. The 7 girl had it much worse. In addition to her severed finger, her left leg had been so beaten-down that it was close to falling off of her body. Clove had also landed a throwing knife in her shoulder, and blood was spouting from the gaping hole at an alarmingly fast rate.

Clove made what looked like the determining move. Panting heavily, she grabbed the last throwing knife she had and hurled it at Meredith's chest. The weapon dug into her neck. Meredith collapsed to her knees, and, with her last ounce of energy, thrust her hatchet upward. The blade of the weapon miraculously buried itself an inch into Clove's neck. It was a competition of who could last the longest. Clove put up a good fight, but her wounds were far more severe than that of her final opponent. The District 2 girl died as Meredith clung onto her life, leaving her the last tribute in the arena.

 _Clove Kentwell, District 2 Female: 2nd, Killed by Meredith, Day 10_

"Meredith Powell of District 7, you are the victor of the seventy-fourth annual Hunger Games!" Caesar and Claudius shouted, their voices barely audible over the roaring of the storm.

Meredith didn't respond. She just floated in circles on the surface of the splashing floodwaters, desperately clinging onto her life as the medical team lifted her into the hovercraft to put her back together.

 _Meredith Powell, District 7 Female: Victor of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games, Day 10_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Meredith's victory was a pleasant surprise for the people of the lumber district. After a thirty-seventy year wait between Grover and Johanna, it had only been a three year wait for their next victor, Miss Powell. The medical team managed to fix Meredith almost completely. They had to actually fully sever her leg to fix a few complications before re-attaching it, and it was years before she could properly use the limb again. The Capitol also offered her the choice of an artificial finger, but she turned it down—she would rather live with only nine digits than live with an unwieldy mechanical appendage. Meredith herself was a bit bogged-down with all of the attention she received, but she slowly but surely got used to it. Despite her injuries, she was a quite pretty woman, which of course meant President Snow would use her in ways he used victors from Cashmere to Finnick to Johanna.

Meredith moved into the Victor's Village of District 7, the fourth to do so.

Her victory tour was alright. Nothing of note transpired during it, though District 2 was understandably furious at her; they'd been so close to victory with Clove.

Meredith would live to age eighty, dying from a heart attack five months before the one-hundred thirty-eighth annual Hunger Games. She would marry and have two sons. She was ultimately a shier woman and more of an introvert, and she dabbled in many arts throughout her life, from painting to choreography. Meredith was one of the few victors who found it easy to block out the memories of her games; in fact, she worked as a therapist for many of the other victors. The victors liked having a therapist who knew what they'd been through, so she was a big hit.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Meredith moves into the Victor's Village of District 7, next door to Johanna's home.

Gloss Linden gives birth to twin daughters, Marvel and Wonder.

Cashmere Linden's fifth and final child, Sparkles, is born.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)

* * *

 **A/N: What'd you think of this one? Think the games were exciting? Think I should be sacrificed by goats for letting an unnamed character win the games? Please consider reviewing with any thoughts, as I read every word and take them all into consideration. Your feedback is what motivates me to get out updates faster! I love every one of you.**

 **The third Quarter Quell is up next! If you want to know what the twist will be, that's already public information—you can check out my story "The Quarter Quell Cards" if you'd like to know. Please refrain from leaving it in the reviews, though; I don't want to spoil it in case anyone wants it to be a surprise :D**

 **This is goodbye for the last time before we dive headfirst into uncharted territory. See ya' later ;)**


	76. The 75th Hunger Games

**A/N: I just want to clarify a few things before the chapter starts. As the stunt with the berries never happened in the seventy-fourth games, there is no incentive for the quell to be rigged and as such the twist is completely different. Another change is the arena—I figure the clock arena was designed by Plutarch to ensure Katniss would survive. Again, given the circumstances, this year's arena isn't the clock we all know and love. With that out of the way, I present…**

* * *

 **The 75th Hunger Games: The 3rd Quarter Quell:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

After the action-packed finale of the seventy-fourth Hunger Games, excitement for the third Quarter Quell was at a peak. Rumors of the twist ran rampant through the Capitol and festered the nightmares of district citizens in slow succession. Everybody had their favorite speculations, but nobody could be sure until President Snow revealed the twist to the nation that he'd written decades earlier. Seneca Crane expressed wishes that the twist would require the audience to have more of a say in what went on in the games, while Caesar and Claudius both hoped the quell would require only a single gender or district to participate. The closest guess, though, came from the edgy-as-ever Johanna Mason from District 7. She replied to a team of paparazzi, "I bet they'll do some kind of throwback to the first quell and have the citizens chose the tributes instead of the escorts. Yeah, that's probably what they'll do." It turned out that Miss Mason was only half right. A few months before games time, President Snow put on the onerous voice he so often donned for public announcements and such and announced that, "On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels of the poor choices and decisions that led to the existence of the Hunger Games, the person whose name is reaped from each reaping ball will be required to handpick somebody of the same gender to take their place in the games." It was done the same way in every district. For example, in District 5, the eighteen-year-old Boltana Salazar was reaped and called to stage. Immediately after, she was told to pick any girl out of the crowd, and they would be the District 5 female of the year. Understandably, many of these boys and girls felt awful about condemning their peers to die. As tears were shed in district after district, the despicable Coriolanus Snow stood rooted in his mansion wrought with pleasure. His quells were meant to initiate fear—the first two Quarter Quells had been flops, but he was sure that this one would be one not only for the times, but for the ages.

This year's arena was a stunning majesty of a place—Seneca really outdid himself for the quell, and the results were certain to be spectacular. The tributes would find themselves in a startlingly familiar location, a location they'd left only hours before. The Capitol spread out around them in all its beauty, grandeur, and splendor—the result of thousands of hours of hard work and careful planning. Tall multicolored buildings crowded the skyline, sleek and metallic and lit up by hidden, turning, sparkling lights. As if recreating the beautiful Capitol wasn't impressive enough, Seneca had thousands of mutts carefully designed for his quell. They were exact replicas of people, dressed in the fanciful clothing often seen in the Capitol. The golden cornucopia stood in a crowded shopping district bustling with activity, and all around it the grid-like streets of Panem's capital city spread out. A point of curiosity was that there were only twelve pedestals surrounding the cornucopia this year. The other twelve were scattered in random locations around the arena. One plate was near a burbling, crystalline fountain; one was situated in front of the Presidential Mansion; and many, many more. What would come of this was for time to tell. While the arena seemed as solid as any city could be, it would morph and change to make the tributes question their senses of reality; this would not be your ordinary Hunger Games. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

The careers were a decent bunch this year; they were all at least decently-good-looking and almost all of them scored well. As volunteering was barred in these games, the volunteering process had to be altered slightly; whichever youth was reaped would recite the name of the chosen academy student when prompted to choose. District 1 provided its classically beautiful duo, and they were both masters of long-range combat. The boy was a renowned model who was stunningly handsome and more tall and lean. Meanwhile, the female was more prissy and eccentric but still a very pretty girl. District 2 stole the show this year, providing the strongest duo, even if they weren't as beautiful as their counterparts from the luxury district. The male was quiet and mysterious, and in addition to being a master archer and swordsman he was dangerously manipulative and cunning. The female was a stunning, dark-skinned girl with a heavily-sculpted form; she'd been working in the quarries of District 2 from an early age, and she was skilled with brute-force weapons like maces. District 4's pair was the least flashy. The boy was easy-going and level-headed and for the most part unknown throughout his district, much more so than many of the famous surfers who ended up in the games. The girl had a kind of exotic beauty to her and an enthralling sense of mystery plaguing her, and she was a speedy traveler whether by land or water. The scores of the pack were pretty good. Four tens, one nine, and one eight were scored. Seneca needed a strong crop of careers for his precious quell.

The selection process of the outliers was much more varied. Most of the tributes were chosen by their peers because they were unpopular. Several of them were wrongdoers as well. None of them earned nines or above, but a still-impressive three eights were earned. Brinn from 7 was a lithe, red-haired boy who was one of the few green-eyed tributes the games had ever seen, and he had astounding survival skills and could also use a hatchet well. The boy who was picked chose him to enter the games because he wanted the district to have a good shot at winning. Rusty from 9 was a much smaller and cleverer boy with a lisp. Being the son of a renowned cook, he could find food almost anywhere. He was a master of knives as well. Lulah from 12 was an orphan miner girl who was strong and resilient, and she had been working in the mines for years despite being underage. Tesla from 5, Nelson from 6, Ashleigh from 7, and Tarinth from 11 scored sevens. The rest of the tributes scored between six and four in their private sessions. As for wrongdoers, there were several in these games. Tarinth from 11 was a psychotic murderer who'd killed at least a dozen people the year prior; throughout his interview, he refused to talk to Caesar, instead glaring over the audience with his mouth watering as if selecting his next prey. Nelson from 6 had a father who was a drug dealer, particularly to teens and young adults. The boy had been abused from an early age, and the reaped boy was scared he would end up like his father unless he sent him into the games, eliminating him. It was all very reminiscent of the first Quarter Quell, where the district citizens voted on their tributes. The only difference was that this time the vote boiled down to one person. In many instances the kids couldn't even bear to go along with the twist. The boy from 8 couldn't bear to condemn one of his peers and instead chose to pick a name from the reaping ball to decide who he would send into the games. The boy from 5 closed his eyes and randomly pointed at somebody in the crowd. President Snow liked how singled-out his quell made the districts' children feel. There were no volunteers this year; volunteering was barred in these games. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Zinfandel Patrix, 18, (10) 3-1 and Misha Tannen, 17, (8) 9-1

District 2: Struve Lockman, 18, (10) 4-1 and Caelinia Lesters, 18, (10) 4-1

District 3: Idgar Bouraad-Nash, 15, (6) 20-1 and Sentra Vary, 17, (5) 24-1

District 4: Kedian Marshall, 17, (10) 6-1 and Nazca Swandler, 17, (9) 7-1

District 5: Ray Stuart, 16, (4) 33-1 and Tesla Peebles, 18, (7) 14-1

District 6: Nelson Uagodou, 18, (7) 15-1 and Odele Callow, 15, (5) 27-1

District 7: Brinn Johnson, 17, (8) 12-1 and Ashleigh Genova, 16, (7) 15-1

District 8: Topher Kinsey, 15, (4) 34-1 and Kighi Maghadam, 12, (4) 37-1

District 9: Rusty Hopkinson, 16, (8) 13-1 and Lyrica Langdon, 17, (6) 18-1

District 10: Bluri Waterstone, 18, (6) 17-1 and Irmentrude Brestscher, 18, (6) 17-1

District 11: Tarinth Valigny, 18, (7) 16-1 and Sheafa Prescott, 18, (5) 23-1

District 12: Collis Graves, 17, (5) 25-1 and Lulah Carver, 17, (8) 12-1

HGBO Bets: 15% on Zinfandel, 13% on Struve, 10% on Caelinia, 9% on Kedian, 8% on Nazca, 7% on Misha, 6% on Brinn, Rusty, and Lulah, 4% on Tesla, Nelson, Ashleigh, and Tarinth, 2% on Idgar, Lyrica, and Irmentrude, 1% or less on Sentra, Ray, Odele, Topher, Kighi, Bluri, Sheafa, and Collis.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Before the tributes could enter the arena, they were brought together in a blank, circular room that was lit by one harshly-bright light affixed to the ceiling. Directly below the light stood Seneca Crane, holding a leather bag that was bulging in some places as though it were stuffed with small objects. Seneca instructed the tributes to gather around him. They did as they were told. The career tributes lunged to the front whereas the terrified outliers stayed a few steps back.

"When I call your name, you are to reach into this bag and draw one figurine. This will dictate where you will start the games." Seneca pointed to the back of the room, where twenty-four doors were built into the wall—the doors to the launch rooms. Twelve of the launch rooms led to the classic pedestal ring, whereas the other twelve pedestals were scattered around the arena.

"I will call you up by district order. As usual, ladies first. Misha Tannen, please come forward."

The District 1 girl sauntered forward and reached her hand into the leather bag. She felt around for a while before plucking out one of the figurines—a golden cornucopia. Seneca pointed toward one of the doorways. Misha promptly entered it.

In the bag, there were twenty-four figurines. Twelve of them were modeled after the golden cornucopia. There were also twelve unique figurines: a dress, a fountain, a crown, a hovercraft, a microchip, a loaf of bread, a book, an apple, a ticket, a popcorn bag, a jewel, and a football. The tributes that drew the cornucopia figurines would start around the horn of plenty. The other twelve tributes would begin in the store represented by the object they had drawn.

The tributes crowded around the cornucopia were Misha, Zinfandel, Caelinia, Tesla, Nelson, Ashleigh, Brinn, Topher, Lyrica, Irmentrude, Tarinth, and Lulah. Struve was in a hovercraft base (hovercraft), Idgar was in a tech store (microchip), Sentra was near a fountain (fountain), Kedian was in a theater (popcorn bag), Nazca was in a sports stadium (football), Ray was in a school (apple), Odele was in the presidential mansion (crown), Kighi was in a dress store (dress), Rusty was in a bakery (loaf of bread), Bluri was in a library (book), Sheafa was in an amusement park (ticket), and Collis was in a jewelry store (jewel).

The twelve tributes that had been chosen to start at the bloodbath were shocked to find themselves in an exact replica of the Capitol they'd left hours before. All around them, crowds of extravagantly-dressed Capitol citizen mutts bustled about. They would have to fight their way to the cornucopia if they wanted the best supplies this year.

When the gong rang, only Topher from 8 fled from the get-go. The rest of the tributes decided to head into the bloodbath, unwilling to take their chances with what they could find in the arena. Only six deaths would occur in this year's bloodbath. There would be lots of tributes for Seneca to mess around with once the dust settled.

Zinfandel, Misha, and Caelinia fought their way through the crowd. Zinfandel quickly took a bow and managed to dispatch three women that crowded around him, fawning over his beauty. Caelinia barely managed to avoid the arms of a squealing family, and Misha ran past an elderly man wearing too much cologne.

Surprisingly, Lyrica from 9 was able to match the paces of the careers. She was nimble enough to get out of the way of the droves of mechanical people, and she dropped once she reached the horn, hastily shoving supplies into a bright-blue pack. Zinfandel spotted her as a nearby spinning light glanced off of the metal ring that was her tribute token, and he quickly fired two arrows. Lyrica let out a scream as the arrows dug into her back, and she fell onto the aquamarine pack, wheezing and gurgling sickeningly.

 _Lyrica Langdon, District 9 Female: 24th, Killed by Zinfandel, Bloodbath_

Misha was quick to find a bow of her own, and it didn't take long; a sleek, shimmering purple bow was mere meters from her plate, placed there specifically for her. A nearby girl was slamming her way through the crowd, elbowing fawning Capitol citizens away from her as the cornucopia grew nearer. Misha fired an arrow over the heads of the mutts, and the outlier girl was in the wrong place at the wrong time; she was dead in moments.

 _Irmentrude Brestscher, District 10 Female: 23rd, Killed by Misha, Bloodbath_

Misha turned around to look for more prey and was met with the bite of Caelinia's sword in her gut. Soon after, Zinfandel dug two arrows into her chest. The 1 girl fell backward, toppling a swarm of human mutts like dominoes, staring with wide eyes at the tributes she'd thought to be her friends. Caelinia tore her sword out of Misha's torso. She and Zinfandel finished her off at once, killing the prissy career girl they'd come to dislike.

 _Misha Tannen, District 1 Female: 22nd, Killed by Caelinia and Zinfandel, Bloodbath_

As Misha fell, the ground turned bright, sparkling purple and appeared to shimmer and warp. This was the first of the gamemakers' many tricks to distort the tributes' senses of what was real. Nelson stumbled to and fro, struggling not to vomit from his pounding headache. Meanwhile, Lulah froze, unable to move or think as the ground distorted itself around her. Nelson staggered to one side, struggling to fight his way away from the cornucopia, and he accidentally bumped into Caelinia, who he'd thought was another one of the Capitolite mutts. Caelinia thrust her sword into Nelson's abdomen. By the time he hit the ground with a loud noise, he was dead.

 _Nelson Uagodou, District 6 Male: 21st, Killed by Caelinia, Bloodbath_

Moments later, Zinfandel made his third kill. He'd been stalking a girl around the cornucopia for nearly a minute, not bothering to be quiet; whatever he did, he wouldn't be heard over the deafening roar of the crowd. Zinfandel ended up climbing a pile of crates to get a better view of her as she moved around. The girl let out a scream as the career boy leapt onto her, knocking her to the ground. She screamed and flailed helplessly, but it was no use. The 1 boy's arrows were instantly lethal at that close range.

 _Tesla Peebles, District 5 Female: 20th, Killed by Zinfandel, Bloodbath_

As Tesla fell, a strange tinkling sound filled the air reminiscent of miniature bells. Brinn and Ashleigh from 7 were near each other, and they stumbled into each other's arms. There was nothing romantic between them, but they felt comforted near each other nonetheless. Caelinia and Zinfandel nearly tripped over each other, but avoided it as Caelinia grabbed onto a crate to keep from falling. The last kill of the bloodbath was made as the clinically insane Tarinth from 11 stumbled upon the embracing duo from 7. Brinn and Ashleigh screamed with terror and ran toward safety, but they couldn't move fast enough through the press of bodies to escape Tarinth. Tarinth buried his sickle into Ashleigh's wrist, severing her hand. As the 7 girl bled out, Brinn continued running, eventually managing to escape.

 _Ashleigh Genova, District 7 Female: 19th, Killed by Tarinth, Bloodbath_

The rest of Day 1 was deathless. Zinfandel and Caelinia hunkered down inside of the cornucopia. They got along well, and they armed themselves to the teeth, preparing to go hunting the next morning once they had a better idea of what the arena was like. They did a few scouts of the nearby streets of the Capitol and didn't see anything much other than the droves of Capitol citizens walking and talking their mechanical lives away. Struve explored the hovercraft base for much of the day. He'd gotten lucky; being from 2, this was his element. He was frustrated that most of the rooms bearing deadly weapons were locked, so the best weapon he could find was a long white gun supplied near his pedestal. He slept in a men's bathroom at the end of the plain box-shaped building, mind thinking wildly. Idgar was another tribute who had lucked out with where he started the games. He spent about half an hour doing several slow laps around the tech store before filling a plastic shopping bag with mechanical pieces. The boy sat cross-legged behind the counter and began fiddling with the pieces, hoping to assemble something worthwhile. Sentra drank copious amounts of water from the fountain she started near and began pulling out the coins and stacking them out of boredom. When she grew tired, she fought her way through the wide, crowded street and fell on a bright-green bench surrounded by orange flowers. Kedian settled in the theater with his legs on the seat in front of him, watching the comedies that were playing. Nazca traipsed through the mostly-abandoned sports stadium, pilfering food and drink from plastic bags and lowered armrests whenever she got hungry. Around noon, the girl discovered the Holy Grail: the food court. Surprisingly, Nazca was one of 4's poorer citizens, and it felt amazing to have so much food to gorge down. She weighed about a quarter pound heavier at the end of the day than at the start. Ray walked down the long hallways of the school, occasionally peeking into lockers and pulling things out whenever he thought they might be useful. When his legs grew tired, Ray entered an algebra classroom and barricaded the door before falling onto the teacher's wheelie chair and competing a few math worksheets to keep himself occupied. Odele lived like a princess in the presidential mansion. A group of four avoxes followed her everywhere she went, and they catered to her every whim, including adjusting her skirt and grabbing her food whenever she was hungry. The girl wasn't spoiled, and she didn't typically like giving commands; she was just grateful to have an easy life in the mansion while she had no idea how poorly the others were living. Brinn, one of the few outliers who'd escaped the miniature bloodbath with his life, was armed with twin hatchets and large supplies of food and water. He ventured through the hot, crowded streets for a few hours before camping out in a glasses store and tinkering with the various lenses. Topher stumbled away from the cornucopia crying. He was the only tribute to have avoided the bloodbath, so he was pretty much helpless. The 8 boy collapsed at nightfall in a pet store that displayed caged cats, dogs, birds, fish, and various reptiles. Kighi explored the dress store and tried on several different dresses. She was the only twelve-year-old in these games, and knowing that she was resigned to death in the days immediately following she wanted to enjoy her last few moments on the planet. Her fashion spree continued late into the night, until midnight, when she could hardly try on a single costume with her eyes completely open. Rusty had only one thing to do in the bakery: baking. He found a strawberry shortcake recipe in a cookbook and pulled out the necessary ingredients. He poured the ingredients into a large blue bowl as the oven pre-heated. Bluri lounged around in the library, binge reading all the books he could get his hands on; he'd been a bookworm ever since he could stand, and being surrounded with so much knowledge was like heaven. One of the books he read was the famous romance novel that would appear on-and-off in the games, _Refugee_ by Calyptis Summerdreams. The insane serial killer Tarinth stalked away from the cornucopia cackling. Before leaving, he'd severed the hand of the dead Ashleigh from 7, and he kept it in his pocket as he ventured away from the horn. He eventually stumbled across a tent filled with melons and pumpkins, and he smashed a few of the fruits before sharpening his sickle on the bottom of one of the metal tables. Later in the day, he began to use Ashleigh's severed hand for something that was… ahem, not decent to show on public television, so the Capitol paralyzed him and then seized the hand with a few strong electrical pulses. Sheafa explored the amusement park. She'd read about them in books all through her life and had always been fascinated by them, and she was beyond excited to try out the rides. She started off having fun on the teacup rides and the carousels before eventually moving on to the more intense rides like the drop towers and the pendulum rides. To finish her day off, Sheafa went on a massive water ride that dropped hundreds of feet. The one thing she couldn't bring herself to ride was the massive iron beast of a roller coaster that towered over the park; it intimidated her too much, and the girl was terrified by the thought of riding it. Collis hung around in the jewel shop his pedestal was in, sorting the jewels by shape, size, and color for lack of anything more interesting to do. When that grew boring, he set up a sort of shelter using several black cloths and a few chairs. He slept comfortably in his glorified blanket fort. Lulah toyed with her sickle as she sprinted away from the cornucopia, keeping to the thinner areas of the crowd whenever possible. She ended up settling in a quiet coffee shop. The 12 girl ordered a coffee cup at the counter and then settled down on a comfortable white sofa, reading a book she found on a nearby shelf. As night fell over the arena, the Capitol citizen mutts returned to their homes, and the once-lively streets were almost completely empty. The peace would not remain for long.

True to their promise, Zinfandel and Caelinia left soon after waking up on the second day. The morning was cool and sunny and rather pretty, but the duo didn't let the beauty of the arena distract them. Hunger Games arenas were often meant to drive tributes mad and the careers were determined not to make the pitfalls so many tributes had made in Hunger Games past. Zinfandel was adamantly against the idea of leaving a tribute to guard, while Caelinia disagreed; she didn't want to leave the horn unguarded, afraid that its supplies would end up in the outliers' hands. Zinfandel eventually managed to convince her than nobody would dare go near the cornucopia when there were so many tributes still left. Though the 2 girl was still a little leery, she agreed. The duo traipsed away from the cornucopia into the quickly filling streets of the Capitol, eager to do some hunting and flex their career muscle to the eager sponsors.

It wasn't long before they found their victim. The night prior, Rusty had fallen asleep in the bakery with the strawberry shortcake only half-cooked. After several hours, the cake began to turn black and some parts of it even hissed as though on fire. Sensing the smoke, the oven turned itself off automatically, but the burnt smell lingered. Rusty was too deeply asleep to notice the smell, but as the 1 boy and the 2 girl came near the bakery the horrible stench quickly caught their attention. They ventured toward the smell and arrived in the small bakery where Rusty was asleep underneath the table. A bell jingled somewhere in the shop, and Rusty bolted awake just as Caelinia's sword swiped his shoulder. Screaming, the boy stumbled toward the exit, but Zinfandel was waiting for him with the smuggest of smiles. Zinfandel landed two arrows in his abdomen with perfect precision. He was gone in moments.

 _Rusty Hopkinson, District 9 Male: 18th, Killed by Caelinia and Zinfandel, Day 2_

Bluri was the next to wake. The night prior, he'd fallen asleep in the library, piles of books surrounding him on all sides. He'd stayed up a good five hours after darkness fell to finish the romance novel he'd been reading, and now it was time to peruse the titles he'd eagerly pulled from the shelves to keep himself occupied. Bluri eventually discovered a fantasy trilogy that looked interesting. As he eagerly read the first chapter of the first novel, customers began pouring into the shop, but Bluri didn't mind; he liked the ambient sound and found it comforting.

Bluri finished the first novel around eleven in the morning. Suddenly, with a kind of dutifully purpose that took the entire Capitol population by surprise, he stood up, wiped the cluster of books away, and began thundering toward the cornucopia. It was like every step and every breath was planned. It was around eleven-thirty when he started speeding up; he was evidently trying to get to the cornucopia by noon, but why? The strange thing was, three other tributes seemed to be doing the exact same thing: Struve, Idgar, and Lulah. Struve explored the peacekeeper facility for a few hours and didn't discover any more weapons. All he had was his long white gun. He was the first to reach the cornucopia, falling against its boxy backside and sweltering in the heat of the day. Idgar packed up all of his mechanical parts, careful not to break apart the ones he'd assembled. He met Struve at the cornucopia, the second to reach the rendezvous point. Bookwork Bluri was the third, and Lulah of 12 was the last tribute, showing up a few minutes after noon with only her sickle. All four shared nervous whispers before quickly sprinting away. Struve, Idgar, Bluri, and Lulah had evidently allied prior to the games, but what was peculiar was that they waited until the second day to meet. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that they had some big plan looming on the horizon. They'd just have to wait on the edges of their seats to see what it was.

Far away, Sentra from 3 awoke on the bright-green bench and quickly got to her feet. Minutes later, she stumbled upon the glasses store where Brinn from 7 was sharpening his twin hatchets. The boy from the lumber district chased the girl from the technology district for about five minutes before she ducked behind a dumpster and managed to hide long enough for Brinn to leave. By that point, the streets were crowded with Capitolites once more, so Brinn had pretty much no hope of finding her with his visibility so reduced.

Angered that his prey had escaped right under his nose, Brinn stormed away. Fortunately for him, there was another tribute just nearby. Topher was sleeping in the dark aquarium section of the large pet store, and he jumped ten feet in the air at the jingling of the bell that meant Brinn had entered the shop. Topher wasn't completely sure the tribute was a threat, and even if they were he was confident he could remain unseen if he played his cards right. Brinn was intrigued by the various pets and spent a good half hour perusing the pet store before entering the aquarium. Topher's worst fears were confirmed as the glean of Brinn's hatchets illuminated his cowering form. Topher screamed and stumbled toward a nearby window, desperately attempting to un-crank it and escape. He wasn't fast enough. Grimacing slightly, the boy from 7 buried his hatchets into his back. With a splash, Topher's body fell into a nearby fish tank. His rotting body killed all the guppies in the tank within hours.

 _Topher Kinsey, District 8 Male: 17th, Killed by Brinn, Day 2_

Nazca from 4 had somehow slept through Rusty's cannon shot, but Topher's cannon woke her with a start. She was in the food court of the stadium, and she groggily and lazily opened her eyes to a scene of sheer chaos. All around her, dozens of snacks were scattered on the ground. It looked like a tornado had struck the area. Her fingers and face were smeared with grease, dressing, frosting, and numerous other unidentified substances. Nazca had been training for the games her whole life, but the food was draining away her motivation remarkably quickly; in fact, the snacks were laced with chemicals designed to make her lazy and unwilling to do work. Nazca slept in for a few more hours before finally getting to her feet and stumbling out of the stadium, wanting to move around to keep from fading into the background.

Meanwhile, the clinically insane Tarinth Valigny was moving in her direction. Being from 11, Tarinth had been one of the last tributes to draw his token at the start of the games, and as such he had seen what everyone else had picked before him. He had a good guess that the football token Nazca had drawn symbolized the large sports stadium in the distance, and Tarinth was eager to get there quickly and kill the 4 girl. Nazca had taken plenty of snacks with her on her short walk, and they just made her even more lazy. She was so off-kilter that she didn't notice as Tarinth's smirking face drew closer and closer. She had some strange delusion that the snacks were tugging themselves out of her pockets in an attempt to attack her. Given that she was swatting at her pockets instead of at Tarinth, the 11 boy had no problem at all killing her off. His sickle decapitated her in one clean swipe. Tarinth didn't pilfer her of any food afterward; he didn't trust it after what it had done to the girl he had just killed.

 _Nazca Swandler, District 4 Female: 16th, Killed by Tarinth, Day 2_

Soon after, Struve, Idgar, Bluri, and Lulah arrived together at the hovercraft base. Lulah pulled up four chairs, and they each sat down, leaning in to keep their conversation from being overheard. Their whispers were too quiet to overhear, and even when microphones were flown in on drones they picked up on only nonsense; the quartet clearly had some kind of code language they were using. Soon after, the four tributes went down to three. Lulah took her sickle and left the group, stalking off toward a wide river nearby where hundreds of Capitolites were bathing and enjoying the warm summer day. Lulah began digging a wide trench from the river to the station where her three allies were. It was clear that she was trying to reroute the river somehow, but why she wanted to was a mystery. By the time she returned, she found that each of her allies was working on a different project. Idgar was assembling his mechanical parts further, creating fully-functional machines. Bluri was using a rubber mold he'd carved from a scrap of old material, filling it with water and sawdust and then placing in a freezer to create strange cylindrical frozen pieces—reading a book as he worked, like always. Struve was the only one not doing anything seemingly practical. The 2 boy was merely strolling around the station, paying particular attention to regions with large numbers of parked hovercrafts. The strangest thing was that the three outliers were completely comfortable around a trained career who'd outscored all of them by several points—they must have been friends outside of the games, though how that was possible given that they lived in districts so far apart was, once again, unknown.

The rest of Day 2 was almost entirely uneventful. Sentra and Odele, the most inactive tributes in the games at the point, merely lounged around without doing much. Odele continued her life of luxury, sitting on the throne room of the presidential mansion and savoring the cool feeling of the air conditioning while swarms of Capitolites stormed past outside its windows. For the first day her inactivity could be blamed on the fact that she was enjoying life in the mansion, but now most everyone put it down to sheer laziness.

Meanwhile, Sentra only made slight movements. After narrowly escaping Brinn Johnson from 7, she was too shaken to do much. She cowered behind the small dumpster that had saved her life, rocking quietly back and forth. As night fell and the streets began to clear, Sentra stood up and wiped the dust off of her lap, both literally and metaphorically. Sentra began moving toward the amusement park on the outskirts of the city—the amusement park where Sheafa was messing around thoroughly enjoying herself. By midnight, Sentra was too tired to move anymore and needed to rest. She eventually discovered a kiddie playpen that had elevators for the adults, and she staggered into the elevator and slid the door closed behind her.

Day 3 was a continuous explosion of thrill from dawn to dusk. A total of nine deaths would occur before the third day reached its close, and the tribute count was reduced from fifteen to six. Surprisingly, the first few hours of the day were mostly boring. It served as a good opportunity for the cameras to air a recap of how each tribute was faring; with all the excitement of the day prior, there hadn't been many opportunities for the audience to get on the same pages of the tributes.

Zinfandel and Caelinia hunted regularly. Given that most of the sponsor gifts were being sent toward the much-more-popular four member outlier alliance, much fewer were going toward the careers than usual, and Zinfandel and Caelinia just couldn't grasp how little help they were getting compared to previous years. The duo hunted dutifully through the Capitol each day, but unluckily found no prey in the morning hours.

Struve, Idgar, Bluri, and Lulah were just as peculiar as ever. Idgar continued assembling the mechanical pieces from the tech shop. Now he was forming ovular black shapes that sometimes pulsed with purple light, and when this happened wires and batteries could be seen under the glassy surfaces of the objects. Lulah continued digging the trench from the river to the hovercraft station. Being from 12, she was the perfect girl for the job; she was strong and resilient and she very rarely took breaks as she tore away the earth in chunks. Bluri continued filling his strange mold with water and sawdust and then putting them in the hovercraft base's freezer to be turned into the strange little objects. It turned out that when sawdust was added to water the ice became much stronger. Bluri demonstrated by hurling one of the cubes at a wall; it fell to the ground without cracking in the slightest.

Meanwhile, Struve was hard at work. His seemingly aimless wanderings through the hovercraft base were brought to a close when he discovered a hovercraft that was in particularly high-quality. Struve entered the hovercraft and barricaded himself inside with furniture and carts of supplies. Whatever Struve Lockman was doing, he did not want to be seen. Struve spent about half an hour smashing all of the cameras and microphones in the craft for an even stronger sense of secrecy, even plugging up the windows with cushions and torn book pages to keep from being seen. One camera he'd forgotten to destroy captured Struve lightly treading into the engine room, and for the next ten hours it only picked up on the sounds of clanging tools and the scream of metal against metal. After half a day of painstaking labor, Struve returned to his three allies and told them something in their secret language; Idgar, Bluri, and Lulah smirked in response.

The outliers weren't doing much in the early morning hours of the day. Kedian stayed put in the movie theater, watching the comedies that were playing and gorging himself on popcorn. Like the food in the sports stadium, the popcorn Kedian ate was jam-packed with chemicals to make him lazy. He forgot about the fact he was a career and he wanted nothing more than to continue his marathon of movies for the next hundred years. Ray had been living for long enough without a weapon, but he was unwilling to try his luck any further. He discovered a bucket of scissors in a classroom of the school and kept it beside him at all times, ready to throw it at any predator that may show up. Odele continued her easy-going life in the Presidential Mansion. Accompanied by her two avox bodyguards, she looted the kitchen and stuffed herself with the finest meals she'd eaten in her life. Brinn jumped between shops, apartments, and other buildings, always keeping his hatchets in hand. At one point, a group of three teenage girls nearly suffocated him, but he killed them all expertly with his hatchets. An impressed sponsor sent him a dart gun with six poison darts, along with a note instructing him to make them count. The entire games up to that point, Kighi had been trying on dresses in the dress store, and the morning of the third day was no exception. Food and water were plentiful from the taps and cupboards of the break room, so Kighi didn't have any problems with those. Tarinth stalked through the sports stadium, occasionally grabbing random Capitolites and snapping their necks, cackling as their black muttation blood ran down his arms. Sheafa continued trying out rides at the amusement park. The giant steel roller coaster still seemed too intimidating, so the girl planned to try out more and more intense rides to work her way up toward it. Collis was examining jewels in the jewel shop when a light overhead suddenly flickered. Shocked, the 12 boy staggered backward, knocking over a shelf. The heavy shelf collapsed on top of him, and despite his screaming and struggling he was unable to free himself. Death would come sooner than later unless he could find some way to wiggle out.

At nine in the morning, a cannon shot shattered the morning quiet. Brinn was grateful for the new weapon he'd been sponsored, the dart gun, and he was eager to put it to use. His casual morning stroll took him to the amusement park, and through the crowd he spotted the flick of the 11 girl's dark ponytail. Sheafa screamed and shoved her way into the middle of a cluster of Capitolites, but she couldn't escape the 7 boy's eagle eyes; her platinum-blonde hair stood out like a sore thumb in the swash of greens and pinks and blues. Brinn fired his first dart, and before Sheafa could react it buried itself into her right arm. Trying not to scream, she pushed aside an elderly couple with pale-blue skin and staggered into a small building. She had locked all of the doors before Brinn could reach her. She was safe. Cursing, Brinn stormed away, but he wasn't entirely disappointed. There was no way Sheafa could survive more than a few minutes with his dart buried into her arm. All Brinn Johnson had to do was wait.

Trapped in the small building, Sheafa had no idea what to do. Did she tear out the dart and wash it with whatever she could find? Wrap a cloth around her arm to keep the poison from spreading? Cut off her whole arm below the elbow? It was only after a minute of panic that she realized what building she was in: the queue for the massive steel roller coaster. Having a feeling her death was near, Sheafa pushed her way past the Capitolites waiting in line and took her place in the car. In seconds, she was off, zooming at hundreds of miles an hour down the first hill. The feeling of freedom was indescribable, and though Sheafa screamed louder than she ever had before she was enjoying herself immensely. She died seconds after the coaster came to a stop, but it hardly mattered. She'd read hundreds of coaster books over her lifetime but had never ridden one until then. It was the best morning of her life.

 _Sheafa Prescott, District 11 Female: 15th, Killed by Brinn, Day 3_

These games were moving by extremely quickly, like the majority of Seneca's others; he would rather have a short burst-of-action Quell than a long and drawn-out one like the first and second Quells. Now that the crowd of tributes had been reduced to fourteen, Seneca and his team made the decision to unleash the beasts. Thousands upon thousands of avox mutts were stowed away underneath the floor of the Presidential Mansion, and at the flick of a lever they all came to life. The avoxes crawled to their feet and trouped toward the nearest exit points; they were programmed with an unquenchable thirst for human blood.

Odele was munching on grapes in the dining room of the Presidential Mansion when she heard the strange rumble of the avoxes underneath her feet. Several hundred of the mutts were pushing upward on the floor, attempting to break through and escape the musty underground chamber they'd been trapped in for three days. Shaking with panic, Odele crawled up onto the long table and grabbed a chair, as prepared as she could be to fend off whatever threat was coming her way.

It all happened in the span of five seconds. A group of three strong avoxes managed to pry away one of the floorboards, and from there the thousands of mutts began tearing the glossy wooden tiles out of place. Odele watched, dumbfounded with shock, as the avox mutts poured into the dining room, overwhelming her. Two of them climbed onto the table, and Odele barely managed to whack them away with her chair before their teeth reached her flesh. In minutes, the room was so crowded that the avoxes were trampling each other in the struggle to reach Odele. The pitiful girl was hopeless. In seconds, she was overwhelmed, and the avoxes dragged her down, fighting over the little flesh that remained over her bones.

 _Odele Callow, District 6 Female: 14th, Killed by Avox Muttations, Day 3_

Brinn was resting behind a wooden sign in the amusement park when he awoke to the rumble of the mutts. At first he dismissed the noise as his imagination, and, though a little unnerved, went back to sleep. However, when he spotted the flash of thousands of blood-smattered avox uniforms thundering toward him, he jumped to his feet. Freezing-cold adrenaline rushing through his veins, Brinn rushed into a nearby bathroom and locked the door. The 7 boy staggered into one of the stalls, panting fiercely as the mutts banged on the door, struggling to break in.

Ray was one of the few tributes who saw the avoxes before he heard them. Ray was relaxing in the teacher's lounge when he spotted the swarm of avoxes thundering toward him, shoving the ordinary Capitolites out of their way in their insatiable hunger for blood. While he was naturally scared out of his wits, Ray forced himself to think straight. He ran through the long hallways, shoving schoolkids out of his way, and made sure all of the entrances were locked before barricading them with heavy furniture. Afterward, he forced himself into a large cabinet in the art classroom, trying to keep calm.

Zinfandel was sleeping in the back of the cornucopia, while Caelinia was sleepily standing guard. The crowd of Capitolites was especially thick around the cornucopia, so the avoxes were much harder to spot. Caelinia was sorting weapons when she heard the avoxes' rumble. Knowing the noise couldn't be anything good, the 2 girl quickly grabbed up a backpack of supplies and weapons and fled in an arbitrary direction. She felt a pang of guilt abandoning Zinfandel, but her constitution didn't warrant risking her life to save that of someone else. Only one tribute could leave the games alive, after all.

In the back of the cornucopia, Zinfandel awoke too late to be saved. By the time he knew what was going on, avoxes were storming into the cornucopia, overturning supplies as they thundered toward him. Zinfandel grabbed his bow and fired four arrows with skill that bespoke years of practice. For every avox he killed, two or three seemed to appear in its place. Before Zinfandel knew it, he was thrown up by the mutts, being tossed up and down like a board floating on the waves of a violent ocean. A combination of head trauma and suffocation killed him over the course of the next ten minutes.

 _Zinfandel Patrix, District 1 Male: 13th, Killed by Avox Muttations, Day 3_

The cameras didn't have much to show concerning Sentra Vary. The girl was resting in the elevator of the kiddie playground when the crowd of a hundred or so mutts began simultaneously banging at the door. Sentra pressed herself against the back wall of the elevator as the door rattled and shook. Tears streamed down her face. If they managed to break down the door, she would be helpless.

In the movie theater, Kedian munched on popcorn with his feet on the seat in front of him, engrossed in the comedies that were playing. The endless flow of buttery popcorn dulled his mind so much that he paid no attention to the commotion outside. Twenty or so avoxes were pounding against the locked door of the theater, and it was mere minutes before they finally managed to break in. Kedian screamed and stumbled to the back entrance as the avoxes poured into the theater, but the popcorn had weakened him and slowed down his movements. Two of them knocked Kedian the ground and stomped on him until his windpipe was flat while the other dozen avoxes nibbled at his flesh, all wanting to get a good taste while it was still warm.

 _Kedian Marshall, District 4 Male: 12th, Killed by Avox Muttations, Day 3_

Fortunately, when Sentra's end came, it was quick. Several other cohorts of avoxes, noticing the commotion on the kiddie playground, had joined in on the fun. With nearly fifty mutts knocking against the door, it simply couldn't stand. Sentra wetted herself and screamed for her mother as the elevator flooded with avoxes. She made a desperate dash for the door, but it so too plugged with bodies for her to escape. She was trampled in seconds.

 _Sentra Vary, District 3 Female: 11th, Killed by Avox Muttations, Day 3_

Kighi was trying on a series of bright-blue dresses in the dress store when she picked up on the rumble of the avoxes. At first she didn't pay it much attention; large crowds weren't out of the ordinary at all in the crowded city, even if they were heavier in some times of day then in others. However, she started to panic when the tongue-less people in white uniforms began pounding against the glass windows and pressing their faces against the doors in the struggle to get to Kighi. A minute later, one of them figured out how to use the door handle, and all hell broke loose. In seconds, the swarm of avoxes was pouring into the store. Kighi tore off her dress to keep it from hindering her movements and climbed on top of the clothing rack. Being twelve years old, she was small and light enough to stay on top without falling or knocking down the rack. The avoxes, however, were too heavy to climb the thing and get to her. Kighi sobbed and screamed and desperately clung onto the top of the rack of dresses as the mutts around her outstretched their hands in their desperate attempts to drag her down.

Lulah was working at the riverside digging the mysterious trench when she saw the avoxes moving toward the hovercraft base. Thinking quickly, she dropped her shovel and darted back to the base; she needed to warn her allies what was coming before it was too late. Idgar and Bluri were sitting together; Idgar was assembling more of his peculiar ovular objects while Bluri was making more of his strange sawdust ice pieces, his nose stuck in a book as always. At the news, Idgar lofted his mechanical creations into the air, whereas Bluri rushed toward the tub of frozen pieces. It took nearly a minute of top-speed running to reach Struve and warn him of the oncoming threat. The 2 boy emerged from the hovercraft with several humungous pink canisters that were empty and nodded at the news, oddly calm for someone in the face of such enormous danger.

In the far-away jewel shop, Collis was taking his last breaths. Trapped under the fallen shelf, he was helpless as a group of two-dozen avoxes smashed through the shop window and climbed inside. One of the avoxes grabbed a sharp pendant shaped like a sword and drove it into his flesh while the others stomped on his head and abdomen. Collis was gone in moments.

 _Collis Graves, District 12 Male: 10th, Killed by Avox Muttations, Day 3_

In the dress store, Kighi let out a scream. A very tall, lean avox mutt had finally managed to grab onto her shoe. It pulled her straight off of the clothing rack and into the crowd. Screaming, Kighi struggled to the top of the crowd; it wasn't hard given her small size. She crawled over their heads like she was surfboarding over the fiercest sea in Panem. Hands clawed toward her and mouths opened wide, but adrenaline was powering her forward so much they could never catch up to her. She eventually came to a storage room in the back of the dress store and, after shoving her way inside, quickly locked the door. Kighi barricaded herself in with heavy boxes and then shoved herself into a dark corner, praying the door would hold.

Caelinia fled from the cornucopia with Zinfandel's screams sounding behind her. If she felt at all guilty about abandoning her trusted ally to die, she didn't show it; it was a valued trait of good career tributes to never show weakness. By the time Zinfandel's cannon fired, the 2 girl reached her first obstacle. A line of avox mutts was moving toward her, spread wide out so as to cover the entire street. Caelinia dove to the right and ran down a hidden alley but quickly found herself trapped by another swarm of avoxes. She had no option now but to fight. With two slashes of her sword, she sent two avoxes reeling. An instant later, she barely kept an elderly woman from digging her teeth into her neck, and Caelinia barely managed to take out a smelly man. In no time she was overwhelmed. The two groups of avoxes had closed in on her and there was nowhere to run.

Shaking with panic, Caelinia reached into her pack and riffled through the supplies. Her hands moved at the speed of light; whatever she was looking for she had to find within seconds or she would be dead. Finally, she pulled out a pair of suction cups. She strapped them to her hands. Caelinia proceeded to climb up the wall of the nearest building, sweat running down her face and her arms burning like fire from the agony of having to keep up her body mass. It was quite cinematic to watch as the career girl desperately struggled to climb higher and higher as the avoxes underneath her jumped and reached their hands upward in an attempt to grab her. Renowned painter Cecil Elkies used this scene as inspiration for his next painting. Cecil's paint-and-canvas creation, _The Flight of Caelinia Lesters_ , sold for millions at an auction the next spring. The painting's eccentric owner would go on to pass it to his eldest son, and the chain would continue for many years—but not forever. For over a century it would be lost until the tattered painting would be discovered under the floorboards of an old manor house a few weeks before the four-hundredth Hunger Games. It was later discovered that its last owner was convinced it was haunted, and had hidden it away before he and his wife moved out of the manor house in favor of the quieter country.

Ray felt as safe as he could be in the cabinet in the art classroom, but the sense of security he felt was false. The squad of avoxes that broke into the school smelled human blood in seconds, and in seconds more they were sprinting toward the art classroom. Ray wasn't stupid; he'd taken the precautionary measure of barricading the door beforehand. This certainly was a hindrance to the mutts. Ultimately, it just delayed the inevitable for the boy. It was only a matter of time before the avoxes smashed the lock with a nearby wooden bench they'd torn off of the ground, and Ray was toast. Two avoxes grabbed onto the cabinet and knocked it over. Inside, Ray was knocked around so much he nearly blacked out. When the cabinet hit the ground, it shattered, its wooden boards splintering apart and the glass windows shattering here and there. The two avoxes pulled the sobbing boy out of the dilapidated cabinet and took a few bites out of him before tossing him to the crowd.

 _Ray Stuart, District 5 Male: 9th, Killed by Avox Muttations, Day 3_

That left the final eight: Struve Lockman and Caelinia Lesters from District 2, Idgar Bouraad-Nash from District 3, Brinn Johnson from District 7, Kighi Maghadam from District 8, Bluri Waterstone from District 10, Tarinth Valigny from District 11, and Lulah Carver from District 12.

Soon after Ray's death, the sun began to set below the horizon. The avox mutts had been ravaging the arena for nearly eighteen hours, but being demons in human shape as opposed to living beings they didn't need sleep.

The cameras then cut to Brinn. He was huddling in the back stall of the men's bathroom in the amusement park. Luckily for him, the metal door of the bathroom was strong; despite their best efforts the avox mutts were unable to break in. However, after nearly six hours of sawing away at the lock, the mutts managed to burst through the door. Brinn screamed and leapt onto the toilet as the dozens of avoxes broke the walls of the stall, splintering the wood like plaster. With a swing of his hatchets he sent one of the mutts staggering to the ground, and it knocked down two other avoxes in its descent. As black blood stained their white uniforms, Brinn elegantly leapt out of the stall, but only to find himself face-to-face with fifteen more mutts. The 7 boy only needed to kill three of them before forcing his way to the door; now free, he ran down the thinning lanes of the amusement parks, desperate to get away from the cohort of avoxes on his tail.

Now, the only tributes left to face the avoxes were the four tributes in the hovercraft base. Bluri had been standing guard for hours, and when the swarm of mutts became clear enough to make out every individual he rushed to alert his allies. Struve had been working inside of the hovercraft for nearly a day when Bluri came knocking. Bluri whispered something to Struve in their secret code language; Struve nodded and smiled, returned to the inside of the craft. Idgar and Lulah reacted differently. Idgar ran for his ovular black objects, while Lulah snuck out of the window and ran toward the nearby river where she'd been digging for dozens of hours.

It was mere minutes before the avoxes came knocking. Idgar, the closest to the entrance, strolled toward the locked and bolted doors, watching smugly as the two hundred avoxes banged on them, struggling desperately to reach him. Others pounded on the eight-inch-thick glass windows, but they were strong enough to keep from cracking under their fists. Idgar wasn't expecting the doors to hold for long, and he was right. Ten minutes later, the swarm managed to bust down one of the doors, and Idgar reached for his glowing black ovals, smirking.

Soon, however, Idgar felt water pooling up around his feet. Lulah had reached the river quickly enough to dig away the last few chunks of earth she needed for all hell to break loose. Cold river water began flooding into the channel, rushing toward the hovercraft base where the avoxes were storming toward Idgar. As water poured into the channel, its walls began collapsing and being swept away, opening up more area for water to enter. Soon, the first splash of water reached the hovercraft base. In seconds, a third of the swarm was knocked off of their feet; they had never been designed to swim.

Unfortunately, the cost of Lulah's triumph was her life. The area of land under her feet was growing mushier and more uneven faster than she could run away, and before she knew it the earth was crumbling under her feet, all joining into the rush of water spilling toward the base. Lulah's screams were cut short as she fell into the water. The currents swept her away like nothing, and her lungs had filled with water in minutes.

 _Lulah Carver, District 12 Female: 8th, Killed by Drowning, Day 3_

At the hovercraft base, Idgar was quickly overwhelmed, and he had no choice but to put his weapons to the test. The moment of truth came as the 3 boy pushed a button on one of the objects and threw it into the midst of the avox mutts. It beeped loudly five times, a signal for the boy to run. A crash that left him deaf for nearly a minute came from behind him, followed by a blast of hot air against his neck. Idgar peeked over his shoulder and saw that the explosive had worked just as planned. An entire half of the entry hall had been burnt black, and the sizzling remains of nearly fifty mutts were scattered against the walls and ceiling.

At this point in the story of the third Quarter Quell it becomes essential that one know the exact story of the four (now three) allied tributes. The knowledge of exactly what had happened was built up piece-by-piece over the centuries that followed, and even years later nobody could be completely sure they had gotten it correct. Struve, Idgar, Bluri, and Lulah were a gang of homeless children who had been jumping onto trains to visit each other ever since their ages were single-digits. For nearly a decade they'd been conspiring to pull off some massive rebel plan, but for that to happen all four of them had to be sent into the Hunger Games. Struve, the only one of the four who came from a wealthy background, managed to bribe the academy into giving him the slot of volunteer. The cunning Idgar used his skills to persuade and bribe thousands of youths into choosing himself, Lulah, and Bluri for the quell when they were reaped. Bluri spent his life reading all about force fields and muttations and all of the Capitol's Hunger Games secrets, whereas Lulah had been living in the wilderness whenever possible thinking up ways to wreak havoc using whatever she could find in the natural world.

Five years earlier, around the time of the seventieth Hunger Games, the inseparable quartet had made their first strike. They snuck into a certain restaurant and laid a coating of poison onto the hair comb of President Snow's wife before the duo arrived for dinner, killing Magnolia in a matter of moments. Three years later, they murdered Seneca Crane's wife Delphina. It was Struve's idea to fashion a bullet out of ice so that it would melt and leave no evidence behind. But it had taken too long for the bullet to kill Delphina because it melted too quickly, so the next year they revised their bullet-making strategy slightly—mixing sawdust into the water before they froze it to strengthen the product. The year prior their bullet had succeeded in killing Wystella Mayberry almost instantly—the only evidence was the layer of sawdust on her chest.

Now that they were in the games, it was time for their most devious plot yet. Lulah would have to carve a canal from the river to the hovercraft base, drowning the swarm of avoxes and Capitol citizens. Meanwhile, Idgar and Bluri would have to fend off the survivors. Their number one priority was to keep the avoxes away from Struve. Once the swarm of avoxes had thinned, Idgar would disable the force field, leaving Struve free to fly the repaired hovercraft out of the arena. Nobody knew it then, but the greatest rebel plan of the first Hunger Games century was unfurling under their noses.

As Idgar stumbled into the depths of the hovercraft base, he reached the office room where Bluri was hiding. The 3 boy knocked on the door, and Bluri hurried to unlock it for him. Bluri had placed the bin of sawdust-logged ice pieces onto the table, and beside the bin had set one of the machines Idgar had lent him; a small projectile weapon the size of his hand.

The first tide of avoxes was easily knocked out as Bluri loaded two of the frozen sawdust pieces into the gun and fired them at the nearest avox. It fell, knocking down two others in its descent, and the duo climbed onto the table for some added protection from the mutts. The sawdust bullets were plentiful, and with a nearly infinite supply they eliminated the avoxes somewhat quickly. All that was left was the layers of sawdust sitting on their chests where the ice bullets had melted.

On the other side of the base, Struve Lockman leapt into the seat of the hovercraft and strapped himself in. A craft as large as the one he had fixed up consumed about half a gallon of fuel per second. This meant he had enough fuel to last about thirty seconds—enough to break out of the base. From that point on, the wind would provide the fuel the hovercraft needed to keep going via a series of large turbines.

The cameras took a quick break from Idgar, Bluri, and Struve to show the mangled form of a boy that was all-too-recognizable, the serial killer from 11. Tarinth was a scattered mess of bones and bits of flesh in the food court of the sports stadium. The avoxes had broken into the room about a minute earlier, and even with all of the cutlery at his disposal Tarinth couldn't fend them off for long.

 _Tarinth Valigny, District 11 Male: 7th, Killed by Avox Muttations, Day 3_

After Tarinth's death, the cameras took the opportunity to show what all of the other tributes were up to. Caelinia was a strong and well-muscled girl, and using her suction cups she finally managed to reach the top of the building. The 2 girl dropped down onto the roof and peered down at the hundreds of avoxes crowded around the boxy structure, struggling to climb up after her but all sliding back down. Brinn fled from the amusement park. He was thin and nimble and lost his tongue-less pursuers remarkably quickly. By the time he darted out of the gates of the amusement park, it was mere minutes until midnight. Desperately craving a break, he collapsed in the crook of a nearby tree, panting and groaning with exhaustion. Kighi, the twelve-year-old girl who'd somehow managed to survive to the final six despite the odds stacked against her, huddled pathetically in the storage closet of the dress store. The bloodthirsty avoxes pounded on the door, and with each crash and bang the little girl huddled tighter and tighter into the cold corner.

As clocks across Panem struck midnight, the cameras returned to the hovercraft base. Idgar and Bluri, finally having ridden the place of its avox invaders, left the office room slowly, cringing as they stepped over the cooling corpses of the dead. Out in the hallway, they shared a fist bump and then went their separate ways. Bluri strutted over to a nearby bench and sat down. Meanwhile, Idgar opened the blood-splattered front doors and left the base. Idgar and Bluri were the closest of the four friends; Bluri had shared all his knowledge of force fields with Idgar in the last few days.

Idgar traversed the grid-like streets of the Capitol before coming to the rippling force field—the edge of the arena. He approached the force field, and many anticipated that he was about to commit suicide. But Idgar knew from all the banned books Bluri had shared with him that there were dozens of points around the force field where one could slip straight through. Idgar walked head-first into the force field. The sparks and bangs everyone expected did not come.

Idgar slipped straight through the force field into a peculiar little room. It was starch white from ceiling to floor. He flipped on a light switch, illuminating a vast control panel covered with hundreds of buttons. Seneca Crane knew instantly that he was trying to mess with the force field, but despite his best efforts to blow up his tracker nothing happened. Trackers only worked inside of the arena—they were made that way so tributes couldn't accidentally blow them up before the games began.

Over the course of the next half minute or so, Idgar did two things. Firstly, he flicked a few levers to ensure that Struve's tracker couldn't be blown up by the gamemakers while he was in the sky with the hovercraft. Finally, Idgar stripped back the force field. The invisible film surrounding the arena flickered and warped before pulling away, revealing a different sky. Idgar had done his job, and done it well. The instant he re-entered the arena he was being blown sky-high via his tracker. He died with a smirk on his face, knowing that the biggest middle finger to the Capitol yet was about to be shown on televisions across the nation.

 _Idgar Bouraad-Nash, District 3 Male: 6th, Killed by Exploding Tracker, Day 4_

At the base, it was chaos. Struve revved up the engines and was delighted to find that everything was running perfectly. Suddenly realizing what was happening, Seneca ordered all of the Capitolite mutts he'd designed for the arena to sabotage the base. The crowd of people cracked and tore away the doors almost immediately.

Struve turned a joystick to move the hovercraft and immediately felt the vehicle sliding forward. The gamemakers made a desperate struggle to explode his tracker, but Idgar had done his job perfectly—the button to blow him to bits was no more than a circle of plastic after what the 3 boy had done. Struve drove through the wall of the base and broke out into the fresh air, slowly lifting into the sky…

Bluri was sitting comfortably on the small metal bench all the while. He knew his moments were numbered and wanted the Capitol to know it was him and his three friends who had been responsible for the mysterious murders of the years prior.

"Admittedly it was Lulah's idea to put poison on her comb. But I had the idea to mix it with something that would absorb the poison after a few minutes and take it to the properties of ordinary makeup…"

He was unfortunately near the doors and was less than fifty meters away from the thousands of Capitolites as they lay siege on the base. Seneca expected him to run, but to their surprise he just stood with his arms wide and let the mutts bowl him over. Bluri knew Seneca would have programmed them to kill Struve—to only kill one tribute—and they couldn't discern his flesh from Struve's. As soon as Bluri was dead, the Capitolites stopped their chaotic surge toward Struve and milled about aimlessly. Some of them even left the building to return to their homes.

 _Bluri Waterstone, District 10 Male: 5th, Killed by Capitolite Muttations, Day 4_

Struve began to pick up speed. He was a natural with the controls, and he lifted the hovercraft higher and higher with ease. Once higher than the tallest buildings of the Capitol, he peered out the window, savoring the view—the view that Lulah and Idgar and Bluri had died for. In minutes he'd reached a higher point than had ever been reached in any games. If he went that high in any other games he'd have hit the force field and been killed instantaneously.

Little did he know that a squad of two-dozen of the Capitol's most advanced hovercrafts were heading his way, and they would arrive in less than ten minutes at top-speed.

Struve decided to test out the hovercraft's projectile feature. He was pleased to find that the craft was loaded with ammunition, but unfortunately not with much—only enough for three good shots. Not a single moment was a given for him, and Struve didn't hesitate to hit the button that would fire the ammunition. The fireball went hurling down toward the earth and made direct impact on a certain dress store. Little Kighi, huddling in the back of the store, was fried to death and torn to bits by the explosions before she even knew what had happened. A quick way to go at least, her mentor would later tell the press.

 _Kighi Maghadam, District 8 Female: 4th, Killed by Struve, Day 4_

The two other tributes left alive in the arena ran around like headless chickens, completely clueless as to what was going on. Brinn leapt out of the tree at the jarring sight of the force field being pulled away, and before he knew it there was a hovercraft in the sky and a nearby cluster of buildings was engulfed in flames. Not even bothering to grab his hatchets, Brinn fled in the opposite direction of the flames. Caelinia couldn't have moved if she wanted to. The Capitolites had long since given up trying to kill Struve and had surrounded the building she was on top of, pounding on the walls as though they could knock her down.

Struve's second fireball didn't hit the building directly, but it made impact near enough to send the structure toppling like a domino. Caelinia screamed as the cement rumbled underneath her feet, and she grabbed onto a nearby bar as she fell sideways. She died along with the two-thousand Capitolites buried under the wreckage. She was the only tribute in the third Quarter Quell to be killed by their district partner.

 _Caelinia Lesters, District 2 Female: 3rd, Killed by Struve, Day 4_

The two-dozen hovercrafts arrived seconds after Caelinia's death. Before Struve knew it, he was surrounded—the crafts had formed a circle around him, leaving there nowhere for him to escape. Adrenaline rushing through his veins like ice water, Struve fired his third and final projectile at one of the crafts. The twenty-four men inside hadn't been expecting there to be any projectiles loaded into Struve's hovercraft, and they were unable to react before their ship fell sideways and they careened toward the ground.

Brinn had collapsed in a small park, having a panic attack, shaking and wrapping his arms around his own willowy form. The hovercraft made impact with the earth less than a mile away, and the shockwave was enough to render the 7 boy instantly dead. Much of 7 had been hoping to take home two victors in a row, but their hopes were smashed into the ground at that moment.

 _Brinn Johnson, District 7 Male: 2nd, Killed by Falling Hovercraft, Day 4_

The trumpets automatically sounded, but they were barely audible over the whirring of engines. Seneca immediately ordered the crafts to draw away. They couldn't hurt Struve now. He was a victor.

Struve made an expert landing, settling lightly on the ground in an open field on the outskirts of the arena. He unbuckled and left the craft, falling to the ground with the smuggest smile in Panem. For him, there would be hell to pay.

 _Struve Lockman, District 2 Male: Victor of the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games, the Third Quarter Quell, Day 4_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 2 was ashamed to receive Struve as their nineteenth victor. In all the years they'd trained him they'd never known about the tricks he and his three pals had up their sleeves, and they distanced themselves from him as much as possible after his victory. They even refused to let him settle into the Victor's Village, instead forcing to live him in a house in the countryside where he was supplied with food and water on a weekly basis. President Snow and Seneca both highly considered bombing District 2 as punishment for their appalling act of rebellion, but they eventually decided against it—the trouble of ridding Panem's economy of its number-one supplier of peacekeepers was more that it was worth. Struve's smuggest feature was that as an orphan there was truly nobody in the world that he loved, so the Capitol couldn't scar him emotionally any more than they were allowed to physically.

Struve settled into the countryside of 2 with 24/7 video surveillance—the first ever victor never to live in their district's Victor's Village.

His victory tour was chaos. Rebellion was at rates higher than they'd been in seventy-five years. It was like everyone in the districts wanted to either adopt him as their son or kill him with fire. Nearly two-hundred attempts on his life were made throughout his Victory Tour.

Struve would live to the age of twenty, dying when three rogue vigilantes broke into his home to slowly dismember him. He would live the shortest life on any victor in the first Hunger Games century. In his short lifetime, he would never marry nor have children, but his cause would inspire dozens of other district rebels to fight for freedom from the Capitol's government. What would come of this was for time to tell…

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Struve moves into a small house in the countryside of District 2, the first victor never to inhabit any Victor's Village.

Wyatt Kerdler, the victor of the thirty-second annual Hunger Games, dies from sudden heart failure.

Dylan Levitt, the victor of the forty-third Hunger Games, dies from a stroke.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: There's a whole lot I want to say in this author's note! First of all, thank you so much for sticking with this story despite the long wait for the chapter. I had a big loss of writing and for the next few days inspiration was all but extinct. I hope this one was enjoyable though! There was certainly a lot going on here and I hope it was depicted well. I'm planning to have Struve's victory trigger a rebellion that will last for the next couple of years—so he's like a pseudo-Katniss in this timeline :D**

 **And yes, another 2 victor. I figure 2 is the only district where everyone has sufficient knowledge of how a hovercraft works so that was the only district to which this chapter's victor could belong. I don't want to say too much in case people have skipped to the author's note and want to read the chapter later—but if you've read it you know what I mean.**

 **Holy crapkittens! Clocking in at over 13k words, this is the third longest chapter of the story to date, behind the forty-first and the fiftieth. Looking at the first chapter and then this one shows how far we've come in detail—from 2k to over 13k is crazy to think about!**

 **I'll see you next time with the seventy-sixth. If you've read my SYOT really closely you may recognize a familiar face… but I won't say who. Isn't it fun to leave readers on the edge? Until then :D**


	77. The 76th Hunger Games

**The 76th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The nation of Panem was in chaos from the moment Struve Lockman emerged from the third Quarter Quell with a sweat-laden face and a toothy smirk. The producers of the Hunger Games reality television show tried their best to doctor the clips before they could be shown live, but their efforts were futile; thousands upon thousands of people had already seen clear as crystal what had happened. It was no surprise to anyone at all when Head Gamemaker Seneca Crane mysteriously disappeared less than fifteen minutes afterward, which of course meant the recently vacated slot needed to be filled before games time rolled around. The trouble was that no Capitolites were ready to take the position, as none wanted to run the risk of having such a high position of power while the nation was in as much turmoil as it was. District 8 had long since been known as the single most rebellious district of Panem, so, once again, it was no surprise when the first riots of the rebellion began there. The small textile-manufacturing towns of 8 were so numerous they were given only numbers to distinguish them, and it was in Town 265 that the first shouts and shots of the rebellion took place. A group of two-hundred rebels, inspired by Struve's cause, kidnapped 8's head peacekeeper and forced all the information they needed from him on threat of death. Using what he'd told them, the rebels bypassed the security measures and launched an attack on the peacekeeper housing facility in Town 265. A scene as horrific had truly never been seen since the Dark Days. What had once been the strong, bulky building was a column of swirling flame, and screams were cut short as flaming wooden boards fell from ceilings and walls. Rebels dropped and blood squirted here and there as peacekeepers fired their guns every which way. News of the riot (which would go down in history as Collard's Massacre after its leader) spread at incredible speeds across the nation, and in months riots were innumerable. Thousands of peacekeepers and rebels were killed. Rebellion was especially prominent in the known rebel districts of 3, 6, 9, and good old 8. Mere weeks before the seventy-sixth Hunger Games was set to begin, President Coriolanus Snow, desperate for the head gamemaker that refused to step up, appointed himself for the position—marking the first time in Panemian history the president and head gamemaker positions had been occupied by the same person.

The state of Panem was so disorderly that virtually no time at all had been spent on arena design; in fact, this year's arena would go down as one of the blandest yet. When they first entered the arena, the tributes would find themselves in a curious location: the wooden deck of an enormous cruise ship. The cornucopia was made entirely of panes of glass, which shone so brightly in the sun the horn was almost impossible to look at for more than a few seconds. Its supplies largely consisted of life vests and waterproof cases in which food, batteries, and matches could be kept. The only weapons provided this year were knives; Coriolanus was a man who liked blood and he wanted a good amount of close-range combat this year. The ship had a total of twelve decks, with two solely reserved for crew. Of the remaining ten decks, eight consisted of passenger cabins while the remaining decks contained the public rooms: reading and writing rooms, lounges, a sauna, and even a swimming pool, a theater, and a bowling alley. The ship was docked in an enormous circular atoll consisting of hundreds of small islands, and the water contained in the lagoon was warm and comfortable albeit salty. If a tribute left the cruise ship, they'd have to swim nearly half a mile through the lagoon to reach dry land, a swim some tributes would undoubtedly be unwilling to take up. The waters of the lagoon were filled with harmless sea turtles. The islands of the atoll were largely populated by palm-like trees bearing pineapple and light-pink fruit with a sweet flavor. There was also an abundance of butterflies; they flew in swarms based on their color and could be rather picturesque with the azure-blue sky as a backdrop.

The career pack this year wasn't the best, and unlike some other years not all of them scored well. District 1's tributes were polar opposites in a variety of ways, though their scores were the same, eights. The male was a cuckoo-crazy fortune teller who claimed he was in contact with a supernatural realm he called the Graithnecia, and his tribute token was the deck of tarot cards that had been passed down his family line for centuries. The female tried her best to stand out as an honorable 1 career but only succeeded halfway. She acted sexy and tantalizing enough but ultimately came off as desperate and socially awkward. District 2 offered forth the cream of the crop this year; both were well-bred and well-fed, ferocious fighters. The male was fiercely ambitious and had some of the fastest reflexes 2 had ever seen, and he was distantly related to Victor Discordia Komine, which certainly helped with his popularity. The female was the one who stole the show this year. The eighteen-year-old Coama Victimize was steely and ice-cold and didn't give a crap about any of the pre-game festivities, and she was one of the best sword fighters the academy had had the privilege of training in games history. District 4's tributes were both decent as well. The male had the natural body of a swimmer and the mind of a master sailor, and his senses of direction were impeccable. The female was a weaker replacement who stepped up after the chosen volunteer broke her left arm. She still scored a nine though, being quick on her feet and having a knack for knives. The scores of the pack were slightly lower than average: two tens, two nines, and two eights.

The crop of outliers wasn't terribly memorable this year, but there were still numerous standouts to make the games interesting. Two nines were earned. Voltanna from 5 was a pretty girl with curly black hair and an extremely seductive aura around her. Her looks as well as her trap-making and weaponry skills helped her earn her score. Kete from 10 was a smaller boy, though he was very good-looking and had impeccable throwing knife skills. Hauling around sacks of animal feed from an early age had built his muscles quite a bit as well. Alongside the two nines, there were two eights. Otto from 8 was a hipster boy with fiery-red hair that ran to his waist, and despite having never touched a weapon he had excellent manual dexterity and a ready mind. Foltra from 10 was another weirdo: a profane gangster who was into doing favors for men twice her age, and her knife skills were decent. The scores this year were almost entirely based on how well the tribute could use a knife, as these were the only weapons provided in the cornucopia. Sevens were earned by Tuncay from 5, Chrysler from 6, Jacques from 7, and Zachry and Ginevra from 12. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There weren't many other standouts, but there were two very sad ones. Harold and Lola from 11 had been one anothers' only forms of comfort after their parents abandoned them on the streets at age five, unable to care for them. Knowing their deaths were imminent, the two twelve-year-olds were glad to have one another in their final moments. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Porcelain Wing, 16, (8) 12-1 and Loraselle Rainer, 15, (8) 11-1

District 2: Vesuvius Ascuro, 18, (9) 5-1 and Coama Victimize, 18, (10) 3-1

District 3: Pi Steinkeller, 12, (2) 57-1 and Captcha Maitlen, 17, (5) 24-1

District 4: Nautilus Reeves, 17, (10) 3-1 and Anilyne Satta, 18, (9) 6-1

District 5: Tuncay Saint, 18, (7) 14-1 and Voltanna Evans, 18, (9) 7-1

District 6: Crystler Camara, 18, (7) 17-1 and Justine Monts, 16, (5) 25-1

District 7: Jacques Hareven, 12, (7) 17-1 and Conna Ren, 14, (3) 40-1

District 8: Otto Wompanog, 17, (8) 12-1 and Caroline Luther-Vise, 18, (6) 21-1

District 9: Wayne Drummard, 18, (5) 21-1 and Tillie Mayberry, 13, (3) 42-1

District 10: Kete Pedroia, 18, (9) 7-1 and Foltra Major, 18, (8) 12-1

District 11: Harold Bishop, 12, (2) 69-1 and Lola Sparkman, 12, (2) 70-1

District 12: Zachry Tunis, 16, (7) 15-1 and Ginevra Harness, 18, (7) 14-1

HGBO Bets: 18% on Coama, 16% on Nautilus, 14% on Vesuvius, 11% on Anilyne, 10% on Porcelain, 9% on Loraselle, 6% on Voltanna and Kete, 5% on Otto and Foltra, 3% on Tuncay, Crystler, Jacques, Zachry, and Ginevra, 2% on Caroline, 1% or less on Pi, Captcha, Justine, Conna, Wayne, Tillie, Harold, and Lola.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The feel of salty sea spray was strong on the tributes' faces as they rose up into the arena on their pedestals. They were standing on the wooden deck of the enormous cruise ship, and in the distance they could see a faint green smudge that meant dry land. To their left and right there were two doors that led into the depths of the cruise ship. In the center of their circle was the cornucopia: made of glass so bright it was nearly impossible to look at directly.

Surprisingly enough, when the gong rang not a single tribute turned tail and fled the carnage; none were willing to take their chances with what they could find in the cruise ship itself.

Coama sprinted at the head of the onrush, her dark hair rippling behind her. She scooped up two knives that sat twenty yards from her pedestal and turned sharply on her heel, deftly hurling both of the knives at the morphling-withdrawn girl from 6. The girl staggered to the deck of the ship, coughing up blood, and she was gone in moments.

 _Justine Monts, District 6 Female: 24th, Killed by Coama, Bloodbath_

Nautilus, another fast runner, swept up a belt of throwing knives that was curled up about halfway between his pedestal and the cornucopia. A nearby boy screamed as one of Nautilus' knives dug into his chest. His lungs swiftly flooded with blood and that was the end of him.

 _Pi Steinkeller, District 3 Male: 23rd, Killed by Nautilus, Bloodbath_

The ever-bloodthirsty Coama from 2 landed two more kills shortly after. The pitiful Harold and Lola from 11 had crumpled in terror and were rocking back and forth in each other's arms, tears streaming down their cheeks. Coama was more than happy to give them the sweet release of death they were begging for. Lola was the first to fall as Coama's knives carved out part of her chest, and as Harold crawled away he found one of the blades in his forehead.

 _Lola Sparkman, District 11 Female: 22nd, Killed by Coama, Bloodbath_

 _Harold Bishop, District 11 Male: 21st, Killed by Coama, Bloodbath_

Vesuvius was a bit disappointed that there weren't any swords in the cornucopia but he didn't waste time moping about it. He was quick to find himself a pair of whimsically-curved kukri knives, and he tossed them between his hands for a few moments, admiring the way they perfectly caught the light reflected by the cornucopia. Vesuvius lunged toward a nearby boy, a taller one from an upper district, and drew a heavy line down his back. The boy moaned and toppled over, and he was out by the time his body made a loud thud against the wooden deck.

 _Tuncay Saint, District 5 Male: 20th, Killed by Vesuvius, Bloodbath_

Cuckoo-crazy Porcelain from 1 seemed to have set aside his ridiculous prophecies and his glossy tarot cards for the time being. He armed himself with a cleaver and a serrated dagger, reminiscent of Haymitch from the second Quarter Quell, and hurled himself at a cowering girl nearby. She was too stunned to sidestep before Porcelain sawed his knives into either side of her body. Despite the girl's best attempts to clap her hands over the wounds, she couldn't staunch the blood flow.

 _Ginevra Harness, District 12 Female: 19th, Killed by Porcelain, Bloodbath_

The two tributes from 4 teamed up to make their next kill. Nautilus held onto his belt to keep the knives inside from rattling too much, and Anilyne clutched her two daggers extremely hard for fear that she might drop them. They were creeping toward a somewhat chubby girl who was kneeling on the ground, taking inventory of the contents of an orange pack. She spotted the 4s too late to be saved. By the time her brain registered what was going on, Anilyne had stuck her daggers into her body. Nautilus only barely had time to hit her with a throwing knife before she died.

 _Caroline Luther-Vise, District 8 Female: 18th, Killed by Anilyne and Nautilus, Bloodbath_

Loraselle was the last career without a kill, but as she surveyed the wooden field around the glass cornucopia her lips curled into a smile. Just inside of the cornucopia, a dark-haired outlier was flopping and moaning, bleeding out from a wound inflicted by Porcelain. Loraselle approached and finished the job her district partner had started. Her knives found their way to his heart with perfect accuracy.

 _Wayne Drummard, District 9 Male: 17th, Killed by Porcelain and Loraselle, Bloodbath_

Vesuvius' kukri knives cut through the air like nothing as he sprinted into the direction of a strong and good-looking boy nearby, Chrysler from 6. Soon enough, Porcelain joined in on the chase. With the boys from 1 and 2 after his blood, it seemed as though Chrysler had no hope of escape. In his panic, he grabbed up a diminutive girl nearby and held her in front of him. The weapons of Porcelain and Vesuvius slammed into her body. Wanting to end her suffering, Chrysler quickly snapped her neck before fleeing, untouched by the careers' weapons.

 _Tillie Mayberry, District 9 Female: 16th, Killed by Porcelain, Vesuvius, and Chrysler, Bloodbath_

Anilyne made her next kill shortly thereafter. A dark-skinned girl about ten yards away was shaking like mad and trying not to cry as all of the carnage transpired around her. Anilyne thrust one of her daggers into her back. She whipped around, eyes wide-open, gasped, and then crumpled like a torn paper doll. She would never rise again.

 _Conna Ren, District 7 Female: 15th, Killed by Anilyne, Bloodbath_

Kete and Foltra from 10 had allied before the games, and they were some of the most ambitious tributes their district had ever seen. As soon as they found good supplies for themselves it was no question that they were going to murder the strongest tribute. Kete had to jump in front of Coama, not directly in front of her but still in her peripheral vision. As Coama lunged at Kete, he darted to the left. Coama turned into just the right position so that Foltra could thrust her knives into her back. Coama roared and fell to the ground, bellowing out curses. Kete and Foltra didn't wait for the moment reinforcements came; they left quickly.

 _Coama Victimize, District 2 Female: 14th, Killed by Foltra, Bloodbath_

Vesuvius made the penultimate kill of the bloodbath. With only a few tributes left around the cornucopia, his plate of options was much more limited. His next victim was the miniscule girl from the technology district who wasn't much of a threat anyway, and a girl as small as her was killed almost instantly from that close range.

 _Captcha Maitlen, District 3 Female: 13th, Killed by Vesuvius, Bloodbath_

The last kill of the bloodbath was a surprising one. Loraselle had been fading into the background throughout the entire bloodbath, and she knew she was the weakest link in the pack. Her only hope was that she would be able to impress the leader of the pack into letting her stick around, and so she had spent the whole of training getting to know the 2 girl. With Coama dead, her plan was collapsing around her, and in a fit of panic Loraselle fled from the cornucopia, making a mad dash for the edge of the ship and abandoning her allies. Nautilus, the fast swimmer that he was, dove into the water after her without a moment's hesitation, and she was hopeless. Nautilus only had to hold the thrashing 1 girl underwater for a minute or so before she died off, triggering the thirteen bloodbath cannons.

 _Loraselle Rainer, District 1 Female: 12th, Killed by Nautilus, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the careers hung around at the cornucopia. They were leery of going hunting this early, as most of them were exhausted and motion sick from looking at the sparkling cornucopia. The instant the bloodbath was over Porcelain grabbed his deck of tarot cards and started following the others around babbling his insane predictions. He told Anilyne that she should have died eight days ago, Vesuvius that his hair would soon become curly if he didn't eat meat that Friday, and much, much more. The others put up with Porcelain because turning on one of their members that early in the games would undoubtedly cause them to fall out of favor with the Capitol. Vesuvius took up the job of reducing the cornucopia's shine, as he, like the other careers, hated looking at it. He found a barrel of rope in the back of the horn as well as large quantities of cloth, and the 2 boy got to work fashioning the opaque sheets over the glass. Nautilus left the cornucopia with the expressed purpose of finding the wheelhouse, the room where the captain could steer the ship. He eventually discovered it, but the door was locked, and a note was carved into the door saying that the key was hidden somewhere. He spent the whole day hunting for the key, and even enlisting the help of Vesuvius he couldn't find it. Anilyne delved into the depths of the cruise ship and reached an extravagant dining room which she raided of several exotic fruits as well as some more familiar dishes like bread and pasta. She carried them back up to the cornucopia for lunch when it was time.

The seven surviving outliers scattered every which way, some of them staying on the cruise ship and some paddling away through the lagoon. Voltanna had two knives, a backpack of rope, and a case of crackers, but unfortunately no life vest. She found that if she blew into the backpack to inflate it and then zipped it, the air could be trapped inside, creating a flotation device. She made it about halfway to dry land when she was forced to settle for the night, and the 5 girl dragged herself onto a small island sporting a single palm tree. Chrysler was a bit shaken up after narrowly escaping death in the bloodbath, so he wasn't willing to take the risk of leaving the ship. His travels took him to one of the nicer cabins, where he took a quick wash and laid out his knives, his only possessions in the world. Jacques was the only twelve-year-old left in these games, and he was terrified: all he had was a pack of three crackers and he was alone wandering through the upper decks of the cruise ship. Jacques eventually discovered a room filled with electronic games. He was drawn right in, and he whiled the day away playing chess and backgammon with the computer to take his mind off of the games. Otto was a surprisingly good swimmer for a boy from 8, and even without a life vest he was the first tribute to reach the sandy beaches of the atoll. He shook one of the pineapple trees until it dropped its fruit and munched on them the whole day long, staring at the far-away cruise ship, now a faint white smudge on the horizon. Kete and Foltra hunted tirelessly through the cruise ship after setting their supplies down in a food court. Both were filled with determination and passion and they had their hearts set on making at least one more kill before the day was out. The 10s even had the guts to leave their supplies unguarded in the food court, a testimony to their spunk. Zachry was exploring one of the reading and writing rooms on the ship when he heard the footsteps of the careers coming his way. Trying not to panic, he glanced back and forth in search of an escape route. The only hiding place was a dusty, unused closet nearby. The boy thrust himself inside and closed the door behind him, and he slid to the ground, refusing to leave until the footsteps of the careers faded into silence.

The morning of Day 2 came in the form of a cannon shot. Kete and Foltra from 10, absolutely determined to keep making kills and remain the most popular tributes, quickly left for their second hunting trip as soon as the sun rose on the second day. Their victim was less than a hundred feet away. The night before, Jacques had fallen asleep playing chess with the computer, and as Kete and Foltra peered into the room they saw the glowing screen telling the sleeping boy it was his turn. Kete gingerly turned the doorknob and crept toward the sleeping twelve-year-old, Foltra at his heels, and then they went in for the kill. Jacques awoke screaming as Kete buried his knife into his waist, and as blood squirted this way and that Foltra finished the job with a stab to the neck. The tiny boy bled out quickly; his rooks and pawns would be left untouched for eternity.

 _Jacques Hareven, District 7 Male: 11th, Killed by Kete and Foltra, Day 2_

At the other end of the cruise ship, Zachry woke up with a start, hitting his head on the shelf above him. Even after the careers left, he refused to exit the small closet in which he had imprisoned himself. He couldn't shake the thought out of his head that one of them was waiting outside of the door, ready to kill him. Eventually a sponsor sent Zachry a note that the careers were gone (the small drone had to slip the note under the door). Relieved, Zachry wrapped his fingers around the handle. It wouldn't budge. He'd locked himself in. Panicking, Zachry banged against the lock, but it refused to open. There was a small hammer behind him which he used in his attempt to break out. Unfortunately, he just broke off the handle, leaving the locking mechanism in-tact. Zachry slid to the ground, crying, unable to fathom the misery of being trapped in that pitiful little closet until his death.

Nautilus and Vesuvius had been taking turns keeping guard for the whole warm night, and as the sun rose both of the boys quickly left the cornucopia. Nautilus was incredibly eager to find the key to the wheelhouse, and Vesuvius agreed to help him in exchange for a little extra food and a few of his knives. They were both puzzled when a silver parachute came down to them containing a single slip of paper. The paper was split into thirds, and each third contained a puzzle. The boys figured that the solutions to the puzzles would tell them where to find the key, and they quickly got to work. They managed to solve the first puzzle after less than an hour, but the other two were substantially more difficult. Nautilus took one of them and Vesuvius took the other, but even dividing-and-conquering they couldn't solve both of them before the day was done.

Porcelain and Anilyne, the portion of the pack that was hunting, were really doing more exploration than they were hunting. Anilyne was a curious spirit, regularly opening closets just to note the colors of the shelves and collecting rocks from the decorations that looked like eggs. She was determined to explore the whole cruise ship, and Porcelain was always at her side, feeding her his strange fortunes. Porcelain seemed almost as curious as Anilyne but sometimes got bored with her antics and had to sit down on some bench or other fiddling with his tarot cards while Anilyne wandered away.

The duo was exploring the lower decks of the ship together when their flashlight beams fell onto an ancient-looking door labeled "storage". Surprisingly enough, the handle was unlocked. Inside, there were crates of oranges, apples, and other fruits neither of them had seen in their lives. There was also a wide variety of colored fish, and this piqued Anilyne's curiosity. They were certainly below the waterline—if she could peer out of the ship somehow, wouldn't she be able to see all of the colorful fish swimming in the lagoon? Porcelain sat down nearby, and Anilyne got to work prying away one of the wooden boards on the back wall. She was expecting a bit of water to pour in, but that wouldn't be a big deal—the board was the size of her arm and she could easily put it back. Anilyne finally managed to pop the board free, and all hell broke loose. With thousands of pounds of water pressing down on top of the hole, a jet of water flew into the room so strong it hit Anilyne in the chest and knocked her to the ground. Multiple other wooden boards were collapsing around the one she'd removed, only making room for more and more water to come in. By the time Anilyne got back to her feet, the water was up to her waist. All around, hundreds of crates of cargo bobbed on the surface of the water. She screamed Porcelain's name, but he'd already left the room, closing the door behind him. Anilyne drowned as the room flooded completely, but fortunately for the other tributes the flooding stopped there. This would not be a repeat of the fifty-first Hunger Games.

 _Anilyne Satta, District 4 Female: 10th, Killed by Drowning, Day 2_

Day 3 was deathless. Voltanna had been resting for the entirety of Day 2 but she decided to set aside the entirety of Day 3 for swimming. Her end goal was to reach the narrow green strip of land surrounding the lagoon, but of course there were many steps along the way; she had to "hop" between islands for breaks to keep from getting too exhausted. She finally reached the atoll just before nightfall, but Voltanna was too fatigued to do anything other than collapse on the beach and fall asleep. Chrysler go work on an elaborate mechanism he'd designed the day prior. To build it, he'd have to steal one of the wheelie carts from the dining room. He would place it on a ramp facing the door of the room, connected to a rope or string. Chrysler wanted the cart to roll toward the door whenever it was opened, barreling over the intruder before they could sidestep. Fortunately, he managed to grab everything he needed without being seen or heard, and in no time he was off to work. Otto had been nonstop eating pineapple for several hours. His stomach was not taking kindly to it all. He had gotten horribly sick and had thrown up multiple times. Otto dragged himself into a copse of leafy ferns with his legs curled up, willing the things to work their way out of his body. Kete and Foltra, after two days of hardcore energy, were finally getting exhausted; well, one of them was. Kete wanted to hunt, hunt, hunt and Foltra wanted to rest, rest, rest, and if they didn't come to a compromise sooner than later their alliance would be in trouble. Zachry tried with all his might to break down the door of the closet in which he was imprisoned, but it was useless. He was far too weak to make a splinter in the thick, glossy wood. Dehydration was claiming him further and further every hour; the boy would certainly die in there if he didn't find a way out soon.

On the morning of Day 4, Nautilus and Vesuvius finished the last few puzzles on the sponsor sheet. At the bottom of the page was a collection of spaces in which the location of the key would be written. Over the course of a few days Nautilus and Vesuvius had managed to gradually fill in the letters by completing the other puzzles. Now, the completed message read "starboard and aft side, twenty feet down keel, behind wooden panel."

Both boys were extremely excited to find the key they'd been working toward days. They eventually discovered that the markings they'd made on the paper had bled through to the back, creating a bold arrow that pointed them toward the key. When they arrived at its location, they quickly discovered retrieving it was much harder than it had originally seemed. There was a small wooden panel twenty feet below them, but how would they reach it?

Vesuvius had a plan. He sprinted toward a nearby rack of lifeboats and pulled two of them down. "I'll get into one of these lifeboats," Vesuvius explained, "and you'll lower me. When I'm twenty feet down I can get the key and then you'll lift me back up."

The plan seemed simple enough. Sea-savvy Nautilus had no trouble sending Vesuvius down. When he finally reached the panel, he found it swung open smoothly as silk, and inside was a sleek metallic key. Smiling, Vesuvius hurled it upward for Nautilus to catch. He called for his ally to lift him back up. That was when disaster struck. The excited Nautilus was pulling up the lifeboat too quickly, causing it to scrape against the curved side of the cruise ship. Before he knew it, Vesuvius had fallen out of the lifeboat. He grabbed onto the side of the ship for dear life, screaming for Nautilus' help. The panicked 4 boy sent down another lifeboat to help him. The boy eventually managed to grab onto the second lifeboat and swing himself onto the first. Unfortunately, the automatic crank didn't stop lowering the second lifeboat, and before Vesuvius could scream the boat landed right on top of him. A three ton object on his body was enough to squash him to death in moments.

 _Vesuvius Ascuro, District 2 Male: 9th, Killed by Nautilus, Day 4_

That left the final eight: Porcelain Wing from District 1, Nautilus Reeves from District 4, Voltanna Evans from District 5, Chrysler Camara from District 6, Otto Wompanog from District 8, Kete Pedroia and Foltra Major from District 10, and Zachry Tunis from District 12.

Nautilus returned to the cornucopia majorly humiliated, if not exactly traumatized, after accidentally killing Vesuvius. Being a career he didn't mind killing but the fact that he'd been stupid enough not to stop lowering the lifeboat after Vesuvius had boarded the other one made him feel more than a little timid. Other than Nautilus, there was only one career left in these games: Porcelain Wing. As soon as Nautilus told him the story Porcelain's mouth started moving a mile a minute, babbling about how he had predicted disaster with his tarot cards just that morning. Nautilus was so bogged-down by everything that he didn't bother to unlock the wheelhouse: he would put that off 'til Day 5 after he caught up on his sleep.

On far-away dry land, Otto continued suffering through the misery caused by his stomach-aches. He wasn't popular enough to receive any kind of medicine. The only way he could get rid of the pain was to wait through the agonizing hours of each day.

Back on the cruise ship, Chrysler was in a bit of a sticky situation. After several hours of work he completed his little cart, and immediately after he climbed onto the serving tray. He gave the contraption a bit of a kick and then he was off. But in seconds he had spiraled out of control and went crashing sideways into one of the tables. Chrysler screamed and fell onto the table, knives and forks impaling his flesh every moment, and the table snapped under his weight. It broke into two pieces. For a moment there was the terrifying screech of metal against metal and wood against carpet and Chrysler was unconscious. It took several minutes for him to regain consciousness, and after that he was far too bruised to do anything but sit around and wait for his body to heal itself.

On the morning of Day 5, Nautilus returned to the wheelhouse, instructing Porcelain to keep guard over the cornucopia while he was gone. Nautilus reached the wheelhouse and slid the key into the lock. To his pleasure the door clicked open as smoothly as silk. Inside he tore the covers off of all the joysticks and levers and whatnot, ready to steer the ship. Captain Nautilus pulled the large lever to lift the anchor, and then he was off. Nautilus planned to steer the cruise ship in one large loop around the lagoon, a feat that should have been do-able in a day or two. He felt so at peace steering the ship, and it all reminded him of home.

Two deaths occurred on Day 5, and they happened in rapid succession. In the locked closet, Zachry knew he was dangerously close to death from dehydration and starvation. He had given up all hope of escape and had since made peace with his own death. Wanting to leave the world as quickly as possible, Zachry grabbed onto the broken handle and drew a heavy line down his arm with the sharp edge. He fell against the back wall of the closet, screaming in agony, until he bled out five hours later. The hovercraft ended up having to punch down the door to reach and collect his corpse.

 _Zachry Tunis, District 12 Male: 8th, Killed by Himself, Day 5_

The next death occurred less than a minute later. On the sandy beach of the atoll, Voltanna had been largely doing nothing for hours other than lying around basking in the light of the sun. Head Gamemaker Coriolanus Snow had been largely disappointed with the lack of death in his games so far, and, just to keep the Capitol satisfied, decided to take out his wrath on the most lackluster tribute in the games at that point.

Voltanna woke up screaming as the first of the crab mutts closed its pincers around her arm. They weren't poisonous, but they were strong enough to draw a fair amount of blood. Voltanna leapt to her feet, struggling to shake off the crab mutt, and, when that didn't work, she tried to tear it off with her other hand. By the time she'd picked it off, a good dozen or so had crawled out of their hidden dens all over the beach. The girl, who wasn't thinking very clearly at the time, jumped into the ocean with some kind of notion that she'd be able to swim away. It turned out that the crabs were ten times faster in water than on land, and before she knew it she was overwhelmed. Her blood painted the seawater red as she bled out and drowned over the course of a few minutes.

 _Voltanna Evans, District 5 Female: 7th, Killed by Crab Muttations and Drowning, Day 5_

The next day, Day 6, was deathless. It wasn't entirely boring though. Even with his tarot cards to keep him occupied, Porcelain was growing rather bored. He was really curious to see what Nautilus was doing in the wheelhouse. On the morning of the sixth day, unable to hold his curiosity at bay any longer, the foolish career boy abandoned the cornucopia and trotted toward the wheelhouse. Porcelain arrived about ten minutes later to find the door locked.

Porcelain knocked twice. Inside, Nautilus was lost in the controls, one with the ship. When the 1 boy knocked, Nautilus jumped so suddenly he yanked one of the controls suddenly to one side. It didn't do any damage to the ship, but the 4 boy was furious that Porcelain had interfered with his work. He pulled the door open and yelled at his ally for a good five minutes and ordered him to the return to the horn. Porcelain was intimidated, and took a quick peek at the controls before starting back to his post.

By early morning Chrysler had healed from his minor wounds. The shuddering of the ship when Captain Nautilus jumped awoke Chrysler from his morning rest immediately. Thoughts raced through his head, and he somehow came to the conclusion that the ship must have been sinking. Chrysler raced out onto the ship's deck and hopped into the nearest lifeboat. He managed to lower himself successfully. Over the course of the next six hours, he used the paddles to make his way toward dry land. When he finally arrived at the atoll, Chrysler collapsed on the beach and fell asleep instantly. The last things he saw were a few harmless monkey mutts staring at him from about twenty yards away… harmless at least for now.

Otto was more miserable than ever. The pineapple had finally worked its way out of his system. Now that he was back to health, he refused to eat anything he found, terrified he would have the same allergic reaction to it. He only ate a small portion of berries he recognized.

On the cruise ship, Kete and Foltra kept up their relentless hunt for tributes. Foltra had been exhausted for several days, and even Kete was beginning to grow rather bored. One of their sponsors sent them a note instructing them to rest, and both were happy to comply. They rested in one of the lounges on the ship, grabbing snacks whenever they got hungry and thirsty.

Day 7 was similarly deathless. Otto continued striding aimlessly along the beaches of the atoll, staring longingly at the fruits and plants he longed to gobble down but was too paranoid to eat. Chrysler woke with a nasty shock as the three mysterious monkey mutts attacked him. It turned out they weren't very smart. Chrysler drowned the first, suffocated the third with a handful of dirt, and killed the third by tricking it into wrapping its own tail around its neck. He rested that afternoon near a lake with cool leaves pressed against his skin, enjoying the beautiful day.

That was also the day that Kete and Foltra finally split. Strangely, there wasn't one single moment that they broke their bond. They just met up more and more rarely until the producers stopped counting them as an alliance in their tribute list. By the end of the day, Kete was in the upper decks of the ship, while Foltra was in the deepest levels where there were smaller cabins and fewer public rooms.

Day 8 was, once again, deathless. Toward the middle of the day, temperatures rose substantially: from the mid-seventies to the low-nineties. The tributes on the ship didn't notice it, as the cool sea spray made it difficult to differentiate temperatures. Porcelain and Nautilus, the two careers left in these games, were therefore largely unaffected by this change. Kete and Foltra didn't notice because of the air conditioning on the inside of the cruise ship. Far away on the land, Otto and Chrysler didn't notice much change.

By that point President Snow had had enough. Three consecutive deathless days meant that a large portion of the Capitol audience had flicked off their television screens. But Coriolanus never did anything halfway. He declared a feast a noon the following day, and while attendance wasn't technically mandatory, it might as well have been.

"My deepest congratulations to the final six tributes of the seventy-sixth annual Hunger Games," rasped the snake-like voice of the president. "At noon tomorrow, a feast will be held at the cornucopia."

At that moment, a beacon of light shot into the sky at the location of the cornucopia so that everybody would know where to head.

"But there's more. Any tribute who fails to attend the feast will have their life ended slowly and painfully. May the odds be ever in your favor."

That was enough to get each of the tributes to attend. Nautilus left the wheelhouse to join Porcelain at the cornucopia. They hung around for the day, running over battle tactics and refining their skills. Kete and Foltra both moved to the uppermost decks of the ship so the horn would be as close as possible when noon arrived the next day.

The real chaos was going on with the boys on the beach. As soon as the announcement finished Otto ran for the nearest pineapple tree. He couldn't eat the fruit, but he could touch the leaves without allergic reaction. He spent nearly half a day assembling a raft from the leaves and branches.

Chrysler got back onto the lifeboat and paddled back to the cruise ship. He then grabbed onto one of the dangling ropes and tugged himself up. By nightfall on Day 8 all six of the remaining tributes were on the cruise ship, nervously preparing for the feast.

By the morning of Day 9, the heat had increased once again. Temperatures were in the low one-hundred tens, and the tributes were sweltering on the deck of the cruise ship. Kete had an excellent circadian rhythm, and he woke himself up at exactly eleven in the morning on the day of the feast. He hurriedly stowed his things away, grabbed a few weapons, and trekked in the direction of the cornucopia. By the time he reached the horn it was noon. A few minutes earlier, Porcelain and Nautilus had been driven away from the cornucopia with a cluster of crab mutts, so Kete had the horn all to himself. In front of him there was a rack of sickles, several pairs of shoes and changes of clothes, packages of food, and, most temptingly, a cooler of freezing-cold water. Kete grabbed a few thermoses and filled them with all the water they could carry. Then, after grabbing everything that he could carry with him, he stormed away back into the ship.

In the upper decks of the giant cruise ship, Foltra woke a few minutes before noon. Thinking she had plenty of time, the 10 girl took up a leisurely walk toward the horn. A sponsor note told her that the careers were away from the cornucopia. Unfortunately, by the time Foltra got there the two boys had returned.

Foltra was less than a hundred feet from the sparkling horn when she was intercepted by Porcelain. The 1 boy leapt out from behind a pile of crates, and a stunned Foltra almost fell prey to his knife. Foltra fell to one side, and Porcelain's knife grazed her cheek; if she had been a second later, she might have been killed. Shaking with panic, Foltra stumbled away, but only to find herself face-to-face with a grinning Nautilus. Trapped between the two boys, Foltra made an attempt to leap off of the ship, but Porcelain reached her first. She was in ribbons by the time he was finished.

 _Foltra Major, District 10 Female: 6th, Killed by Porcelain, Day 9_

What the careers didn't know was that while their fight with Foltra was transpiring, another fight was going on at the cornucopia. Chrysler and Otto had reached the cornucopia at exactly the same time and were now engaging in a violent fist fight over the supplies. At one point Otto nearly managed to escape with a sack he'd filled with water, but Chrysler hurled his knife like a projectile, popping the sack and causing Otto to slip on the puddle that resulted. Their fight only broke up when they heard the footsteps of the careers. When that happened, both boys stopped fighting, grabbed everything they could carry, and sprinted into the shadows. The feast of death was over.

With the feast having reached its conclusion, the living tributes returned to their dwellings. Porcelain and Nautilus were a little disappointed at having only made one kill, but they figured they could make up for it by hunting particularly dutifully for the next few days. Porcelain lost his tarot cards and spent a few hours looking for them while Nautilus returned to the wheelhouse to steer the ship around a little more.

The only three outliers left were Chrysler, Kete, and Otto. Chrysler returned to the dining room as soon as the feast was over with a pack of assorted supplies he'd snatched from the feast. He ended up settling down underneath one of the countertops, hidden from sight by the tablecloth that draped down to the floor. Otto ran to the bottom of the ship and found himself in an extremely creepy dimly-lit corridor lined with old, rusty, unused doors that looked like they hadn't been touched in centuries. He eventually collapsed inside a storage closet, where he hummed a series of tunes to himself to keep himself occupied. Kete was one of the other tributes who went to the very bottom of the ship; after the feast he wanted some quiet time to gather his thoughts. As Day 9 progressed, Otto and Kete couldn't help noticing a strange growling sound coming from around them. They both should have known it was a kraken mutt but dismissed it as the creaking of the huge ship.

Around that time, the Capitol sent a few cameras under the surface of the water to give the audience a good view of the kraken, making its third appearance in games history. It was about half the size of the cruise ship with tentacles as strong as steel cords, and even from their warm homes the Capitolites couldn't help feeling a sense of sheer terror at the sight of the massive beast. It'd been lurking at the bottom of the lagoon for nine days and it was finally ready to unleash its wrath.

Nautilus was in the wheelhouse with his hands on the controls when the sirens began wailing. He tapped a few buttons and received a message from the sonar that a large object was detected under the ship. The 4 boy peered out of the panoramic window and spotted the large shape beneath him, and he instantly deduced that it had tentacles given the way it was moving.

Nautilus yanked the controls suddenly to one side. He knew that if he was fast enough, he might be able to avoid the mutt, but the increased movement of the ship just woke the kraken up, and from there the ship was doomed. Nautilus screamed as the kraken wrapped its first hideous tentacle around the hull of the ship, lining the glass window with suction cups. At that moment he knew it was hopeless to try and escape the mutt. He ran for the exit, but he wasn't halfway there before the window shattered and cold seawater poured into the wheelhouse. It was enough to kill him instantly.

 _Nautilus Reeves, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Drowning, Day 9_

At the cornucopia, Porcelain was sleepily standing guard when one of the kraken's tentacles shot out of the nowhere and tore the glass cornucopia straight off of the deck. The 1 boy screamed and ran for cover, but ironically inside was the worst place to be. The bottom decks of the ship were already flooding with water. The Capitol predicted that the ship would be fully submerged in at most one hour. Porcelain collapsed in one of the cabins and fell onto the bed, hurriedly pulling out his tarot cards for some kind of guidance as the cruise ship rumbled and shook from the force of the kraken.

Down at the very bottom of the cruise ship, it was chaos. No sooner had water begun flooding into Otto's corridor had the lights gone out, bathing him in pitch black. For a moment he was too shocked to move. By the time he pulled his foot off of the ground, the seawater was up to his waist. Otto paddled aimlessly, screaming for help as the corridor gradually filled. He eventually found a staircase going up, and he made to climb it but stopped in his tracks.

At the opposite end of the corridor, Kete was trapped. He'd been flushed there by a tide of floodwater that had splintered the wooden door of his room, and now the 10 boy was trapped against the wall by the current.

Otto paddled toward Kete's screams before he could stop himself. By helping the 10 boy he was risking his own life, but he didn't think he'd ever be able to live with himself knowing he'd let somebody die right under his nose. Otto was a strong swimmer, and he managed to reach Kete with no problem. They locked arms, and Otto helped Kete move back toward the stairs. But they just weren't fast enough. Otto had underestimated how quickly the level would flood, and oxygen deprivation was quickly lethal for both of them.

 _Otto Wompanog, District 8 Male: 4th, Killed by Drowning, Day 9_

 _Kete Pedroia, District 10 Male: 3rd, Killed by Drowning, Day 9_

In half an hour the cruise ship was already half-sunk, sticking out of the water at an almost forty-five degree angle. The only two tributes left in these games made their way toward the safest end of the ship, both aiming to stay on board as long as possible. Porcelain only left the cabin as water started seeping in. He fell out into the hallway and then out into the scalding summer air, racing aft with his soaking-wet deck of tarot cards clutched in hand.

Chrysler was in much more of a sticky situation. The dining room was in one of the highest levels of the ship and was thereby one of the last rooms to flood. He was cowering in the kitchen, in denial of the sinking of the ship, and when the tools started sliding off of the counters he finally forced himself to move. Chrysler left the room and found the dining room half-flooded. China floated off of tables and silverware clattered here and there. All of the doors were sunken so he ended up having to smash one of the windows to get out onto the ship's deck. He sprinted in the same direction as Porcelain, avoiding the flailing tentacles of the kraken mutt and screaming with terror.

When the 1 boy and the 6 boy met at the tail end of the ship, they didn't even think about fighting each other. They were too busy trying not to fall straight off of the angled deck. At that point, the kraken roared with a noise reminiscent of maniacal laughter, seeing the destruction it had caused. Then it slid back under the waves, not to be seen again for nearly a decade.

It only took a few more minutes for the ship to go down, and when that happened Porcelain and Chrysler were left floating in the lagoon. Porcelain, the best swimmer, paddled for the distant palm trees. Meanwhile, Chrysler dragged himself onto a floating wooden beam and used another wooden beam as a kind of oar to drag himself to dry land.

Porcelain collapsed on the beach after the hours-long swim, panting with exhaustion and limbs burning like fire. The water was so clear that Porcelain could see the wreck of the cruise ship sitting at the bottom of the lagoon like the skeleton of some fallen beast. He didn't bother to set up a shelter. He fell asleep almost instantly, not even realizing that his tarot cards were gone or that there were only two tributes left in the games.

Chrysler took a lot longer to reach the sanctuary of dry land. It was nearly midnight when his hands felt hot sand, and the 6 boy fell onto it gratefully. He'd never looked like much, but he'd proven himself pretty resilient throughout the games and with all of 6 rooting for him it was far from impossible to imagine he would take home the Victor's Crown.

On the morning of Day 10, Head Gamemaker and President Snow set the tropical forest ablaze. Fires started in the north and south, tearing over the wildlife and burning it like paper. Chrysler was in the north, and Porcelain was in the south, and they were driven together. Chrysler was awoken instantly by the smoke in his eyes, and he turned around to see the wall raging toward him. He quickly grabbed his knife, his only possession, and then he was off. Porcelain reached for his tarot cards for guidance only to find them missing. He ended up grabbing a few leaves and tossing them into the fire in an effort to communicate with the supernatural, but he didn't get a good reading and figured whatever was beyond the veil wanted him to charge into the fight alone. He was a career after all.

The two boys spotted each other around noon, and the fight was won from the start. Porcelain had the better weapons and the better skills and the better reflexes, and Chrysler was just an exhausted boy who wanted to go home. Chrysler's initial strategy was to stand his ground and fend off Porcelain however necessary, but after Porcelain cut a gash across his chest he realized that strategy wasn't getting him anywhere. The next instant Porcelain had knocked his knife out of his hand, and the next instant the 6 boy was pinned to the ground. Porcelain slit open Chrysler's throat. He was gone in moments.

 _Chrysler Camara, District 6 Male: 2nd, Killed by Porcelain, Day 10_

"Porcelain Wing of District 1, you are the victor of the seventy-sixth annual Hunger Games!" Coriolanus shouted as the hovercraft descended to collect the famous youth.

Porcelain stared at the clouds with a blood-smattered face and a toothy grin. The games had been a great experience, but he was ready to go home.

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Porcelain wasn't all that well received when his victory first came to light. He was without doubt the kookiest victor 1 had ever seen, but over time many would learn to love him. The day he returned home he started his own little fortune shop. It wasn't terribly popular, but Porcelain enjoyed the quiet life. He couldn't possibly picture himself being constantly in the spotlight. That life just wasn't for him. He would remain a somewhat reserved man as he grew older, almost always preferring to settle down with a book and a mug of coffee over going to some party or other. About a year after his victory the Capitol sent a fleet of submarines down into the wreck of the cruise ship to retrieve his tarot cards, and they only managed to recover two of them. They would be preserved in a glass case on display for hundreds of years.

He moved into the Victor's Village of District 1, the thirteenth victor to do so.

His victory tour was alright. He could be awkward when he spoke in front of crowds, but in a cute way.

Porcelain would live to the admirable age of ninety, dying in a car accident on his way to the reading of the sixth Quarter Quell twist. He would never marry nor have children, but it was widely accepted as fact that he had a lifelong crush on fellow victor Iuna Mosier.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Porcelain moves into the Victor's Village of District 1, the thirteenth victor to do so.

Cecelia Rieffel adopts young triplet sons: Connor, Theodore, and Gabriel.

Victor Xhang and Remus Daley have their first child via Victor and a surrogate mother.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: I'm so, terribly, horrendously sorry this update took forever! I know it's been 5647258954572958429504 years and I've gotten a bunch of messages asking if everything is alright and I've felt super bad about not getting anything out until now. All updates won't take this long, I sincerely hope :D**

 **I hope this was a good one though! Porcelain was personally one of my favorites and I liked this arena as well. I also had a good laugh about making Snow both the president and head gamemaker for this year. I literally have no idea why I found that so amusing!?**

 **Goodbye for now. I hope to see you all again soon-ish ;)**


	78. The 77th Hunger Games

**The 77th Hunger Games: **

* * *

_**INTRODUCTION**_

President Coriolanus Snow clung onto the presidential throne for another year. The year prior he had predicted that the second great rebellion would peter out and die within a few months, and as such he'd been reluctant to waste money and supplies stamping it out when it would swiftly die on its own. However, things were never as they seemed in the early days of Panem. As the seventy-seventh Hunger Games rolled around rebellion only grew. By April it became apparent that shutting down rebellion was hopeless. By early May, an estimated third of the populations of Districts 6, 8, and 9 had joined the cause, either by leaving their homes to take part in the enormous riots or by openly displaying their opposition to the Capitol's rule. Snow then ordered a strategy change of his troops. If they could merely contain rebellion within these three districts for a few years, they might be able to prevent all twelve districts joining into the cause. All lines of communication were cut between the districts. Enormous and costly walls were installed at the borders, crossable only by licensed government officials with special badges. By games time, District 9 had mostly jumped off the bandwagon. That left only 6 and 8 demanding constant supervision from the president's best peacekeepers. An estimated thirty riots were occurring in District 6 per week, and so many in District 8 it might take an entire novel to name them all. Fires killed thousands of rebels, peacekeepers, and non-participating 8 residents. Factories were burnt to ash. Houses went up in smoke. A scene of gross rebellion had truly not been seen since the dark days seventy-seven years previously.

After two years of searching, President Snow finally found the head gamemaker he was looking for. Violet Turpin was a short, dark-skinned lady with a curtain of wavy purple hair. She'd served as the stylist for District 1 tributes from the fifty-first games to the sixty-ninth games, and then she'd served the seventieth to seventy-sixth as one of the minor gamemakers. All the while, Violet had been working hard to maintain her cute little fashion shop on the outskirts of the Capitol where she sold skirts and parasols and lace fans and the like. Violet wasn't really willing to take the role of head gamemaker, but when offered the role point-blank in a private meeting with the president she didn't really have the option to say no. At first Violet was a little awkward in her newfound position of power, but she quickly got used to it, and just as quickly began sketching out designs for her first arena. When completed, the arena was an enormous range of snowy mountains. The steel cornucopia, sleeker and more angular than usual, was situated on the center of an icy lake that looked to have been frozen solid for years. The tributes would have to be careful when sprinting toward the cornucopia lest they slip and break any number of body parts on the hard ice. Among the supplies in the cornucopia, there were dozens of climbing pickaxes, machetes, and bows with stone-tipped arrows. There were also a number of sleeping bags and heating packs to keep the tributes from freezing. Surrounding them would be row after row of tall, rocky mountains covered with feet of frost and snow. Temperatures ranged from forty to sixty degrees Fahrenheit during the day, while they could drop as low as twenty below zero after nightfall. Here and there the tributes might find a cave that could provide some warmth. On the insides of these caves were ugly green lichens that stuck to the tributes like alive Velcro, often found near edible squishy moss. The tributes would also have to be careful for silver wolves that were nearly impossible to spot through the snow, as well as snowy owls with razor-sharp claws and foxes with some of the best vision of any mutts in history. In the middle of this barren hell frozen over, there was one source of sanctuary. At the peak of the tallest mountain in the arena, there sat a small wooden cabin. The cabin was stocked with food, clean water, medical supplies, weapons, and much, much more. There was also a running sink, toilet and shower, and a stove as well as a warm bed with at least five wool blankets. The inside of the cabin was toasty warm, regularly heated to around eighty degrees Fahrenheit. Inside of the cabin with a number of warm blankets and a hot drink, one might peer out of the nearest window and feel a kind of guilt. Even the sole tribute safe and warm in the cabin would eventually have to drag themselves back out into the snow to meet the other competitors. Many would go on to speculate this was a metaphor for the fact that many district citizens had a part in the rebellion whether they were actively burning down buildings or not. And only the sole tribute who took the initiative of obeying the Capitol and cutting down their final opponents whether they liked it or not would be rewarded with Victor's Row.

The career pack this year was your average group of standard-issue killers. That being said every games needed career tributes and these six were sure to pack a punch. District 1's tributes were as beautiful as always. The male was 1's mainstay, tall and blonde and holding a good sense of humor. He was a magician back home and spent his interview wowing Caesar and the audience with his tricks. The female was the one who really stole the show this year. The sixteen-year-old Harper Jesetta was the full package, extraordinarily talented, charismatic, and very pretty. She also wore contacts that caused her eyes to rapidly change color, terrifying the outliers and capturing the hearts of the audience members. 2 provided your average duo, and both were formidable fighters. The boy could cut down all of the dummies in the training center with his sword if he was allowed. He seemed particularly adept in "short bursts" of energy, where he could summon extreme amounts of energy for a short period of time, which would take hours to recover from. The girl was tall and well-muscled and rather masculine. She had a little slip-up during the chariot rides. She accidentally dropped the laurel wreath she was holding, causing it to land in the mouth of the horse pulling the chariot. The horse then stopped to munch on the wreath, and if not for some split-second electrical pulses to get the horse moving again all twelve of the chariots might have had to stop. District 4's tributes were both very small, but they weren't to be underestimated. The boy was tiny, not possibly more than four or five feet tall, but he was among the fastest runners the games had ever seen and he could swim as effortlessly as a penguin. His tolerance for cold temperatures would undoubtedly help him in the frozen mountain arena this year. The girl caught a lot of attention when her stylist garbled her in a dress made of colored scales, and from there she kept the audience's attention on by joking around in her interview and just trying to be cool. The scores of the pack were pretty decent: two tens, three nines, and a single eight.

The outliers were an interesting bunch this year. The early favorite this year was the tiny thirteen-year-old boy from District 3, Router Lowell. His father was a mechanic back home and Router wowed the gamemakers (and the whole nation) with his prodigious electronic smarts and his sheer wits. He scored a nine, outperforming every other thirteen-year-old that had entered the games in the past few decades, and everyone could tell he was going to make these games interesting. One other nine was scored. Blackthorn from 7 was tall, handsome, and charismatic, and had a knack for throwing axes. There was also an eight: Sienna from 12, who was speedy and flexible and quick on her feet. Sevens were scored by Zinaida from 3, Larch from 7, Sprout from 11, and Cullen from 12. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. There were numerous other standouts as well. Cheri from 9 was a real party animal who was always looking for fun. She was the best darts player on her side of 9, able to hit the bulls-eye blindfolded three times in a row and down a pint faster than any of the men in the pub. The local bars started pooling together a fund to sponsor her, and it looked like Cheri was a good candidate for the win. Camlet from 8 had been bullied and abused by his drunken father his entire life, and he refused to let his prep team cover the huge scar on his forehead. He wanted his father to see where his worthless son had ended up, being adored by thousands. Abeline from 8 was famous across the district for an event she hardly remembered. At age eight she was pronounced dead from influenza and placed in a coffin underground. Mere moments after the box was covered, the mourners heard her kicking and screaming from inside. She was dug back up and found to be as alive as she could be, as though she had come back from the dead. The doctors couldn't believe it. She was a living medical mystery to that day. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Giovanni O'Lenyd, 18, (9) 8-1 and Harper Jesetta, 16, (10) 3-1

District 2: Icesulus Clark, 18, (10) 3-1 and Rebecca Corver, 18, (8) 9-1

District 3: Router Lowell, 13, (9) 12-1 and Zinaida Pinn, 18, (7) 14-1

District 4: Skipper Thomas, 17, (9) 7-1 and Vanessa Sailor, 17, (9) 8-1

District 5: Erik Hammond, 15, (4) 46-1 and Sonia Fitzgerald, 16, (6) 20-1

District 6: Stanton Casillas, 18, (5) 23-1 and Ivonne Bowen, 12, (3) 73-1

District 7: Blackthorn Rawls, 18, (9) 10-1 and Larch Fortini, 18, (7) 15-1

District 8: Camlet Zakher, 16, (5) 29-1 and Abeline Dyer, 13, (3) 62-1

District 9: Dylan Mccardle, 17, (4) 40-1 and Cheri Davis, 17, (5) 22-1

District 10: Wilder Alcorn, 14, (3) 67-1 and Megan Jones, 15, (6) 19-1

District 11: Sprout Holt-Dwyer, 18, (7) 13-1 and Planter Rod, 18, (5) 24-1

District 12: Cullen Esters, 17, (7) 15-1 and Sienna Foxley, 18, (8) 9-1

HGBO Bets: 17% on Harper, 14% on Icesulus, 11% on Giovanni, 8% on Skipper and Vanessa, 7% on Router, 6% on Rebecca, 5% on Blackthorn, 4% on Sienna, 2% on Zinaida, Larch, Sprout, and Cullen, 1% or less on Erik, Sonia, Stanton, Ivonne, Camlet, Abeline, Dylan, Cheri, Wilder, Megan, and Planter.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

As the tributes rose into the arena there was the usual wash of panic that came whenever there was a colder arena, but it seemed as though this year would be far less harsh than some games past. For one, there was a lot of heating equipment in the horn, and the days were long enough that the tributes could get pretty much everything done before nightfall, when it got much colder.

When the gong rang, all twenty-four tributes decided to head into the bloodbath. They'd seen enough of the games to know that running away from the horn in an arena as harsh as this was never a good idea.

Harper sprinted at the head of the onrush. She was not only beautiful but extremely dexterous and she managed to even out her weight on the ice to keep herself from slipping. The 1 girl quickly found her way to a hatchet, and she turned sharply on her heel and vaulted it into the head of a nearby outlier girl. She fell with a crunch as the blade punctured her skull, making her death the first of the games.

 _Megan Jones, District 10 Female: 24th, Killed by Harper, Bloodbath_

Icesulus, another fast runner, snatched up one of the many stone pickaxes in the cornucopia. He'd never used one before, so at first he was a bit awkward swinging around the heavy weapon, but he quickly got used to it. A nearby boy groaned as the pickaxe made contact with his shoulder, crunching the bone under the impact site. Blood soon started pouring out of his body, and Icesulus started away from his first victim as the outlier boy let out his last breaths.

 _Erik Hammond, District 5 Male: 23rd, Killed by Icesulus, Bloodbath_

Skipper from 4, a natural-born sailor, had undoubtedly the keenest eyesight of any tribute in these games. He'd managed to somehow spot out a bow through the blizzard, and he quickly reached the weapon before throwing the quiver over his shoulder. Two of Skipper's arrows landed with perfect precision in a nearby boy's chest. His arrows were almost immediately lethal at that close range.

 _Dylan Mccardle, District 9 Male: 22nd, Killed by Skipper, Bloodbath_

Giovanni's bow flew through the air like an extension of his arm. He fired arrows this way and that with sheer mastery that bespoke years of practice. The girl from the lumber district was in the wrong spot at the wrong time, and one of the Giovanni's arrows skewered right through her torso, protruding from her back. By the time she hit the ground with a loud sound she was dead.

 _Larch Fortini, District 7 Female: 21st, Killed by Giovanni, Bloodbath_

Having wrenched her hatchet out of the skull of her first prey, Harper quickly attacked her next victim. About ten feet away, a dark-haired boy had fallen to the ice, slowly bleeding out from a wound he'd sustained from the fall. Harper was more than happy to polish him off with a hatchet blow to the neck, nearly blowing off his head in one motion.

 _Cullen Esters, District 12 Male: 20th, Killed by Harper, Bloodbath_

The two tributes from 2 teamed up to make their next kill. Rebecca grabbed a pair of twin machetes, while Icesulus took a quick moment to wipe the blood off of his stone pickaxe. Rebecca pointed out a worthwhile victim nearby, the tall, broad-shouldered boy from 10. The boy screamed as Rebecca dug the first of her two machetes in his chest. He whipped around in a panic only for Icesulus to carve out his forehead with his pickaxe.

 _Wilder Alcorn, District 10 Male: 19th, Killed by Rebecca and Icesulus, Bloodbath_

Vanessa was the last career without a kill, but as she scanned the cornucopia field she spotted a light-haired boy several yards away, on his hands and feet on the ice to keep from slipping and sliding. When he spotted Vanessa coming his way, he tried to get to his feet and escape, but the clumsy boy just fell back down. The girl's machete found its way straight between his eyes, killing him almost instantly.

 _Stanton Casillias, District 6 Male: 18th, Killed by Vanessa, Bloodbath_

Blackthorn from 7 was one of the two outliers in these games to have scored a nine. He knew if he could use his initial boost of popularity as a foothold, he would easily be able to climb his way up to the Victor's crown. But that couldn't be done without making a good kill or two early on. Blackthorn sprinted over the ice and found his way to a pickaxe that laid fifty yards from his pedestal. Nearby, Giovanni from 1 was removing his arrow from the dead body of his most recent kill. Blackthorn approached and dug the blade of his axe into his back. Giovanni let out a gasp and fell onto the ice. He tried to fight back but just couldn't find the energy, and he was gone in moments.

 _Giovanni O'Lenyd, District 1 Male: 17th, Killed by Blackthorn, Bloodbath_

Rebecca fluidly attacked her next victim. Two outlier girls were grappling over a pack nearby, and Rebecca dove toward the taller of the two girls. She planted one of her machetes into the girl's chest and tried to attack the other, but the second managed to escape. The first girl fell onto her back, moaning and coughing up blood, and in seconds she was as dead as the thousands of other outliers that had perished in games past.

 _Sonia Fitzgerald, District 5 Female: 16th, Killed by Rebecca, Bloodbath_

Router from 3, the most popular outlier in these games, was struggling to escape north with a package of mechanical supplies and other tools, but he was intercepted by Harper and Vanessa, who didn't want to let him escape and pull a Beetee Latier that would get them all killed. Router managed to duck under the first swing of Harper's hatchet, and he pulled a spear out of his pack, ready to fight back. Vanessa managed to plant one of her machetes into his torso, drawing a little blood. It turned out that Router was particularly adept in trickery, and he swung the pack like a weapon, knocking over Vanessa and Harper in turn like dominoes. In a crumpled heap on the ice, Harper made a reckless move, swinging her hatchet in an arbitrary direction. She accidentally severed the entirety of Vanessa's lower arm, and by the time she realized what had happened Router had escaped. Blood was leaving Vanessa's stump of an arm to fast for her to survive much longer.

 _Vanessa Sailor, District 4 Female: 15th, Killed by Harper, Bloodbath_

Skipper sprinted through the blizzard and made hard contact with a strong girl from one of the poorest districts of Panem. The girl was strong enough to keep from falling on her butt, but she did slide a little, and she was disoriented enough for Skipper to go in for the kill with his arrows' lethal stone tips.

 _Planter Rod, District 11 Female: 14th, Killed by Skipper, Bloodbath_

Icesulus made the final kill. Several minutes earlier, he'd buried his pickaxe into the neck of a small boy, and the boy had dragged himself into a dark corner of the cornucopia field, weeping softly and trying to cover his wounds with his hands. By the time Icesulus noticed him again, he was mere seconds away from death. The poor boy barely felt the 2 boy's ending blow.

 _Camlet Zakher, District 8 Male: 13th, Killed by Icesulus, Bloodbath_

The rest of Day 1 was deathless. The four remaining career tributes cleaned their weapons and then regrouped in the icy cornucopia, huddling together to maintain warmth. At first they tried to go about their business putting up with the cold but they soon realized installing some sort of heating system into the horn was the only way to keep them freezing to death. Harper dug through the horn to gather as many heating packs as she could. Meanwhile, Rebecca collected a number of blankets and hung them over the entrance of the horn. Harper's heating packs slowly warmed the interior of the cornucopia, and the toasty air was kept in by Rebecca's blankets. Meanwhile, Icesulus sat in the back of the cornucopia, sorting weapons. There was a massive amount of arrows in these games, so much that the 2 boy could afford to sort them into various piles depending on the shapes of the tips. Skipper sorted the food rations. In minutes some of the foods started freezing, so he got Rebecca to help him drag all of the food into the warmest area of the cornucopia to continue his work.

Meanwhile, the outliers scattered, crunching and dashing and slipping over the frost to get to safety. Router had successfully escaped the horn with a bag of mechanical supplies, as well as a stone knife. He climbed a few hundred feet up the nearest mountain before settling down in a small cave to tinker with his various supplies. Zinaida stumbled east until she reached an icy frozen river. She grabbed a stone and pounded at the surface of the ice until it cracked up, revealing the liquid water underneath. It was so cold the girl had to splash it around in her mouth for several seconds before swallowing it. Ivonne was suffering from a migraine, due in part to the lack of oxygen as she travelled higher and higher. When she was too sick to climb any higher, she dug out a patch of snow and settled down on the rock, groaning and willing the pain to dissipate. Blackthorn stayed near the cornucopia, tossing his single hatchet between his hands. He let the audience know that he was planning a raid on the cornucopia, where he planned to kill one or two of the careers and then make a run for it with whatever he could carry. Around noon the 7 boy was attacked by three silver wolf mutts, and he took turns hacking at them and running away from them for about an hour until each of them was dead. Abeline didn't read the instructions on her heating pack when she strapped it to her back, and in seconds it was overheating, sending severe burns down her back. She screamed and threw the pack off her back before collapsing to the ground in agony. She cleaned out the burns with some snow and settled down right then and there to heal. Cheri had managed, among other things, a grappling hook from the cornucopia. She used it to climb one of the nearby mountains, and when she reached one of the caves she had a crunch on a granola bar she was sponsored. Sprout had a handsome supply of weapons: a bow and quiver of arrows, and two machetes. With the bloodbath at his conclusion, he raced to a hidden area and practiced with his weapons until long after nightfall, when he settled in a small crevice to rest. Sienna was the first tribute to spot the cabin: a small brown smudge at the peak of the tallest mountain. Her instincts told her she should push it out of her mind, but curiosity got the best of her, and Sienna started traipsing toward the mountain that housed the small structure. Temperatures were mild on the first day, only dropping to around thirty degrees as night fell. The worst was yet to come.

Day 2 was similarly deathless. After an entire day of lying around, the career pack got up and prepared to hunt. Icesulus stayed behind while Harper, Rebecca, and Skipper ventured into the icy mountainous landscape. Skipper stayed in front: he had the best eyesight and the keenest hearing of the careers, making him the perfect leader despite his lacking score. Harper was a little sour that she wasn't the leader but knew what was best for the pack and kept quiet. At eight in the morning the career tributes spotted Zinaida sleeping beside the frozen river. The small and nimble 3 girl easily managed to escape the careers, though, and she collapsed in a fissure in a mountainside, crying softly to herself.

Minutes later Ivonne woke with a start. She'd spent nearly twelve hours sleeping off her motion sickness, and she woke up as a snowy owl mutt dug its glistening talons into her chest. Ivonne leapt to her feet and sprinted to a nearby pile of stones. In a few minutes a second snowy owl mutt appeared. By the time the girl had knocked both owls out of the sky her chest was bleeding at an alarming rate. A sponsor sent her a few bandages to quell the bleeding, and it was another day of resting and healing for the small girl.

Blackthorn postponed his raid of the cornucopia as the cold intensified. Daytime temperatures on Day 2 were around fifty degrees, about ten degrees colder than those of Day 1. To keep the Capitol entertained he made an effort to build a small igloo. This attempt was an epic fail, and Blackthorn scrapped the project after about half an hour.

In his high-up cave, Router from 3 was hogging most of the screen time. He seemed to be a natural with his little mechanical parts, and sponsor gifts were bringing him more and more by the hour. He refused to show the cameras exactly what he was building, at least at that point. If he was planning to keep the Capitolites on the edges of their seats he was succeeding.

Day 3 featured only one death. Sprout figured he'd been practicing with his weapons long enough: it was high time he get on the move and see as much of the arena as he could while the mutts were at a minimum. After about an hour he found himself at the foot of a tall, narrow mountain. There was a single green smudge about a hundred feet up. This smudge was really only a large patch of overgrown moss, but it captured the boy's attention. Sprout had only scaled twenty feet up the mountain when disaster struck. A thick patch of snow he was grabbing on to broke straight off of the mountain face, and before Sprout knew what had happened he was tumbling backward. He hit the ground after the long fall and his neck was snapped instantly. A quick way to go at least.

 _Sprout Holt-Dwyer, District 11 Male: 12th, Killed by Breaking Neck, Day 3_

The rest of Day 3 passed swiftly. Zinaida got a good portion of the Capitol on her side when she chased a fox mutt to the frozen river, where she drowned it by shoving it through the hole in the ice. She wasn't sure yet what to do with the meat, but she figured the sheer cold of the arena would preserve it on its own, so she didn't bother to ask the sponsors for salt. Sienna continued her long journey toward the cabin. It was thoroughly exhausting every part of the girl's body, but it was giving her something to focus on and keeping her at least partly prominent in the games. However, toward the end of Day 3 Cheri noticed the cabin and started moving toward it. Now, though neither girl knew it, it was a race to reach the cabin first. Cheri and Sienna both stopped their separate journeys at nightfall.

Meanwhile the careers continued hunting. At eleven o'clock that night, Harper, Rebecca, and Skipper sprinted back to horn. By the time they reached the cornucopia Icesulus was already sleeping for the night. The threesome stepped into the heated horn and sighed with relief, removing their layers to stand in the heavenly heat that seeped down into their bodies.

Day 4 was also deathless. Violet had plans to make the first few days of her games as disinteresting as possible so that it would be extra-satisfying when the games crescendoed into an action-packed conclusion a few weeks in. Come morning Rebecca found a small machine that could make hot chocolate. She prepared hot drinks for herself and each of her allies, and they rested for much of the day, telling stories to each other and the audience. Router's mechanical contraption was beginning to take some kind of shape. Around noon he demonstrated his handiwork for the first time. It moved in a strange way, almost like a spider with scuttling legs and a car rolling on wheels at the same time. He took the second half of the day off and took the much-needed rest he deserved. Zinaida finally decided she wanted to cook the fox meat, so she gathered as much driftwood from the river as she could and placed it in a small cave to dry out, heating it with her breath to make it dry faster. Ivonne kept resting, recovering from her motion sickness and the wounds the owl mutts had inflicted. Blackthorn postponed his cornucopia raid once more as a small tuft of snow fell down and buried him to the waist. It took him about a quarter of an hour to get out, and he was too shaken up to do much for the next few hours. Abeline was the third tribute to notice the cabin and start heading up the slope of the mountain. Now three tributes were racing for the cabin. Cheri and Sienna spotted each other about halfway up the mountain at three in the evening, and they moved toward each other. Sienna proposed an alliance, and Cheri nervously agreed. Sienna and Cheri exchanged stories as they made their way farther and farther up the slope, until they reached a level area which they both agreed was the perfect place to spend the night.

In the early morning of Day 5, a cannon shot rolled over the arena, causing loose pieces of snow to fall from their heights. Zinaida had been up late the night prior debating whether or not she should continue attempting to start a fire to cook the meat of the fox she'd killed. After a night's rest she decided to go through with the plan. Zinaida's driftwood had had a good day to dry and was now almost completely free of water. Inside the cave, she created a cone shape and was pleased to find that the first spark quickly expanded over the rest of the wood. In no time she had a crackling fire roaring high.

However, Zinaida had overlooked one crucial point. As the fire burned, it began emitting more and more smoke. The cave quickly filled with the noxious grey gas. The girl had run to the back of the cave for a sip of water, and she didn't realize her mistake until it was too late. She sprinted for the exit, lungs burning from the smoke, vision growing hazier by the second. Unfortunately the smoke was making her delirious and escape was impossible. The fire went out on its own about half an hour after Zinaida's death.

 _Zinaida Pinn, District 3 Female: 11th, Killed by Suffocation, Day 5_

The cannon shot woke up Cheri and Sienna, the allied mountain-climbing girls who were resting on the face of the tall rock feature. At first they tried to go back to sleep, but weren't able to. Cheri suggested they get moving and they quickly broke camp, continuing their trek toward the cabin.

About half an hour later Router demonstrated another feature of his little creation to the audience. He'd surrounded the blob of mechanical parts with a series of specially-shaped pieces that could cut through snow with incredible efficiency. Router demonstrated how he could place the contraption on the ground and cause it to worm its way under the snow before coming back out like a loyal pet dog. When Router stomped, the loose snow would be sent tumbling down the mountainside, possibly enough to disorient any tribute long enough for the 3 boy to escape.

Down at the cornucopia, another tribute met their end. For days, Violet had kept a trio of rabid wolf mutts circling around the cornucopia. She was hoping one of the careers would discover the wolves, but they were stubbornly keeping still in the horn, unwilling to go back out into the cold before they caught up on their sleep. Come Day 5, Violet used strong electrical pulses to send the wolf mutts reeling in the direction of the horn. In no time they caught onto the scent of the careers' blood. All hell was about to break loose.

Even Harper, who was keeping guard, had no idea the wolf mutts were coming until they pounced. She let out a scream of terror and dove to one side, missing the razor-sharp teeth of the first wolf mutt by inches. In seconds, Icesulus, Skipper, and Rebecca had jumped to their feet and grabbed their weapons. Icesulus and Skipper quickly managed to kill the smallest of the three wolves, but the other two were more problematic. While Harper was still keeping the first occupied, Rebecca was desperately struggling to fend off a medium-sized one with red eyes. Skipper dove to her aid. A few seconds later Rebecca was able to corner the mutt, leaving Skipper free to lope off part of its snout. The wolf mutt roared in agony and climbed onto its two hind legs.

Rebecca's chest had been torn to shreds before she even knew what had happened. With a crunch she tumbled to the snowy earth. Skipper knelt at her side. He knew instantly that he was beyond saving. He was right.

 _Rebecca Corver, District 2 Female: 10th, Killed by Wolf Muttation, Day 5_

Day 6, the persistent procrastinator Blackthorn had no choice but to get moving. His mentor Johanna sent him a note saying that he was being a lazy bum and that he had better get moving or else there were plenty of mutts and natural threats the gamemakers would throw his way. Blackthorn had originally intended to stay close to the cornucopia. When attacked by the wolf mutts several days prior, he had been driven several additional miles north. Finding his way back to the cornucopia was not an easy task, but by nightfall he saw the lights the careers had set up at the horn. Blackthorn burrowed his way down into a deep fissure in the earth, hoping it would keep him hidden for the night.

A few minutes before midnight on Day 6, disaster struck at the cornucopia. Icesulus and Skipper were fast asleep in the back of the cornucopia at the time, while Harper had fallen asleep on guard duty. What none of the careers knew was that, for days, a somewhat heavy stone sword was leaning against one of the wires connected to the heating contraptions set up by Harper. For nearly a hundred hours the sword had been slowly pulling at the wire. Finally, out of the blue, a spark flew and the blankets covering the horn's entrance were in flames. Harper woke screaming and fled out onto the frozen lake to avoid breathing in the noxious smoke that was filling the horn. Fortunately Icesulus and Skipper made it out safe and sound. All three reckoned it wasn't worth returning to bat out the flames. The chance that they would be burned in the endeavor was too great. All they could do was sit a hundred feet away shivering with cold and counting the stars overhead while the blankets smoldered away into thin air.

Cheri and Sienna woke up bright and early on Day 7. They knew there was less than half an hour left of their climb. The cabin was so near they could make it out more clearly than ever. They had been climbing for less than ten minutes when Cheri met her end. The two girls found themselves at a vertical wall leading straight up to where the cabin sat. Cheri whipped out the grappling hook she'd scooped up at the cornucopia and threw it as high as she could. Cheri began climbing the chain of the grappling hook, but in seconds she slipped. Sienna watched with horror as her ally tumbled thousands of feet down the mountain before disappearing from sight. Cheri was killed instantly upon impact with the ground.

 _Cheri Davis, District 9 Female: 9th, Killed by Falling off of Mountain, Day 7_

With Cheri's death, the final eight was formed: Harper Jesetta from District 1, Icesulus Clark from District 2, Router Lowell from District 3, Skipper Thomas from District 4, Ivonne Bowen from District 6, Blackthorn Rawls from District 7, Abeline Dyer from District 8, and Sienna Foxley from District 12.

At four in the morning on Day 7, Blackthorn's mentor Johanna sent him a message demanding that he get his ass moving. He picked up his hatchet and took a look at the weather. He was pleased to find that the perpetual snowstorm was thicker than it had been in several days. Surely none of the careers would see him coming, and by the time they felt the blade of his hatchet in their bodies it would be too late.

Blackthorn swirled toward the cornucopia in the midst of the cohort of snowflakes, shaking with anticipation. Skipper was standing guard, but even with his eagle eyes he couldn't see far enough through the blizzard to spot the 7 boy. The lights of Skipper's world suddenly cut to black as Blackthorn buried the blade of his hatchet into his neck. The sharp metal plate used with that much force was enough to easily decapitate the small boy.

 _Skipper Thomas, District 4 Male: 8th, Killed by Blackthorn, Day 7_

In the back of the cornucopia, Icesulus woke to the sound of Blackthorn sweeping up supplies to his heart's content. Icesulus shook Harper awake and gestured for her to keep silent. Icesulus scrambled for pen and paper and scribbled out his plan. Harper nodded, and the duo grabbed their weapons before slowly rising to their feet.

Blackthorn was seconds from fleeing when Harper appeared out of nowhere. The clang was deafening as Harper knocked Blackthorn's axe out of his hand with her own. As Blackthorn fell to one side to retrieve the fallen weapon, Icesulus swooped down and buried the sharp end of his pickaxe into the 7 boy's calf. The outlier boy was now confined to the ground, wriggling to and fro like a dying fish. Harper had no trouble finishing him off with another steady swing of her hatchet.

 _Blackthorn Rawls, District 7 Male: 7th, Killed by Icesulus and Harper, Day 7_

The remainder of Day 7 was deathless. It was largely empty of conflict for the four surviving outliers: Router, Ivonne, Abeline, and Sienna. Router, having finalized his avalanche-inducing machine, left his little cave and set himself out on the move, searching for a tribute on which to test his creation. Around noon, two fox mutts melted out of the shadows and pounced toward him. Router managed to kill the first by knocking it down the mountainside, while the second posed much more trouble. It dug a sizable gash in his chest before the 3 boy finally managed to beat it to death with a rock. Router had to rest for the remainder of the day while the wound healed with the help of some disinfectant sent by sponsors. Ivonne had been largely inactive thus far, and Day 7 wasn't an exception. She cowered the day away in a small cave, feeding on edible moss and halfheartedly throwing rocks at mutts that came near. In her sleep she rolled into a patch of pesky lichens, and she woke to find several square feet of fungus latched onto her skin like velcro. It took hours to remove every last hook from her skin. Abeline continued her journey up the mountain, moving toward the cabin. Halfway through the day, disaster struck. The girl's foot slid on a slippery stone and she was sent speeding down the mountainside. Fortunately, there was a clear path to the base, so she was unharmed. Her only injury was a cut on her forehead. Abeline rested for the entire day. She really did enjoy staring death in the face and laughing at it. At long, long last, Sienna reached the cabin. She reached out the blue hand that had no feeling and turned the knob. A blast of hot air overwhelmed her, and Sienna stepped inside. The first thing she noticed was an open pantry to her left, loaded with food. She gorged down as much hot soup as she could. Then Sienna took a long, hot bath. At night she slithered down under the comforters. It was the first time any tribute had been toasty warm since the games began.

In the early morning of Day 8, Router found his victim. He was trekking across a flat, snow-laden path winding around one of the taller mountains, and he saw the small form of a girl sleeping about one hundred feet below. He reached into his bag and pulled out the machine he'd spent days working on. Router set it on the ground. Then he watched as it wiggled under the snow to do its job. It emerged about half an hour later, and Router already knew his plan was going to work. He sent a few tufts of snow downhill and in seconds an avalanche of snow was barreling down toward the sleeping girl. Abeline's mouth had filled with snow before she had time to scream. She was buried alive for the second time in her life, but this time no miracle came to save her.

 _Abeline Dyer, District 8 Female: 6th, Killed by Router, Day 8_

Minutes later, Sienna woke in the cabin. She threw aside the warm blankets and took a morning shower before making herself a bit of coffee and having some biscuits for breakfast. She'd eaten biscuits almost every day back in 12, but they were always cold or stale. The food Sienna ate during the games was the most delicious stuff she'd tasted in her life.

Harper and Icesulus were the next two tributes to wake up. They ate a quick breakfast, and then it was time to decide who was to go hunting and who was to stay as the horn's guard. Out of nowhere, something hard and warm slammed into Harper's chest. Half an hour earlier, two wolf mutts had attacked Ivonne. She didn't have the energy or the skill to fend them off. She had no choice but to run. Ivonne had been running for her life down the mountainside, the wolves right behind her. If she stopped for a millisecond to catch her breath she would have been toast. Now her only hope was that the careers would take pity on a girl like her and defend her from the wolves. Harper had to grab onto a nearby countertop to keep from falling as Ivonne ran straight into her, and of course she didn't listen to her begs for mercy. A single swing of Harper's hatchet was enough to kill the small girl, and then only four tributes were left.

 _Ivonne Bowen, District 6 Female: 5th, Killed by Harper, Day 8_

As Ivonne let out her last breath, the two wolf mutts emerged from the blizzard, snarling. The wolves were fierce predators, but they were no match for the two trained careers. Icesulus' life was saved as one wolf's fangs rammed into his elbow; if not for the piece of transparent body armor he was wearing, he almost definitely would have been killed. Even with the disadvantage of having the poorer sight, the careers easily vanquished both of the muttations. The two played rock, paper, scissors and Harper ended up with the nasty job of carrying the wolf corpses away so they wouldn't have to put up with the stink.

The start of Day 9 was largely awkward for the final four. None of them knew if it was early enough to start venturing toward the cornucopia for the finale. What's more, Harper and Icesulus were in a bit of a pickle. They weren't sure whether they should split now, wait until one more death to split up, or stay loyal to each other until the very end. They spent the whole day lounging around at the horn discussing options, and by the time night fell they still hadn't decided. Icesulus asked his mentor Remus Daley for a bit of advice, and he sent him a note suggesting they should stick together as long as possible. Harper Jesetta and Icesulus Clark had remained allies for another day.

Meanwhile, Router started toward the cornucopia. Weirdly, he didn't make the journey all the way—about halfway there, he picked a mountain and climbed it. The climb was long and excruciating. By nightfall he had reached the peak of the mountain, and he had a perfect view of the cornucopia below. Router went to sleep with the mischievous sparkle in his eyes so often seen in District 3 tributes who were planning to pull off something spectacular.

Day 9 wasn't completely deathless, though. One death occurred at eleven o'clock that night, long after the sun had set. Sienna was sleeping comfortably under the blankets when she heard a howl from outside. Given its volume she knew the wolf must have been close. At first Sienna was in shock, but she knew she had to act quickly. She got out of bed and tip-toed to the stairs, which led down to a small, freezing-cold basement. She heard an enormous bang from upstairs as the wolf mutt broke straight through the door like nothing, and Sienna jumped into a nearby closet, closing the door once she was inside. There, she held onto the handle for dear life, hoping to heaven that the thing either wouldn't smell her or wouldn't be able to penetrate the door.

Neither of her prayers were answered. The wolf learned what she smelled like by sniffing around the laundry room and in no time at all Sienna was cornered like a rat. Sienna screamed as the wolf leaped toward the door of the closet. Plaster fell from the ceiling and the door let out a groan that told her it was about to break. In seconds more the wolf had broken down the door and there was no way Sienna could escape.

 _Sienna Foxley, District 12 Female: 4th, Killed by Wolf Muttation, Day 9_

The games were resolved shortly after the sun rose, the morning of Day 10. The cool morning wind woke Router up bright and early. He had a short breakfast on some sponsored soup and then put his precious insectoid mechanical creation in front of him. It wormed its way under the snow and then it was off. Router couldn't help grinning a little as it returned to him. He was about to end these games. He was going to be the first tribute under fourteen to ever hear the trumpets and the booming voice of Caesar Flickerman from all around.

With a small kick a little piece of snow fell hundreds of feet down toward the cornucopia. Router dislodged a few more chunks of frost and then literally tons of snow began free-falling through the chilly morning air toward the horn. The enormous avalanche landed on top of the cornucopia in one piece. Harper and Icesulus knew as soon as they woke up that worming their way out of their snowy prison was impossible. All of the horn had been flooded except for a small area in the back, where Harper and Icesulus were standing. It took them about three hours to use up all of the oxygen in the small space. The hovercraft had to break through the roof of the cornucopia to collect their bodies, and the cameras picked up on the grotesque manners in which they had died, clawing at their throats and each other as lack of oxygen slowly pulled them out of the world.

 _Icesulus Clark, District 2 Male: 3rd, Killed by Router, Day 10_

 _Harper Jesetta, District 1 Female: 2nd, Killed by Router, Day 10_

"Router Lowell of District 3, you are the victor of the seventy-seventh annual Hunger Games!" Caesar shouted.

Router grinned, staring at the sky, refusing to squint his youthful eyes despite the light of the morning sun.

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

It was no surprise when Router became one of the most popular victors of the first Hunger Games century. He was the first victor under fourteen, and only the second under fifteen. As he grew from a teenager into a young man, many would learn to love his charm and his wit, and his knack for cracking jokes. Despite his looks he was one of the few victors to never be prostituted; by the time he was old enough an onslaught of newer victors were in higher demand and nobody paid much attention to Router. Like Finnick, Router served as a beacon of hope for younger children in the outlying districts; if he could win the games safe and sound, maybe they weren't all doomed if their names were read at the reapings.

He settled comfortably into the Victor's Village of District 3, the ninth to do so.

His victory tour went pretty well; he knew how to please a crowd and his jokes garnered a good amount of polite laughter.

Router would live to the age of seventy-nine, dying from appendicitis the month before the one-hundred thirty-fourth annual Hunger Games. He would marry and have five children. He would keep the machine he assembled during the games on a shelf in his home his entire life, and after he died it would be put on display in a glass case in a Capitol museum.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Router moves into the Victor's Village of District 3, the ninth victor to do so.

Cecelia Rieffel adopts a young girl named Celly.

Finnick Odair and Annie Cresta get married. It is the most attended wedding in Panemian history up to that point.

Struve Lockman, the victor of the seventy-fifth Hunger Games, the third Quarter Quell, dies when two rogue Capitolites break into his home to slowly dismember him.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)

* * *

 **A/N: Another chapter! This is the last chapter I'll be posting in 2018, so I'll say happy new year here! I feel obliged to mention a few resolutions but I don't make them. If I want to make a change to my life I kinda just start whenever I want.**

 **How'd you like this one? If you went through my SYOT with a fine-toothed comb you might find a short passing mention of this dude. It's been quite a while since a District 3 won the games… was the last one Wiress? It's been quite a while, that's for sure.**

 **I have something pretty unique planned for next chapter. I don't want to reveal too much now but it's going to be the second games ever with more than twenty-four tributes… take that how you will :D**


	79. The 78th Hunger Games

**The 78th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

In a great number of history books published in the years to come, the year of the seventy-eighth Hunger Games was considered to be the height of the second great rebellion. The year prior, President Snow had ordered his peacekeepers to contain rebellion within Districts 6 and 8, and while this strategy worked for a few months it was bound to fail somehow. An event as enormous as the rebellion that was blooming in the transportation and textile districts was simply impossible to keep quiet. A peacekeeper might tell his brother about what was going on, who might tell his wife, and before long nearly every citizen of Panem knew about the series of great riots transpiring in 6 and 8. In no time at all 9 and 3 had jumped onto the bandwagon, followed by 7, 12, 11, 5, and even 4 in that order. By February only Districts 1 and 2 were refusing the join the cause, remaining loyal to the Capitol as they had always been. For this the Capitol rewarded them enormously. In the months of February and March nearly a hundred clips were aired showing Capitol trucks delivering supplies of food to the poor and destitute of both districts. But this didn't dissuade the other ten districts. Fires tore across entire districts. Peacekeepers shot and killed thousands of citizens without mercy. If Snow's troops were succeeding at one thing, it was keeping rebellion out of the Capitol. Enormous walls were built around the nation's capital city, crossable only by a very short list of government officials, and all citizens living in the Capitol were forbidden from leaving until further notice. Food and other commodities were brought in by hovercraft, which were carefully inspected before they could be placed in stores. For years the Capitol's best scientists had been working hard on something that could scare the districts into compliance, and in April it was finally perfected: a flawless military tool, the perfect weapon with which to elicit fear. The contraption was an awkwardly-shaped metal case about the size of a small car. Snow ordered for it to be dropped on the town where the rebellion began the instant it was perfected. When it made contact with the town square, the metal cage exploded, emitting an enormous amount of invisible, noxious gas. By the time most of the town's residents realized what was going on, it was too late to escape. The gas was powerful enough to kill within minutes. If one were to visit the town the day after the bomb was dropped, they would see a scene of absolute desolation. There were no bodies at all; the gas was corrosive enough to completely dissolve a human body in the course of merely twenty-four hours. When exposed to oxygen for more than a day the gas became unreactive and therefore non-dangerous, keeping it from killing everyone in the nation as it spread. The president's message was clear. _We have the power to kill all of you and you're testing us._ From then on rebellion began to, slowly but surely, peter out. By games time in late June the rebellion was less than half the size it had been four months previously. With fear President Snow had triumphed once more.

Violet Turpin returned for her second year as head gamemaker. For the past year or so all high-ranking government officials had been trapped in a series of large underground shelters to deter assassinations or kidnappings, a place where Violet had had a whole lot of time to plan out a number of arenas. This meant construction of the arena could begin as soon as the president declared it was safe for Violet and the others to emerge back into the world. After her snowy mountain arena, the head gamemaker decided to try out a fantasy landscape this year. The tributes would find themselves in a seemingly desolate landscape that was not quite of this earth. The ground was made of a kind of scraggly yellow rock that was terribly hot to the touch, and enormous blue boulders were scattered here and there, like mysterious ancient monoliths standing against the sky. It looked like at some point there might have been civilization in that place, however. Here and there stood the faint outlines of places where buildings once stood. The most concrete evidence, though, where the small piles of white brick. There were thousands of these little towers around the arena, and they were carved with queer little symbols from an alphabet Violet and her team invented themselves. Instead of trees, there were huge, scraggly bushes that looked like the hands of skeletons trying to claw their ways out of the earth. The only shelters from the boiling sun were the various caves scattered around the arena. Every cave's entrance was blocked by a large stone, but if a tribute could roll this aside they would be able to access the cool, dark, roomy interior. To fit the landscape, the mutts of this arena were very unusual as well. The most common mutt was something you could call a rat—though its tail and whiskers were twice as long as they should have been and its skin was covered with a thick, jiggly red kind of armor. The only birds were huge vulture mutts that roosted in a series of tall cliffs to the north. Their claws were long enough to kill any unsuspecting tribute. Despite the seemingly bare landscape, water was plentiful. It was able to be found in a number of thin, swift streams that scissored through the barren plain. The sky was a dull purple and in the west the morning sun was coming up as red as blood.

The career districts were once again excited to each send a pair of their best recruits. District 1 provided two natural beauties as always, and they were both tall and somewhat thin. The boy was a master archer with some of the best eyesight and hearing of any tribute, and he had a rare condition that allowed him to see as many as three times as many colors as the average person. He was also the son of one of the richest couples in 1, which would definitely help. Similarly to last year, the 1 girl was the star of the show this year: one of ex-head gamemaker Celesta Mirthe's twin daughters, Nicolette Mirthe stole the show with her beauty and mastery of weaponry, particularly with bows and axes. She was also a stellar trickster and tactician and sharply clever. District 2 offered up a weaker-than-average pair. The boy was younger at sixteen but had definitely earned his promotion into the games via his stunning throwing knife skills, while the girl was much taller and more elegant and built to use a sword. She was also one of the first openly bisexual tributes. District 4 provided a pair of fast swimmers who were used to the elements. The boy was shier than most but had a striking young face and a cute smile, while the female, two years his junior, was a stunning, dark-skinned girl with thick-rimmed steel glasses. The scores of the pack were substantial: three tens and three nines.

This year had a strong crop of outliers that would certainly make the games interesting. Three eights were earned, all by females coincidentally. Corabelle from 8 somehow managed to score an eight despite being only twelve years old, and she was cute and funny and quickly became a Capitol favorite. Poe from 10 was one of the few citizens who could afford to dye her skin. Her entire upper body was dyed with speckled bands of blue and violet, which appealed to the Capitolites. She was a lot like them, and they liked that. The last eight was earned by the charismatic, lithe, and beautiful Hydrangea from 11, who entranced the Capitol with her sheer charm. There was another major standout coming from 5 this year. Cynthia Upsdell was the first pregnant tribute ever to enter the games: she was nine months down the line and she was expecting her baby around Day 6 of the games. As soon as she was reaped her husband Theo stepped forward as the male volunteer, knowing his help would be needed throughout the birth. Mack from 10 was another standout. He was an animal collector, the proud owner of: three dogs, seven cats, a parakeet, a number of small hamsters, an entire colony of ants, about twenty goldfish, and a tarantula. The Capitol wouldn't let Mack take any of his beloved pets to the Capitol with him, but he took a whole stack of pictures which he displayed in his interview. Other than Theo from 5, there was only one volunteer outside of the careers: Saturn Scholz from 6, who volunteered for his mentally disabled younger brother. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Leopold Strauss, 18, (10) 4-1 and Nicolette Mirthe, 18, (10) 3-1

District 2: Ronan Curtis-Taylor, 16, (9) 7-1 and Calypso Rios, 18, (9) 6-1

District 3: Linus Blanche, 15, (5) 26-1 and Electra Chapman, 17, (7) 13-1

District 4: Herman Stellan, 18, (9) 6-1 and Seraphina Cheser, 16, (10) 6-1

District 5: Theo Upsdell, 18, (5) 24-1 and Cynthia Upsdell, 18, (2) 79-1

District 6: Saturn Scholz, 17, (4) 43-1 and Oriana Tulin, 16, (3) 60-1

District 7: Roscoe Mallard, 15, (7) 15-1 and April Becker, 14, (7) 17-1

District 8: Faris Carp, 16, (6) 20-1 and Corabelle Linette, 12, (8) 10-1

District 9: Theodore Bruckmann, 18, (5) 24-1 and Sasha Shonk, 13, (4) 47-1

District 10: Mack Wiles, 18, (6) 21-1 and Poe Ring, 18, (8) 8-1

District 11: Carlo Hutton, 17, (4) 40-1 and Hydrangea Ansel, 15, (8) 9-1

District 12: Pickaxe Guarini, 18, (5) 26-1 and Kimbie Townsend, 16, (3) 65-1

HGBO Bets: 14% on Nicolette, 12% on Leopold, 11% on Seraphina, 10% on Calypso and Herman, 7% on Ronan, 5% on Corabelle, Poe, and Hydrangea, 4% on Electra, Roscoe, and April, 2% on Faris and Mack, 1% or less on Linus, Theo, Cynthia, Saturn, Oriana, Theodore, Sasha, Carlo, Pickaxe, and Kimbie.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The tributes gasped as the roofs of their pods opened up and sank into the ground, leaving them to be washed over with the scalding hot morning air. The arena this year looked to be the polar opposite of last year's, boiling hot instead of freezing cold. But this arena would be just as deadly as its predecessor. Everything about it was creepy. Even the handles of the weapons were eerily reminiscent of bone.

When the gong rang, only two tributes fled the bloodbath: Theo and Cynthia from 5, who wanted to keep the baby inside Cynthia out of harm's way. As the couple disappeared into the plain, the other twenty-two tributes surged forward.

Nicolette sprinted at the head of the onrush, her stunningly clear, golden-blonde hair rippling behind her. She snatched up a hatchet that sat in a copse of bushes twelve yards from her pedestal and rooted her feet firmly to the ground, ready to accomplish some killing. Nicolette swung the axe for several seconds before hurling the weapon like a projectile, landing the blade with perfect precision in a nearby girl's chest. Her knees buckled and she was dead, just like that. She didn't even flinch.

 _Sasha Shonk, District 9 Female: 24th, Killed by Nicolette, Bloodbath_

Seraphina, another fast runner, quickly found herself some weapons: a pair of twin machetes hidden inside of the cornucopia. The boy from 12 was just nearby, and he stank of coal dust even after a week away from home. Seraphina watched with satisfaction as the first of her knives dug into the boy's throat. He collapsed, moaning for help, only for Seraphina to polish him off with a blow to the torso.

 _Pickaxe Guarini, District 12 Male: 23rd, Killed by Seraphina, Bloodbath_

Leopold picked up a smaller boy and threw him to the ground like nothing. The victim's neck broke immediately upon impact with the hard stone ground, and Leopold swept up a bow and quiver of arrows, prepared to polish off his first prey. The boy held his arm in front of him a futile attempt to shield himself from Leopold's arrows, but it was hopeless.

 _Linus Blanche, District 3 Male: 22nd, Killed by Leopold, Bloodbath_

Having wrenched her hatchet out of Sasha's chest, Nicolette fluidly attacked his next victim. About twenty yards away, the girl with elaborately-dyed skin had collapsed to the ground, slowly bleeding out from a stab wound inflicted by Herman. The girl was grateful to be put out of her suffering as Nicolette swung her hatchet into her chest, killing her immediately.

 _Poe Ring, District 10 Female: 21st, Killed by Nicolette, Bloodbath_

Ronan had been fumbling with a belt of throwing knives for several seconds, trying to clip it around his waist. When it was finally secured, the 2 boy began firing. One boy screamed as one of Ronan's throwing knives sawed into his chest, and he staggered to the ground, coughing up blood.

 _Theodore Bruckmann, District 9 Male: 20th, Killed by Ronan, Bloodbath_

Herman tackled a lanky boy from the agriculture district, easily overpowering him and pinning him to the ground. The career buried two knives into his lower abdomen and the boy immediately started bleeding, hot droplets of blood splattering over the stone and glittering like rubies. He bled out in moments.

 _Carlo Hutton, District 11 Male: 19th, Killed by Herman, Bloodbath_

Seraphina and Calypso ganged up on Saturn, the volunteer boy from 6. Saturn was down on one knee, riffling through a crate containing loaves of bread, when the two career girls approached. He didn't hear them coming until it was too late. Calypso buried the blade of her broadsword into his shoulder. Saturn roared with agony and tried to run, but Seraphina had already carved out a good chunk of his back with her machetes. With so many injuries he was beyond saving.

 _Saturn Scholz, District 6 Male: 18th, Killed by Calypso and Seraphina, Bloodbath_

The tiny Corabelle from 8 had filled a whole backpack with supplies. Now, she was making an attempt to flee west. Before she could escape, she was intercepted by Leopold, who didn't want a girl with as a high a score as her to escape. Corabelle gasped as Leopold jumped in her way, knowing she would have to fight back or die. If the fight progressed to fists, Corabelle knew there was no way she could overpower the trained career. Leopold made a devious move, pretending to fire left but instead making a blow to Corabelle's right side. The 8 girl keened in pain, and quickly threw out her foot. Leopold stumbled for in instant, and this was just what the outlier girl needed to triumph. Adrenaline giving her strength she never knew she had, she grabbed a case of water bottles and slammed it into his chest. As the 1 boy collapsed, groaning, Corabelle thrust her knife swiftly into his neck, leaving him to die.

 _Leopold Strauss, District 1 Male: 17th, Killed by Corabelle, Bloodbath_

Soon after, Nicolette increased her kill count from two to four. Two allied girls had both grabbed knives in an attempt to ambush her. The 1 girl heard the clumsy girls coming and their whole plan collapsed. Nicolette tackled the taller of the two girls, knocking the other one down like a domino. The two outliers were tangled together on the ground. They couldn't escape fast enough. Nicolette hacked them both to bits with her hatchet until there was only a pile of ribbons.

 _Electra Chapman, District 3 Female: 16th, Killed by Nicolette, Bloodbath_

 _Kimbie Townsend, District 12 Female: 15th, Killed by Nicolette, Bloodbath_

Ronan made the final kill. He was searching around the cornucopia when he saw a pair of eyes staring at him from the dark. A sixteen-year-old boy was hiding inside of the cornucopia, hoping to wait out the bloodbath and come out once it was all over. The boy tried to duck out of sight, but he'd already been seen. In no time Ronan had him cornered like a rat. A deft volley of three arrows was enough to instantly kill the boy, and then the eleven cannon shots rolled over the plain like thunderclaps.

 _Faris Carp, District 8 Male: 14th, Killed by Ronan, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the five surviving careers regrouped at the cornucopia and waited around for the hovercraft to finish collecting the dead. There wasn't a single one of them who wasn't dripping with sweat. Once the coast was clear they quickly pulled all of the supplies into the cornucopia. Outside of the horn's shade, it was unbearably hot, and having everything inside would minimize the number of times they'd need to leave. Herman mounted a fan into the back of the cornucopia, which helped get the air circulating, and the careers crowded around it, letting the cool air blow over them. As he tied it down securely, Ronan and Calypso from 2 sat down to sort the food rations. They'd been good friends at the academy for years, and a good portion of the audience thought their little friendship was cute. They told jokes and laughed a lot. Meanwhile, Seraphina sorted the weapons. She was an expert on weaponry and was clearly the woman for the job. By the end of the day she'd sorted everything into several different piles as well as organized them by size and blade thickness. Meanwhile, Nicolette did a short hunt of the land in the immediate vicinity. This hunt was not fruitless. Hydrangea from 11 was hiding behind a large boulder just beyond the cornucopia, waiting to run in and grab what she could as soon as the careers left to hunt. Nicolette spotted her and tightened her grip on her axe. The 1 girl was famously delicate in her movements. She never kicked a pebble and never made a sound. Hydrangea's world suddenly cut to black as Nicolette sliced off her head with one swing of her hatchet. The pest would not be taking their supplies any time soon.

 _Hydrangea Ansel, District 11 Female: 13th, Killed by Nicolette, Day 1_

The rest of Day 1 was deathless. Theo helped Cynthia escape west, letting her lean on his arm to keep her balance. Being so late in her pregnancy, Cynthia couldn't run, so the duo had to keep their movements at a fast walk. When the horn was finally out of sight, the duo collapsed in a jagged terrain where it would be hard for anyone to spot them. Theo helped Cynthia to a shady, cool area, and then the sponsor gifts poured down: food and water and medicine and painkillers and anything else a tribute could need in the Hunger Games. By nightfall the couple had a whole pile of supplies. The odds of Cynthia living long enough to see her baby were looking pretty good. Oriana ventured diagonally away from the cornucopia with a mint-green pack containing iodine capsules and a coil of wire. About an hour later, she settled down by a short stream, a tributary of one of the larger rivers of the arena. She used her wire to create a number of snares, which Oriana set at the riverside in hopes of capturing unsuspecting wildlife. Roscoe was less than half a mile from the cornucopia when he accidentally stepped in a snake nest, awakening the two loathsome brown rattlesnakes sleeping within. The 7 boy had to run at top speed to keep from being bitten, and only then he was barely keeping ahead of the angry rattlesnakes. He finally arrived at a small cave and pulled the large stone out of the way, revealing the entrance. Roscoe crawled inside and rolled the stone back into place behind him. He was safe, but he'd dropped all of his supplies. Now he had nothing but the clothes on his back, and with the snakes just outside he was trapped for the time being. April and Mack, allies, raced north. Little did they know that they were coming dangerously close to the cliffs where the vultures roosted. At nightfall they divvied up their food and water supplies and then nestled themselves under a scraggly copse of bushes, sharing a pillow they were sponsored. Corabelle was terrified out of her wits after escaping the horn. The confidence boost she got from killing Leopold disappeared in an instant. All she had was one knife and some twine and she was alone in the middle of the god-forsaken wasteland. Half a day of travel took her to a small patch of dead trees, where she rested for the night. Having scored an eight, Corabelle was strong, but her little twelve-year-old self wasn't slow to snap under the pressure of the games now that they were in full swing. There was relative tranquility in the arena as the blood-red sun set below the east horizon.

The careers woke early on the morning of Day 2 and left to hunt almost immediately, leaving only Calypso behind to guard the cornucopia. Nicolette, Ronan, Herman, and Seraphina ventured west, and a few minutes later Ronan pointed out a faint smudge on the land a few hundred yards away. The pack drew closer to investigate and found a broken-down safari vehicle with open sides and a canopy roof. All four of them made an effort to repair the vehicle for their use, but they all failed. However, they knew that one tribute from 6, Oriana, was still alive. They figured if they ever found her, they'd refrain from killing her and instead see if she could help them out a little.

Several minutes later, Corabelle woke up covered with mud, her skin scratched all over from rolling around on the crumbly, earthy ground in her sleep. Corabelle knew she would have to leave sometime, but she didn't want to leave the little oasis, if one could call it that, just yet. She spent most of the day digging little holes and then covering them with dry leaves and sticks. The hope was that if a tribute or mutt was chasing her she might be able to break their ankles or at least disorient them enough for her to escape.

Theo and Cynthia had slept remarkably calmly through the night, and they woke at eleven in the morning to the beeping of a sponsor parachute. The carriage of the parachute held only one tightly folded slip of paper. Theo read the paper aloud. It contained directions to the nearest cave, where the duo would be much cooler and more comfortable. Both tributes let themselves sleep for another hour or so and then they got moving. They arrived at the cave about two hours later. Theo could fit inside easily, but Cynthia's torso being so bloated from the baby made it much harder for her to enter. Eventually, Theo managed to help her inside, and they rested for most of the day, Theo administering his wife food and painkillers when the baby started kicking at her.

The only other tribute inside of a cave, Roscoe from 7, was doing anything but resting. After twenty-four hours he was still trapped underground, unable to leave without being attacked by the snake mutts that were just outside. Roscoe nervously paced back and forth, licking condensation off the walls to keep himself hydrated, desperately struggling to think up a plan to save his soul.

April and Mack spent the later part of the day making a journey around a series of jagged mountains, but disaster struck sooner than later. April tripped on her untied shoelace, and she stumbled to one side. April tumbled about ten feet down the cliff side, coming to a battered stop on a flat shelf of land. She wasn't injured, but she was in terrible pain. Mack knew April needed rest, and so they stopped climbing for the day.

April and Mack woke on the morning of Day 3 to a terrible cawing sound that sent shivers down their spines. Mack, the animal expert, identified the call instantly as belonging to a fierce species of vulture found exclusively in the south of District 2. Mack helped April to her feet and ordered her to flee in a zig-zag pattern, which would make it more difficult for the birds to track her. He also told her that, if she managed to catch one of the vultures, her first priority should be to damage its wings so it couldn't fly.

But as the first vulture mutt appeared over the cliff top, both tributes realized catching it would be hopeless. The beast was the size of a pickup truck, with claws a long and sharp as steak knives. Mack and April screamed and ran down the hill, toward safety. Mack was abandoning all forms of carefulness, instead barreling down the cliff as quickly as his legs could carry him. April was moving downward carefully and therefore slowly, and the vulture mutt caught up to her. April screamed as the vulture picked her up with its talons and carried her high into the sky—then it dropped her. Mack, who had ducked into a fissure in the cliff face, couldn't bear to watch as her body made collision with the ground. She was killed instantly.

 _April Becker, District 7 Female: 12th, Killed by Vulture Muttations, Day 3_

Around noon the four hunting careers returned to the cornucopia. Calypso shared a bit of strange news with them. While they were away, Calypso said, a small pool of steaming purple liquid had appeared next to the cornucopia. She said she'd dipped her finger into the liquid out of curiosity, and then held up a fingertip that was burnt almost black. Nicolette started into the cornucopia and returned with a large tarp she thought would be able to cover the poisonous pool. Nicolette, Ronan, Calypso, Herman and Seraphina all had to work together to cover the pool. At one point Seraphina stumbled, and she might have fallen in if Ronan hadn't grabbed her by the back of the neck just in time.

That night, Herman stayed up long after the other careers fell asleep. He was getting very fed up of having to bring four other tributes with him whenever he wanted to hunt. Tonight, Herman told himself, he was going to get in a few solid hours of hunting all by himself. He volunteered for the first shift and snuck off once he heard the soft snores of the four tributes.

At one in the morning on Day 4, Corabelle slowly opened her eyes. She could see a dark figure moving a few yards away. Silently, the terrified outlier girl pulled herself into the shadows, where she wouldn't be seen. The figure moved into the pale purple moonlight, and Corabelle was able to make out the form of the 4 boy (she recognized him from the training center). At first Corabelle was tempted to stay in hiding until he left, but she didn't think she could live knowing she'd passed up the opportunity to kill another career. Her hope was that Herman would step into one of the holes she'd dug… yep, he did. Herman fell to his knees, gasping with pain, and Corabelle leapt out of the shadows. Corabelle planted her knife into Herman's back as quickly as she could. By the time Herman realized what had happened, the tiny wisp of a girl had melted away into the night.

 _Herman Stellan, District 4 Male: 11th, Killed by Corabelle, Day 4_

The sun rose on Day 4 and Oriana was the first tribute to wake. For days she'd been aimlessly wandering the landscape, desperately searching for a water source. There were several rivers near her, but dehydration was distorting her vision, making it even harder to find water. She had no idea the careers were specifically searching for her. If she knew, she might have given herself up to them voluntarily, if it meant they would supply her with food and water.

Roscoe finally got up the courage to leave the cave he was trapped inside. The snake mutts outside had left hours prior. Roscoe pressed his ear to the door. He didn't hear the hissing or rattling of the snakes… were they gone, or just being quiet to trick him? Paranoia was messing with his mind, and Roscoe figured if he didn't leave now he never would. So he rolled aside the stone and stepped out into the wasteland. Fortunately, the snake mutts were gone—but suddenly a fiery agony bolted through his leg. The boulder had rolled back into place due to gravity, crushing his ankle against the ground. Roscoe struggled to escape, but failed. He tried to move the boulder with his hands, but without being able to reach under it was a futile endeavor. He was trapped. If a mutt decided to attack he would be helpless. His only option was to somehow roll the blue boulder away, or to cut off his entire leg below the knee. Without a blade, both options seemed impossible.

Later in the day, Nicolette, Calypso, and Seraphina went hunting. The trio ventured north, toward the cliff where the vultures roosted, and they came closer and closer to the fissure where Mack was sleeping. The three hunting careers settled for lunch on a flat region of the cliff side. They'd been eating for several minutes when Seraphina perked up. She heard Mack's soft snores from nearby. Seraphina peeked into a nearby fissure, and sure enough she saw the body of the resting boy. She hissed for Calypso to pass over her machetes, and then Seraphina hurled the knives down toward Mack. The knives landed in his neck and lower abdomen. Mack woke moaning, and tried to crawl to safety, but he was surrounded by Nicolette, Calypso, and Seraphina in a triangle shape. The trio stood around for about ten minutes to watch him die, and then they left, not wanting to be around when the blood stains all around them started to stink.

 _Mack Wiles, District 10 Male: 10th, Killed by Seraphina, Day 4_

Less than a minute later, one of the career tributes met her end. Nicolette, Calypso, and Seraphina had departed in the opposite direction they'd arrived, heading across a thin pathway that ran perpendicular to the cliff face. They eventually reached a point where the path was only a foot wide; the girls would have to drop down from that point one at a time. Nicolette went first, and fell down safely. Seraphina, similarly, got down safely. Calypso was a different story. On the way down, she'd forgotten to make her legs even, and only one of her feet landed on flat ground. Her left foot landed over empty air. To the horror of her two allies, Calypso was sent tumbling hundreds of feet down, and she was torn to a pulp in a matter of moments.

 _Calypso Rios, District 2 Female: 9th, Killed by Falling off of Cliff, Day 4_

That left the final eight: Nicolette Mirthe from District 1, Ronan Curtis-Taylor from District 2, Seraphina Cheser from District 4, Theo Upsdell and Cynthia Upsdell from District 5, Oriana Tulin from District 6, Roscoe Mallard from District 7, and Corabelle Linette from District 8.

At ten o'clock that night, Cynthia's water broke. That meant she had about ten to twelve hours before contractions started and the baby wormed its way out of her body. Theo gathered together all of the painkillers she'd been sponsored over the course of the four days and told her to take them whenever she needed them, but to save some of the most powerful for when actual labor pains began.

Cynthia woke up screaming at eight o'clock the next morning and told Theo that labor had started and the baby was ready to come out. The story of the next hour is one filled with a lot of screaming and crying and panicking and blood and a number other unidentified substances. At long, long last, Theo held a baby boy in his arms. He quickly wiped all the fluid off of it and then wrapped it in a fuzzy blue blanket before handing it to Cynthia, knowing it would need her milk. The couple named their child Surge Thomas Upsdell—Surge for Cynthia's father and Thomas for her grandfather. Surge was the first ever child born in the games, and the youngest human being ever to enter a Hunger Games arena.

Toward the middle of the day, the careers found what they were looking for. Ronan and Seraphina had followed a river to the large watering hole that was the source of all other water sources in the arena. To their pleasure they saw a small girl lying at the side of the water hole, sipping greedily—Oriana from 6. Ronan and Seraphina cornered her against the lake and proposed a compromise.

"You. We'll take you to the cornucopia and you're going to fix a little broken car we found. As soon as that's done we'll give you enough food and water to last for the rest of the games. You won't regret it. And if you try to abandon ship… I think you know what'll happen."

Oriana's parents, and the entirety of 6, were screaming at their television screens for the girl to make a run for it, but she was too tempted by the offer of never going hungry to turn it down. Oriana followed the two tributes to the cornucopia. While Oriana fixed a few wires and such under the hood of the vehicle, Ronan and Seraphina filled in Nicolette on everything that had happened. They were trying to decide who should kill the 6 girl once she finished repairing the car when the girl returned, saying that she was finished.

Nicolette followed the girl back to the repaired car to inspect her work. Oriana explained that she had gotten the car moving, but not very quickly, only five miles per hour at top speed. She was really lying. She hadn't been able to get the vehicle moving at all. It would be an entire day before the pack found out.

Nicolette pounced toward her and swung her hatchet blade into her skull, nearly cleaving it completely in half. Now that she wasn't of any more use to the pack there was no point letting her run free. Sure, the careers had lied to her, but lies were the basic building blocks of some of the best stories of the games—and some of the best victories.

 _Oriana Tulin, District 6 Female: 8th, Killed by Nicolette, Day 5_

The rest of the day passed swiftly. By that point, Roscoe had given up all hope of rolling the boulder off of his feet. He attempted suicide as many as four times throughout the day but failed every time—his body's natural instincts were keeping him from running the jagged stones into his wrists at full force. If he didn't succeed in suicide, dehydration would naturally claim his life sooner than later, meaning his suffering would be over briefly.

Corabelle spent Day 5 fashioning a new weapon. After killing Herman, she now had three knives, but she wanted to fashion a fourth by herself, one that would fit snugly into her small hand. She found a piece of rock that was strong and brittle and chipped away at it for most of the day, her feet dipped into one of the large rivers of the arena. When her weapon was finally finished, the sponsors sent Corabelle a piece of rubber to wrap around the handle as a grip. This knife felt more natural in her hand than any of the others, so Corabelle figured it was the first one she would use if she was attacked.

A few minutes after midnight on Day 6, a cannon shot echoed over the barren plain. At the cornucopia, Nicolette and Seraphina were snoozing, while Ronan was sleepily standing guard. Suddenly the two girls woke to Ronan's screams. Seraphina grabbed a flashlight and shined it toward the entrance of the cornucopia to see what was going on. Two of the oversized vulture mutts had attacked Ronan on either side of his body, trapping him between their talons like a cage of cartilage. Seraphina sprinted toward Ronan to aid him, but Nicolette stopped her. She knew that the boy was beyond saving, and she didn't want Seraphina to get them both killed by revealing their position. Nicolette slunk into the shadows, and Seraphina reluctantly followed her as the vulture mutts carried away the screaming boy for supper.

 _Ronan Curtis-Taylor, District 2 Male: 7th, Killed by Vulture Muttations, Day 6_

The sun rose a few hours later, and the first half of Day 6 was largely uneventful. Cynthia and Theo were sponsored a lightweight baby carrier that Cynthia strapped to her chest. Cynthia gently placed Surge into the carrier, and the couple slowly walked westward in search of a reliable water source. Surge started crying instantly after his mother started bouncing up and down, so Cynthia had to stay home with Surge while Theo went hunting for water. The husband returned about half an hour later with two canteens full of fresh water, saying he'd filled them up from a small stream about the width of his hand.

Two more deaths occurred that day, in rapid succession. Miles away, with his ankle smashed and crushed under the stray boulder, Roscoe had been lying lifeless on the ground for hours, staring blankly into the magenta sunset—the last sunset he would ever see. For an entire day his body had been slowly shutting down, until something disappeared in the depths of his green eyes and dehydration closed its hands around him at last.

 _Roscoe Mallard, District 7 Male: 6th, Killed by Dehydration, Day 6_

Less than five minutes later, another cannon shot fired. Seraphina was the only career who was hunting, while Nicolette stayed back at the cornucopia. As the sun started to set, Seraphina turned back in the direction of the horn, hoping to return to her ally by dawn. Nearby, Corabelle was out of bed, wandering through the plain in search of a water source after the watering hole dried up. Corabelle should have known it wasn't a good idea to be out after dark. If she had stayed put in her damp little oasis she probably would have survived the night.

Seraphina had less than two miles of her journey left when she saw the scuttling 8 girl a few yards to her right. The career girl crept toward the outlier as quietly as a cat, and she didn't hear her coming until it was too late. Corabelle screamed as Seraphina dug her twin machetes into the back of her neck. Corabelle tried to run, but she was so disoriented she ran right into her killer. Seraphina leapt out of the way, and Corabelle fell flat onto her face, a dark pool of blood spreading out around her, glistening creepily in the moonlight.

 _Corabelle Linette, District 8 Female: 5th, Killed by Seraphina, Day 6_

There were now only four tributes left in these games, five if baby Surge was counted. Cynthia filled a bottle with her milk and then wandered off to gather more water, while Theo stayed behind to care for their baby. Neither member of the couple was eager to think about how the following days would unfold—one of them would have to die, and the remaining parent would have to win and bring Surge home with them. Unless they were both killed, or, heaven forbid, Surge was.

Meanwhile, Nicolette and Seraphina both left the cornucopia and spent the entirety of Day 7 hunting feverishly. They were desperate to rat out Theo, Cynthia, and their baby before the finale, but the duo was hidden well. At one point Nicolette came about a quarter of a mile from the place where Theo and Surge were resting, and Violet conjured a swarm of red rat mutts to drive her away. The two careers returned to the cornucopia at sunset, their hunting efforts fruitless. They were both horribly frustrated with their inability to track down the remaining contenders; falling asleep would not be easy.

But one of them wasn't planning on falling asleep. Seraphina stayed awake long after Nicolette fell asleep, and silently grabbed her machetes. Seraphina knew she was much less popular than Nicolette, and she knew that killing her off in the night when she wouldn't be awake to put up a fight would be her best shot at victory. Nicolette didn't think Seraphina had the guts to kill her off, which was why she didn't feel endangered staying allied with her so late in the games. But she was wrong. Seraphina could find it inside her to kill off her stronger companion. She could and she would.

Nicolette woke with a start and let out a gurgle as the first of Seraphina's knives sawed into her chest. The 1 girl stared up in disbelief, but she didn't have time to mutter a curse or try to retaliate before Seraphina finished her off with her second machete. Her death came in seconds.

 _Nicolette Mirthe, District 1 Female: 4th, Killed by Seraphina, Day 7_

The first half of Day 8 passed quickly. The only career left in these games, Seraphina hung around at the cornucopia, practicing with her machetes and a number of other weapons. She didn't think she would have any problem taking down Theo and Cynthia once the finale started, and their baby certainly wouldn't pose a problem, so Seraphina wasn't nearly as worried about hunting them down as her now-deceased ally Nicolette had been.

When the river nearest their home dried up, Theo and Cynthia had no option but to move. They stuffed all of their supplies into their packs, and as they moved, Cynthia carried Surge gently in her baby carriage. At noon Theo spotted water about a mile away in the form of a wide pond. The only problem was they'd have to come within a mile of the cornucopia in order to reach it, and they were afraid Surge would start crying and reveal their position. So, Cynthia stayed back with Surge, while Theo went forward to quietly fill their thermoses with water.

Seraphina was resting at the cornucopia when she spotted Theo's willowy form silhouetted against the bright morning sky. The girl grabbed her machetes and raced toward the boy, aiming to kill. Theo spotted Seraphina coming quickly enough to sidestep the first blows of her knives. Theo rolled sideways over the rock in an effort to escape, and he leapt to his feet once he'd regained his senses. Seraphina made a devious move, lashing out with her machetes to both his left and right, and Theo had no direction in which to run. Her two machetes cut into both sides of his body, and Seraphina tore them free, opening up two enormous holes through which blood could leave his body. Over the course of about ten minutes the father bled to death.

 _Theo Upsdell, District 5 Male: 3rd, Killed by Seraphina, Day 8_

Seraphina was about to return to the cornucopia when she saw the sun shining on the footprints Theo had left on the dusty stone. Grinning, Seraphina followed the footsteps backward, and in no time she arrived at the place where Cynthia and Surge were hiding. Seraphina leapt out from behind a rock formation, ambushing the mother, and Cynthia roared with horror, throwing herself in front of her baby. Seraphina had two machetes, but Cynthia had a fold-up spear she'd been sponsored, so she was far from defenseless.

Seraphina's first move inflicted a great amount of damage to Cynthia. She managed to bury her knives into the left side of her opponent's torso, drawing a thin stream of blood that rolled down to the ground. Cynthia keened in pain and retaliated by thrusting her spear into Seraphina's neck, but the trained 4 girl easily managed to block the blow.

At that point Cynthia realized Seraphina was staring at baby Surge, and Cynthia grabbed a handful of rocks, hurling them as hard as she could at the career girl and screaming, "YOU… WILL… NEVER… TOUCH… MY…. SON!"

Adrenaline was powering Cynthia onward so much that she managed to knock Seraphina unconscious before she could withdraw. The 4 girl now slumped over on the ground, Cynthia grabbed the girl's own two machetes and thrust them into her back.

 _Seraphina Cheser, District 4 Female: 2nd, Killed by Cynthia, Day 8_

At that moment Cynthia burst into tears and collapsed next to her baby boy, kissing him over and over again. She would finally be able to go home with her son and give him the beautiful life she knew he deserved.

She waited for the trumpets and the hovercraft. But they didn't come.

At that moment, in the far-away Capitol, there was chaos in the control room. About half the team wanted both the mother and baby to leave the games alive, while the other half wanted only one to be allowed to return home. Violet Turpin knew she would have to get the president's word on the matter. She scheduled an appointment with Coriolanus Snow immediately.

Violet knocked on the door of Snow's study and then entered.

"I already know what you're going to ask," Snow growled. "And the answer is no."

"Please listen to my argument," Violet retaliated. "As Surge Upsdell was born in the games, he should not count as a tribute, and therefore should not…"

"My answer is still no," Snow repeated. "I have given you infinite sums of money and workmen to build this arena, Violet. All I ask is that you stick to tradition and law and have one victor!"

Violet threw her hands in the air. "Then I propose a compromise. We pretend the baby was killed and take only the mother out of the arena. She can live out her life as your pretty singular victor. The baby will be smuggled out, and allowed to live out his life without the knowledge of the public."

"No!" Snow barked.

With great sadness, Violet realized there was no point in continuing to fight back. She thanked the president for his time and then returned somberly to the control room to inform her fellow gamemakers of the news.

Cynthia was cradling Surge in her arms when suddenly the voice of Violet Turpin rolled over the plain.

"My deepest congratulations go out to the final two tributes of the seventy-eighth Hunger Games: Cynthia and Surge Upsdell. May the odds be ever in your favor."

One moment, Cynthia was frozen-still, staring off into the distance, unable to process what she was hearing. The next moment, she'd jammed both of Seraphina's knives into her own chest. She gave her precious angel one last kiss and then slumped to one side, falling flat onto the ground. She was dead in moments.

 _Cynthia Upsdell, District 5 Female: 1st, Killed by Herself, Day 8_

"Surge Upsdell of District 5, you are the victor of the seventy-eighth annual Hunger Games!" Violet shouted.

The baby slept peacefully as he was carried up into the hovercraft. His family prayed the memories of the horrible things he had seen would leave his mind quickly.

 _Surge Upsdell, District 5 Male: Victor of the Seventy-Eighth Hunger Games, Day 8_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Despite access to a large supply of sponsored baby food, Surge was incredibly weak, having consumed only a small fraction of the quantity doctors recommended in the first few days of a baby's life. For much of the hovercraft ride to the Capitol he was fed on milk and baby food. He was the youngest victor in Hunger Games history, only four days old on the day he won. In the centuries of games that were to come this record would never be topped. He was also the victor the fewest kills, and the first victor never to make a kill during their games. In District 5 Surge was placed under the custody of his aunt, Cynthia's twin sister, an infertile woman who'd always wanted a son, and the two were finally allowed to move into the Victor's Village when Surge turned twelve. Surge's aunt made sure he understood his mother's sacrifice from an early age, and knowing that his mother's love lived on in his skin made him a very wise boy. It gave him a beautiful heart. As he grew from a baby to a child to a teenager to a young man to an elder, his politeness and graciousness were remarkable by everyone who had the pleasure of meeting him. His hours of charity work were countless as well. There was no doubt Theo and Cynthia would have been proud.

He was the second victor not to settle into the Victor's Village immediately after his victory, instead living with his aunt for twelve years.

Surge was the first victor not to have a victory tour.

Surge would live to age ninety, dying from a tumor around the time of the one-hundred sixty-eighth annual Hunger Games. He would marry and have two children, whom he would name Theo and Cynthia after his parents.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Surge is adopted by his aunt and sent to live with her until he's old enough to move to the Victor's Village.

Rye Boyum, the victor of the forty-fourth annual Hunger Games, dies from liver disease.

Victor Xhang and Remus Daley have a son via Victor's cells and a surrogate mother. They name their son Rochford.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)

* * *

 **A/N: Aw, that finale was really sad. If only Cynthia was still around to see what was to become of her son );**

 **I realize that the trope of sending a pregnant woman into the games is super cliché, but I rarely see stories where the mother gives birth in the games or only one of the mother-kid dynamic is allowed to go home. And I hope this chapter was enjoyable. The arena was pretty desolate once again this time, but that won't be the case next year…**

 **Which brings me to next year's arena. It's been brewing in my head for ages and it's crazy that I've only now found a gap in my schedule to fit this one in. I figured I'd put it here to get you all hyped for the next chapter. Violet finds an old set of the Harry Potter novels and so… Hogwarts arena! The tributes are sorted into houses, and they have to go to lessons, do homework, earn house points, return to their common rooms at night, have a wand choose them, and put up with the constant torments of a certain mischievous poltergeist. Now that I've mentioned this I'm sorry to say it might not be out for a while. I really want to take a week or so to focus on Broken because I want to wrap that story up soon… then this story will be getting my full attention again, just like the good ol' days. See ya' around :D**


	80. The 79th Hunger Games

**The 79th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The year of the seventy-ninth Hunger Games marked the end of President Coriolanus Snow's fifty-four year-long reign of tyranny. After the second rebellion started to peter out and die, President Snow ever-so-slightly relaxed his iron grip on the citizens of Panem, knowing the Capitol's war supplies were low and not wanting to waste any more than he had to. A group of one dozen brave district rebels saw the opportunity the entire country had been waiting for for years—the opportunity to assassinate the president. They kidnapped the head peacekeeper of 8 and destroyed his emergency communication equipment so he couldn't alert the minor peacekeepers that he was in trouble. On threat of death the citizens got all the information they needed—then they hitched a ride on a stray train and they were off to the Capitol. The group managed to stun passing peacekeepers, destroy surveillance cameras, wipe their fingerprints off of everything they touched, shinny up a number of drainpipes, and eventually drop down into President Snow's bedroom. The men quickly bound and gagged the president and then carried him away to a cold, dark, empty cell. A number of the group had prodigious hacking skills and managed to stream the whole process live on Capitol TV. The nation watched with thrill as the bound president was fed on a diet of honey and milk. A few hours later, 1320 pairs of mosquitoes were released into the room, one pair for every tribute that had been killed in the Hunger Games under his rule. The mosquitoes began feeding on his watery feces and vomit and then began sucking his blood and devouring his flesh and consuming him alive. The old man rocked back and forth, unable to scratch his thousands of itches or swat away the pests with his hands tied. As the mosquitoes bred more and more there soon became so many that they started digging deep down into his skin to reach the food they needed to survive. The group of rebels was caught days later and they were all executed. But they died knowing they'd succeeded in the feat hundreds of district citizens had attempted over the years. The nation would never know Coriolanus Snow's snakelike face again. With Snow dead, the Capitol needed a new president, and in Panem there was always somebody waiting in the wings to take over. Cassia Obsidian was a short, plucky woman who was feisty and very spirited, and she became the president the second Snow died. Cassia ordered her peacekeepers to demonstrate their authority as strongly as possible in the districts for a short while. After that, she ordered them to appear sporadically, in an unpredictable manner, so that district citizens would always have to be on their toes about when they would appear. This strategy worked remarkably well. President Obsidian was a clever woman who always thought her decisions through before making them, even when one option seemed strong favorable over the others. By March, Cassia had ended the second rebellion completely. In total, the rebellion had claimed the lives of 150,000 people—roughly a fifth of Panem's population—and the Capitol was still as strong as ever. This powerful message was enough to keep rates of rebellion at exactly zero through the rest of the year.

To many people's surprise, Violet Turpin was allowed to return for another year as head gamemaker. Typically whenever there was a new president a new head gamemaker was chosen, but President Obsidian was very fond of Violet's youth and creativity and let her stick around for her third year. However, Violet was facing a severe spike of artist's block, so President Obsidian invited her into her library to help her find inspiration. There was one particular series of books that caught Violet's eye. The stories followed a boy who learns he is in possession of magical ability, and must attend a school to hone in on his skills while he and his friends attempt to defeat an evil wizard intent on purging the world of non-magical people. Violet read the entire Harry Potter series in a week and instantly knew what her next arena was going to be. When completed, the arena was a recreation of Hogwarts Castle, the school attended by all wizarding children in Western Europe. The castle had dozens of mind-spinningly tall stone towers that spiraled away into the sky, and hundreds of magically moving staircases winding through its chambers and corridors. This year the tributes would take the roles of newcomers at Hogwarts, and would have to attend classes in various areas of the castle. Below Hogwarts there was a vast network of freezing-cold, torch-lit dungeons. There was also a series of greenhouses and a hospital wing where there was a large supply of medicine for the tributes. To the north there was an enormous dark forest full to the brim with magical creatures. At the edge of the forest there was a cozy cabin where the merry Hogwarts groundkeeper, Rubeus Hagrid, lived. The south end of the castle was on the shore of a huge, pitch-black lake that was home to a friendly giant squid. The only weapons supplied this year were knives. As the tributes attended lessons to learn more spells, the knives would become useless, as dueling with magic was much more effective than with iron weapons. The only "humans" besides the tributes were the Hogwarts staff. Most of these were harmless professors, but some the tributes would have to look out for. If the caretaker Argus Filch caught a tribute out after curfew they would be in big trouble. The few tributes that had read the Harry Potter books before would certainly have an advantage, but Violet hoped this wouldn't be too big of a deal as the games progressed.

This year had an exceptionally strong career pack that would definitely make these games one to remember. District 1 provided one of their strongest pairs yet, and they were both serious eye candy. The boy was handsome, funny, and charismatic, and quickly became a Capitol favorite. He also claimed to be the direct descendant of a Dark Days war hero, though this rumor was later disproved. The girl was the second of ex-head gamemaker Celesta Mirthe's twin daughters, and like her sister she was built to use the ranged weapons like throwing knives and arrows. 2 put on the least stellar showing this year, but both were at least somewhat strong. The boy was one of the richest district citizens, his mother being an overseer at the local stone quarry, and he was 2's mainstay, the super-muscular sword fighter. The girl had another pretty face but wasn't particularly bright. She did impress the gamemakers with her stellar survival skills, though. District 4's tributes were both keen, acute, small, and swift. The boy was a natural-born sailor, with impeccable eyesight and sense of direction, and he had playful eyes. The girl was similar in many ways but had a gaze as sharp as daggers and remarkable leadership skills. The scores of the pack were higher than average: four tens, one nine, and one eight.

The group of outliers this year was decent, and there were quite a few strong tributes and memorable personalities. The highest score went to the stocky Jacoma from 10, who was friendly and sociable and ultimately full of personality. She also had a knack for learning new skills quickly, which would definitely help her in this year's unique arena. There was also an eight, and it was earned by the exotically beautiful Evana from 12, who was more resourceful than a great number of tributes her district had seen in the past. Sevens were earned by Thay from 5, Kasey from 6, and Beckett from 12. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. Another standout came from 3 this year—Rubix was a published author who'd written a science fiction book trilogy that had hit shelves a few months previously. The trilogy took place in a futuristic society where technology allowed consciousnesses to be transferred between bodies, and the trilogy was so highly acclaimed it was selling in Capitol bookstores. Nelson from 9 was the son of the district's mayor. He was rather inexperienced from being pampered his entire life, but if he survived the bloodbath he was sure to receive sponsor gifts aplenty. There was only one volunteer outside of the careers: Kasey Slosser from District 6, who volunteered in place of her pregnant older sister. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Pharoah Iverson, 18, (10) 3-1 and Odette Mirthe, 18, (10) 5-1

District 2: Daeron Blackfyre, 17, (10) 4-1 and Troyessa Stalton, 16, (8) 9-1

District 3: Rubix Disk, 14, (4) 27-1 and Tayla Bette, 16, (5) 24-1

District 4: Grouper Sperling, 16, (9) 7-1 and Selene Marra, 16, (10) 4-1

District 5: Thay Purcell, 18, (7) 15-1 and Jillyan Goldman, 13, (2) 76-1

District 6: Railson Thripp, 17, (4) 25-1 and Kasey Slosser, 15, (7) 16-1

District 7: Cedar Pyne, 18, (6) 19-1 and Maylie O'Dwyer, 17, (5) 24-1

District 8: Patchwork Gravellesse, 12, (3) 67-1 and Satin Tussen, 13, (3) 58-1

District 9: Nelson Wheaton, 16, (5) 25-1 and Elizabeth Becker, 12, (4) 31-1

District 10: Sal Cohen, 18, (6) 19-1 and Jacoma Devlin, 18, (10) 6-1

District 11: Kale Finley, 13, (5) 26-1 and Cayenne Jennings, 18, (4) 29-1

District 12: Beckett Langley, 18, (7) 15-1 and Evana Phyler, 18, (8) 10-1

HGBO Bets: 17% on Pharoah, 15% on Daeron, 14% on Selene, 9% on Odette, 8% on Grouper, 7% on Troyessa, 6% on Jacoma and Evana, 3% on Thay, Kasey, and Beckett, 2% on Cedar, Sal, and Nelson, 1% or less on Rubix, Tayla, Jillyan, Railson, Maylie, Patchwork, Satin, Elizabeth, Kale, and Cayenne.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Before the tributes could enter the arena, they were brought together in a small wooden structure that was so crooked it looked to be held up by magic. There was a large channel of water in the middle of the building, on which thirteen boats sat. Beyond the boathouse, there was a misty black lake. Violet instructed each pair of district partners to climb into one of the small boats. This was done. Violet herself climbed into the thirteenth boat and then they started moving.

The tributes oohed and aahed and pointed as the glittering towers of Hogwarts Castle came into sight. When they finally reached the castle, they climbed out of their boats. Violet led them down a long path into the entrance hall, and then into the great hall.

The ceiling of the great hall, which was enchanted to look exactly like the sky outside, was dark and scattered with stars. Below it floated thousands upon thousands of candles, which illuminated the room with the help of a number of flaming torches lining the walls. At the very end of the hall, there was a rickety wooden stool. And on the stool was a very worn pointed hat.

Violet turned around once she reached the end of the hall and stared mysteriously at the tributes for several seconds.

"Congratulations to every one of you. You have been accepted into Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Violet spent the next few minutes explaining to the tributes everything they needed to know—that they were now in possession of magical ability, that they could perform various spells, and that they'd be attending classes to hone in on their skills.

Newcomers to Hogwarts were sorted into one of four houses. The houses were called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Gryffindor valued those who were daring, bold, and independent; Hufflepuff valued those who were hard-working, loyal, and patient; Ravenclaw valued those who were creative, witty, and wise; and Slytherin valued those who were ambitious, resourceful, and determined. Violet explained that the tributes would take turns wearing the Sorting Hat, which would sort them into their houses.

She pulled a long roll of parchment out of her robes. "When I call your name, you are to come forward. Odette Mirthe!"

Odette gracefully stepped forward and sat cross-legged on the stool. Violet placed the sorting hat onto her head. A rip at the base of the hat opened up like a mouth, and it started murmuring quietly.

"Hmm… tricky… yes… no… hmm… well then. RAVENCLAW!"

Odette sat down at the Ravenclaw table, smiling.

"Pharoah Iverson!"

The tall 1 boy shuffled forward and eagerly sat down on the stool. A moment's pause…

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

This went on for quite a long while. At the end, there were six tributes in each house. The Gryffindors were Grouper, Selene, Thay, Jillyan, Sal, and Cayenne. The Hufflepuffs were Pharoah, Troyessa, Patchwork, Satin, Nelson, and Jacoma. The Ravenclaws were Odette, Rubix, Kasey, Cedar, Elizabeth, and Kale. The Slytherins were Daeron, Tayla, Railson, Maylie, Beckett, and Evana.

"Now that you have all been sorted into your houses, it is time for each of you to receive a wand with which you will perform magic. My friend Mr. Ollivander will help each of you find the wand that's perfect for you."

At that moment a tall, thin old man walked into the great hall carrying a suitcase in his right hand. He set down the case. It was full of long, thin wooden boxes in which the wands were kept.

"I will call you up in alphabetical order to be chosen by a wand. Elizabeth Becker!"

The 9 girl stumbled away from the Ravenclaw table and took the first wand Mr. Ollivander offered. Elizabeth started to raise the wand, but the old man snatched it out of her hand, muttering about something that had to do with flexibilities and magical cores. It was a few minutes before Mr. Ollivander found the perfect wand for Elizabeth, and then the next tribute was called up.

In no time at all every tribute had a wand and they all turned back toward Violet.

"Oh. And one quick thing I shouldn't forget. Here are your schedules. During classes, there is to be no fighting, killing, or otherwise harming. Don't forget that."

Violet handed each tribute a roll of parchment containing their schedules. The tributes raised their eyebrows as they read over the unusual names of the subjects… Transfiguration? Potions? Divination?

"And finally, there are four cornucopias this year," Violet said. "Each house has a common room somewhere in the castle, and the house of which you are a member will determine where you start the games. I won't keep you waiting any longer. Gryffindors, take the doors behind me. Hufflepuffs, take those to my left. Slytherins, take those to my right. Ravenclaws, take those nearest the entrance of the hall."

The tributes hurried to do as they were told.

Grouper, Selene, Thay, Jillyan, Sal, and Cayenne rose up into the cozy, red-carpeted Gryffindor common room, clutching their items for dear life. They were all being exceptionally careful not to drop their wands or schedules onto the mines before they deactivated. They all knew what would happen if they did.

Grouper and Selene from 4, the two career Gryffindors, surged forward and both grabbed as many throwing knives as they could hold. Grouper didn't waste any time admiring how clean and sparkly the weapons were. He knew that, with only six tributes around the miniature cornucopia, he'd have to start killing quickly. The nearby Cayenne screamed as two of Grouper's throwing knives dug into her back, and she fell to her elbows, coughing up blood.

 _Cayenne Jennings, District 11 Female: 24th, Killed by Grouper, Bloodbath_

Thirteen-year-old Jillyan heard Cayenne's screams and rushed to her side to help her. She didn't think she'd be able to live with herself knowing she'd let another person die right under her nose without helping. By the time Jillyan realized the other girl was beyond saving, it was too late. Nearby Selene had already thrown a knife in her direction, and Jillyan was too stunned to sidestep. The projectile landed in the back of her neck, and she was gone in moments. By the time she was dead, all of the other Gryffindors had escaped and Grouper and Selene were alone at the miniature cornucopia.

 _Jillyan Goldman, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Selene, Bloodbath_

Far away, underneath the Great Hall, the second bloodbath was beginning in the Hufflepuff common room. Like Gryffindor, Hufflepuff had two career members: Pharoah and Troyessa. The tributes squinted as brilliant sunlight flooded their vision. The Hufflepuff common room was a circular basement sunlit through a number of glass panels in the ceiling.

All six Hufflepuffs headed into the bloodbath. Pharoah charged forward and grabbed two carving knives that were sharp enough to draw blood with the slightest poke. Patchwork from 8 was on one knee in front of the small cornucopia, stuffing loaves of bread into a mint-green pack, when he felt one of Pharoah's knives in his back. Patchwork dropped the pack and tried to run, but he wasn't fast enough.

 _Patchwork Gravellesse, District 8 Male: 22nd, Killed by Pharoah, Bloodbath_

Jacoma, the highest-scoring outlier in these games, was quick to find a pair of wicked-looking hunting knives. The 10 girl scouted the Hufflepuff common room and spotted Troyessa from 2 several yards away, trying to corner a smaller girl against a fat yellow sofa. Jacoma used her hunting knives to slice into both sides of Troyessa's neck at once. The blood flow to her brain was cut off immediately.

 _Troyessa Stalton, District 2 Female: 21st, Killed by Jacoma, Bloodbath_

The small girl Troyessa had been trying to corner before her death stared into Jacoma's eyes. She tried to utter a word of thanks to her savior, but Jacoma turned to run. Satin didn't realize why until it was too late. Pharoah was creeping nearer, and he buried his twin knives into Satin's chest. She fell to her elbows, coughing up blood. Then Pharoah was alone at the cornucopia.

 _Satin Tussen, District 8 Female: 20th, Killed by Pharoah, Bloodbath_

The Ravenclaws felt cold wind whipping around them and tussling their robes. The Ravenclaw common room was located at the top of Ravenclaw tower, the second highest tower in the castle, and the windows were open, letting the piercing morning breeze inside. Ravenclaw house only had one career: Odette from 1. This meant only one Ravenclaw would be killed in the opening minutes.

When the mines deactivated, two tributes fled to the exit: Rubix and Cedar. As they sprinted down the stairs of Ravenclaw tower, Odette made her first kill. She'd managed to snag onto Kale's robes. He tried to wriggle free, but Odette had already prepared her knives and there was no escaping. The 1 girl's wrist moved suddenly and then Kale was screaming, two knives having landed in his chest and foreleg.

 _Kale Finley, District 11 Male: 19th, Killed by Odette, Bloodbath_

The remaining six students were both fascinated and chilled to the bone as they saw the Slytherin common room for the first time. The common room was in the dungeons, and it was deep under the Black Lake. The floor, walls, and ceiling were stone brick. The cornucopia was illuminated by a number of rotating green spotlights overhead. Slytherin only had one career: Daeron from 2.

As soon as the gong rang Daeron snagged the robes of a nearby girl: Tayla from 3. Tayla desperately tried to fight back, but it was no good. Daeron dragged her to the cornucopia and slammed her head against the exterior wall. Blood and pieces of gore flew here and there, and Tayla died from head trauma in no time.

 _Tayla Bette, District 3 Female: 18th, Killed by Daeron, Bloodbath_

Only one more kill was made. The allied tributes from District 12, Beckett and Evana, had been chasing a girl around the common room for about half a minute. The girl reached the door and tried to open it, but her small fingers kept slipping off of the serpent-shaped handle. Beckett and Evana's knives landed in her body at the same moment.

 _Maylie O'Dwyer, District 7 Female: 17th, Killed by Beckett and Evana, Bloodbath_

The rest of the day was deathless. Classes didn't start until Day 2, so the tributes were able to wander wherever they wanted until the first day was out. Pharoah waited around the Hufflepuff common room for about an hour, putting the cornucopia in order. After that, he left the common room to do some exploring. The common room was in the same hall as the kitchens, and Pharoah raided the cupboards of all the magical sweets he could swallow. Grouper and Selene cleaned up the Gryffindor common room and then went hunting, splitting up to cover as much ground as possible, with Grouper hunting the north end of the castle and Selene hunting the south end. Daeron left the Slytherin common room at the conclusion of the bloodbath and briskly walked around the dungeons, searching for prey. Once and a while the wispy blue figure of a ghost would flutter past him, and they freaked him out but the 2 boy tried not to show his terror. Odette was so eager to start using magic that she grabbed a book off of a shelf in the Ravenclaw common room and began reading. She tried to perform a severing charm to cut a piece of paper in half, but the charm backfired and she caused two of the poster beds to collapse on top of her. Odette might have died if she hadn't scuttled out of the way fast enough. She couldn't wait for lessons to begin.

The outliers scattered. Rubix wandered through the north end of the castle and stumbled upon his heaven—the Hogwarts library. He grabbed a number of books that looked interesting and sat down on a fat blue sofa in a sunlit corner, reading about centaurs and merpeople. Thay fled down the steps of Gryffindor tower and then ventured to the darker halls of the castle, where there were fewer classrooms. When night fell, he ducked into the candle-lit trophy room, where he hid behind a suit of armor. Railson roamed through the dungeons and found the potions classroom: a large, dimly-lit chamber with colorful glass bottles piled to the ceiling. He spent the rest of the day shoving interesting-looking potions into his pack, hoping they would come in handy in the future. Kasey left the castle and sprinted to the Black Lake, where she sat on a wooden bench and read a book about flying broomsticks. Kasey had been reading for about half an hour when she heard the soft weeping of the tiny Elizabeth nearby. Kasey helped Elizabeth to her feet and whispered words of comfort into her ear. From that moment on, the mismatched pair were allies. Cedar was so eager to start performing magic that he grabbed a copy of _The Standard Book of Spells_ off of a shelf and started teaching himself his first spell. By the end of the day he'd mastered the wand-lighting charm. Nelson left the castle and walked towards a tall, wonky stone structure a few meters away: the owlery, where all of the school's owls were kept. He found the flapping and squawking of the owls to be somewhat relaxing, and he fell asleep quickly. Sal hid just outside the Gryffindor common room. As soon as Grouper and Selene left to go hunting, Sal started exploring the whole tower: the dormitories, the classrooms, and much more. At one point the Gryffindor ghost, Sir Nicholas, approached him. Sal didn't seem to be bothered by his transparent companion and they had a nice conversation about the school for several hours. Jacoma climbed out of a window near the Hufflepuff basement and found herself at the foot of a cozy, circular cottage. Rubeus Hagrid welcomed her inside and offered her some tea and biscuits, which Jacoma politely ate even though they tasted like dirt. Beckett and Evana, allies, quickly left the dungeons and found the staffroom. They walked inside and locked the door. Beckett had read the Harry Potter books, but Evana hadn't, so Beckett filled her in on the story, characters, and everything else she might have needed to know.

At six o'clock in the evening, the booming voice of Head Gamemaker Violet Turpin rolled over the arena, instructing the tributes of two things: that the tributes were forbidden to hurt each other until sunrise the following day, and that they had to return to their common rooms by nightfall or they would be killed. The tributes scrambled from their hiding spots and rushed to their common rooms, and they all made it in time. Staying asleep that night was not an easy task.

In the early morning of Day 2, the tributes hurried to prepare for their lessons. The Gryffindors had transfiguration first thing; the Hufflepuffs potions; the Ravenclaws charms; and the Slytherins care of magical creatures.

Grouper, Selene, Thay, and Sal walked into the transfiguration classroom and were immediately greeted by the tall, thin form of Professor McGonagall. Their first lesson taught them how to transform beetles into thumbtacks. Thay and Selene both managed to transfigure their beetles rather quickly, while Grouper and Sal needed a bit more time. At the end of the class, the professor commended them on their hard work, and they all hurried out. Pharoah, Nelson, and Jacoma descended into the creepy dungeons and followed their maps to the potions classroom, where the hook-nosed Severus Snape was waiting for them. He handed out cauldrons and ingredients and then wrote the instructions for a simple sleeping draught on the blackboard with his wand. Pharoah and Jacoma prepared the draught in mere minutes, whereas Nelson required the entire class period. The Slytherins—Daeron, Railson, Beckett, and Evana—left the castle and strolled down the grounds to the cottage where Professor Hagrid lived. They spent the class time working with doxies and fairies. Hagrid showed the Slytherins how to repel them using a few simple charms, among other things.

The five Ravenclaws—Odette, Rubix, Kasey, Cedar, and Elizabeth—followed their maps to the charms classroom, a cozy little room that had a great view of the Black Lake and the grounds. Professor Flitwick, the charms teacher, measured only about three feet tall. In his first lesson with the tributes, Flitwick taught the stunning spell. When properly cast the spell would cause a flash of pink light and then knock its victim unconscious for several seconds. Kasey and Elizabeth, the allies who met at the Black Lake, practiced the charm together. Odette, the only career in Ravenclaw, stayed in a corner and used the spell on various stone statues of gargoyles and goblins and the like. Rubix was also finding the spell somewhat easy, while Cedar was having the most trouble. By the end of class he'd managed to cast the spell correctly exactly twice. Professor Flitwick instructed him to practice and before he knew it he'd be a master.

When the Ravenclaws hurried out of the charms classroom, Odette followed Cedar away. The 1 girl knew Cedar would have no chance against her in a duel with wands. Odette didn't melt out of the shadows for several minutes. Odette yelled out the incantation, and Cedar ducked behind a tall stone statue just in time. The stunning spell caused the statue to crack in half, and it might have crushed Cedar to death if he hadn't scampered out of the way. Cedar attempted to fire a stunning spell in Odette's direction, but he was so panicked he kept messing up the wand movements. Odette easily managed to hit him in the center of the chest, and Cedar tumbled to the stone floor, unconscious. Odette then went in with her knife. He was gone in moments.

 _Cedar Pyne, District 7 Male: 16th, Killed by Odette, Day 2_

The tributes went their separate ways once lessons were finished. Rubix, a number of books piled up in his arms, ventured to the lake. He sat in the shadow of a tall oak tree, enjoying the warm day and reading a book. When he was finished with the books he continued practicing the stunning spell. Daeron hunted through the kitchens, the great hall, and the nearby corridors. At one point, he spotted a boy, Nelson, and chased after him. Daeron was fast, but Nelson was faster. The outlier boy managed to escape by ducking into an unused classroom and locking the door. In the Gryffindor Common room, Grouper and Selene practiced the various spells they'd learned that day across their classes. Railson returned to the potions classroom as soon as his classes were over. He took a quick peek inside to make sure Snape wasn't home and then crept into the damp, torch-lit classroom. Railson was completely addicted to several of the potions, and he stuffed dozens more of them into his bag, gorging down many more in the process.

Thay was resting in the trophy room when his eye caught on something outside of the window: the expansive Hogwarts vegetable patch, nestled between Hagrid's cottage and the black lake. Thay's mouth watered at the sight of the produce, and he took the most direct path out of the castle, wanting a quick bite or two. Thay sprinted to the vegetable patch and tore out a number of carrots and potatoes. He washed them with his wand and then started eating.

Thay realized he wasn't alone too late to be saved. Another tribute was in the vegetable patch: Jacoma from 10. Jacoma had been waiting quietly in the shadows for the perfect moment to attack. Jacoma leapt out of nowhere, and Thay screamed, dropping the vegetables and running for the safety of Hagrid's cottage. He was only halfway to the front door when Jacoma fired a well-placed severing charm, tearing open a long gash in his back. Thay collapsed, screaming, and Jacoma returned to the castle, leaving the boy to bleed out behind her.

 _Thay Purcell, District 5 Male: 15th, Killed by Jacoma, Day 2_

Another death occurred mere minutes later. Nelson waited, completely still, inside of the unused classroom for several hours, terrified that Daeron was still waiting outside. Once Nelson thought the coast was clear, he quietly left the classroom and scampered away. Soon, he arrived at the most peculiar room he'd seen yet, and that was saying something. The room was only the size of a small closet, and it was completely circular. The entire room was taken up by the stone statue of a magnificent eagle.

"Password?" the eagle asked. Nelson had seen so many crazy things over the past two days that a talking stone eagle didn't even faze him.

"Password?" the eagle repeated.

What Nelson didn't know was that he had stumbled upon the entrance to the headmaster's office. If the password was spoken correctly, a staircase would appear and the tribute would be able to climb up to the office. Of course, Nelson didn't know the password.

"Hmm… that's a tough one," Nelson stammered. "The password is… hmm... uh… pass?"

The eagle extended its wings and wrapped them around Nelson's body, pulling him in and squeezing him tighter and tighter. Nelson screamed and tried to escape, but it was hopeless. In seconds he was crushed to a pulp.

 _Nelson Wheaton, District 9 Male: 14th, Killed by Eagle Statue, Day 2_

At six o'clock that evening, Violet once more sent out the message that it was time for the tributes to return to their common rooms. All three Gryffindors, Grouper, Selene, and Sal, were able to make it back safe and sound. So were Pharoah and Jacoma of Hufflepuff, as well as Odette, Rubix, Kasey, and Elizabeth of Ravenclaw. Daeron and Railson of Slytherin were also able to make it back to their nook in the dungeons before time was up.

That left only Beckett and Evana. After lessons, they'd left the castle to go on a walk around the grounds, and the heat of the sun had made them so lazy that they'd fallen asleep. When Violet's voice announced that they had ten minutes to make it to their common rooms, they sprang to their feet and raced toward the castle faster than they had in their lives. It was at least fifteen minutes' journey to the Slytherin common room from where they had fallen asleep, even running. They would be very hard pressed to make it in time. Beckett, who was strong, was several strides ahead of Evana. Even so, he was getting more and more exhausted from the run.

When Beckett and Evana arrived at the staircase leading down the dungeons, they raced down as quickly as they could. But then disaster struck. Evana was only three steps down when she slipped on the moist stone and tumbled down the stairs, landing on her face. It took the girl almost half a minute to get to her feet. Beckett slipped into the Slytherin common room just as the doors were closing. Evana pounded against the closed doors, but they wouldn't budge.

Evana's heart skipped a beat as she spotted the silhouette of a hobbling old man growing nearer. She tried to run, but her feet were planted to the spot.

"A student out of bed?" Argus Filch sneered, holding up his lantern. "We can't have that?"

Evana didn't have time to breathe. Mr. Filch tossed the lantern, in in moments the girl's clothes were on fire. The tributes inside the common room heard her screams slowly fade away to silence as she was burned to death. Now, only half of the tributes were left.

 _Evana Phyler, District 12 Female: 13th, Killed by Argus Filch Muttation, Day 2_

The second night in the arena was, more or less, peaceful. Railson hunkered down in a shadowy corner of the Slytherin common room, downing potions that made smoke come out of his nostrils and hot wax drip out of his ears and a number of other things. Kasey and Elizabeth huddled together in the open-aired Ravenclaw common room, finishing their potions homework. Sal sat beside the fire in Gryffindor tower, conversing with Sir Nicholas as he scribbled the phases of the moon onto an astronomy worksheet.

The first half of Day 3 was deathless. The tributes once more hurried off to their lessons. The Gryffindors started the day with divination, the Hufflepuffs herbology, the Ravenclaws potions, and the Slytherins arithmancy.

After the Hufflepuffs' herbology lesson was over, they left the greenhouses and sprinted back to the castle, wanting to reach the safety of their next class as quickly as possible. Pharoah, the only career Hufflepuff, took a very long and indirect route around Hogwarts Castle, wanting to get in a few minutes of hunting before he'd have to sit through another lesson. Pharoah heard the soft cackling of a boy and hid behind a stone statue, waiting to ambush his prey. Railson from 6 stumbled into sight, laughing uproariously as pink bubbles spouted from his eyes and ears. All the potions Railson drank had dulled his hearing and flipped his vision and made him delirious beyond belief. It really wasn't anything at all for Pharoah to kill him off. Pharoah used a blasting curse to send the stone statue tumbling downward, and it crushed the potion-addicted boy to a pulp.

 _Railson Thripp, District 6 Male: 12th, Killed by Pharoah, Day 3_

The three remaining Gryffindors—Grouper and Selene from 4, and Sal from 10—had Care of Magical Creatures to attend as their last class for the day. The class was held by Rubeus Hagrid on the outskirts of the Hogwarts grounds, a few minutes' walk from the dark forest that shielded the castle from non-magical eyes. In their lesson, Professor Hagrid taught them about unicorns. Particularly, he showed the students how to safely collect their fur. Hagrid, holding a pair of small silver shears, bowed in front of the unicorn. Only when the unicorn bowed back, Hagrid said, should one attempt to collect its fur. Hagrid gently clipped the creature's hair, offered food to the creature as payment, and then walked away backwards.

The students then took turns doing the same. Sal went first. Shaking from head to toe, he gingerly approached the unicorn, bowed, waited for the unicorn to bow back, and then clipped the fur. He offered the unicorn berries as payment, then walked away backward. Hagrid congratulated Sal on his victory. Grouper went next, with an equally successful outcome.

Then it was Selene's turn. She approached, bowed, clipped, and fed the unicorn sweet berries as payment. Then, in a slip of her memory, she forgot to walk away backward. Unicorns were proud creatures that saw back-turning as the highest form of disrespect. In the blink of an eye the unicorn was beating Selene up and down with its hooves. Selene pulled out her Oak wand and struggled to fend off the creature, but its strong hoof snapped the brittle wooden stick in half. Sal and Grouper cringed as the girl was trampled to death over the course of about a minute.

 _Selene Marra, District 4 Female: 11th, Killed by Unicorn Muttations, Day 3_

As soon as lessons were over, Odette rushed to the Ravenclaw common room. She'd learned three new spells that day: the engorging charm, the levitation charm, and the summoning charm. Odette opened the jar of beetles Professor Flitwick gave her to practice with and spent the whole afternoon making them grow to the sizes of rats, making them levitate, and pulling them into her hand from dozens of feet away with the help of her wand.

The three other Ravenclaws went their separate ways around the castle once lessons were over. Rubix raced to the library to read up on more magical creatures. Kasey and Elizabeth were practicing severing charms when one of Elizabeth's spells went astray, cutting a six inch-long gash in her forearm. Kasey helped Elizabeth bind her arm with a white bandage she found in the hospital wing, and the two tributes rested in an unused classroom while Elizabeth healed, laughing and telling stories about their lives back home.

Neither Jacoma nor Pharoah returned to the Hufflepuff common room after lessons; they were both eager to hunt. By pure chance, the two tributes spotted each other from opposite ends of a long hallway around sunset. While killing housemates after curfew and during lessons was strictly forbidden, there were no rules against house in-fighting any other time of day.

Pharoah's first move was a devious one. His plan was to use the levitating charm to bring Jacoma up to the ceiling, then drop his wand and cause her to fall twenty feet to the ground. However, Jacoma used a shield charm to send his spell reverberating back, and Pharoah dodged his own rebounding charm by inches. After that the tributes spent several minutes sending stunning spells and severing charms at each other. All of them missed, except for one of Jacoma's severing charms, which hit Pharoah in the left wrist. Pharoah screamed as his entire left hand was cut off. He hastily downed a spare potion to help stop the bleeding. In that moment, Jacoma had a terrible, awful idea. She would use the summoning charm to finish off her opponent.

"Accio heart!"

Pharoah was dead before he had time to scream; the clump of bloody cells tore away from the 1 boy's body, flying toward Jacoma and hitting her chest. Pharoah's cannon shot fired, and Jacoma stumbled away, praying the graphic images in her mind would leave quickly.

 _Pharoah Iverson, District 1 Male: 10th, Killed by Jacoma, Day 3_

Daeron continued to relentlessly hunt through the castle in search of prey. At nightfall he spotted the shadow of Rubix, who was leaving the library. Rubix quietly scampered back into the library, and leapt behind a bookshelf, hoping it would keep him hidden. Daeron poked his head into the library, and Rubix fired a stunning spell over top of the bookshelf. The spell knocked Daeron out for fifteen seconds, during which time Rubix picked up his wand and his books and made a run for the safety of Ravenclaw tower.

That night, when curfew was announced, all nine tributes made it back to their common rooms in time: Grouper and Sal to Gryffindor tower; Jacoma to the Hufflepuff basement; Odette, Rubix, Kasey, and Elizabeth to Ravenclaw tower; and Daeron and Beckett to the Slytherin dungeon. That night, all of the tributes had enormous amounts of homework. While they had never been told, they could all guess what the punishment would be for failing to complete an assignment on time. Beckett took his pile of homework onto his bed, and he had only started on the first assignment when he realized Daeron was staring at him, as though trying to pinpoint what spell would be most satisfying to kill him with. This adrenaline made Beckett work even faster, and he finished all of his essays and worksheets in minutes. He didn't sleep a wink that night.

Minutes before midnight, a cannon shot came from Gryffindor tower. Grouper quickly finished his homework and went to sleep. The other living Gryffindor, Sal from 10, stayed awake. He only realized after he finished his potions essay that he'd approached everything wrong, so he scratched the whole piece and started over. After that, he tackled his astronomy homework. One of Sal's questions asked him to note the current stage of the moon. He crept to the window and pulled aside the red velvet curtains, peering outside. A long, thin tower obscured the moon. Sal leaned out farther and farther to catch a glimpse of Earth's pet rock, and before he knew it he had fallen out of the window. Sal screamed as he tumbled down thousands of feet, going ker-sploosh in the Black Lake. He was killed immediately upon contact with the surface.

 _Sal Cohen, District 10 Male: 9th, Killed by Falling out of Window, Day 3_

That left the final eight: Odette Mirthe from District 1 (Ravenclaw), Daeron Blackfyre from District 2 (Slytherin), Rubix Disk from District 3 (Ravenclaw), Grouper Sperling from District 4 (Gryffindor), Kasey Slosser from District 6 (Ravenclaw), Elizabeth Becker from District 9 (Ravenclaw), Jacoma Devlin from District 10 (Hufflepuff), and Beckett Langley from District 12 (Slytherin).

Day 4 entailed another day of lessons for the final eight. Grouper, the only Gryffindor, headed off to divination alone. Jacoma, the only Hufflepuff, traipsed to transfiguration by herself. Odette, Rubix, Kasey, and Elizabeth headed to charms. Daeron and Beckett made the short journey to potions class.

When lessons were over, Grouper sprinted out of the castle. He'd spent several days hunting exclusively inside. On Day 4, he wanted to hunt outside, where a few tributes might be hiding. Wherever he went, his eyes kept being drawn to the dark forest, and his spirit called for him to explore the place at least for a few minutes. Grouper shuffled past Hagrid's cabin and into the forest.

Suddenly, a thick, stretchy band wrapped around his ankle. Grouper tried to tear it off of himself, but it just got stuck to his hands. Before he knew it another strand was wrapped tightly around his abdomen. Then he saw the creature that was producing the strands of silk: an enormous spider the size of a pickup truck—an acromantula. Grouper only screamed louder when a whole dozen of the oversized spiders scuttled out of the shadows. He tried to run, but his silk bindings were too powerful. If you can imagine a death more horrifying than being helplessly torn apart by a colony of spiders the sizes of elephants, then let's hear about it.

 _Grouper Sperling, District 4 Male: 8th, Killed by Acromantula Muttations, Day 4_

After munching on Grouper's flesh, the colony of spiders laid siege on the castle, thirsty for seconds. Odette was resting on a marble staircase when she heard a faint scuttling, whispering noise from nearby. Odette withdrew into the shadows, holding her wand at the ready, mentally reviewing the most appropriate defensive spells if trouble should occur. And it did. Odette gasped as the first of the spiders leapt into her sight. She raced up the staircase. At the top she turned around and fired a stunning spell at the nearest spider, sending it cascading downward. This bought her enough time to flee to safety. Odette raced down the hallway and barricaded herself into the transfiguration classroom, hiding under a desk for cover.

Daeron grinned as three acromantulas scuttled out of the shadows. He was one of the few tributes yet to experience a magical duel, and he was more than prepared for the experience. Using the water summoning charm he washed one of the spiders away, and then Daeron's eyes landed on the Slytherin common room. He blew out the windows with a blasting curse, and then a torrent of water from the Black Lake came rushing into the dungeons. All three acromantulas were washed away, and Daeron rushed up to the ground floor as the water rose behind him.

When he saw the acromantulas approaching him, Rubix set down the book he was reading and fled to the back of the library. He quickly found himself cornered, with nowhere to run. Rubix turned around and busted out of the window with the help of a handy spell. The huge spiders were unable to fit through the window as opposed to the small boy, and the mutts shrieked in defeat, struggling to find another path toward him.

Rubix reached the shore of the Black Lake, and he suddenly went limp. Beckett from 12 was hiding in a nearby copse of bushes, admiring the view of the lake, when he heard Rubix coming and fired the spell in his direction. Before Rubix could regain consciousness, Beckett lifted up his limp body and shoved him into the black lake. He sank to the bottom like an anchor. He never woke up.

 _Rubix Disk, District 3 Male: 7th, Killed by Beckett, Day 4_

Kasey and Elizabeth were relaxing in the unused classroom when they heard the hissing spider mutts coming nearer. Kasey thought that if she and Elizabeth were quiet enough, they might be able to remain unnoticed. However, Elizabeth screamed and raced for the exit, and Kasey had no choice but to follow her. The two girls burst into the hall just as the first acromantula pounced toward Elizabeth, and she would have been killed if Kasey hadn't fired a stunning spell at the spider mutt at the right moment. The acromantula collapsed onto its back. The girls didn't wait around for more scary spider mutts to arrive. Kasey pointed toward a small broom cupboard nearby, and Kasey shut the door as soon as they were both inside. Kasey felt around the closet. Her hands never touched Elizabeth. Her heart sank. She'd locked her ally out!

Just then the 9 girl's screams erupted from outside. Every cell in Kasey's body screamed for her to stay inside the closet and protect her own life, but she knew she'd never be able to live with herself knowing she'd let a twelve year-old girl die without helping her. Kasey burst out of the closet and stunned one of the two acromantulas attacking Elizabeth. The other acromantula was crushed to death by a falling chandelier, and then the two girls disappeared into the depths of the castle.

The spider mutts chased Jacoma to the Hufflepuff basement, and Jacoma crawled through the doorway into the common room. She quickly plugged up the entrance behind her and then sprinted to the back of the room, praying the acromantulas couldn't fit through the hole.

Daeron raced through the castle for several hours. Nearly all of the acromantulas were on his tail, and they were all varying distances away: the closest would reach him in about ten seconds if he stopped moving. When he finally couldn't move any farther, he dragged himself to the nearest room—a girls' bathroom—and shut the door behind him. Inside, Daeron met the ghost that haunted the toilet, named Myrtle. Trying to ignore the sounds of the acromantulas as they pounded and banged against the door, Daeron crawled into one of the stalls, struggling to sleep amidst Myrtle's high-pitched laughter.

Surprisingly, all six of the tributes were able to make it back to their common rooms by curfew. Jacoma was already in the Hufflepuff common room; Odette left the transfiguration classroom through a back exit and climbed up several stairs to Ravenclaw tower; Kasey and Elizabeth raced up Ravenclaw tower as quickly as they could once Violet's announcement sounded; and Daeron received a sponsor note saying the acromantulas were gone, and then slipped down to the dungeons. The dungeons were flooded, so Daeron had to wade through the knee-high waters to the Slytherin common room. Fortunately, the top bunks of the beds were above the floodwater level, giving him a comfortable surface on which to sleep.

On the morning of Day 5, the ultimate muttation was unleashed upon the castle. The basilisk, also known as the king of serpents, could grow dozens of feet long and live for hundreds of years. In the Harry Potter stories, a basilisk inhabited the plumbing of the castle, and its faint whispers could only be heard by those who could understand parseltongue, snake language. In Violet's games, the basilisk slithered out of the Black Lake and slipped into the castle through an open doorway, hungry for human flesh.

Beckett was strolling near the Black Lake on the way to a History of Magic lesson when he heard the deadly hiss of the basilisk. He immediately dropped his books and stared straight down at the ground. He was one of the few tributes who had read the Harry Potter novels before, and he knew that looking into a basilisk's eyes was enough to cause instantaneous death. Beckett sprinted into the nearby Great Hall and crawled under the nearest table in search of shelter.

Jacoma heard the faint rumbling of the basilisk from around the corner of the place where she was walking, and she temporarily froze, confused. She didn't think the noise was a big deal, but she didn't want to take any chances. She ducked into the nearest room and held her wand at the ready, prepared to jump out and fight once she identified the threat. The monstrous serpent slithered past, and Jacoma had no idea its stare was lethal. The moment she gazed into the creature's bright yellow eyes, her wand dropped out of her hand. She wobbled back and forth for a few seconds before collapsing to her elbows, dead.

 _Jacoma Devlin, District 10 Female: 6th, Killed by Basilisk Muttation, Day 5_

Kasey and Elizabeth were near the base of Ravenclaw tower when Kasey saw the undulating body of the basilisk growing nearer. Kasey screamed for Elizabeth to keep her head down as they raced toward safety. The basilisk, having seen both of them, could move at immense speeds, and the two girls really had no hope of escaping. They had to kill the mutt. But how? Its scaly armor rendered it immune to most deadly spells. Kasey knew how. She pointed at the long wooden bridge spanning the ravine. As she and Elizabeth ran, she yelled to Elizabeth that they would have to draw the basilisk onto the bridge, and then cause the bridge to collapse. Both girls were terrified, but they thought if they were tactful enough they'd be able to get the job done.

Kasey and Elizabeth passed by the Great Hall, and Beckett peeked out from under the table. He'd overheard the last minute or so of the girls' conversation, and he liked their plan. He thought a third wand couldn't hurt, so Beckett raced out of the Great Hall and followed close behind the girls.

Their plan of attack played out remarkably well. Beckett slunk into the shadows as the basilisk appeared, and it followed Kasey and Elizabeth out onto the bridge. Then, Beckett leapt onto sight and fired a blasting curse at the bridge. Kasey and Elizabeth did the same, and then both girls ran for their lives, struggling to get off of the bridge before it collapsed. Nails popped under their feet like gunfire as they ran, but both girls made it to safety. The body of the basilisk fell hundreds of feet down to the bottom of the ravine, where it was killed instantly.

Suddenly, Beckett raised his wand and fired a lethal spell and the tiny Elizabeth. Though Beckett had helped the girls kill the basilisk, he didn't consider them his allies, and he figured killing them wasn't off-limits. Besides, there were only five tributes left, and they'd both have to die soon if he wanted to ever see his family again. The curse killed Elizabeth immediately, and she fell to one side, landing with a thud on the stone-paved ground feet away from the chasm that the bridge once spanned.

 _Elizabeth Becker, District 9 Female: 5th, Killed by Beckett, Day 5_

The moment Elizabeth's cannon fired, Beckett raced away as quickly as his legs could carry him. Kasey, infuriated at the death of her small ally, chased after him, and despite being much younger she could run just as quickly as he could. Beckett felt red-hot pain explode through his back as Kasey's severing charm cut a long gash in his back. He struggled to keep moving, but his energy was quickly dissipating into thin air, and in only a few minutes his body gave up fighting.

 _Beckett Langley, District 12 Male: 4th, Killed by Kasey, Day 5_

Miraculously, all was said and done in time for the tributes to reach their lessons. The final three consisted of two Ravenclaws (Odette and Kasey) and one Slytherin (Daeron), so lessons were much quieter and less eventful. Odette and Kasey headed off to Ancient Runes, while Daeron headed off to Arithmancy. Odette stared daggers at her fellow Ravenclaw, feeling somewhat insulted that a fifteen-year-old girl from 6 had made it to the final three alongside the two strongest tributes in the games. Though she was furious, Odette kept herself from attacking Kasey during classes, scared she would be killed as punishment for inflicting harm on the girl. Kasey was being weighed down by guilt. Only after killing Beckett did she truly realize what she had done, and the knowledge she'd taken a human life was almost too much for her to bear. Daeron was as ravenous as ever, and as he scribbled out his Arithmancy notes under Professor Vector, his mind was plotting and scheming and churning and burning with murderous, bloodthirsty thoughts.

Toward the end of Day 5, Odette and Daeron had an epic duel. They were walking in hallways near each other, and Violet sent off a loud banging sound between them. Both careers walked toward the sound to investigate, and they spotted each other from about fifty yards away. Daeron and Odette fired blasting curses toward one another at exactly the same moment; their curses collided in mid-air and dissolved into nothingness. For several minutes they fired blasting curses and levitating charms and severing charms at each other, but none of their spells inflicted any major damage. Daeron gained the upper hand by firing a confounding charm in Odette's direction; the 1 girl stumbled backward, dazed. Daeron sprinted nearer. Then he used a levitating charm to bring her to the ceiling. Then he dropped her. Odette fell several meters to the ground, and broke her neck instantly.

 _Odette Mirthe, District 1 Female: 3rd, Killed by Daeron, Day 5_

The remainder of the day was deathless. Kasey quickly returned to Ravenclaw tower after lessons were over, exhausted and wanting to rest. Daeron continued hunting through the castle, but it was pointless; he knew that it was impossible for a non-Ravenclaw to enter Ravenclaw tower, and that was where his final opponent was hiding. At curfew he slowly returned to the flooded dungeons and to the Slytherin common room.

Day 6 was the last day of the games. The two final tributes, Daeron and Kasey, left their common rooms at daybreak. Daeron had an enormous advantage over Kasey in terms of physical strength, but Kasey had the much sharper mind. In a magical duel, either tribute could have won. The finalists met in the great hall, and their duel began.

Daeron fired the first spell, a blasting curse aimed at Kasey, and she would have died if she hadn't ducked behind a large stone statue, which shielded her from the curse. Kasey was disoriented, but she eventually managed to cast a spell on Daeron that made him rapidly dance back and forth. Kasey was able to deflect Daeron's next spell with a shield charm, and then they were even. For nearly fifteen minutes the tributes fired an assortment of colorful spells at each other, and Kasey finally triumphed, sending a severing charm straight into Daeron's chest. By the time he hit the ground with a loud noise, he was dead.

 _Daeron Blackfyre, District 2 Male: 2nd, Killed by Kasey, Day 6_

"Kasey Slosser of District 6, you are the victor of the seventy-ninth annual Hunger Games!" Violet shouted as the ceiling of the great hall opened up, revealing the hovercraft.

Kasey fell to her knees, in tears, begging the families of the tributes she had killed to be forgiven.

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 6 was pleasantly surprised to receive another victor after only six years, whereas their previous wait had been an enormous fifty years long. Kasey was one of the more traumatized victors; for the three years following her games, she rarely left her house except for mandatory public events. All of the deadly spells she saw in the games made her extremely paranoid, and whenever she saw flashes of lightning she would retreat to the safety of her basement. She even avoided her balcony because it reminded her too much of Ravenclaw tower. Despite this, she was one of the few District 6 victors never to take up morphling, and she drank orange juice whenever her anxiety was up to prevent herself from taking the addictive painkiller. Around the time of the eighty-second Hunger Games, Kasey attempted to make a recovery and succeeded, doing so for the man of her dreams.

Kasey settled into the Victor's Village of District 6, the fifth victor to do so.

Her victory tour was nothing out of the ordinary, though District 2, hungry for their twentieth victor, was furious at her for killing Daeron.

Kasey would live to age ninety-nine, dying from blood poisoning five months after the one-hundred sixty-third annual Hunger Games. She would marry and have one daughter.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Kasey moves into the Victor's Village of District 6, the fifth to do so.

Johanna Mason adopts twin daughters, named Yewwa and Sycamora.

Apollo Reinold marries his fiancée Ivory Hester.

Meredith Powell marries a man from District 1 named Gleam Strouss.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)

* * *

 **A/N: I know it's not a good idea to incorporate loads of other fandoms into this story, because chapters can be confusing for those who aren't familiar, but I just finished my latest reread of the Harry Potter books and I just couldn't help myself. I also get that there's a lot of suspension of disbelief in this one, with the spells and potions and whatnot, but I hope it was still enjoyable :D**

 **Recognize this gal from my SYOT? There was a mention of her in the train ride chapter and one or two of the others, I can't remember off the top of my head.**

 **President Snow is dead! Woohoo :D**

 **I'll see you next time with eightieth games. Hope your lives are all going swimmingly.**


	81. The 80th Hunger Games

**The 80th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The seventy-ninth annual Hunger Games was not games to forget—with a fantastic arena and a crop of strong tributes, it would go down in history as one of the most popular games of its time. Many were curious as to how Head Gamemaker Violet Turpin would follow up her masterpiece, and she released a small trailer clip to keep the eager Capitolites satisfied. The clip, which lasted about ten seconds, opened with a chorus of birdsong. The camera swept over a colorful field of wildflowers, and then a bloodcurdling hiss pierced the quiet and the clip cut to black. From the minute the clip was released, Capitol news reporters, journalists, and filmmakers began releasing their interpretations of the clip. Additionally, a number of websites claimed to hold leaked information about the mutts, supplies, and careers, allegedly taken from "reliable" sources they were conveniently reluctant to name. What followed was one of the most embarrassing security breaches in Panemian history. Young gamemaker Carisa Mayberry, in an attempt to impress a boy she met online, revealed top-secret information concerning numerous elements of the arena. The boy went on to shout the news to every news outlet that would listen, and in no time at all the knowledge that the arena would be a meadow infested with venomous snakes was public information. It was far too late for Violet and her team to change the arena. It was all they could do to try and jail Carisa for her actions. To ensure this would never happen again, Violet and her team passed what would later be known as Turpin's law. Turpin's law stated that the punishment for interfering with or revealing any Capitol project without authorization would result in life imprisonment for a Capitolite and death for a district citizen. This law would remain in effect for almost two centuries before it was repealed. President Obsidian ruled the roost for another year, quieting rebellion with her mysteriously sporadic peacekeepers. While Kasey's underdog victory had been refreshing for the districts, the sheer complexity of the arena was enough to keep them intimidated into silence. This marked the first entirely peaceful year since the year of the seventy-fourth Hunger Games six years prior.

True to the news Carisa Mayberry so inappropriately leaked, this year's arena was a breathtakingly beautiful meadow. The cornucopia was nestled between two short hills in the dead center of the arena, and it was made of sparkly metal that glistened and gleamed in the sunlight. The meadow rolled on for miles in all directions, and it was scattered with an assortment of flowers more colorful than a crowd of Capitol citizens. Here and there stood small rock formations, the largest of which was a tall cliff to the north with lots of fissures and crevices in which the tributes could hide. Just south of the cornucopia, there was a stunning blue lake that was the color of polished turquoise. A thick forest surrounded the meadow to prevent tributes from reaching the force field—the trees grew closer and closer together until they were so close-knit a human body couldn't fit through. There was one big killjoy, though. The snakes. There were thousands of these snakes in the arena. They were each about three feet long, emerald green, and with patterned scales that looked like the designs on Persian carpets. Their cherry-colored tongues gave them impeccable smell, and their fangs injected enough venom to kill in hours. The snakes lived in small burrows around the arena, though they could also be found in dark, damp spaces like caves and the damp soil at the bottoms of lakes (they could hold their breaths for days at a time). In addition to the serpents there were a number of other harmless mutts, such as butterflies, songbirds, mice, and deer. Because of the elaboration of the seventy-ninth's arena, funds were lacking, so Violet had no choice but to make this year's arena much more vanilla. She still thought she could pull off an interesting games, however. She just had to play her cards right.

The career districts were each excited to send a pair of their best students. District 1's tributes were as beautiful as always. The boy was muscular, tall, and built to use the brute force weapons like clubs and maces. Meanwhile, the girl was blonde and seductive and extremely stereotypical, and she was famous as the daughter of two famous District 1 jewel cutters. The boy from District 2 was the star of the show this year—he was muscular, charming, charismatic, and he scored an impressive ten and 3-1 odds. His female counterpart was much shier and more reserved, and her laid-back nature played well with the Capitol. District 4 provided the cream of the crop this year. The male was a stunning, dark-skinned brute with your standard issue cold career heart, while the female was short and swift and one of the fastest tributes the games had ever seen. The scores of the pack were impressive: four tens and two nines.

There was a somewhat bland crop of outliers, and many of them were much more forgettable than some other years. Shocker from 5 was almost seven feet tall, charismatic, and handsome, and he stole the show with his swordplay and survival skills. He quickly became a Capitol favorite. None of the other outliers scored higher than a seven. Annabelle from 7 managed a seven despite only being twelve years old, and she was cute, mysterious, and playful enough to steal the hearts of the audience. The rest of the outliers scored between six and two in their private sessions. Very few of the other tributes stood out, and even Shocker and Annabelle were mostly memorable for their scores. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Zion Gusten, 18, (10) 5-1 and Ivelisse Lodes, 17, (9) 7-1

District 2: Tarquinius Orfe, 18, (10) 3-1 and Cyndala Parish, 16, (9) 8-1

District 3: Silicon Carver, 12, (2) 73-1 and Tallie Chett, 15, (5) 26-1

District 4: Coast Giddens, 17, (10) 4-1 and Danube Luongo, 18, (10) 3-1

District 5: Shocker Ingrams, 17, (10) 4-1 and Kaelyn Lane, 16, (4) 31-1

District 6: Buster Sharrer, 14, (3) 60-1 and Rueda Gershwin, 17, (5) 24-1

District 7: Maple Pedroia, 18, (7) 14-1 and Annabelle Haslit, 12, (7) 18-1

District 8: Velcro Godwin, 18, (5) 24-1 and Lissa Wolfe, 16, (6) 20-1

District 9: Dillon Baron, 16, (5) 25-1 and Blanche Clagett, 16, (7) 16-1

District 10: Leo Warland, 18, (7) 14-1 and Bunny Shildneck, 18, (4) 29-1

District 11: Ambrose Cutter, 14, (2) 69-1 and Elle Jalbert, 13, (3) 49-1

District 12: Verney Trainer, 15, (3) 45-1 and Brigitta Funnel, 16, (4) 34-1

HGBO Bets: 25% on Danube, 19% on Tarquinius, 17% on Coast, 16% on Zion, 10% on Shocker, 8% on Cyndala, 7% on Ivelisse, 3% on Annabelle, 2% on Maple, Blanche, and Leo, 1% or less on Silicon, Tallie, Kaelyn, Buster, Rueda, Velcro, Lissa, Dillon, Bunny, Ambrose, Elle, Verney, and Brigitta.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The sparkling gem of the sun shone on the various supplies surrounding the shimmering metallic cornucopia. It was an agreeable temperature—roughly seventy degrees Fahrenheit—and the tributes were relieved. After so many games with harsh natural conditions, they were grateful that the risk of natural deaths would not be quite so high this time around.

When the gong rang, two tributes fled: Tallie from 3 and Lissa from 8. As the two girls fled into the meadow, the other twenty-two surged forward. The bloodbath this year would claim a huge twelve lives.

Danube sprinted at the head of the onrush, powering far ahead of the other careers due to her speed. She picked up a bow, nocked an arrow, and started firing. A nearby boy gasped as an arrow landed in his chest, and he fell to his elbows, coughing up blood. Danube ran to his side to retrieve her arrow as the bloodbath began in earnest.

 _Verney Trainer, District 12 Male: 24th, Killed by Danube, Bloodbath_

In distress, Verney's district partner raced to his side and tried to staunch the flow of blood from his wound, but the girl quickly realized that he was beyond saving. She got to her feet and immediately felt the bite of Tarquinius' broadsword in her gut. The 2 boy grinned as he sawed the blade back and forth, and the 12 girl fell on top of her district partner moments later.

 _Brigitta Funnel, District 12 Female: 23rd, Killed by Tarquinius, Bloodbath_

Ivelisse grabbed an outlier boy by the back of his neck. He tried to run, but Ivelisse shoved him to the ground and pinned him down with her ankles. Ivelisse shouted for nearby Cyndala to hand her a weapon, and Cyndala handed her a miniature hatchet, which she planted into the boy's chest.

 _Velcro Godwin, District 8 Male: 22nd, Killed by Ivelisse, Bloodbath_

Zion swept up a spear and attacked his first victim. A shorter girl was standing just beside the cornucopia, struggling to shove loaves of bread into a bright purple pack, and Zion thrust his spear into her chest. The girl stumbled backward, moaning with pain, and she quickly found herself cornered against the cornucopia by two careers: Zion and Coast. Both boys had spears, and they went to town on the girl, peppering her torso with holes until she was unrecognizable.

 _Rueda Gershwin, District 6 Female: 21st, Killed by Zion and Coast, Bloodbath_

Danube made her next kill. She squinted her eyes to keep out the sunshine as she scouted the cornucopia field, and she spotted a boy half-limping, hands clapped to his side. He was bleeding out from a wound Danube had inflicted seconds prior. Danube fired two arrows into his heart with perfect precision. The boy was moments away from death, and he barely felt it.

 _Leo Warland, District 10 Male: 20th, Killed by Danube, Bloodbath_

Shocker from 5, armed with two hunting knives, pulled a tiny twelve-year-old boy off of the ground and threw him aside like nothing. The boy crumpled into a heap upon landing, and Shocker buried the first of his hunting knives into his back. He howled and tried to crawl away, but he kept slipping in the pool of his own blood and he bled out quickly.

 _Silicon Carver, District 3 Male: 19th, Killed by Shocker, Bloodbath_

Zion tossed his spear once again, aiming at an emaciated girl from one of the poorest districts of Panem. She was too shocked to sidestep before the point of the spear punctured her neck, killing instantly.

 _Bunny Shildneck, District 10 Female: 18th, Killed by Zion, Bloodbath_

Tarquinius made his second and third kills in rapid succession. A few feet away, two girls were fighting over a bag containing medical supplies. The two girls didn't see Tarquinius was coming until it was too late. The taller girl screamed as the point of the career's broadsword skewered through her abdomen and protruded from her front. The other girl was dumbfounded with shock, frozen to the spot, and Tarquinius easily polished her off.

 _Blanche Clagett, District 9 Female: 17th, Killed by Tarquinius, Bloodbath_

 _Kaelyn Lane, District 5 Female: 16th, Killed by Tarquinius, Bloodbath_

Coast spotted a young boy amidst the chaos and closed one eye, tossing his spear. Coast nodded with satisfaction as the spear arced along its path before landing in his back. The small boy was dead by the time his knees hit the ground, and Coast ran to his side to retrieve his weapon as the boy's blood ran in rivers through the grass.

 _Ambrose Cutter, District 11 Male: 15th, Killed by Coast, Bloodbath_

Cyndala was the last career without a kill, but she was determined to make one before the end of the bloodbath. She saw the perfect opportunity when a boy ran right in front of her, wanting to worm his way past the 2 girl to reach the cornucopia. Cyndala snatched the boy straight off of the ground and thrust a nearby dagger into his chest.

 _Maple Pedroia, District 7 Male: 14th, Killed by Cyndala, Bloodbath_

Danube's arrows were the deadliest weapons in these games, and a dark-haired boy knew there was no escape when the first of the 4 girl's arrows whizzed past his neck, missing by millimeters. The boy tried to run in a zigzag pattern to escape her arrows, but he ran straight into Tarquinius from 2 and fell to the ground. He was trapped between the two strongest tributes in these games. Danube and Tarquinius killed him over the course of about ten minutes, and his screams could be heard by several of the other tributes who had, unlike him, escaped the bloodbath with their lives.

 _Buster Sharrer, District 6 Male: 13th, Killed by Danube and Tarquinius, Bloodbath_

The rest of Day 1 was deathless. The careers, their pack unbroken unlike last year, paraded around the cornucopia. Tarquinius and Danube, the two strongest tributes, acted as overseers to the others, giving orders and only occasionally stopped to lend a hand at the work. After a few minutes Danube left for a short hunt, and she returned minutes later reporting the lands in the immediate vicinity of the cornucopia were empty of prey. Zion and Ivelisse sat in the back of the cornucopia and sorted supplies. For whatever reason, it was a tradition for District 1 tributes to sort supplies together on the first day, and the tributes laughed and told jokes to pass the time. Coast gathered all of the poison he could find—he knew from the leaked information that the arena was packed with snake mutts, and he was planning on fighting fire with fire, or poison with poison, rather. Cyndala sat in a dark corner of the horn sorting rations. She felt lonely and depressed and extremely left out. Being the most forgettable career, she didn't really feel she had a place in the pack. Around noon, the pack left to hunt, leaving only Coast to guard the supplies.

The outliers went their separate ways, wanting to get to safety before the first day ended. Tallie forayed the meadow, munching on flowers that she recognized as edible. The stems and blossoms were a little bitter, but the girl didn't complain. At nightfall she settled near a thin stream, a tributary of one of the larger rivers that spindled off of the sparkling lake, and she quickly fell asleep. Shocker had a mint-green pack that contained food, water, and medical supplies. He jogged toward the large cliff to the north and reached it a few hours before nightfall. The boy crawled into a crevice for shelter, and when a snake mutt wandered inside, Shocker grabbed it with both hands and twisted it back and forth, choking it to death. Annabelle, armed with a bow and three arrows, silently followed a deer mutt for most of the day. When the deer stopped to sip from a crystal-clear stream, Annabelle shot it in the belly, killing it. Using sponsored knife and salt, she sliced up the meat and wrapped it with part of her shirt to preserve it. Lissa jogged south for most of the day, and she stopped, out of breath, between two large boulders. She nestled between them, and she fit very comfortably, the absence of a pillow being her only inconvenience. Dillon almost sprained his ankle on his path away from the horn. Half-limping, he ventured through the meadow with his knife and a handbook on insects. He managed to get his water content by eating butterflies, which his handbook said were edible and very nutritious. Elle was terrified—she had nothing but a coil of wire and she was alone in the middle of the snake-infested meadow. She crawled to a nearby tree and dragged herself onto the lowest bough, crying softly to herself. There was peace in the arena as day turned into night.

Day 2 was similarly deathless. The career pack continued hunting. They were hunting in the meadow, but moving in the direction of the large stone cliff, hoping to reach it by noon the following day. They were set back when Zion started having an awful allergic reaction with the wildflowers in the meadow—ugly red spots were appearing on his face and his nose was stuffy. For the rest of the day Zion complained about everything—the drinking water being too warm, the smell of the flowers being too strong, and much more. Ivelisse, his loyal friend, stuck at his side, but even her patience was wavering as Zion whined louder and louder. While the two District 1 tributes rested, Tarquinius and Danube had a number of friendly duels. They both covered the sharp parts of their weapons with rubber seals to keep from hurting each other. Tarquinius taught himself a few new tricks with his broadsword, while Danube increased her already impeccable aim. All the while, Cyndala sat by, a blank slate look on her face. She was feeling more and more left out by the hour, and she was beginning to regret her decision of volunteering—she wished she'd waited until a year where the other careers would include her more often.

There was very little action among the outliers. Tallie continued picking flowers she recognized as edible, and she impressed the audience by weaving a basket with flower stems so tight that even water couldn't seep through. Tallie then piled a number of plants into the basket, creating a kind of salad, and she went to bed that night with a full stomach. Shocker attracted quite a lot of attention after choking the snake mutt to death, and when he requested the supplies to build a flamethrower they were sponsored to him in minutes. A note warned that, while all of the supplies to build the flamethrower would be given, it would be his job to find fuel. Annabelle rested in the thick of the forest, munching on small pieces of the deer she'd killed the day prior. The meat was tasty stuff, and she was thankful to have a food supply that would easily be able to last her through the first week. Elle was sleeping in the bough of the tree when she slipped and fell ten feet to the ground. Elle groaned and tried to move, but she'd broken both of her legs. She tried to drag herself away with her arms, but the slightest movement brought on unbearable pain.

Lissa was nestled between her two boulders, sleeping contentedly, when a chilling hiss woke her up. Three snake mutts were slithering in her direction, razor-sharp fangs bared. Lissa screamed and leapt to her feet, running east in an attempt to escape. The snake mutts were driving her toward another tribute, Dillon. Once the two tributes met, the snake mutts were recalled into their dark underground burrows.

"Hey. What's up?" Lissa asked, starting closer to Dillon.

Dillon faltered. His heart was beating a million miles an hour, and every cell in his body was screaming for him to run.

He shrugged, trying to remain calm. "Dunno. Is this the part where we kill each other?"

"No," Lissa answered. "All six careers are still alive. We'd best band together. We'd last longer."

And from then on the pair were allies. They shared supplies and stories, and then they started travelling toward the large stone cliff in the distance. At a slow walk, they couldn't reach it in one day, so they stopped at nightfall under a stone overhang and waited for morning to arrive.

A cannon shot fired at eight o'clock the next morning. The portion of the career pack that was hunting (Zion, Ivelisse, Tarquinius, Cyndala, and Danube) made the decision to split up. They were starting to realize how inefficient it was to hunt in the open meadow in one group, especially considering that they had so many members. Tarquinius suggested that, if they all went separate ways, they might be able to cover the entire meadow before Day 3 was over. The five careers split apart and spindled outward from that place, hoping to find prey. Cyndala was traipsing slowly along, holding her dagger, when she spotted a tribute: Tallie from 3, who was piling more stems into her basket. Tallie tried to run, but she was frozen to the spot.

"Don't kill me!" Tallie screamed. "Go away!"

Cyndala burst into tears. Her heart hurt terribly for the poor girl. She could easily have killed little Tallie, but as long as she lived she would always know that she had taken a human life. And as a strict believer in a higher power, she had to believe they would know as well.

"Run," Cyndala whispered. "Quick, before the others…"

But she was cut off as Danube snatched her straight off of the ground. Danube fired two arrows into the chest of the traitor "career" girl. Cyndala wriggled helplessly and tried to free herself, but Danube's grip was strong. When Cyndala's cannon fired, Danube dropped her to the ground, and she collapsed like a torn paper doll. Tallie had already escaped by that point.

 _Cyndala Parish, District 2 Female: 12th, Killed by Danube, Day 3_

The remainder of the third day was largely unexciting. On the outskirts of the forest, Elle groaned softly to herself, wriggling helplessly and willing her wounds to heal. After only one day without water, her mouth and throat felt like they were on fire. Elle screamed for help, but her voice was so weak that a tribute couldn't hear it if they were ten meters away. Lissa and Dillon continued their journey to the cliff. At one point they arrived at the sparkling blue lake, and they refilled their thermoses before continuing their journey. Only two snake mutts attacked them on Day 3, and Dillon easily managed to decapitate them with his knives.

The latter half of Day 3 passed with a singular peak of excitement. Shocker and Annabelle were within only a few meters of each other, and the gamemakers caused a small deer to scamper between them. The two tributes moved toward the mutt, and then the deer ambled away, leaving the two tributes alone and facing each other. Shocker had a sword (his flamethrower was far from complete) and Annabelle had her bow and arrows, so neither tribute was defenseless, but neither was particularly well-prepared either. Over the course of about fifteen minutes the tributes inflicted small cuts and scrapes. Once, Shocker managed to nick Annabelle's shoulder with his sword, but that was the worst injury inflicted. After twenty minutes the tributes gave up and fled in opposite directions to nurse their wounds.

On Day 4, Elle was finally put out of her suffering. At sunrise, a single emerald-colored snake mutt came into sight, and Elle just sighed, grateful that her misery was about to end. There was a short pinch as the mutt bit her ankle, and the ice-cold venom shut down her heart in minutes.

 _Elle Jalbert, District 11 Female: 11th, Killed by Snake Muttations, Day 4_

The career pack returned to the cornucopia and filled Coast in on the fact that they had lost one member. Zion kept whining about everything, and though Ivelisse kept siding with him she was starting to get put up with his annoying person. Tarquinius, the most annoyed of the group, kept shouting for Zion to stop whining, but the 1 boy refused to stay quiet.

Tallie reached a wide stream, one of the rivers that branched off of the sparkling blue lake, and raced along its curved path. She couldn't believe her luck—out of all the tributes that could have found her, it was the one who would refuse to kill her. She was starting to develop a cold, but her mentor Wiress held back the painkillers she so desperately wanted, knowing the money would be better spent later on. Annabelle fled from her duel with Shocker and came to a stop at a riverside. She pulled a few medical supplies out of her pack, cleaned her bandages, and started binding them over her wounds to staunch the blood flow. Day 4 was a rest day for Annabelle. Lissa and Dillon reached the cliff and began their journey upward; the quest was precarious, but both tributes liked the adventure, and a sponsored pillow made their nights much less uncomfortable.

Only one more death occurred before Day 4 was out. Danube was sleepily standing guard at the cornucopia, while the other four career tributes were hunting. Shocker was shuffling through the meadow, absentmindedly fiddling with his mechanical parts, when the cornucopia, a faint sparkling smudge on the horizon, came into sight. His feet were moving toward the cornucopia ten seconds before his brain had time to catch up. There would probably only be one career at the cornucopia, and the confident, reckless boy figured killing them off and taking a few supplies wouldn't be hard.

And it wasn't. Whether by skill or sheer luck, Danube didn't spot Shocker coming until it was too late. Shocker buried the blade of his broadsword into Danube's side, and the 4 girl whipped her head around, screaming. Shocker started to scoop up supplies, but he realized that reinforcements would come quickly, so all he did was sweep up a sky-blue pack and then race away into the meadow.

 _Danube Luongo, District 4 Female: 10th, Killed by Shocker, Day 4_

Days 5 and 6 were deathless. The careers hunted every day, bored and frustrated. Zion continued his whining, and Ivelisse continued to support him, but on Day 5 she finally broke. Ivelisse stamped her foot on the ground and told Zion that he had better keep quiet or he might as well sign his death warrant. Tarquinius was the only tribute who was glad that Danube was dead; now he was the sole leader of the pack, and he liked his newfound position of power. Coast sided with Tarquinius, not wanting to get on the bad side of the strongest tribute left in these games

Tallie continued travelling alongside the curved stream, munching on stems and sipping water whenever she got thirsty. Wiress finally gave into her pleads and sent her a single pill to help her with her cold, and it numbed her discomfort for a few hours but ultimately did nothing to cure her. Shocker settled in a small cave near the forest, letting the sponsor parachutes build up around him as he worked on his flamethrower. When finished, the weapon would only be able to send fire about a foot, and with grass as his only fuel it could only work for a few seconds at a time, but the Capitol still gobbled it up. Annabelle continued healing, feeding herself on cubes of meat from the dead deer and sponsor foods. Lissa and Dillon finally reached the peak of the mountain on Day 6, only to find an enormous pit inhabited by snake mutts. The tributes screamed and raced back down the cliff side; with two-dozen snakes on their sixes, adrenaline was powering them downward. Miraculously, neither tribute was injured. When they reached the base, the tributes leapt into a small cave, and Dillon plugged the entrance with dirt. Lissa and Dillon huddled inside, shivering, waiting for the snakes to leave.

The morning of Day 7, a cloud of black smoke billowed upward from the east end of the arena. The night before, Shocker had stayed up for hours putting the finishing touches onto his flamethrower, but he didn't want to test the weapon until he was caught up on his sleep. The excited boy quickly ate breakfast, scooped up the weapon that was assembled entirely by his hands, and pulled the trigger. The weapon was supposed to work like this: when the trigger was pulled, a wall would snap in half, mixing together two liquids. These would then catch the loaded grass on fire. This chamber would depressurize as the fire used up the oxygen inside, eventually causing a small hole to burst and the flames to shoot out for a few moments.

When Shocker pulled the trigger, the two liquids mixed together as planned, but the chamber depressurized so quickly that the entire area burst open, rather than emptying from a small pinpoint area. Flaming liquid flew in all directions, splashing over Shocker and the grass. Shocker rolled on the ground, trying to beat out the flames, but he was quickly fried to death despite his best efforts. The fire continued after his death, spreading outward and turning the fuzzy green grass to crumbly black waste.

 _Shocker Ingrams, District 5 Male: 9th, Killed by Himself, Day 7_

That left the final eight: Zion Gusten and Ivelisse Lodes from District 1, Tarquinius Orfe from District 2, Tallie Chett from District 3, Coast Giddens from District 4, Annabelle Haslit from District 7, Lissa Wolfe from District 8, and Dillon Baron from District 9.

Annabelle was sleeping at the riverside when she awoke to the smell of the foul black smoke. She jumped to her feet and almost screamed—the fire was mere meters away, and it was spreading quickly. Annabelle swept up her supplies, including her bow and arrows, and leapt into the river. She waded outward until she was waist-depth, and then she splashed briskly in the direction of the flowing water, hoping the fire would extinguish itself soon. Lissa and Dillon, after receiving a sponsor note that the snakes were gone and it was safe to leave the cave, had only travelled a few minutes away when they saw the fire barreling in their direction. The allied tributes raced back to the cliff; it was made of stone, and on its slopes they were safe from the fire.

Tallie was sleeping beside the lake when she saw the fire coming, and she was so surprised she rolled into the water. Tallie got back to her feet, sopping wet, and grabbed her only belonging in the world: her basket and the edible plants it contained. She swam to the middle of the lake, holding the basket above the water so it couldn't get wet, and treaded water for several minutes.

It was only a matter of time before the fire reached the cornucopia. Tarquinius was standing guard when he saw the fire coming. It was coming from behind, so he didn't notice the inferno until it was too late. Tarquinius roared for his allies to run for their lives. Ivelisse woke first and helped Zion to his feet, and the two tributes sprinted to safety. The 1s and Tarquinius regrouped at the lake about an eighth of a mile away. But they'd forgotten a tribute. Coast from 4 was sleeping in the back of the cornucopia, and he only woke when the horn started flooding with black smoke. He stumbled toward the entrance, coughing and trying to wipe the tears from his eyes, but it was no use. Inhaling so much smoke in such a short period of time was almost instantly lethal.

 _Coast Giddens, District 4 Male: 8th, Killed by Shocker, Day 7_

The morning of Day 8, after the fire had been burning for nearly twenty-four hours, dark clouds rolled in. With the first clap of thunder, freezing-cold rain was pouring down onto the meadow, forest, and cliff. The brush fire was fully extinguished in moments.

The only three careers left in these games were Zion, Ivelisse, and Tarquinius, and on Day 8 one of these tributes met their end. Zion just kept on complaining, more and more. He complained about the sun being too bright. He complained about the air smelling too much like smoke. By this point, Ivelisse had split apart from Zion and joined Tarquinius' side—both tributes were thoroughly fed up with Zion's whining.

"Shut up!" Tarquinius screamed after one particularly loud tantrum from the 1 boy. "You're in the Hunger Games! Of course we're not going to be sleeping in a five star hotel every night!"

"But the ground is just so…"

But the audience never found out what the ground was, because at that moment Tarquinius whipped out his broadsword and planted it into Zion's head, nearly cleaving his skull completely in half. Zion was killed instantly, and Tarquinius just sighed, relieved that the nightmare was over with.

 _Zion Gusten, District 1 Male: 7th, Killed by Tarquinius, Day 8_

Ivelisse stared at Tarquinius in disbelief. She knew Tarquinius didn't care for Zion's whining, but she didn't think he'd ever dare to kill him for it. Ivelisse turned and ran, tears streaming down her cheeks. Tarquinius halfheartedly threw objects at her back, but he wasn't putting much effort into his tosses. He knew Ivelisse would die quickly without his help, and besides, Tarquinius didn't mind being the only real career left in the games. Now he wouldn't have to share his supplies with any other tributes, for one thing.

After that, Days 9, 10, and 11 were all deathless. Ivelisse, having split apart from Tarquinius, fled westward, sprinting through the meadow until she reached the forest. Whenever snake mutts slithered out of the shadows, Ivelisse ran even faster, and she reached the forest around noon on Day 9. Ivelisse shinnied up a tree and settled in the lowest bough, where she rested for nearly two days, feeding herself on sponsored water and berries. Annabelle was sponsored a machete, and she rested in a small cave. She practiced with her machete by cutting down unsuspecting songbirds that fluttered inside. Lissa and Dillon made another trip up and down the cliff. It wasn't much, but it kept them relevant. Plus, there were fewer snake mutts around the cliff, which was a definite advantage.

Tarquinius, the only remaining member of the career pack, hunted through the meadow and forest. He had only been hunting for a few hours when he saw a small girl mere meters away, Tallie from 3. Tallie tried to run, but something about Tarquinius' eyes entranced her, making it impossible to turn away.

"Don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you. I want your help," Tarquinius said. The famous silver tongue of District 2 tributes was being put to use for the first time in years. "I'll give you food and water and everything else. All I need in exchange is for you to help me with my work at the cornucopia."

Tarquinius turned around and moved toward the cornucopia, and Tallie followed, almost hypnotized. Tarquinius' plan was devious. The 2 boy wanted to destroy the cornucopia, but he knew that it was nearly indestructible by normal means. The only things that could destroy the cornucopia were explosives, and if Tarquinius played his cards right he could use the 3 girl as a miniature bomb. For three days Tarquinius fed the little girl on huge amounts of food and water, and the girl quickly grew to feel comfortable and safe with the 2 boy as company.

On the morning of Day 12, Tarquinius' plan was ready. Early in the morning, when Tallie was sleeping, Tarquinius grabbed a pin and slid it into her neck.

"Oh shit!" Tarquinius screamed. "A snake just bit you! Did you feel its fangs?"

"Yeah!" Tallie yelled, rubbing her neck. "Was it venomous?"

"Definitely," Tarquinius said. "I don't think there's any cure. You have to dig into your neck and carve out the poison before it's too late!"

The naïve, dim-witted little girl was too terrified not to follow the career boy's directions. As Tallie dug into her neck, struggling to dislodge the poison that wasn't there, Tarquinius fled, not wanting to be near when the explosion occurred.

Tallie's knife quickly clanged against her tracker, and the gamemakers couldn't risk the girl dislodging it. The gamemakers blew Tallie sky high. Her body, and the entire cornucopia, was blown to smithereens. Half a mile away, Tarquinius gazed with awe and triumph at the smoking ruins of the cornucopia, grinning madly.

 _Tallie Chett, District 3 Female: 6th, Killed by Exploding Tracker, Day 12_

Minutes later, another cannon shot rolled over the meadow. Annabelle received a note from her mentor Barley telling her that the Capitol was growing bored with her inactivity. The scared girl scooped up her bow and arrows and sprinted toward the rocky cliff to the north, hoping to reach it by dusk. At the same moment, Lissa and Dillon were venturing down the cliff face. Annabelle spotted the two allies too late to escape. Lissa and Dillon chased after her, each tribute holding a knife, and Anabelle screamed for help while she struggled to place more space between herself and the allies.

After about an eighth of a mile, Annabelle turned around and fired an arrow in the direction of the allies. The arrow missed, as did her next two. Now, she held a bow with no arrows. She quickly grew tired, and the stronger, older allies caught up to her quickly. Lissa and Dillon both went in with their knives. Both tributes were thoroughly disgusted, but kept at the job until her cannon fired.

 _Annabelle Haslit, District 7 Female: 5th, Killed by Lissa and Dillon, Day 12_

The twelfth night in the arena was uneventful for the final four. Tarquinius continued hunting, as bloodthirsty as ever. With the cornucopia blown straight off of the map, he had no permanent home; Tarquinius settled wherever his whims carried him for short power naps every few hours, eliminating the need for a single long rest at night. Lissa and Dillon remained loyal allies despite the increasing pressure to split, and they slept on the outskirts of the meadow. One of Lissa's sponsors sent her snake repellant, which she sprayed around their sleeping area to help keep away the venomous mutts. Ivelisse, lying on her back in the meadow, gave a long speech to the audience. She told the Capitol about her years of fatherly abuse and the way she'd been forced to train against her will. It was all lies, and her story was pretty see-through, but inventing the story kept her brain working. It helped distract her from everything else that was going on in the stressful games.

Day 13 proved to be the last day of the eightieth Hunger Games. The first half of the day was uneventful. Tarquinius continued hunting in the meadow, believing that the cliff and the forest would likely be empty of tributes this late in the games. Lissa and Dillon travelled toward the cornucopia, knowing that the gamemakers often drove tributes to the cornucopia (or, at least, what was left of it) when there were only a few tributes left. Lissa and Dillon were about halfway to the cornucopia when they spotted Ivelisse's golden blonde hair a few meters away.

Ivelisse leapt out of her hiding place, holding her miniature hatchets. Lissa and Dillon hesitated for a moment, but they were both resilient tributes, and they quickly got themselves ready for a fight. Lissa lashed out with her knife, and Ivelisse quickly retaliated. While she blocked Lissa's blow, Dillon attempted to make a gash in her side, but the 1 girl scrambled out of the way. Their fight went on for about five minutes with the tributes inflicting small cuts and scrapes. Finally, Ivelisse found the opportunity to thrust her hatchet blade into Dillon' chest. Lissa tried to help him shield away the weapon, but she wasn't fast enough. Dillon let out a groan as the hatchet landed in his chest, and he tumbled to the ground, moaning and gurgling as he coughed up blood.

 _Dillon Baron, District 9 Male: 4th, Killed by Ivelisse, Day 13_

An instant later, Ivelisse fell to her knees, dead. While the 1 girl was finishing Dillon off, Lissa had snuck around her, and she planted her knife into her back before she had time to sidestep. Ivelisse was in too much pain to scream. Mouth open wide, she rocked back and forth on her knees until her death.

 _Ivelisse Lodes, District 1 Female: 3rd, Killed by Lissa, Day 13_

Lissa gasped as a bone-chilling hiss rang in her ears: ten snake mutts were right behind her, and each of them was reared up, fangs bared. Lissa dropped everything but her knife and raced in the direction of the cornucopia's ruins. Tarquinius was taking a short rest when the stench of ozone woke him up. Seconds later, a lightning bolt struck down a short distance away. Tarquinius scissored through the meadow, avoiding the lightning bolts that threatened to fry him to a crisp.

The finalists reached the cornucopia at the same moment. The lightning bolts cleared, and the snake mutts slithered in the opposite direction. Tarquinius had been preparing for this moment his entire life. If he won, he would bring District 2 its twentieth victor. Lissa was the true underdog; she'd been brought up in 8 to two factory worker parents, and with all of the outlying districts rooting for her it didn't seem impossible that she could pull out the win.

It was obvious who would win from the start. Lissa was too stunned to fight back for the first few seconds; by the time she got to her senses, Tarquinius had gashed open her torso with his broadsword. Lissa keened in pain, shrieking. She was forced to drop her knife. Holding her organs inside of her body required the effort of both hands. Lissa made a desperate attempt to run, but Tarquinius knocked her to the ground as easily as a domino. The 8 girl bled out in minutes despite her best attempts to cling onto life.

 _Lissa Wolfe, District 8 Female: 2nd, Killed by Tarquinius, Day 13_

"Tarquinius Orfe of District 2, you are the victor of the eightieth annual Hunger Games!" Caesar sang.

Tarquinius grinned madly and raised his bloodstained sword into the air for all to see.

 _Tarquinius Orfe, District 2 Male: Victor of the Eightieth Hunger Games, Day 13_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 2 welcomed their twentieth victor heartily. The celebrations were just as numerous and flamboyant as they were for Lana Voltaire, their tenth victor. It seemed to be a tradition in the career districts to celebrate every ten victors especially extravagantly. Children were given two weeks off of school to celebrate. Hours at the stone quarries were cut down significantly, and parcel day brought an especially large supply of food to the poor of District 2. Tarquinius loved the attention and the celebration, but he found it thoroughly exhausting, and he was glad to move into the peace and quiet of the Victor's Village. President Obsidian, unlike President Snow, was strictly against victor prostitution, and only allowed it with the consent of the victors themselves. Tarquinius was one of the few victors who actually didn't mind it, and he might have even enjoyed it.

Tarquinius moved into the Victor's Village of District 2, the nineteenth victor to do so.

His victory tour was a huge success; he turned out to be a great public speaker, and he knew how to please a crowd.

Tarquinius would live to age eighty, dying from pneumonia the month before the one-hundred forty-second annual Hunger Games. He wouldn't marry or have children, but he would have a number of girlfriends throughout his life; he just didn't see any reason to go through the hassle of marriage.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Tarquinius settles comfortably into the Victor's Village of District 2, their nineteenth victor to do so.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: This one was quick, wasn't it? Where I live it's two degrees below zero and there are like two feet of snow and ice outside and you have to spread out your legs and waddle like a penguin to keep from slipping. We introverts know this as the perfect excuse to stay inside all day. And write!**

 **Please review with any thoughts. I hope you all had fun reading this one :D**


	82. The 81st Hunger Games

**The 81st Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

President Cassia Obsidian's rule over the citizens of Panem remained in place. Unlike her predecessor, the devious Coriolanus Snow, President Obsidian's rule did not rely entirely on brute force and fear. Rather than only inflicting punishment, Cassia began inflicting rewards on the districts of Panem. For instance, in District 7, it was said that if the citizens could exceed their labor quotas by a mere five percent, everybody would pay three percent less in taxes. She also offered food and supplies to factory workers in 8 whenever their new designs played well with the Capitol, rather than overworking them as Snow would have done. Obsidian overall ruled Panem with a much looser fist than many other presidents the nation would see. She couldn't be the nice girl all the time, though. She still had the obligation of punishing rebels with floggings and jail sentences. Head Gamemaker Violet Turpin returned for another year. After so many torturous years watching other men and women steer the games ship, her mind was swimming with ideas for new arenas. All she needed was a pack of colored pencils and a loyal team of builders and the horrors of her imagination would be emptied into the nightmares of district children. Tragically, toward the end of the year, hosts Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith were both killed in a car accident. Several memorable interviews from previous games were replayed in their honor. Taking Caesar's place was his eldest son, Cadmus Flickerman. Claudius, a lifelong bachelor, had no children, so his niece Daria Pennypacker took the role after his death. Cadmus and Daria were an amicable duo; they would work well together for several happy years, and they would be responsible for some of the most famous interviews in Hunger Games history.

Violet Turpin was a woman who loved arenas with harsh natural conditions, and this year's arena would take that to the very extreme. The eighty-first annual Hunger Games were to take place inside of a bubbling volcano. The only space the tributes could occupy was a wide, cylindrical tube that led from the fiery heart of the volcano to the royal blue sky overhead. The curved walls of the chamber, which were made of rough black stone, were lined with ridges and stepping stones for the tributes to walk on. Additionally, there were dozens of rocky platforms that would gradually be consumed as the lava rose higher and higher. The very lowest of the platforms was where the cornucopia sat, meaning the horn and its supplies would be consumed in days as the glowing molten rock rose. The mutts of the arena were ugly beasts the sizes of dogs that looked to be fashioned straight from the hot lava, and they could spit fire incredible distances. The main highlight of the arena, though, was sleeping peacefully in a huge cave somewhere in the volcano. It was a dragon with roars loud enough to shake the earth and flapping leathery wings that could propel it onward at enormous speeds. It could use its spiky black tail as a club to slaughter its prey, and, to finish off the dangerous cake, it could breathe fire. The gamemakers would likely wait until the end of the games to unleash this mutt, however.

There was an average career pack this year, and several of them were forgettable despite their decent scores. District 1's tributes were polar opposites; the boy was your typical all-in-it-for-the-honor career who loved the Capitol's attention, while the girl was much more laid back and unconventional. District 2 provided the cream of the crop this year. The boy was tall, funny, striking, and memorable, and he was son of District 2's head peacekeeper. He displayed such a wide variety of skills in his private sessions that the gamemakers awarded him an extremely rare eleven. He was the first tribute with the score since Finnick Odair sixteen years prior. The girl, while much less extroverted, was very vicious and extremely beautiful, and her wit played well with the audience. District 4 put on a varied showing. The boy was the youngest at only fifteen, and he only scored an eight, but he was funny and calming. The girl, like Danube of the year prior, was among the fastest swimmers and runners the games had ever seen, and she knew sea life like the back of her hand. The training sores of the pack were average: one eleven, two tens, two nines, and one eight.

Many of the outliers this year were more memorable than last year. The highest score was awarded to the talented and lithe Marchesa from District 7. She was charismatic, beautiful, and could use a hatchet like an extension of her arm, and she was the early favorite. None of the other outliers scored higher than a seven. The sevens were earned by Dewitt and Safiya from 5 and Duncan from 11. The rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. Rishi from 7 was another standout because of his sheer height; he was exactly seven feet tall, and he was so thin he was like a beanpole. Safiya from 5 and Winter from 6 found out that they were distantly related after they were reaped; they formed an inseparable friendship during training, and they were allies. The last standout was a very sad one. The boy from 10, Jonny, was completely paralyzed from the neck down, and it didn't seem like he stood any chance at all. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Royal Telford, 18, (10) 4-1 and Salandra Gardiner, 16, (9) 7-1

District 2: Calandrus Tussen, 18, (11) 3-1 and Alivia Calver, 17, (9) 6-1

District 3: Septon Dallas, 17, (6) 20-1 and Telata Osare, 15, (4) 27-1

District 4: Murdoch Hinnon, 15, (8) 10-1 and Talisa Plummer, 18, (10) 6-1

District 5: Dewitt Spartan, 18, (7) 14-1 and Safiya Verbeck, 16, (7) 16-1

District 6: Paxton Haslett, 13, (4) 31-1 and Winter Nirae, 15, (5) 24-1

District 7: Rishi Dauphine, 17, (6) 22-1 and Marchesa Redwood, 18, (8) 11-1

District 8: Roark Taylor, 14, (3) 40-1 and Silky Ianis, 12, (3) 46-1

District 9: Archie Phyler, 13, (2) 76-1 and Mallory Eischler, 15, (5) 25-1

District 10: Jonny Givens, 16, (1) 100-1 and Gaelynn Patrick, 17, (5) 22-1

District 11: Duncan Lilard, 18, (7) 15-1 and Vieve Aransio, 13, (4) 27-1

District 12: Etienne Pick, 15, (3) 42-1 and Dusana Crop, 18, (4) 26-1

HGBO Bets: 30% on Calandrus, 17% on Royal, 14% on Talisa, 10% on Salandra, 8% on Alivia, 7% on Murdoch, 4% on Marchesa, 3% on Dewitt, Safiya, and Duncan, 2% on Septon and Rishi, 1% or less on Telata, Paxton, Winter, Roark, Silky, Archie, Mallory, Jonny, Gaelynn, Vieve, Etienne, and Dusana.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The tributes gasped with horror when they saw the bubbling pool of hot lava below the cornucopia. The lava was bright enough to light the entire inside of the volcano, and if they looked up they could see the dozens of rocky overhangs and stepping stones that spiraled upward. Sweating in their silvery suits, the tributes waited for the countdown to reach zero.

Unsurprisingly, not a single tribute turned tail and fled from the start. None of them liked the looks of the arena and didn't want to take their chances with what they could find on their own.

Talisa from 4 was the fastest runner in these games by a wide margin. In the blink of an eye she had reached the cornucopia and grabbed a bow and arrows, and just as quickly she was back at the pedestal ring. Paralyzed Jonny from 10 was lying on his front on his pedestal. He was completely helpless as Talisa fired an arrow into the back of his neck. He was quickly put out of the suffering he'd been feeling his entire life.

 _Jonny Givens, District 10 Male: 24th, Killed by Talisa, Bloodbath_

Calandrus thundered forward, snatched a small girl off of the ground, and tossed her to the side. The tiny wisp of a girl crumpled to the rough stone ground in a heap, groaning softly and trying to get back to her feet. Calandrus snatched up a broadsword and thrust it into her back.

 _Telata Osare, District 3 Female: 23rd, Killed by Calandrus, Bloodbath_

Royal hurled himself at an outlier boy and knocked him to the ground like a domino, grabbing him by either side of the torso and punching him repeatedly. Royal was trying to elegantly crush the boy's windpipe, but he failed miserably, only managing to make the boy cough slightly. Royal grabbed a dagger and thrust it into his stomach, killing him swiftly.

 _Dewitt Spartan, District 5 Male: 22nd, Killed by Royal, Bloodbath_

Calandrus, having wiped the blood off of his broadsword, fluidly attacked his next victim. In front of the stone cornucopia, a boy was rummaging through a crate containing loaves of bread. The boy saw Calandrus' shadow and whipped around just as the 2 boy slid his sword into his chest.

 _Archie Phyler, District 9 Male: 21st, Killed by Calandrus, Bloodbath_

Alivia and Murdoch ganged up on the muscular boy from 6. Both careers were strong, but the outlier boy was built like an ox, and he was surprisingly difficult to kill. Murdoch eventually managed to pin the struggling boy to the ground, and Alivia thrust a dagger that sat in a cluster of grey fungi nearby into his chest.

 _Paxton Haslett, District 6 Male: 20th, Killed by Murdoch and Alivia, Bloodbath_

Ultrafast Talisa nocked an arrow into her bow and fired at a nearby girl. The girl held a pack in front of her chest, absorbing the arrow. The outlier tried to run, but it was hopeless. Talisa's arrows were almost immediately lethal at that close range, once she managed to land an arrow into her chest.

 _Mallory Eischler, District 9 Female: 19th, Killed by Talisa, Bloodbath_

Salandra from 1, wielding two throwing knives, cornered a sniveling little girl against the cornucopia and hurled them both at once. They both landed in her body, and Salandra ran to her side to retrieve her throwing knives as her first victim's organs shut down.

 _Silky Ianis, District 8 Female: 18th, Killed by Salandra, Bloodbath_

Calandrus was not slowing down for one second with his kills. He thrust his broadsword toward a smelly miner boy, and he blocked the blow with a sword of his own. Their duel was short-lived; Calandrus managed to disarm the boy in moments. He turned around tried to flee, but Calandrus grabbed the back of his neck and shoved him to the ground. He would never rise again.

 _Etienne Pick, District 12 Male: 17th, Killed by Calandrus, Bloodbath_

Murdoch made the last kill. Wielding a crossbow, he grabbed Etienne's district partner by the neck and slammed her against the wall of the cornucopia. The girl slid to the ground, screaming, and Murdoch fired a number of darts into her chest, flooding her lungs with blood.

 _Dusana Crop, District 12 Female: 16th, Killed by Murdoch, Bloodbath_

The careers sauntered lazily around the cornucopia. The air temperature was in the one-hundred tens, and the heat came in waves from the scalding surface of the bubbling red lava. Royal, Salandra, and Alivia all worked together to cool down the cornucopia; they affixed a total of five fans inside of the cornucopia: three on the back wall and two on either side of the entrance. They were much cooler now that the stuffy air was circulating. Calandrus laid out a yoga mat inside of the cornucopia and started exercising; even though he was in the games, he refused to take a break from his strict fitness routine. Talisa's outstanding speed made her the obvious candidate to go hunting first; she did a quick search of the rocky platforms surrounding the cornucopia. Talisa returned in minutes reporting that there were no outliers hiding nearby.

The outliers went their separate ways, the majority travelling upward to place more distance between themselves and the lava. Septon had a thermos of water and a pack containing a grappling hook, which helped him on his way upward. He fled up several stories and then collapsed on a broad stone platform between two stalagmites, sweating. Safiya and Winter were luckily both unharmed, and they had grabbed a black case that contained water and food among other things. In a few minutes, the duo came across a small cave that was flooded with green gunk. Safiya and Winter waded through the sludge and then collapsed on a large stone like an island. Rishi, the tall, thin boy from 7, travelled upward carrying a hatchet and a loaf of bread. He came to a sturdy stone platform and then rolled over the rough stone. The fine dust stuck onto his skin in layers, acting as a kind of natural camouflage. Marchesa was bleeding heavily from an arrow would inflicted by Talisa. Leaning forward to block the flow of blood, the 7 girl fled toward safety. She rested in a cave, healing herself on sponsored medical supplies and hoping she could heal soon. Tiny Roark was terrified as he trod the path of narrow stepping stones higher and higher. Crying softly to himself, he crouched down on one of the larger stepping stones and licked condensed water off of the wall to keep himself hydrated. Gaelynn was the only tribute who travelled downward. Knowing that hot air travelled upward, the girl found a cave that slanted down, and the bottom of this cave was pleasantly cool. She had no weapons, so she decided to fashion one herself. She spent all day chipping away at a black stone, sharpening its point until she had a deadly weapon. Duncan and Vieve from 11 were extremely mismatched by ages and training scores, but a sense of district loyalty held them in an alliance. They climbed upward to a cave that had a terrifying view of the bubbling lava below, and they tried not to look outside as they munched on sponsor foods and saltine crackers from the cornucopia. When night fell, the royal blue sky turned inky-black and scattered with stars. There was peace in the cylindrical inside of the volcano.

A cannon shot fired a few hours after midnight, frightening most of the tributes awake. The career pack, minus Royal, who was guarding the cornucopia, had settled down to rest on a rough platform that jutted out of the vertical stone wall. The trouble was that the platform sloped down on either side; if a career lost control, they could easily tumble off of the side, and that was exactly what happened. In the middle of the night, Alivia rolled sharply to one side. She started quickly rolling downward, and she woke up screaming. Even superfast Talisa couldn't reach her in time. The careers peered over the side of the platform and watched Alivia tumble thousands of feet downward before landing with a slap on the surface of the lava.

 _Alivia Calver, District 2 Female: 15th, Killed by Lava, Day 2_

The remainder of the career pack figured Alivia's death was their signal to start the day. For the first few minutes the lack of light was an issue, but before long the sky brightened up and they could see more clearly. Salandra hurried away to gather breakfast. The only food inside of the volcano was scratchy edible moss that clung to the stone walls with thousands of tiny hooks. Salandra returned with her arms full of the moss, and breakfast was not a happy affair that morning. Talisa, who was always antsy to move around, skipped back and forth impatiently. She was somewhat shaken up by Alivia's death a few hours previously, but she tried not to let it bother her. Calandrus was happy with how his games were going; he felt he had a decent career pack, and with the exceptions of a few tributes like Marchesa the outliers would be relatively easy to pick off this year. Murdoch helped Calandrus break camp. Murdoch was holding the pack's only jug of water when he dropped it, creating a small crack. Fortunately, the jug cracked near the top, so it wasn't enough to completely empty the jug, but it irked Calandrus that he had an ally who was so clumsy.

Gaelynn woke and rubbed her eyes groggily. She was captivated by a gravelly, smoky smell. When she realized what it was, she raced for the exit. The rising lava had reached her cave, and it was now pouring inside, running in rivers over the stone and sizzling upon contact with the cool air. Gaelynn escaped moments before the only exit was covered by lava, and she raced upward, clutching her scant possessions for dear life.

The next few hours were deathless. Septon woke and groaned as he got to his feet. He'd gotten a terrible night's sleep; under all of his clothes, the night had been so hot he was sweating from head to foot, and without a pillow he had tossed and turned for hours at a time. The 3 boy decided to put science to use, and he found an area that slanted downward. He found a comfy spot between two stalagmites and quickly fell asleep where it was cooler. Safiya and Winter woke a few minutes later and spotted a handsome supply of sponsored food and water at the entrance of the cave. Winter waded through the green sludge to retrieve the supplies and carried them back to the island for herself and Safiya to eat.

Around noon, a cannon shot fired. Rishi's natural camouflage helped to keep the other tributes from spotting him, but it did little to keep away the vicious mutts that were sleeping nearby. Rishi left the cave to search for food and was immediately surrounded by the mutts. Each of them was roughly the size and shape of a dog, but they were fashioned out of glowing, red-hot lava. The beanpole of a boy sprinted forward and jumped over the smallest of the mutts. Its fangs grazed his ankle, singing off part of his pant leg. Rishi ran from the mutts for about twenty minutes. It looked like he might escape his doom after all, but then his foot hit a stone and he fell flat onto his face. He was surrounded in moments. Rishi was fried to death as the mutts opened their mouths and spit out tongues of flame.

 _Rishi Dauphine, District 7 Male: 14th, Killed by Lava Muttations, Day 2_

Rishi's district partner, Marchesa, was on the other side of the volcano. For the past few hours, she had been regularly cleaning her bandages and taking medication, but now that her supplies were low she had no choice but to get moving. Fortunately, the wound in her upper leg healed quickly. Holding her twin hatchets, Marchesa ventured up the narrow path of stepping stones. Less than ten minutes later, she spotted little Roark from 8 hiding behind a stalagmite. Marchesa tried to kill him, but the nimble boy escaped her easily.

Vieve and Duncan plotted a large course ahead of them. For the first few hours of the day, the tributes wandered aimlessly around, taking the stepping stones up and down and stopping on platforms to rest from time to time. That evening, however, Duncan spotted something spectacular. A long strip of stepping stones led around the entire volcano and returned to where it started. Duncan and Vieve managed about half of the journey, and when night fell they crammed themselves into a small cave to sleep. Duncan fell asleep quickly, but Vieve lay awake for hours. She knew that her chances of winning would increase if she killed Duncan. In an arena like this, it would be so easy. She just had to push him off the edge of the cave and he would tumble thousands of feet down into the lava.

Duncan woke up screaming when Vieve pushed him in the back. He flailed his limbs and tried to grab onto anything for support, but he couldn't stop himself from falling off the side of the cave. Duncan was killed instantly upon contact with the lava, and a sense of guilt settled in Vieve's gut. She tried to ignore it, but it wasn't easy. She had killed.

 _Duncan Lilard, District 11 Male: 13th, Killed by Vieve, Day 2_

Day 3 came about with a singular peak of excitement. The lava rose by a substantial amount, but no tributes were that low so this was largely ignored by the cameras. The cameras were really focused on what was transpiring at the north end of the volcano's cylindrical interior. Marchesa, wielding twin hatches, was stepping precariously over the stepping stones in one direction. That morning, she'd drunk from a small pool thinking it was clean, but a chemical in the water was causing her to experience hallucinations. She thought she saw a crystal clear fountain of water, and she was moving toward it. But Marchesa was really moving toward the career pack. With the exception of Royal, all of the careers were in one spot: Salandra, Calandrus, Murdoch, and Talisa. The audience was in anticipation as to how the inevitable meeting would play out: could the strongest outlier in these games beat down the toughest of opponents and get away safe and sound? Time would tell.

Calandrus, who was at the front of the procession, was the first to spot Marchesa's shadowy form. He ordered his allies to stop in their tracks and remain dead silent while he identified the tribute. As Marchesa drew closer, Calandrus ordered his troops to charge. Talisa was naturally at the head of the onrush, and her first blow sent Marchesa reeling. With only one arrow, Talisa punctured the shoulder of the outlier girl. Marchesa immediately snapped out of her hallucinations and tightened her grip around her hatchets. Marchesa spun around and around but struggled to discern where Talisa had gone. By the time she found her again, both Calandrus and Murdoch were in the front lines. Marchesa instinctively lunged out with her hatchet. Murdoch let out a gasp as the 7 girl's hatchet blade landed in his chest, cracking several of his ribs. The sailor boy was already beyond saving.

 _Murdoch Hinnon, District 4 Male: 12th, Killed by Marchesa, Day 3_

Marchesa was on a roll, and her very next hatchet blow dealt a lethal wound to Salandra. The 1 girl had been largely hanging back for much of the duel, but was now on the front lines on Calandrus' orders. Marchesa swung her hatchet and cut into Salandra's hand, leaving the appendage hanging off by a thin strip of flesh.

Unfortunately, Marchesa's strength couldn't last forever. The trained careers could keep running long after Marchesa's legs lost their strength. On her knees, the outlier girl was helpless as Calandrus hacked open her back with his broadsword. Blood flew here and there, and the other careers fell back, intimidated, as the eleven-scoring boy cut his fallen rival to ribbons.

 _Marchesa Redwood, District 7 Female: 11th, Killed by Calandrus, Day 3_

With the fight at its conclusion, Salandra, Calandrus, and Talisa returned to the cornucopia. Salandra was losing dangerous amounts of blood through her severed hand, and it looked as though she might bleed out in only a few hours if the others couldn't help her. Talisa had exceptional medical skills: her mother was a nurse. On the way back to the horn, Talisa did her best to help Salandra heal, but there was little she could do until they reached the cornucopia and had access to their supply of medical resources.

The three careers arrived at the cornucopia to find their ally Royal dead. Only a few minutes earlier, the 1 boy had woken up for a drink of water. All of the cornucopia's drinks were kept in a large refrigerator reminiscent of a vending machine, where a tribute could press a button to receive a certain beverage. Royal pressed the button to dispense his favorite flavor of water. The drink fell halfway down and then got caught on a different shelf before he could grab it. Royal tried two more times, with the same results. He tried to break the glass, but it was too strong. Royal grabbed both sides of the machine and slowly rocked it back and forth, wanting his treat to fall down. Of course, the machine fell right on top of him, and Royal couldn't scamper out of the way fast enough before the thing crushed him to death. The back broke right open—at least the other careers wouldn't have any trouble taking out the drinks they wanted.

 _Royal Telford, District 1 Male: 10th, Killed by Falling Machine, Day 3_

The day was entirely uneventful for the outliers. A worm of dread was crawling in Vieve's gut. The knowledge that she'd taken the life of her district partner was bothering her more and more by the hour, to the point that tears started flowing and she had to stop moving for the day. When she finished the circular track she and Duncan had planned the day before, Vieve collapsed on a large rock platform. She saw a pair of mysterious blue eyes staring at her from the darkness. Vieve crawled toward the eyes to investigate, but they disappeared. Creepy. Vieve spent the rest of the night assembling traps with the wire she'd grabbed from the cornucopia. She saw the mysterious pair of eyes two more times that evening, and they chilled her down to the bone. Falling asleep that night was not an easy task.

Days 4, 5, and 6 were all deathless, but they were not completely uneventful. On Days 4 and 5, the career pack stayed at the cornucopia. Salandra was slowly bleeding out through the gaping wound in her wrist, but despite Talisa' best efforts to heal her she could not be saved. Talisa broke the news that she was dying, and Salandra's response was unintelligible. Since Talisa was occupied easing Salandra out of the world, it was Calandrus' turn to be impatient and hungry for movement. Multiple times he strongly considered killing both girls, but decided against it, not wanting to stain his reputation any more than he had to.

On Day 6, Talisa left to gather edible moss, and she returned to the cornucopia with terrifying news. The rising lava was dangerously close to the cornucopia, and at best the horn would be completely buried in a day. Heeding the warning, Calandrus helped Talisa bring all of their most valuable supplies up several stories. The careers watched from a higher platform as their cornucopia was slowly buried under the molten rock. Fortunately, they had more than enough time to save everything they wanted to.

Of the nine living tributes, six were outliers. Septon stayed relatively inactive. At one point, a group of two lava dog mutts ambushed him in the night, and Septon raced half a mile before collapsing in a small cave. He tied himself down with his grappling hook and quickly fell asleep. Safiya and Winter's supply of sponsor gifts quickly ran dry, and they had no choice but to leave their safe haven or starve to death. The two girls hunted up and down for most of the three days. Once, Safiya swore she saw a tribute in the shadows, but it was just her imagination at work. Roark, when his home was destroyed by the rising lava, fled several stories upward. The boy found himself at a thin stream of condensation, and he was so thirsty he couldn't help but take a sip. The water was so dirty that it just made him thirstier, and he took in so much foul water in such a short time that he experienced symptoms like diarrhea and vomiting. Gaelynn grew popular with the Capitol for her handmade stone weapons, which she used to ward off one of the lava mutts when it terrorized her in the night. She was one of the few tributes who still had a permanent shelter, which was located directly above her original shelter, which flooded with lava back on Day 2. Wherever Vieve went, she kept seeing the mysterious pair of eyes staring at her from the darkness. The trauma of killing Duncan was largely pegged by viewers as responsible for the hallucination. Once Vieve even screamed for the eyes to go away, but they stayed right where they were, staring sadly in her direction. She furiously assembled and dissembled her wire traps, struggling to keep herself occupied.

Shortly after sunrise on Day 7, a cannon shot fired. Salandra had been slowly bleeding out for several days, and she finally met her end. The last thing she saw was the rising sun.

 _Salandra Gardiner, District 1 Female: 9th, Killed by Marchesa, Day 7_

That left the final eight: Calandrus Tussen from District 2, Septon Dallas from District 3, Talisa Plummer from District 4, Safiya Verbeck from District 5, Winter Nirae from District 6, Roark Taylor from District 8, Gaelynn Patrick from District 10, and Vieve Aransio from District 11.

The careers immediately resumed their hunting. They no longer had to drag Salandra around with them, so they could move much more freely. Calandrus had been ravenous to hunt for days, and Talisa was naturally as fast as an arrow, so the two careers got along well.

Roark was getting more and more miserable by the hour; he knew the dirty water was bad for him, but he couldn't bring himself to stop drinking because of his immense thirst. Waste was coming in geysers from both ends of his digestive system. The boy rolled back and forth on the black stone, groaning quietly to himself and praying for a miracle.

The most eventful fight of the day occurred somewhat less than an hour before sunset, when the sky was barely lit and most of the light came from the pool of lava far beneath. Earlier that day, Gaelynn had temporarily moved to a broad platform to create even more of her little stone weapons. Using a number of sponsored wooden dowels and string, Gaelynn was able to fashion arrows. She was finishing her first arrow when she heard two tributes drawing nearer. Gaelynn scrambled behind a stalagmite and waited quietly. Safiya and Winter strode into sight. The two girls were engaged in conversation, and they likely wouldn't have noticed Gaelynn if she hadn't made a crucial error. Gaelynn dropped her unfinished arrow, and she struggled to snatch it out of the air before it hit the ground, but in doing so she stumbled to one side and out of hiding. Safiya and Winter were armed with various knives, and all Gaelynn had on hand was one unfinished arrow. Gaelynn screamed as Safiya buried her dagger into her chest, and Winter polished her off with a machete blow to the abdomen. After taking a quick moment to pillage the deceased girl of her meager supplies, the duo left quickly.

 _Gaelynn Patrick, District 10 Female: 8th, Killed by Safiya and Winter, Day 7_

Only one more major event transpired before Day 7 was out. Septon was sleeping contentedly in a small cave, oblivious to the fact that the most extravagant muttation in these games was hiding mere meters away. The sleeping dragon mutt was slowly waking, and every few hours it would shuffle back and forth, shaking the entire landscape. Septon woke, shocked, when a stalactite fell from the ceiling and cracked in half on contact with the cave floor. He tried to go back to sleep, but another stalactite fell a minute later. Suddenly the ceiling groaned and grumbled and he realized what was happening too late to escape. Septon had placed only one foot out of the cave when the entrance collapsed, trapping him in place. His entire body was inside the cave apart from one leg, which was crushed against the ground by the falling rock. Septon screamed and struggled, but he didn't accomplish anything other than draw his own blood. Three hours later, Septon collapsed, exhausted. Whatever happened, he knew that was going to be his home for quite some time.

By the end of Day 7, nearly half of the original arena was buried under the hot lava. Vieve was able to spot the lava rising before it was too late. Having escaped safely, Vieve prayed that the eyes would leave her alone. She thought they belonged to some kind of muttation that was stalking her—not that it was a figment of her imagination. When Vieve realized the eyes hadn't gone away, she screamed, grabbed up her supplies, and ran for the hills. After nearly five hours she collapsed, sobbing, and fell asleep instantly.

On Day 8, Vieve had finally had enough. When she woke up and saw that the pair of eyes hadn't left her alone, she grabbed her coil of wire and wrapped it around her neck and tight as she could pull it. She quickly grew faint from lack of oxygen, and just before she died she realized what those eyes were: Duncan's eyes.

 _Vieve Aransio, District 11 Female: 7th, Killed by Herself, Day 8_

On the other side of the volcano, Talisa was snoozing away, and Calandrus was sleepily standing guard. When Calandrus heard the cannon shot, he tightened his grip around his broadsword. Calandrus promised his parents that he would kill all of the other careers once it came to the final six, and that wasn't a promise he intended to break. Talisa woke suddenly to see Calandrus towering over her, lowering his broadsword. Talisa yelped and rolled out of the way, and Calandrus cursed, chasing after her. Of course, the superfast 4 girl was far too quick for Calandrus to ever keep up. When she thought she had lost Calandrus, Talisa collapsed in a small cave, panting heavily.

Not much happened for the four remaining outliers. Septon, his leg trapped under the fallen rocks, struggled to escape, but it was useless. In fact, the nearby dragon mutt was causing even more pieces of rock to fall from the ceiling whenever it moved. If Septon didn't escape quickly, he might have been helplessly crushed to death. Safiya and Winter travelled up and down, struggling to survive in the broiling-hot interior of the volcano. Water supplies were lower than ever, and on Day 8 Winter drank the last drop of water the duo possessed. From then on, the two girls had to lick condensation off of the walls to survive. All the while, they kept hunting, hoping to make a kill and boost their quantity of sponsor presents. Roark was so dehydrated he couldn't move. Now immobile, he was unable to drink more of the filthy ground water. His face was pale from lack of water, and he was so emaciated he could easily count his ribs. He prayed that death would come for him soon. In the early morning of Day 9, Roark finally got his wish.

 _Roark Taylor, District 8 Male: 6th, Killed by Dehydration, Day 9_

At the north end of the volcano, the sleeping dragon mutt finally woke. The cameras showed the enormous, lava-colored dragon open its eyes and spread its wings majestically. The humungous reptile slammed its wings against the wall of its prison, struggling to escape. The nearest tribute, Septon, screamed and flailed his arms, trying to shield his face from the stalactites that fell like icicles from the roof of the cave. Safiya and Winter, expecting some kind of natural disaster, took cover inside of a small cave and lay down under their packs for added protection. On opposite sides of the arena, both Talisa and Calandrus proceeded with caution—they didn't think the source of the rumbling noise was a big threat, at least not yet, and they didn't let it interfere with their hunting.

Safiya and Winter were huddling together in their cave when Safiya's eyes grew wide with terror. Winter followed her gaze, and she fell similarly silent. Enormous chunks of stone were falling from the same area of the volcano and chipping away like plaster. All at once, the enormous dragon mutt burst free from the chamber that had once held it prisoner. Roaring with triumph, the dragon exhaled, sending a jet of fire outward. Safiya and Winter thought the dragon wasn't moving, but it reality it was moving straight toward them. Winter screamed as the dragon snatched her straight out of the cave and carried her out into the open. Safiya watched, dumbfounded with terror, as the dragon mutt fried her ally to death with a single breath and then tore her to pieces with its claws.

 _Winter Nirae, District 6 Female: 5th, Killed by Dragon Muttation, Day 9_

Safiya screamed and raced out of the cave, then sprinted upward as quickly as her feet could carry her. The dragon mutt could have easily out-travelled her, but the gamemakers ordered the mutt to slow down slightly so that Safiya had a small chance of managing escape. When she'd reached the very top of the volcano, Safiya collapsed, trembling and crying, and tried to protect herself with her arms. The dragon mutt finally gave up on her and flew downward in search of easier prey.

Near the original prison of the dragon, Septon met his end. A large stalactite on the ceiling came loose and fell downward. Septon tried to move out of the way, but the point of the stalactite landed in his chest and protruded from his back. The 3 boy was killed instantly. Now there were only three tributes left.

 _Septon Dallas, District 3 Male: 4th, Killed by Falling Stalactite, Day 9_

Calandrus was the next to be terrorized by the dragon mutt, and he fortunately managed to escape. Having dropped everything but his broadsword, Calandrus sprinted west before settling down in a narrow cave that sloped upward. The dragon reached inside with its claw, but couldn't reach Calandrus, and the mutt left quickly.

With Safiya at the very top of the volcano and Calandrus at the very bottom, only Talisa was left to face the dragon mutt. She had only been running for a few minutes when she accepted she would either have to face the mutt head-on or die. What followed was one of the most iconic scenes in Hunger Games history: Talisa, a girl with a bow and a dozen arrows, versus the dragon mutt, one of the most elaborate mutts the games had ever seen at that point. Despite the dragon's best attempts to crush or bake the 4 girl, she always managed to escape; her speed and reflexes were outstanding, and she was truly one of the quickest tributes the games had ever seen. Talisa's first few shots missed, but her fourth arrow punctured the dragon's face, the least armored part of its body. By the time she had fully dispatched the dragon mutt, Talisa was bleeding in several places. She collapsed on the spot, panting, and healed herself with the piles of sponsored medicine that were building up around her.

On Day 10, the sky overhead turned grey and filled with clouds. With the first clap of thunder, chilling cold rain poured down into the volcano, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The rain was falling faster than it was ever natural for rain to fall. The tributes felt like they were standing under waterfalls as millions upon millions of gallons of rain fell into the volcano. Some of it landed directly on the lava and turned it into stone. Some of it landed on the stepping stones and platforms before rushing downward like a rapids.

Calandrus woke when his cave began flooding with rain water. Holding only his broadsword, he waded toward the exit. The roar was deafening as water crashed down to the bottom of the volcano, churning and thundering back and forth and throwing Calandrus off of his feet. Calandrus grabbed onto a stalagmite for dear life, struggling to raise himself out of the water. After several minutes, Calandrus fought his way to dry footing, and he scrambled up the stepping stones as the water rose and rose underneath him.

Talisa woke to the deafening roar of the flood and peered out of her cave. The surface of the floodwater was boiling upward, and in no time at all Talisa felt water splashing into her cave. The audience knew she could swim, but they had no idea how well. It was impossible to keep track of the 4 girl as she paddled through the water like a dolphin, overcoming the largest of waves that came crashing in her direction. When Talisa was finally too exhausted to swim any farther, she lay down on her back and took deep breaths, doing her best to stay afloat on the bouncing, rolling surface of the flood.

Early that morning, Safiya had left her home at the very top of the volcano and travelled several hundred feet downward to gather food. The pitiful girl had never learned how to swim, and she ultimately stood no chance as the water engulfed her. She was thrown back and forth, as limp as a doll. The water quickly claimed the life of one of 5's most beloved tributes.

 _Safiya Verbeck, District 5 Female: 3rd, Killed by Drowning, Day 10_

Day 11 proved to be the last day of the eighty-first Hunger Games. For nearly twenty-four hours, Calandrus had been sprinting upward, stopping once and a while to rest, only to start moving again when the water reached him once more. Although he hated to admit it, he knew he would have no chance of defeating Talisa in the water. If Calandrus forced their final duel to take place on dry ground, he knew he would easily be able to overpower her.

Calandrus was just about to stop for a rest when he spotted his final competitor mere meters away. Talisa was paddling her arms up and down like duck's wings, treading water with remarkable skill. Calandrus just waited for Talisa to come to him, knowing that as soon as she was on land he could kill her in a snap.

The boy waited and waited, but Talisa didn't appear. In fact, it looked as though she'd disappeared completely. What Calandrus didn't know was that Talisa was directly underneath him, riding the rising water upwards and upwards. Calandrus didn't hear Talisa as she lightly stepped onto the stone platform directly behind him and shoved him into the floodwater. Calandrus fell like a stone into the water and disappeared instantly.

 _Calandrus Tussen, District 2 Male: 2nd, Killed by Talisa, Day 11_

"Talisa Plummer of District 4, you are the victor of the eighty-first annual Hunger Games!" Cadmus and Daria shouted.

Talisa just smiled for the hidden cameras she knew were all pointed at her.

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 4 welcomed their charismatic twelfth victor with open arms. They'd gotten their last victor, Annie Cresta, eleven years prior: a sizable wait for a career district like 4. After her victory tour, Talisa immediately signed up to work at the academy. She held the job for nearly forty years, and she taught her students swimming and running; given her incredible speed she was clearly the woman for the job. Throughout her life Talisa would remain cheery and jokey, not as much as Victor Augustus Braun but close.

Talisa moved into the Victor's Village of District 4, the twelfth victor to do so.

Her victory tour went well, though a few of her jokes were too corny to be taken seriously.

Talisa would live to age eighty-eight, dying from a heart attack four and three fourths months after the one-hundred fifty-first annual Hunger Games. She would never marry nor have children. She always said the academy was enough for her.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Talisa moves into the Victor's Village of District 4, next door to Annie's home.

Finnick Odair and Annie Cresta have a son named Poseidon. He is the first child born to two victors in Panem's history.

Beatrice Toland falls into a coma and dies three months later.

Markus Gardd is crushed under the fallen chandelier of his home in the Victor's Village, killing him before help can arrive.

Penelope Turek dies from liver disease after an alcohol overdose.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: When I talked about how cold it is in my area last chapter I got a lot of PMs and responses colorfully describing the horrific cold weather in different areas of the world. I feel bad for you guys. Stay warm!**

 **I've seen a lot of stories where games take place on volcanoes, but very few that take place inside of volcanos. So yeah. I thought this one was pretty inventive, if I do say so myself! I especially liked the mutts of this year's arena. Creatures fashioned out of hot lava have always fascinated me :D**

 **I also loved this chapter's news section. Three victor deaths and a child born to two victors in one year—wow! And it's refreshing to see a new victor from 4, isn't it? Been quite a while—our last victor from 4 was Annie Cresta all the way back in the 70th.**

 **Next year we'll be seeing a certain boy with a very peculiar training score. If you've intently read my SYOT you may know what I'm talking about. Otherwise, it'll be a surprise. Isn't it fun to keep readers on the edge?**


	83. The 82nd Hunger Games

**The 82nd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

President Cassia Obsidian stayed in her influential position of power ruling over all Panem. Her constant attempts to keep the citizens of Panem at peace through reward rather than punishment played well with the entire country. District citizens, particularly those from the outlying districts, constantly had the incentive to not only accomplish their work faster but also to put more effort into the quality of their products to please the inspectors and receive their rewards. Obsidian understood that it was possible to enforce a kind of peace other than the kind of peace Snow had maintained at constant gunpoint. Despite being driven toward peace whenever possible, the president had to use force sometimes. In 5, a small rebellion had occurred after the death of Safiya in the eighty-first Hunger Games. The president's troops shot and killed two rebels. The president felt terrible, but the truth of Panem was that violence was sometimes necessary to preserve what little was left of the human race. It was an idea planted in the heads of Capitol citizens by President Snow's long and tyrannical rule—the cruel man's legacy was so great that this idea would arguably never be forgotten completely. Violet Turpin returned for her sixth year as head gamemaker. Through all her trials and tribulations, she had proven herself capable of improving every year, and the Capitol was itching to see what she and the minor gamemakers would craft this time around. Both Cadmus Flickerman and Daria Pennypacker returned to host this year's games. Both were young, idealistic, and crafty, and they didn't slow down for a second with their witty banter and playful humor. Much like Caesar and Claudius before them, the two hosts started a daily talk show where they discussed the latest victor gossip. The show was a huge success; though it wasn't a mandatory viewing, it aired in all twelve districts and the Capitol at six o'clock each morning, five days a week.

This year's arena would go down as one of the creepiest in games history; every aspect of it was truly terrifying, and the results were certain to be spectacular. The tributes would find themselves dressed in teal hospital gowns. The arena this year was an enormous cement building: an abandoned psychiatric hospital. The cornucopia, fashioned from cement, was located in the hospital cafeteria; it held large stores of water and food, as these were particularly lacking everywhere else in the arena. The cafeteria was in absolute disarray. The tables were rusty and torn apart, and they were upturned and scattered all around. The hospital was shaped like a wagon wheel, with eight different hallways spindling off of the central cafeteria. The hallways were long, narrow, and very dark. All but a handful of the lights were either burned out or smashed to pieces, and those few that still worked were always flickering. Black mold climbed up the walls, and ugly dark bloodstains littered the floors of the hallways. The two broadest hallways, called the North Wing and the South Wing, were where the tributes were most likely to find rooms with the most useful supplies. It was perpetually nighttime, and all of the hospital's windows were shattered, revealing the endless darkness that stretched on in all directions. The gamemakers were also able to play strange sounds and create short visions that would terrify the tributes and make them think they were going crazy. The mutts that lived in the psychiatric hospital were spiders, rats, cockroaches, and other creatures of the dark. Those who were fighting to the death inside of the hospital wouldn't be the only children in Panem who would be going to sleep with nightmares.

The success or failure of a games was largely dependent on the career pack. This year's batch of trained kids was somewhat weaker than average, but Violet hoped she could still managed to pull off a thrilling games. District 1's tributes were both atypical and quirky. The boy had dark hair and ashen skin, which were all but extinct in the luxury district, and he was a master archer. Meanwhile, the girl was much taller and more extroverted, and she was a rare redhead. District 2 put on a varied showing. Unlike Calandrus of last year, this year's boy was much weaker and more lacking than usual, though the Capitol liked his charisma. The girl was the star of the show this year—tall, memorable, and quotable—and she was sure to be one to remember. 4 provided another varied duo. The boy was one of the strongest tributes in these games, exotically attractive in a strange way, and he had a cool accent, while the girl was more quiet and reserved and could be awkward but in a cute way. The scores of the pack were somewhat lacking: two tens, a nine, and three eights.

The outliers were a more memorable batch, similarly to last year. There were three high scores, all of them from odd-numbered districts coincidentally. Belinda from 7 was the full package: fast, skilled, and charismatic, and she snagged an impressive nine, having showcased her survival and hatchet skills in her private session. Two eights were scored as well, both by males. Tanzi from 9 and Leonor from 11 were both tall and built like oxen; they were strikingly similar in many ways, and they allied prior to the games. Sevens were scored by Parse from 3, Korris from 5, Lizbeth from 6, and Cedric from 10. The rest of the tributes scored between six and zero in their private sessions. The most intriguing standout this year was the boy from District 8. After a particularly large breakfast, Poplin fell asleep, and he slept straight through his private session. In his defense, Poplin's family pointed to a clause that stated that private sessions were optional and not mandatory for any tribute. The boy was given a zero as his score, and with no method of judging him on his skills he was given the default 24-1 odds. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Cutter Rozen, 17, (9) 7-1 and Florizel Crane, 16, (8) 9-1

District 2: Maxim Galvin, 18, (8) 9-1 and Brynn Coughlan, 18, (10) 3-1

District 3: Parse Logan, 15, (7) 16-1 and Carmi Trace, 17, (4) 23-1

District 4: Bayou Marchbanks, 17, (10) 4-1 and Merisela Starr, 16, (8) 10-1

District 5: Korris Bolter, 16, (7) 15-1 and Sofia Rylan, 14, (5) 26-1

District 6: Keith Delaney, 13, (3) 48-1 and Lizbeth Harold, 18, (7) 14-1

District 7: Saffron Kennedy, 18, (6) 19-1 and Belinda Walker, 17, (9) 9-1

District 8: Poplin Amsden, 13, (0) 24-1 and Lauma Stone, 16, (4) 27-1

District 9: Tanzi Howells, 18, (8) 11-1 and Wiley Sutton, 15, (5) 25-1

District 10: Cedric Marshall, 16, (7) 20-1 and Teagan Rose-Maylie, 15, (4) 30-1

District 11: Leonor Craven, 18, (8) 13-1 and Yolanda Pierce, 18, (6) 18-1

District 12: Emmett Delano, 15, (4) 29-1 and Stephani Boardwasher, 13, (3) 49-1

HGBO Bets: 17% on Brynn, 16% on Bayou, 13% on Cutter, 10% on Florizel and Maxim, 9% on Merisela, 7% on Belinda, 4% on Tanzi and Leonor, 2% on Parse, Korris, Lizbeth, and Cedric, 1% or less on Carmi, Sofia, Keith, Saffron, Poplin, Lauma, Wiley, Teagan, Yolanda, Emmett, and Stephani.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The tributes shivered as they rose on their pedestals and the abandoned psychiatric hospital came into sight. The tables of the cafeteria were torn apart and strewn here and there as though a mad animal had lain siege on the place. The tributes glanced over their shoulders and saw the seemingly endless hallways spiraling off into blackness. A light flickered at the end of the North Wing, and Lauma from 8 could have sworn she saw the silhouette of an impossibly tall, thin man without a head.

When the gong rang, two tributes fled immediately: Parse from 3 and Teagan from 10. As the two tributes sprinted down the pitch-dark, freezing-cold hallways, the other twenty-two surged forward. The bloodbath this year would claim nine lives.

Brynn, the fastest runner this year, reached the cornucopia first. She quickly grabbed a spear, and then the neck of a small girl. The girl screamed and tried to free herself, and the career girl swiftly sedated her with a blow to the abdomen. She groaned as the point of Brynn's spear protruded from her chest.

 _Sofia Rylan, District 5 Female: 24th, Killed by Brynn, Bloodbath_

Bayou, another fast runner, swept up a trident that leaned against the wall of the cement cornucopia. He whipped around and came face-to-face with a foolish boy who was trying to off him with a weapon of his own to eliminate competition early. The boy dropped his weapon and made a run for it, but Bayou knocked him to the ground like a domino. He used his trident like a rake to cut open three long gashes in the miner boy's back, and he bled out quickly.

 _Emmett Delano, District 12 Male: 23rd, Killed by Bayou, Bloodbath_

Cutter had run all the way into the cornucopia to obtain a bow, and he began firing as soon as the quiver was fit securely over his shoulder. A nearby girl screamed as two of Cutter's arrows dug into her chest, and she fell to her knees, blood dripping down her chin.

 _Wiley Sutton, District 9 Female: 22nd, Killed by Cutter, Bloodbath_

Moments afterward, Brynn made her second kill. A dark-haired boy from one of the upper districts was trying to escape down the North Wing with a pack containing throwing knives, but was intercepted by the career girl. Dumbfounded with shock, the boy watched as Brynn buried her spear into his neck. He collapsed, coughing up blood.

 _Korris Bolter, District 5 Male: 21st, Killed by Brynn, Bloodbath_

Merisela made her first kill with class. The 4 girl, armed with a hatchet, sabotaged a muscular boy from an outlying district who had a hatchet of his own. The boy threw Merisela away, and she staggered backward, disoriented. For about a minute, the two tributes circled around each other, inflicting small cuts and scrapes but nothing major. Finally, Merisela got the upper hand when she buried the blade of her hatchet into the boy's shoulder. He made a desperate attempt to stumble to safety, but she dispatched him before he could take a step toward the South Wing.

 _Saffron Kennedy, District 7 Male: 20th, Killed by Merisela, Bloodbath_

Florizel tackled the slim girl from 3, whose pedestal was situated next to hers. Without a weapon, Florizel resorted to the messiest way of killing. Her victim quickly lost the energy to fight back when she grabbed her head with both hands and smashed it against the cement floor. Strings of blood flew here and there, and Florizel left quickly once she was sure her victim wasn't getting up again.

 _Carmi Trace, District 3 Female: 19th, Killed by Florizel, Bloodbath_

After using up all of his arrows, Cutter refilled his quiver. He spotted two allied tributes, Tanzi and Leonor, inside of the cornucopia, hurriedly shoving supplies into a single slate grey backpack. The boys stumbled backward as Cutter barreled into sight. Leonor dodged Cutter's first arrow by inches. Leonor grabbed a machete, while Tanzi grabbed a dagger and a cleaver, reminiscent of Haymitch Abernathy from the second Quarter Quell. Cutter fired arrows at both boys, and they both put up an admirable effort to fight back. After nearly a minute, Leonor looked down to see the point of one of Cutter's arrows poking out of his stomach. In moments, he was as dead as the stone walls that echoed with his last screams.

 _Leonor Craven, District 11 Male: 18th, Killed by Cutter, Bloodbath_

Furious, Tanzi lunged forward and tackled the triumphant Cutter. Cutter was so surprised by this sudden burst of energy that he was too shocked to sidestep. Tanzi thrust his differently-shaped knives solidly into his opponent's torso, and the 1 boy's body was empty of life in no time at all.

 _Cutter Rozen, District 1 Male: 17th, Killed by Tanzi, Bloodbath_

Brynn made the last kill. Spear in hand, she chased a boy a few meters away from the cornucopia. The boy had only just exited the cafeteria when Brynn thrust her spear into his back; he fell onto his back and struggled to scramble to safety with the last few ounces of strength he had left. His screams were the only ones that bounced around the large room; the other outliers had all escaped into the depths of the cement structure.

 _Cedric Marshall, District 10 Male: 16th, Killed by Brynn, Bloodbath_

The careers were somewhat disappointed with the small bloodbath of only nine deaths. There were ten outliers still kicking, and the careers knew that an above-average effort would have to go into their hunting effort if they wanted to knock off the remaining outliers in any kind of time. Not only were there lots of supplies in the cornucopia this year, it was also difficult to see them because of the lack of light. Florizel, Maxim, and Merisela all worked together to sort through the supplies; Florizel and Merisela sorted the food rations, while Maxim mostly organized the weapons. The girls noticed an excess of food and water, which made since because they were almost impossible to obtain anywhere else in the arena. Brynn worked on clearing out the cafeteria. She shoved all the overturned tables to the perimeter of the room, clearing out a large space. This increased the pack's visibility by a long distance, which made them more comfortable. Bayou volunteered to do the traditional first hunt, where he paraded through the nearby hallways before returning to the cornucopia to inform the others that there were no outliers waiting nearby. Knowing there was an abundance of surviving outliers, the group quickly went hunting, leaving only Maxim to guard the cornucopia.

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the ten surviving outliers swelled across the screens. The abandoned hospital was so creepy that they were all itching to get to safety as quickly as possible. Those that stayed near the cornucopia were certainly testing their luck, but most of the outliers were willing to sacrifice anything to get out of the long, pitch-dark hallways as quickly as possible. Parse sprinted down the North Wing and came to a men's bathroom. He turned on the sinks to have a wash, but all that came out was green gunk. Disgusted, he curled up on the floor and tried to sleep. Keith had a single knife, and he came to a room filled with cots. He found the cot whose sheets were least torn and curled up under the covers, crying softly to himself. Lizbeth sprinted onward for several minutes and came to a padded room that would have been used to house those who were at risk of self-harm. She crouched down on the cushioned floor, toying with her bag of scant supplies, and tried to sleep. Belinda had a hatchet and a pack containing a loaf of bread, but that was her only food. She was happy to discover a closet filled with food, but most of the food was spoiled and moldy. The only healthy thing Belinda could find was a package of crackers, and she quickly left due to the smell. Poplin was hogging most of the screen time; having not received a training score, the Capitol was eager to see what he was capable of and whether or not he would be worth investing in. After sprinting through the dark halls, he arrived at an old control room filled with broken levers and screens. Lauma had barely escaped the bloodbath with her life, one of Cutter's arrows having missed her neck by inches. Scared out of her mind, the girl sprinted down the South Wing before ducking into a small, dusty closet, trying not to shake too much. Tanzi had a bow, five arrows, and a pack containing medical supplies. In a few minutes, he arrived at a waiting room where family members would have been able to visit patients. He walked behind the receptionist's desk and fell asleep, feeling safe behind the panel of dusty glass. Teagan found an elevator and hunkered down inside. Her only possessions in the world were the clothes on her back, and even those were torn and smelly. Yolanda travelled down the North Wing before arriving at a dusty, moldy operation room. She found several cases of tools and collected the particularly sharp ones, hoping they would be of use if she had any unexpected visitors. Stephani came to the pharmacy room, where the shelves were lined with old dusty bottles of pills and colored liquids. She was terrified of the medicines, thinking they would have harmful effects. She scuttled to the center of the room and rolled up into a ball with her only pack, praying quietly.

At midnight, moments after the death recap ended, the psychiatric hospital received its first ghostly visitor. She was a young woman who couldn't have been any older than twenty, and she wore a bloodstained apron with a faded pattern. She appeared a few meters down the hall from the closet where Lauma was sleeping, screaming at the top of her lungs. The screaming ghost went on to terrorize Belinda, Keith, and Teagan, lastly spooking the careers before her removal.

The first few hours of Day 2 passed uneventfully, with most of the tributes staying put in their hiding places. However, Parse left the bathroom at dawn to search for food. He returned to the bathroom minutes later, shocked by a rabid raccoon mutt he let loose by opening a heavy wooden door. By the time he returned, the bathroom was flooded with at least an inch of stinky green slime, and he climbed onto one of the rust-covered toilets, panting heavily.

The real action was happening far away from Parse's bathroom, on the other side of the wheel-shaped cement building. The careers had returned to the cornucopia the night prior. After a good night's rest, they were reading to go hunting again. The pack left Brynn to guard their supplies. The careers were eager to hunt down the two main wings to find the tributes that were poorly hiding. However, Florizel recalled seeing the strong Belinda head down one of the more obscure hallways. Florizel's allies followed her away from the cornucopia, eager to kill off the strongest outlier in these games.

Belinda woke up in the supply closet at nine o'clock that morning. The pack of saltine crackers she'd eaten the night before was strewn across her chest, empty of its delicious contents. Belinda heard the beeping of a sponsor parachute and left the supply closet to pick up her gift. The carriage held a single paper note warning her that the career pack was near. Belinda finished reading the note just as the prongs of Bayou's trident sailed past her neck. The 7 girl screamed and raced down the hallway, followed by Florizel, Maxim, Bayou, and Merisela. The career tributes were fast, but the outlier girl had a small headstart and adrenaline was powering her forward. Finally, Belinda scrambled into a supply room and slammed the door behind her. She shoved as much furniture behind the door as she could, preventing the careers from entering. Belinda sprinted to the back of the room and ducked into a dark corner, praying her blockade would hold. The four careers banged on the door and struggled to enter, but they made very little headway in breaking in. Maxim and Bayou kept watch over the doors, while Florizel and Merisela sprinted back to the cornucopia to gather supplies that would help them break in.

Keith tossed and turned on his rusty iron cot. He was one of the tributes who'd been terrorized by the ghostly lady the night prior, and he was so terrified he couldn't sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. Keith woke from one nightmare straight into another when he looked up and saw a ghost hovering at the foot of his cot. She was an older woman, thin and gaunt, and she didn't scream. She just stared at Keith with wide, tired eyes. The boy ducked back under the blankets, quivering, and prayed that the ghost would leave quickly. Lizbeth was resting in the cushioned room when she heard footsteps from outside. Terrified, she tore a flap of cushion off of the wall and ducked behind it. The flap moved back into position, hiding the girl, just as Tanzi stepped into the room. Terrified, Lizbeth watched through a tear in the cushion as Tanzi laid out his supplies and went to sleep. The girl knew that if she made a single movement in the otherwise still room the boy would notice and she would be cornered like a rat. Fortunately, Lizbeth managed to remain still enough for the boy not to notice. Once, she desperately needed a drink of water, and she grabbed her thermos out of her pocket and took a sip while Tanzi was looking away.

Poplin was resting in the control room, his feet put up on the broken control panel, when he heard a bloodcurdling scream from nearby. Poplin watched with a blank slate look as the ghost of a young boy, crying and screaming, assembled from thin air in the middle of the room. Poplin's lips curled into a smile; he didn't think the ghost could hurt him, and even if it decided to get violent he would be able to leave the room quickly. Poplin picked shards of rust off of the control panel and tossed them at the ghost, awarding himself different numbers of points for every throw. Lauma left her small closet to search for water. Fortunately, it wasn't hard to find. A few minutes earlier, a ghost had drifted past the closet. The ghost was so cold that it had frozen the moisture in the air. Its trail was marked by a path of frost. Lauma licked the ice, and, refreshed, retreated back to her hiding place. Yolanda, hands full of the supplies she'd stolen from the operation room, ventured through the halls in search of more supplies. She soon came to the elevator where Teagan was hiding. Teagan whimpered and started to run, but stopped after a few seconds and turned back around.

"What are those?" Teagan asked, gesturing toward the tools in Yolanda's hands. "You're not going to hurt me, are you?"

"No," Yolanda answered. "I raided these from an operation room a ways down. Got any weapons yourself?"

Teagan shook her head. The two girls had a long conversation about supplies and their experiences with the arena so far, and they agreed on an alliance several minutes later. Yolanda lead Teagan back to the operation room. Teagan was spooked by all of the dark halls, but she felt much more comfortable with the stronger Yolanda at her side.

Stephani woke in the pharmacy room and let out a scream. All over the room, shelves were collapsing, and bottles of old medicine were scattering themselves all over the floor. Somebody was clearly knocking the shelves over. She could hear the breathing of what sounded like an adult male in the room with her, but he was invisible (not even transparent like the ghosts were). Creeped by her invisible companion, Stephani lay down next to the ruins of a fallen shelf and prayed some more.

Seconds after the empty death recap reached its conclusion that night, the psychiatric hospital received another ghostly visitor. The ghost was an old man with a long beard and bloodshot eyes, and his blood-caked grin was impossible wide. The man floated through the halls of the dark cement building, spooking the tributes in rapid succession, lastly travelling to the men's bathroom and terrifying Parse before his disappearance.

It was the "morning" of Day 3, and the careers had made next to no progress breaking into the room where Belinda was hiding. The girl's terrified whimpering told them she was still inside, but Belinda's brother was an architect, so she knew how to maximize the strength of her blockade. At one point, Bayou resorted to lodging his trident in between the door and wall and trying to pry the door open, but his hands started bleeding before he could make the door budge an inch.

At noon, Brynn, Maxim, and Bayou were camped out beside the door, while Florizel and Merisela were guarding the far-away cornucopia. Every few minutes one of the tributes would get up to try some new way of busting down the door, but they always failed. They were making quite a lot of ruckus. The nearest tribute, Lauma, mistook the sounds for the beeping of a sponsor parachute. She poked her head out of the closet and screamed as Brynn's spear sailed over her shoulder. Lauma screamed and tried to run, but the overweight girl wasn't nearly fast enough to evade the pack for long. After reclaiming her spear, Brynn tossed the point of the weapon into Lauma's back, and she was toast.

 _Lauma Stone, District 8 Female: 15th, Killed by Brynn, Day 3_

When Keith woke up, he peeked out of the covers for a moment, and he burst into tears. Not only had the ghostly old woman not moved an inch, another ghost had joined her, a tiny girl with blue satin bows at the ends of her pigtails. Keith screamed and covered his hands with his ears as the little girl giggled maniacally, and he wrapped the blankets of the cot tightly around himself, struggling to block out the din.

Near the end of the South Wing, Poplin woke with a start. He heard the footsteps of two tributes outside of the control room. The 8 boy was terrified out of his mind, but he acted quickly and without hesitation. He ducked under the control panel just as allies Teagan and Yolanda strode into the room. The shadows hid Poplin well, as did the chair he hadn't forgotten to push in, so he could easily watch the allies without them seeing him. Poplin didn't want to attack the girls, but if they noticed him he knew he would have no choice to fight back. Poplin watched as Yolanda laid out a blanket and divvied her lunch between herself and her ally.

Yolanda and Teagan had been eating for almost ten minutes when Teagan turned as white as a ghost and dropped her sandwich. Yolanda asked what was wrong, and Teagan wordlessly pointed at Poplin's hiding spot. Poplin burst out of the shadows, and he'd skewered Teagan through with his knife before she could fight back. Teagan fell to the blanketed floor, coughing up blood, and Yolanda fled for her life down the South Wing.

 _Teagan Rose-Maylie, District 10 Female: 14th, Killed by Poplin, Day 3_

Two faces shone in the death recap that night. The third set of midnight visitors to the psychiatric hospital was a pair of middle-aged women. They were both absolutely identical; they had no eyes at all, and their hands were gnarled like witches'. The twins first arrived at the cushioned room where Tanzi was hiding; Lizbeth peered through a hole in her hiding place and watched as the two eyeless women danced around the terrified boy before moving on. They went on to torment Yolanda, Poplin, and Parse before dissolving into the shadows, never to be seen again.

On Day 4, after two days trapped in the tiny room, Belinda finally decided to make a run for it. Belinda made her way silently to the door and put her ear against it. She didn't hear any sound from outside. Brynn and Merisela were snoozing on the left side of the door, while Maxim was asleep on the other. Slowly and carefully, Belinda began to remove the blockade of furniture. She was taking infinite care to remain completely silent, knowing that one false move could awaken the careers and spell her doom. Finally, the door was bare. Her freedom was so close she could taste it. Belinda turned the handle, and when she opened the door the horrible sound of scraping metal was enough to awaken the three careers immediately. The careers lunged toward her, and the 7 girl instinctively swung her hatchet in Maxim's direction. The boy was too shocked to scream as the hatchet buried itself into his chest, cracking several of his ribs. He was in too much pain to scream. He just fell to his knees, mouth wide open, rocking back and forth, until his strength finally left him.

 _Maxim Galvin, District 2 Male: 13th, Killed by Belinda, Day 4_

Brynn made every effort possible to kill Belinda. She was like a watermelon seed, shuffling to safety whenever Brynn tried to corner her. Brynn screamed for Merisela to help her, but the 4 girl fell back into the shadows. She was experiencing the stroke of self-doubt that at least one career seemed to experience almost every year. Merisela watched from way back as Belinda took off down the dark cement hallway, Brynn chasing after her.

Florizel and Bayou, who were at the cornucopia, heard Brynn's screams for reinforcements and ran to her aid. The three careers easily managed to corner Belinda, and she ultimately had no hope of escape. The 7 girl dropped her hatchet as Bayou thrust the prongs of his trident into her chest. The four careers watched, Florizel, Brynn, and Bayou in the front with Merisela much farther back, as the girl bled out over the course of about two minutes. They were all glad to have knocked off the strongest outlier in the games, even if it had come at the cost of one of their members.

 _Belinda Walker, District 7 Female: 12th, Killed by Bayou, Day 4_

The next several hours were deathless. Parse remained stationary in the men's bathroom just off the North Wing. The single flickering light in the room failed, plunging the room into darkness, and Parse shivered, spooked. Keith's group of ghostly companions increased in number from two to three: in addition to the old woman and the little girl with pigtails, a middle-aged man was circling around his cot. The man's face was scratched and bloody, as were his fingers. It looked like he'd torn up his face in an attempt to satisfy his thirst for inflicting harm. Keith screamed and cowered under the blankets, begging the wraiths to leave him alone.

Lizbeth had been standing ramrod straight behind the flap of cushion for several days, and she couldn't bear it any longer. She decided to take the risk of revealing herself to Tanzi. Lizbeth stepped out of the wall, and Tanzi clapped his hand over his mouth, shocked.

"How long have you been behind there?" Tanzi demanded.

"Two days, I dunno," Lizbeth replied. "If you're gonna kill me, do it now. Please."

Tanzi bit his lip. "I'm not going to. There are eleven tributes left. Alliances aren't off the table yet."

Tanzi shared part of his food supply with Lizbeth, and the starving girl was grateful to have something to eat after so many hours of her own scabs being the only things to show her kinder than hunger.

In the control room, Poplin was busy with a project of his own. His mentor Cecelia sent him a strange assortment of supplies he'd requested: a pallet of makeup, a makeup brush, and several pieces of cloth, and the victor smiled when she saw what her boy was up to. Poplin started by changing into a pair of old, torn clothes that were in a bin in the corner of the control room. Next, he layered himself from head to foot with the white makeup. Poplin began applying sickly shades of yellow and orange in an attempt to disguise himself as one of the ghosts. He shoved the pieces of cloth under his shoes to reduce the sound he made when he walked over the hard floors. He couldn't finish his makeup in only one day, but given a little more time it seemed to be an attainable goal.

Yolanda had been sprinting aimlessly around the dark building for nearly a day. It was only after nearly twenty-four hours that she realized she'd left all her supplies at the site of Teagan's death. Distraught at the loss of her possessions, Yolanda retreated to the safety of a small room at the end of one of the more obscure hallways. It was the pharmacy room. Stephani was inside. The small girl was hunkering down in a corner of the room, shielding her head with her arms as the invisible man threw small bottles and knocked over shelves. When Yolanda entered, Stephani grabbed a jar of medicine and hurled it at her. The jar cracked, dripping stinky blue liquid down Yolanda's shirt. Yolanda charged into the room and knocked a shelf toward Stephani. The girl screamed and tried to scramble out of the way, but the heavy wooden shelf hit her in the head and knocked her out immediately. Yolanda then left the room, leaving the invisible man to ransack the shelves without the living company he had once had.

 _Stephani Boardwasher, District 12 Female: 11th, Killed by Yolanda, Day 4_

Moments after the death recap ended that night, a trio of ghostly apparitions appeared near the cornucopia. They were all young girls who couldn't have been older than seven or eight, and they wore old, torn, flower-patterned dressed. One of the girls was missing an arm, and her eyes hung from their sockets by thin, cord-like strands; a second was missing both ears, and a huge hole in her chest allowed one to peer straight through her to the other side; the last had both of her eyes crudely dug out, and whole chunks of flesh were missing around her face. The trio of girls treaded lightly around the psychiatric hospital, giggling softly and only stopping occasionally to scream at the tops of their lungs like a demented choir.

The first half of Day 5 was somewhat more monotonous than many Capitolites had been hoping for. The four careers regrouped at the cornucopia. Florizel was steadily growing more terrified. The ghostly visitors to the arena were growing more and more horrifying each night, and the triplet girls of the night prior had singled her out, terrifying her out of her mind. Florizel tried to remain calm, not wanting to fall out of favor with her stronger allies, but she felt if things got worse she might have had to split from the pack. Brynn was perpetually ravenous to hunt; there were six outliers left in these games, and with an arena as confusing as this one she didn't want to take a break, fearing she would lose her edge. She came to a compromise with the other careers; they would leave at three o'clock instead of the usual noon, giving Brynn her few hours of hunting while giving the others more time to rest. Bayou was sorting supplies when he mishandled a sharp knife and accidentally cut himself. Bayou hissed in pain as blood dripped down his hand, and he barked for Florizel's help to heal the wound. Merisela was questioning her membership in the pack even more than Florizel, and the girl made a decision. That night, Merisela would break from the pack. She shoved all of her supplies into her sleeping bag so she could quickly grab them and sprint away once the others were asleep.

The outliers weren't up to much. Parse finally left the men's bathroom and ventured down the North Wing. After several minutes, he arrived at a storage closet filled with spoiled food. He unwrapped a cheese wheel and munched on the parts that weren't covered with mold. Keith screamed even louder when he realized his number of ghostly stalkers had increased from three to five. Joining the three was an elderly couple with completely white, pupil-less eyes. His water supplies were running low, and Keith cried and wrapped the cot blankets tighter around himself than ever before, begging for the phantoms to leave him alone. Tanzi and Lizbeth got along well; they were glad for each other's company, and their friendship played well with the Capitol. They took turns leaving the cushioned room to gather water and food, and each was grateful when the other returned, knowing that they were safe. Poplin continued brushing layers of white, yellow, and orange makeup onto himself. A sponsor sent him a mirror, which helped him out significantly. Poplin was extremely talented with the makeup brush considering he'd never used one before, and it looked like he'd finish the job by the next day if not before then. Yolanda kept sprinting around the building. It wasn't much, but it kept her from fading into the background at least somewhat. When night fell, she ducked into an operation room. She didn't know it, but it was the very same one she'd found on the first day of the games. Yolanda slept on the operating table, creeped out by the dark room but trying to fall asleep.

At the cornucopia, Merisela sat up. She looked carefully around her. Bayou and Florizel were both sleeping contentedly, and Brynn was guarding the cornucopia. Taking every effort not to make a noise, Merisela shoved her supplies into a single pack and then got to her feet. In order to make a run for it, she'd have to sneak past Brynn. The 2 girl was sleepily standing guard on the right side of the cornucopia; if Merisela could get to her left side, she'd have a lot of space to worm past her.

It was now or never. Merisela lifted her foot to take her first step… and set it down onto Florizel's back. Florizel woke with a gasp, and Brynn raced into the cornucopia to see what was the matter. Merisela tried to stammer out a phony explanation, but it was all she could do to watch with horror as Brynn flung her spear into her chest.

Brynn nodded formidably. "My pack must be strong."

 _Merisela Starr, District 4 Female: 10th, Killed by Brynn, Day 5_

After the death recap, the forms of six pale ghosts appeared several hundred feet down the South Wing. It was an entire ghost family: a mother, father, and four sons. All six of the family members had no mouths, noses, or eyes; their faces were merely blank sheets of flesh. The mother's hair was torn in chunks from her head, and the sons each had nails so long they were like claws. The family floated through the hospital, terrorizing tributes with their mysterious footsteps. Without mouths, they were incapable of screaming; their only method of inflicting fear was by stomping their feet and scratching the walls with their claws. That, and staring at the tributes with their eyeless faces.

When Keith's number of ghost stalkers increased from five to eight, he decided he had finally had enough. Screaming, he reached for the only knife he'd gotten from the cornucopia and buried it into his arm, drawing a heavy line all the way up to his elbow. He repeated for the other arm, and Keith collapsed onto the cot, screaming with utter horror and suffering for the several hours it took him to bleed out. Death came for him just as Day 6 ticked around.

 _Keith Delaney, District 6 Male: 9th, Killed by Himself, Day 6_

That left the final eight: Florizel Crane from District 1, Brynn Coughlan from District 2, Parse Logan from District 3, Bayou Marchbanks from District 4, Lizbeth Harold from District 6, Poplin Amsden from District 8, Tanzi Howells from District 9, and Yolanda Pierce from District 11.

The remainder of Day 6 came about with a single point of excitement. The three remaining careers, Florizel, Brynn, and Bayou, woke up bright (though it was just as dark as any other time of day) and early on the morning of the sixth day. They were all well-rested and well-fed and were looking forward to a full day of hunting. Florizel volunteered to guard the cornucopia while Brynn and Bayou hunted. The two careers sprinted down the North Wing in search of prey. Tanzi and Lizbeth were mere meters away, but the duos kept missing each other whenever they passed each other. Finally, the gamemakers set off a loud bang in between them. Brynn and Bayou grinned as the terrified Tanzi and Lizbeth melted out of the shadows, and their battle began immediately.

Brynn and Bayou were both fast, skilled tributes, and in a fraction of a second they were on the front lines. Brynn lashed out with her spear, missing Lizbeth by inches, and Tanzi rushed to her aid, thrusting his two knives in Brynn's direction. All the while, Tanzi was struggling to keep Bayou from trapping them between himself and Brynn. This came at the cost of Tanzi's well-being when the prongs of Bayou's trident scraped his upper arm. Tanzi fell, screaming in pain, and with his last ounces of energy he lashed out with his knives. Brynn, shocked by his sudden burst of energy, didn't have time to sidestep before both knives were buried into her abdomen, causing her lungs and stomach to flood with blood.

 _Brynn Coughlan, District 2 Female: 8th, Killed by Tanzi, Day 6_

Now, Bayou was Lizbeth's only adversary. Lizbeth swooped down to help Tanzi, but it was all she could do to watch with horror as Bayou thrust the prongs of his trident into his chest. Tanzi immediately fell still. Terrified, Lizbeth ran for her life down the North Wing. Bayou tried to chase after her but quickly lost her in the labyrinth of dark hallways.

 _Tanzi Howells, District 9 Male: 7th, Killed by Bayou, Day 6_

That night, an entire society of ghosts invaded the psychiatric hospital, laying siege on its freezing cold hallways and terrifying its human inhabitants. There were at least one hundred of them, and they came from all different walks of life; some were dressed like kings, and some wore torn clothes like beggars. The one thing that united them all was some kind of abnormality in their appearance. Whether they were missing an arm or an eye or had horns or tentacles (yes, really), every one of them was deformed or disfigured in some way. Florizel was alone at the cornucopia when the legion of ghosts poured into the cafeteria, and she hunkered down in the back of the horn, sobbing for them to go away. The swarm went on to terrorize each of the other tributes (Parse, Bayou, Lizbeth, Poplin, and Yolanda) before their abrupt disappearance.

Day 7 was deathless. Early in the "morning", Bayou returned to the cornucopia, where Florizel was waiting for him. Florizel was terrified out of her mind, and she felt much safer to have a stronger tribute at her side. Knowing they would have to abandon the cornucopia, the careers discarded or destroyed everything they didn't need, including by shoving large stores of water into packs where they would be inaccessible. Florizel also found that, if she carved out a chunk of the cement floor, she could access a large empty space underneath. This was where the duo laid most of the horn's supplies to rest. Once the cornucopia was empty and the careers had only what they needed, they left down the South Wing, with Bayou trying not to sprint too quickly and Florizel trying not to whimper too loudly whenever she picked up on the screaming of the hospital's ghost residents.

Among the four outliers, there was a lot of movement but little action. Parse constantly moved around the hospital, stopping every once and a while to raid a storage closet or two. More and more of the arena's food was spoiling by the hour, so Parse ended up eating a lot that wasn't healthy, and it gave him a stomachache. Lizbeth, having sprinted at top speed from the sight of her ally's death, arrived at the most terrifying room in the psychiatric hospital. It was dark and freezing-cold, even more so than the other parts of the building, and it was divided into small areas, each of which held an iron table and a mass of chains. Lizbeth didn't want to enter, but she heard the footsteps of the career pack and had no choice but to head on inside. Fortunately, the careers moved right past the door, and Lizbeth curled up on the damp cement ground and tried to sleep. Poplin put the finishing touches on his look. Every inch of his skin was covered with a thick layer of white, and with hints of yellows, greens, and oranges, he looked just like one of the ghosts. He left the control room and travelled in the direction of the cornucopia. Once, a group of two ghosts came into sight, but they merely drifted past him. Poplin felt as though he'd been doused in icy-cold water, but he was unharmed both physically and mentally by the phantoms who thought he was one of them. Yolanda was, slowly but surely, turning into a repeat Keith. She woke up on the surgical bed and saw three ghosts surrounding her like wingmen: a young boy, a middle-aged man, and an elder who held a walking stick. Yolanda huddled under the blankets and tried to go back to sleep, terrified. Before the day was out, another ghost joined the group, a young woman with a gaping wound in her chest.

The night, immediately after the death recap finished, the largest swarm of ghosts yet appeared out of thin air. There were more than a thousand of them, and in the areas they occupied it was so cold that frost was gathering on the walls. The gamemakers ordered them to split up and drive each of the six remaining tributes toward the cornucopia, where the finale would transpire. Unlike all the ghosts that had tormented the tributes previously, these ghosts were capable of inflicting harm. They were so cold that a tribute near enough to them could easily freeze to death.

Yolanda was quivering on the surgical bed when the door of the operation room burst open and the swarm of ghosts poured inside. Breath fogging up in front of her, Yolanda jumped to her feet and tried to fight her way toward the exit. Despite being transparent, the ghosts were made of solid matter, and Yolanda had to push past them to reach the exit. Unfortunately, she wasn't fast enough. Her body temperature was lowering at an astounding rate, and in minutes her body gave up fighting to keep her warm.

 _Yolanda Pierce, District 11 Female: 6th, Killed by Ghost Muttations, Day 8_

Bayou and Florizel were asleep in a bathroom. They both woke up at the same moment. The swarm of ghosts was at least a hundred feet down the hallway, but they could feel the bitter chill as though they had been dunked in ice water. The allies got to their feet, and their suspicions were confirmed when they peeked out of the doorway and saw the ghosts drawing nearer. Dropping everything but their weapons, Bayou and Florizel raced toward the cornucopia.

They arrived at the empty cement horn in a few minutes, and Bayou and Florizel quickly formed a plan. As creatures of the darkness, the ghosts were terrified of light. Unfortunately, there were no flashlights in the cornucopia. There was only one weapon they could use: fire. Bayou remembered seeing a wooden couch in a nearby room. As he ran away to gather firewood, he instructed Florizel to do anything she could to keep the ghosts away until he returned.

But Florizel had no plan of staying at her post. Immediately after Bayou had left, Florizel raced from the cafeteria, in the direction of the ghosts. Her entire body shook with fight or flight instinct, but she just sighed as the ghosts froze her to death with their bitter chill. She knew that, after two career victories in a row, the Capitol would not be allowing another career to win the games, and even if they did Bayou would be the much better candidate. It was the quickest death she could give herself, even if it was excrutiatingly painful.

 _Florizel Crane, District 1 Female: 5th, Killed by Ghost Muttations, Day 8_

Bayou returned to the cornucopia moments later, arms piled high with firewood. He glanced back and forth, searching for Florizel, but she was nowhere to be found.

"Where the heck did she go?" Bayou murmured as he kneeled down in front of the cornucopia. He arranged the firewood into the proper shape. A silver parachute landed at his side containing a jar of lighter fluid and a match. Bayou sent the wood ablaze just as the tide of ghost mutts arrived at the cafeteria. They stumbled backward, howling and hissing due to the light and warmth issuing from the smoking fire. The fire couldn't burn forever, and as the flames grew shorter he struggled to think up some other way to keep the ghost mutts at bay.

Parse was raiding a storage cupboard of its spoiled contents when he heard the warbling of the ghosts from a ways down the hallway. He didn't think the sound was a big danger, but it didn't make him very comfortable either. He took off down the hall at a brisk walk, and when he looked over his shoulder and saw the hundreds of ghosts he broke into a run in the direction of the cornucopia.

Lizbeth had left her sleeping area a few minutes prior to search for water. Fortunately, she managed to spot the legion of ghosts before it was too late. Lizbeth sprinted in the opposite direction, not knowing she was moving toward the central cafeteria.

Then, the last tribute to face the ghosts was Poplin from 8. When he saw the cohort of ghosts about two hundred feet down the hallway, Poplin downed a small green pill he'd been sponsored several days prior. The pill was designed to increase his body temperature so he wouldn't feel the effects of frostbite as easily as the others. In seconds, he had melted into the crowd of ghosts, and they didn't even notice he was a tribute. He looked just like them. He didn't have any kind of bodily abnormality, but the ghosts weren't very smart and didn't suspect anything.

At the cornucopia, Bayou bounced up and down on his feet, willing some stroke of genius to come for him. He knew he couldn't keep the fire burning forever, and when it went out he would be overwhelmed. Bayou looked down and opened his eyes wide; the point of Poplin's dagger was protruding from his chest like a horn. Bayou whirled around, but he didn't have the energy to flip off his killer before falling still.

 _Bayou Marchbanks, District 4 Male: 4th, Killed by Poplin, Day 8_

Only one more death occurred before the day was out. Parse ran for his life through the halls of the hospital, avoiding the areas covered with frost because he knew the ghosts had been there. The darkness was restricting his visibility, so he didn't see the patch of ice coming until it was too late. The ice came out of nowhere, and he hit it with one foot, sliding forward like an ice skater. Parse tried to regain his balance, but he tumbled forward, skidding over the ground for about a yard before coming to a stop. He had broken his leg. He tried to correct the broken bone, but it was too painful to touch. Parse tried to drag himself away with his hands, but he was ultimately helpless as the ghosts swarmed him.

 _Parse Logan, District 3 Male: 3rd, Killed by Ghost Muttations, Day 8_

Less than half an hour after it all began, the thousands upon thousands of phantoms disappeared into thin air. The interior of the hospital quickly resumed its original temperature. There were only two tributes left in the arena. Lizbeth took shelter inside a janitor's closet near the cornucopia, surrounded by mops, brooms, and cleaning products. Back home, District 6 was cheering her on heartily; if she won, she would be their third victor in ten years, which even the career districts were seldom able to pull off. Poplin camped out in the cornucopia. A sponsor sent him a sleeping bag and pillow to make sleeping more comfortable. When the effects of the temperature raising pill wore off, he was freezing cold, and he huddled down under his sponsored blankets, shivering. District 8 was cheering for him even louder than District 6 was cheering for Lizbeth. If Poplin won, be would become District 8's third victor. Being the first tribute in history to score a zero, Poplin had intrigued the districts of Panem and the Capitol. With all that going for him, it didn't seem farfetched that he could pull out the win.

The finalists met at the cornucopia on the morning of Day 9. Poplin had a single dagger, as did Lizbeth, so they were evened out rather nicely. Lizbeth sprinted into the cafeteria, driven on by a single ghost, and she dashed in Poplin's direction, knees knocking together.

Their duel was short-lived. The finalists had the same weapons, but Poplin was well-rested and well-fed from all the food he'd been sponsored, while Lizbeth was emaciated and disoriented from all her time crammed into small spaces throughout the games. Poplin easily managed to thrust his dagger into his final opponent's abdomen. Lizbeth fell to her knees, screaming like one of the ghosts, clutching her abdomen with her hands in an attempt to keep in her blood. Poplin stood by, biting his lip, as Lizbeth bled out, and then he was the only remaining tribute.

 _Lizbeth Harold, District 6 Female: 2nd, Killed by Poplin, Day 9_

"Poplin Amsden of District 8, you are the victor of the eighty-second annual Hunger Games!" Cadmus and Daria shouted, Cadmus overjoyed and Daria disappointed; Cadmus liked Poplin, while Daria had favored Lizbeth.

Poplin had already begun scrubbing away his white makeup, as though trying to expel the memories of his games as quickly as possible.

 _Poplin Amsden, District 8 Male: Victor of the Eighty-Second Hunger Games, Day 9_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 8 welcomed their third victor with deafening applause. After over twenty years of watching their tributes die, they'd finally managed to take home a victor, and it was the first time in decades the children of the textile district went to bed with full tummies. Poplin himself was just glad to be home. He never took up any kind of addiction to keep away the memories, but he did struggle with PTSD like many of the other victors. Immediately after his victory, a number of sources attempted to estimate the score he would have received had he showed up to his private sessions. Estimations placed his score anywhere between four and nine. In an interview, Poplin gauged he'd give himself a six, but many suspected he was just being modest. He was in extremely high demand among Capitol women, but for different reasons than one might expect: for the rest of his life he would he hired as a makeup artist to help out with weddings and theater productions. He would never be used as a prostitute. Only thirteen years old at the time of his victory, he was the third victor under fourteen in history. It was really the age of the young victor. In the years to come a higher number of young tributes would win the games than ever before.

Poplin moved into the Victor's Village of District 8, the third victor to do so.

His victory tour went well; the higher numbered districts were mostly glad to see an outlier take home the Victor's Crown.

Poplin would live to age seventy-nine, dying from ALS two months before the one-hundred forty-eighth annual Hunger Games. He would marry and have four children, two boys and two girls.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Poplin moves into the Victor's Village of District 8, across the street from Cecelia's home.

Meredith Powell gives birth to her first child, a boy named Alexis.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)

* * *

 **A/N: Oooh! Spooky! It's really hard to pull off indoor arenas, but I had some good fun writing this one. And what's it like seeing a victor from District 8 and only thirteen and with a score of only zero? Unlikely at the very least, nearly impossible at the… not least? I don't know what I'm saying. But yeah. Lizbeth was also one of my faves.**

 **Next chapter is just going to be a retelling of my SYOT, so if you haven't taken a look at that I recommend you do so. I'd advise skipping the next chapter if you don't want spoilers, but the victor's name will appear in the victor lists until the end of time so it's going to be pretty hard to avoid. Do whatever you want :D**


	84. The 83rd Hunger Games

**The 83rd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Cassia Obsidian voluntarily stepped down from the presidency five months before the eighty-third Hunger Games. It had been three years since her marriage to wealthy Capitol businessman Galvan Taverns, and she was now pregnant with his child. Their son, Theophilius "Theo" Ajax Taverns-Obsidian would be born about a month after the games came to a close. President Obsidian's right hand man, Scorpio Talen, took up the role of president during the months that Cassia was on the sidelines of Panem's political system. Much like Obsidian, Talen constantly offered rewards to the citizens of Panem for completing their work on time and with quality. However, his treatment of the poorer districts like 8, 9, and 12 raised eyebrows around the nation, as he raised labor quotas, floggings, and executions in these areas in a Snow-esque way. Violin Turpin also stepped down from the role of head gamemaker for one year; six entire years steering the games ship had been thrilling but exhausting, and she needed a short break. She reassured the Capitol that she would be no less idealistic or enthusiastic when she came back. An older man named Draymond Armidale took her place for the year. Cadmus Flickerman and Daria Pennypacker returned for their third year as the amicable hosts of the Hunger Games. Their morning talk show continued airing on Panem's televisions five mornings a week. All that was needed was a table and two cups of coffee and the two hosts would delve hilariously into various facets of life in the first Hunger Games century.

The arena this year was rather vanilla at first sight. The cornucopia was situated in the middle of a rolling green meadow carpeted with fuzzy green grass. It held a wide variety of weapons, though knives and bows were in particular abundance. A sweeping aerial shot showed that the meadow stretched for miles in all directions, and it was dotted with a number of small pools. Just beyond the cornucopia, there was a sparkling blue lake that looked like polished glass. Surrounding the meadow was a thick forest. The branches of the trees were whimsically crooked, like trees in a fairy tale. Many thin streams scissored through the forest. To the north, there was a tall range of purple mountains capped with snow. The mountain slopes weren't particularly steep, but it would still be a physically demanding climb for any tribute. That was just what was visible at first sight, though. In reality, the entire arena was teeming with fantastic mystical creatures. The forest was jam-packed with mutts like centaurs and unicorns. A large blue kraken with undulating tentacles inhabited the lake just beyond the cornucopia. Even the mountain range, which seemed beautiful in every way, was occupied by a yeti with razor-sharp claws. The star of the show, though, was a single humanoid demon that inhabited the forest. Its skin was slippery and white. The demon had glowing white eyes, and it used its hypnotizing gaze to attract tributes. Whenever the monster attacked a tribute, it would die and the tribute would become the new carrier of its vicious curse. Many suspected this dangerous creature was an homage to the spooky ghost mutts of the eighty-second annual Hunger Games.

The career pack was much weaker this year, with only four members. They offered acceptance to the boys from 7 and 9 to make up for the missing careers, but both boys declined. District 1's tributes were more eye candy than anything else, as neither one was particularly smart. The boy was a walking stereotype, tall and blonde and skilled with a spear, while the girl was pretty and conceited and dim-witted. District 2 provided the cream of the crop this year: the boy was charming and sarcastic, and the girl was an intimidating, well-muscled warrior. Both were formidable fighters, and both scored tens. District 4 did not provide careers this year. The chosen male volunteer, seventeen-year-old Guppy Rochford, freaked out at the reaping and refused to volunteer. As a result, an untrained boy was sent into the games. He wasn't completely helpless, but he would undoubtedly be one of the pack's biggest targets. The chosen female volunteer, sixteen-year-old Dock Elizabeth, broke her leg the morning of the reaping. There wasn't enough time to select another volunteer, and a tiny boy-obsessed thirteen-year-old girl was sent into the games. The pack's four members had decent scores: two tens, a nine, and an eight.

The outliers were a memorable bunch this year, as there were a number of intriguing personalities and strong tributes. Two tributes scored impressive eights. Erik from 7 was tall, muscular, and a wizard with an axe, and he was engaged to be married to his high school sweetheart, which helped with his memorability factor. Meanwhile, Luc from 9 was short, fast, and had quick reflexes, and his survival skills wowed the nation. Sevens were earned by Pixel from 3, Adelaide from 5, Cerise from 7, Orford from 10, and Remi from 12. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. There were a number of other standouts. Pixel from 3 managed to score a seven despite being only twelve years old; she was witty and sarcastic and one of the early favorites. Orford from 10 was a clinically psychopathic, schizophrenic boy whose disabilities had prevented him from realizing there was anything wrong with him. Insane tributes were never allowed to win the games, and unless the boy made a recovery he would almost certainly be doomed to death in the first few days of the games. The last standout, Hopper from 12, was one of the most mischievous tributes the games had ever seen. He figured the best use of his last few days on Earth was to scale the wall of the presidential mansion during the chariots rides, rob the refrigerators on the train, and barge into the midst of the career pack in training and start snoring loudly. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: Jaro from 11, who volunteered out of desperation; his younger sister was ill with terminal cancer, and in a move of family chivalry, he volunteered knowing that the only hope of treatment was to win the games. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Declan Benitoit, 17, (9) 7-1 and Sangria Ashworth, 18, (8) 11-1

District 2: Nero Ryker, 18, (10) 4-1 and Jaehaera Blackfyre, 17, (10) 3-1

District 3: Joule Merchiers, 13, (3) 57-1 and Pixel Watt, 12, (7) 17-1

District 4: Cyan Costas, 18, (6) 18-1 and Dory Krillgood, 13, (6) 22-1

District 5: Arthur Wattson, 17, (5) 24-1 and Adelaide Hampton, 16, (7) 15-1

District 6: Lincoln Blitz, 16, (6) 19-1 and Lexus Beltran, 16, (5) 25-1

District 7: Erik Nordskov, 18, (8) 9-1 and Cerise Yew, 15, (7) 14-1

District 8: Caden Yarnn, 16, (4) 45-1 and Twilla Weaver, 13, (3) 59-1

District 9: Luc Everett, 16, (8) 10-1 and Harper Lamb, 12, (3) 62-1

District 10: Orford Shaw, 18, (7) 14-1 and Mavvi Levist, 17, (6) 23-1

District 11: Jaro Veldt, 15, (5) 25-1 and Adelia Faye, 15, (5) 24-1

District 12: Hopper Vigo, 12, (1) 100-1 and Remi Gardner, 17, (7) 15-1

HGBO Bets: 20% on Jaehaera, 19% on Nero, 16% on Declan, 14% on Sangria, 5% on Erik and Luc, 3% on Pixel and Cerise, 2% on Adelaide, Orford, and Remi, 1% or less on Joule, Cyan, Dory, Arthur, Lincoln, Lexus, Caden, Twilla, Harper, Mavvi, Jaro, Adelia, and Hopper.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The morning wind was warm and comforting as it whipped at the tributes' uniforms. They were standing in the dead center of the rolling meadow, and a few of the more attentive tributes spotted the forest and the mountain range on the horizon. The air carried an inviting flowery scent that invited them all to curl up and sleep without a care. The Capitol cheered as the countdown dwindled closer to zero, and then the tributes were off.

When the gong rang, two tributes fled into the meadow: Pixel from 3 and Mavvi from 10. As the two girls sprinted toward safety, the others burst forward, hoping to gather useful supplies in the opening minutes.

Nero raced in the direction of the cornucopia, and he locked his fingers around a long sword that glittered in the light of the overhead sun. Nearby, a smaller girl was zigzagging back and forth, trying to evade the careers as she thundered toward the cornucopia. Nero thrust his sword into her chest, and she collapsed, bouncing up and down like a dying fish before falling still.

 _Lexus Beltran, District 6 Female: 24th, Killed by Nero, Bloodbath_

The insane Orford from 10 tackled the slim boy from 4, nearly knocking him to the ground. Orford was armed with a number of knives, and the boy was defenseless, so he was helpless despite his best efforts to defend himself. Orford buried two knives into his waist, cackling, and he was gone in moments.

 _Cyan Costas, District 4 Male: 23rd, Killed by Orford, Bloodbath_

Jaehaera, wielding a sword, ambushed Sangria from 1. The self-proclaimed princess had stopped halfway between her pedestal and the cornucopia to check her reflection in the blade of a throwing knife. Jaehaera lashed out with her sword, cutting into the girl's side, and Sangria screamed that she was ruining her hair. Jaehaera pulled back her sword and watched the life force fade from the prissy girl she'd come to dislike.

 _Sangria Ashworth, District 1 Female: 22nd, Killed by Jaehaera, Bloodbath_

Declan was the last career without a kill, but as he surveyed the cornucopia field, he spotted a tiny boy sauntering casually amongst the other tributes, shouting insults and jokes and cussing off the other careers. Declan intercepted the boy and skewered him through his chest, ending his life of mischief for good.

 _Hopper Vigo, District 12 Male: 21st, Killed by Declan, Bloodbath_

Having tugged his sword out of the dead Lexus' chest, Nero attacked his next victim. A nearby girl with a curtain of violently red hair was holding a sword of her own. She put up an admirable fight, but she was no match for the trained career boy. Nero carved his sword into her side and wiggled it back and forth, slicing open organs and drawing out torrents of blood.

 _Twilla Weaver, District 8 Female: 20th, Killed by Nero, Bloodbath_

Erik and Cerise, the allied tributes from District 7, were sabotaged by a small boy from one of the upper districts. The boy was young and foolish and thought he could take down the two tributes, and he didn't realize they were armed with hatchets until it was too late. Erik shoved him to the ground, ordering Cerise to do the deed as he held down his flailing limbs. Cerise screamed as she brought down her hatchet, severing the boy's left leg.

 _Joule Merchiers, District 3 Male: 19th, Killed by Cerise, Bloodbath_

On the other side of the cornucopia, Jaehaera zeroed in on her second kill. She'd been chasing a tall boy back and forth for several minutes when she finally caught up to him and knocked him forward like a domino. The boy fell onto his front, wheezing, and Jaehaera dug the razor-sharp edge of her sword into his back, ending him.

 _Arthur Wattson, District 5 Male: 18th, Killed by Jaehaera, Bloodbath_

Nero, fellow sword-wielder, made a sudden movement with his sword. The nearest boy threw out a pack in an attempt to shield himself from the blow, but he missed and his killer only drew nearer. He screamed as Nero buried the tip of his sword into his abdomen, twisting it farther and farther through until the point grew from his back.

 _Caden Yarnn, District 8 Male: 17th, Killed by Nero, Bloodbath_

Declan made the last kill. Several minutes prior, a twelve-year-old girl had collapsed inside of the cornucopia. With the bloodbath near its conclusion, the girl hadn't budged; she was still rocking back and forth, crying softly and having a panic attack from the stress of the games. Declan quickly went in for the kill. The pitiful girl was killed immediately, and she barely felt it.

 _Harper Lamb, District 9 Female: 16th, Killed by Declan, Bloodbath_

This year's career pack was one of the most dysfunctional in decades. They all had different views of how the pack should be run, how duties should be divided, and how hunting should be approached. The three careers largely sprinted around the cornucopia for several minutes, refusing to settle down for any specific task. Declan sat down after a few minutes to sift through the weapons, and he noticed an excess of blades and bows. He noticed the other two careers acting down in the dumps, and he tried to cheer them up but failed. Nero was having his doubts about the career group this year; with such a small, mixed group, he felt as though it would just be harming him to stick around. He tried to keep these thoughts to himself as he went about his business. Jaehaera paraded back and forth, yelling orders to the others. Leadership skills were valued in career tributes, but the 2 girl was just acting bossy. Bored, the careers quickly left, leaving Nero to guard the supplies while they were away.

The outliers sprinted in all directions. Pixel was one of the fastest runners this year due to her small size, and she raced in the direction of the purple mountain range, hoping the high ground would allow her to spot danger early. She was too weak to reach her destination in one day, so she leaned against a thin tree on the outskirts of the forest to sleep. Dory silently sprinted east and expertly killed a small weasel with her knives. She was smart enough not to start a fire, so without means of cooking the meat she had to chew until her jaw was sore. At nightfall she climbed into the lowest bough of a tree and tried to sleep. Adelaide had a decent stock of supplies: a shovel, a blowgun, and five darts. Upon reaching the forest, she dug a large hole, hoping to use it to trap tributes and mutts. Lincoln had shoved a pack of wire into a sleeping bag before racing from the bloodbath, and as soon as he settled down he began assembling snares to garner food and keep himself healthy. Erik and Cerise raced toward the sparkling blue lake beyond the cornucopia. After killing Joule from 3, Cerise was a sobbing mess, and Erik tried to comfort her as the lake drew nearer. The duo settled for lunch, and they kept catching fleeting visions of the kraken mutt hiding in the depths of the lake, but they were so short and infrequent that the 7s didn't pay them much attention. Luc scampered noisily through the trees before settling down in a bowl-shaped ditch. It wasn't much, but it would do at least something to hide him from the view of other tributes. Orford was indecisive about whether to stay in the meadow or move to the forest, but eventually decided on moving to the forest. When he was too tired to move on, he collapsed on a hill overlooking a marshy swamp. He vowed to find a better home the next morning. Mavvi, the deaf girl from 10, traipsed aimlessly back and forth through the forest. It finally grew dark, and the girl settled at the base of a tall tree, thoughts racing through her head. When Jaro reached the forest, his mad sprint slowed to a creep. The forest was beautiful and mysterious all at once, and he knew he had to tread carefully. Jaro spotted a large rock and placed his handprint on the grimy surface; twenty minutes later, almost a mile away, he spotted the same exact stone. Creeped, he curled up on the ground and tried to sleep. Adelia and Remi, the allied girls from 11 and 12 respectively, practically dragged themselves up a tall hill that had a stunning view of the entire arena. Both girls were exhausted, and they slept like rocks for most of the light hours of the day. Despite taking up somewhat less than a third of the arena, fourteen of the fifteen tributes were in the forest at the end of Day 1. While these tributes had the most cover, they also faced the most threats, from mutts to other tributes. Time would tell how this would play out.

Remi shook Adelia awake at sunrise the next day. Adelia was exhausted, as was Remi, but she wanted some time to explore the area and gather food before the temperature reached its peak. After a long argument, they reached a compromise. Adelia stayed on the hilltop and rested while Remi sprinted away to explore. Remi had been running for only a few minutes when she came across a series of bushing bearing bright-red berries she recognized. She shoved the berries into her pockets and piled them up into her arms, then raced back toward camp. Suddenly, Adelia's screams shattered the silence of the forest, and Remi dropped the berries, running toward Adelia's screams to help her. Remi burst onto the hilltop just as the first arrow entered the other girl's chest. Three centaur mutts surrounded Adelia in a triangle shape, trapping her between their lines of fire. Remi ran away, terrified, as the centaurs planted their arrows into her ally's body.

 _Adelia Faye, District 11 Female: 15th, Killed by Centaur Muttations, Day 2_

Remi darted through the forest, shoving branches out of her way and letting them snap back into place once she moved past them. She heard Adelia's cannon shot and figured she would be the centaurs' next target. Nero was circling around the cornucopia, doodling in the dirt with his sword, when he heard the commotion and raced toward it to investigate. Adelia ran right into the point of Nero's sword, and she fell to her knees, gasping and shaking. Nero tugged his sword out of her torso, pursing his lips as blood dripped down its blade.

 _Remi Gardner, District 12 Female: 14th, Killed by Nero, Day 2_

At the same time that their alliance was eliminated, an alliance was being formed. Pixel from District 3 heard Adelia's screams and leapt to her feet. Through the thick layer of branches, she saw the thrashing 11 girl, and, terrified, raced in the opposite direction. Pixel soon came to the place where the deaf Mavvi was standing, and she held out her hand, offering an alliance. Mavvi agreed, smiling, and the tributes sat cross-legged on the ground next to each other to rest.

Orford broke camp at dawn and got moving. The hilly marsh wasn't the least comfortable place in the arena, but it stank to high heaven and Orford couldn't stand the bugs. In a few minutes, Orford arrived in a clearing that featured a stone the size of a pickup truck. A large area inside of the stone was hollowed out, allowing the boy to crawl inside and still have room for his supplies. Suddenly, Orford fell out of the stone and jumped to full height, panicked. His eyes were fixed on the immediate foreground, where there was nothing but a patch of grass. The stress of the games was getting the best of the mentally-ill boy, and he was having a hallucination. He imagined there was a clone of himself standing in front of him that had the same voice, appearance, and personality. Orford sat down on the ground and cleared out a spot for his imaginary companion, having a conversation with him for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile, Declan and Jaehaera continued hunting. Jaehaera was frustrated and disappointed; her entire life had been building up to this moment, but she hardly felt like a pack leader when there were only two other careers that she thought had negative IQs. Declan tried his best to cheer her up by making puns and witty remarks, but Jaehaera just grunted and told him to do his job.

Erik and Cerise woke on the morning of the second day completely unscathed—having camped out so close to the cornucopia, they were surprised to be unharmed. They refilled their thermoses using water from the lake and then wolfed down a sponsored breakfast. Cerise sorted the duo's supplies while Erik waded in the lake to see if there were any edible fish or other useful entities inside. Erik let out a scream, and Cerise looked up from her pack, dumbfounded with shock. The kraken mutt had wrapped its slippery blue tentacle around Erik's ankle, and the 7 boy was now suspended in the air. The kraken slowly rose out of the water like a pile of blue spaghetti. Its ugly, rope-like tentacles were lined with suction cups. Cerise screamed and raced toward Erik, but the kraken just hoisted him farther into the air to tease her. Cerise screamed and covered her eyes with her hands as the mutt squeezed Erik's torso with immense force and slammed him repeatedly into the ground. The mutt sank back underneath the waves, and Cerise ran to the groaning Erik's side. He was far too injured to survive; Cerise tried to heal him, but his wounds were too severe to be fixed with the simple medical kit she'd grabbed from the cornucopia. In the long run, she just drew out his suffering. Now only half of the tributes remained.

 _Erik Nordskov, District 7 Male: 13th, Killed by Kraken Muttation, Day 2_

Several miles away, at the edge of the forest close to the force field, disaster struck. Adelaide from 5 continued digging her hole farther and farther down in to the ground. Every scoop was more physically strenuous from the last, and she was exhausted. Once, she slipped and fell straight into the hole. She tried to hoist herself out, but the opening was already blocked by a layer of scaly green vines: snakes. Panicking, Adelaide shoved through the weave of serpentine bodies. She only realized after her escape that one of the snakes had bitten her in the pinky finger. The pain came in waves from the site of the bite, and it felt like fire. Adelaide knew she had no choice. She grabbed the knife she was sponsored the day prior, gritted her teeth, and sawed back and forth. Her screams pierced the forest as she sawed the finger straight off of her hand and then bandaged it over with pieces of her clothes. Fortunately, there were no tributes in earshot.

The terrifying white demon that inhabited the forest had remained largely passive throughout the first day, but when Dory from 4 came nearby the creature opened its glowing white eyes and let out a cold, mirthless laugh. Dory was on the hunt for food when she suddenly froze in her tracks, the hairs on her neck standing up likes the bristles of a nail brush. She felt the demon's slimy hand close around her ankle, and Dory wiggled free, screaming. The mutt was fast, but the terrified 4 girl was faster. She thought she'd escaped the mutt, but she swore she caught glimpses of its eyes in her peripheral vision at least five times throughout the day. She was too terrified to sleep; she just lay against a tree once night fell, crying softly to herself.

On the morning of Day 3, Declan and Jaehaera decided to return to the cornucopia. They were low on supplies and were in desperate need of a restock. On the way back to the cornucopia, they were intercepted by a trio of unicorn mutts. Jaehaera screamed for Declan to take cover, and Declan's chest would have been cut open by the tallest unicorn's sparkling silver horn if he had been a second too slow. The careers tried to run, but they were overtaken almost instantly; the unicorns moved extremely fluidly through the wood, whereas the terrified careers were more clumsy. Jaehaera managed to send one of the unicorns reeling with a blow of her sword, and then Declan dispatched a smaller horse with his spear, a pretty stallion with a shining diamond horn. As the matriarch comforted the dying stallion, the two careers quietly scampered away. They finished their journey to the cornucopia in hours more, and they were both unharmed.

Now that the careers had escaped, the unicorns galloped toward the next nearest tributes: Pixel and Mavvi. Both girls were sleeping under the thick layer of foliage on the forest floor when Pixel woke to the rustling of the mutts. The deaf Mavvi was unfortunately unable to notice the presence of the unicorns until it was too late. A glob of sparkling saliva landed on her face, and Mavvi bolted to a sitting position, screaming. Pixel ran to her side to help her, but the unicorn had already drilled its horn through Mavvi's chest. Her dying moans were sickening, and Pixel ran for her life in the direction of the thicker trees, hoping the treacherous path would deter the unicorns if they decided they wanted seconds.

 _Mavvi Levist, District 10 Female: 12th, Killed by Unicorn Muttations, Day 3_

The remainder of Day 3 was deathless. Orford kept up his conversations with his imaginary clone. Whether he'd conjured up the image of a companion due to loneliness, stress, or merely insanity, would never be determined. Around noon, Orford starting telling his clone jokes to entertain himself, but since he knew all of the answers it was no fun. Declan and Jaehaera returned to the cornucopia and saw Nero in the worst condition a career had been in in years. He was emaciated and terrified, and every minute he had fleeting thoughts of abandoning the pack. By bottling his feelings down inside of him like a volcano he was just getting more stressed, and he seldom spoke as he refilled the others' packs with food and other supplies. Dory kept up her frantic sprint. The demon was on her trail, but the girl was a fast runner, so she managed to stay ahead of it for most of the day. It only caught up to her once or twice, and when she saw its signature white eyes glowing from the darkness she whimpered and ran even faster. Terrified out of her mind, Dory repeatedly wiped her nose on her shirt sleeve, wondering what she could do to throw the demon off of her trail.

The first half of Day 4 was deathless. Declan and Jaehaera decided to skip out on hunting that day, as they were tired and in desperate need of a short break. Nero didn't talk much. He only leaned against the interior walls of the cornucopia, shifting slightly every few minutes whenever some part of his body fell asleep. Pixel was somewhat disappointed at her inability to keep her allies alive: the fourth day wasn't over and she'd had two alliances (with Hopper from 12 and Mavvi from 10) that had both failed within hours. She knew she should have been continuing her quest for the mountain range, but she largely remained inactive, napping under the foliage until the sun set. The bloody stump of Adelaide's severed pinky finger was coming along well. She eventually came across a river that was laced with healing medicines. Adelaide washed her bandages in the river and managed to stop the blood flow completely in minutes. Lincoln was searching for food in a large, open valley when a torrent of water exploded out of nowhere. It was really being pumped out of the ground into the valley, but to Lincoln it looked like it was appearing out of the thin air. Terrified, he climbed the only tree in the valley. Panic settled in his gut when he realized he was trapped; the orphan boy couldn't swim a yard if his life depended on it, which it did. Lincoln just relaxed on one of the branches as the glassy surface of the floodwater rose higher and higher before stopping feet below him and staying there. Cerise was going mad from grief; it turned out she'd had feelings for the dead Erik, and she collapsed in a small cave, moaning and crying to herself. The events of the past few days had triggered both an emotional and existential crisis for the 7 girl, and she attempted suicide multiple times but failed. Luc knew he was among the least memorable tributes this year, despite his best efforts to stay relevant to the story line. He spent most of the fourth day assembling a shelter from branches, but even then he got about twenty minutes of screen time total during the whole day. Orford continued interacting with the boy that his imagination had conjured up. However, he was getting increasingly creeped out. He wanted answers. Why was a clone of himself even there in the first place? Why did he refuse to eat anything? Orford tried to coax the answers out of him, but the other Orford just shrugged and said he didn't know. Jaro continued his advances through the forest. The only thing keeping him relevant was the fact that he was the only volunteer outside of the careers, but even that couldn't shield him for much longer. The 11 boy lacked a permanent home, instead preferring to sprint around the forest and settle for the night wherever his whims carried him.

Shortly after nightfall on Day 4, Dory submitted to her demon pursuer. She'd been slowly running out of energy for days, and she was helpless as the mutt wrapped its fingers around her abdomen and dug down into her skin. Suddenly, Dory's weakness melted away, replaced with a newfound strength and a thirst for blood. The demon crumpled to dust, and when Dory looked up her eyes glowed white. She was still recognizable as Dory Krillgood, but every part of appearance seemed to be horrendously altered in some way. Cackling, the 4 girl got to her feet and moved quietly through the forest, thirsty for blood.

A few minutes earlier, Declan and Nero had left the cornucopia to refill the pack's thermoses with water. Declan had finished screwing the cap onto the last thermos when he spotted Dory's glistening eyes staring at him through the darkness. Declan dropped the thermoses, and several of them cracked open, spilling their watery contents over the soil. Declan stumbled backward, shocked, and he tripped, falling onto his bottom. Dory tackled him; Declan morphed and transformed, while Dory crumped to small, unrecognizable pieces.

 _Dory Krillgood, District 4 Female: 11th, Killed by Curse, Day 4_

All the while, Nero had been hiding in the shadows, watching the scene play out from his safe hiding place. When he saw Declan's transformation, Nero raced toward the cornucopia to warn Jaehaera of the situation. Nero had a head start, but the demon was following him, however slowly. Jaehaera immediately barked for Nero to help her gather firewood. The pair from 2 got a fire going just as Declan's mangled, monstrous form came into sight. Nero ducked into the cornucopia, terrified, while Jaehaera slowly backed away, holding out her sword. Jaehaera eventually managed to kill the mutt by standing in front of the fire and diving to one side when it charged, causing once-Declan to land in the flames. The demon moaned, and it hissed out something unintelligible as it burned to death.

 _Declan Benitoit, District 1 Male: 10th, Killed by Jaehaera, Day 4_

Jaehaera lowered her weapons, jaw set and lips formed into a solid line. She was trying to look as emotional as possible. The next morning she told Declan she'd seen a similar creature back home in 2 that had killed a friend of hers. The entire thing was a massive lie, but the gullible Declan and much of the audience believed the story, and Jaehaera's quantity of sponsor gifts increased by almost threefold.

The light hours of Day 5 were uneventful. Pixel finally got to her feet, wiped the mud off of her clothes, and continued her journey toward the mountain range. A number of events had transpired to throw her off of her path, but she was now back on it, and at her current speed it looked like she could reach the mountain in two to three days if she was determined. Adelaide continued to rest at the side of the healing river, regularly washing her bandages in the water to make the most of the water's special properties. She found that the taste of the river was heavenly as well, sweet, almost like honey. Lincoln racked his brains for some way to leave his treetop prison. Surrounded by water, his first instinct was to build a raft, but there wasn't a large enough area to build anything large enough to fit his body. He asked his mentor Apollo for inspiration but received nothing. Cerise's depression and suicidal thoughts were growing more and more intense with time. Inside of her small cave, she would randomly alternate between thrashing and screaming and falling perfectly still, crying quietly. Her inactivity was getting boring for the Capitol; unless she picked herself up soon, the gamemakers would have no choice but to unleash their worst. Orford was getting more and more frustrated with the lack of answers his clone was giving him, so in the middle of the night he decided to tie him down and get the answers he needed on threat of death. Orford fashioned a rope from vine and tried to bind the imaginary boy down, but he was made of air; the vines passed straight through him. Terrified, Orford ran for his life, roaring with fury. Jaro was exhausted from his travels in and around the forest, so he decided to settle down for the day. Jaro found a cave and crawled inside. It was pleasantly cool, and he fell asleep quickly.

The last tribute the cameras showed was Luc. Luc had been a fraction of a mile from the lacking career team for several hours when they spotted him. Jaehaera shushed Nero and quietly raised a finger, pointing at the 9 boy moving clumsily through the trees. When Luc stopped to drink beside a thin stream the width of his hand, Jaehaera saw her chance. She lunged forward, tackling Luc, and Nero halfheartedly followed suit, holding him down while Jaehaera hacked him open with her sword.

 _Luc Everett, District 9 Male: 9th, Killed by Jaehaera, Day 5_

That left the final eight: Nero Ryker and Jaehaera Blackfyre from District 2, Pixel Watt from District 3, Adelaide Hampton from District 5, Lincoln Blitz from District 6, Cerise Yew from District 7, Orford Shaw from District 10, and Jaro Veldt from District 11.

On the morning of Day 6, Pixel arrived at the foot of the first mountain. She was weak and only twelve years old, but she was determined and resilient and somehow managed to reach her destination days earlier than anyone had guessed possible. As she ventured up the shimmering purple slope, Pixel was more shocked than she should have been at how cold it was; temperatures were near twenty degrees Fahrenheit, so she wrapped her arms around her torso, shivering and chattering. A sponsor sent her a crossbow and at least a dozen arrows, which made her feel more comfortable.

Adelaide felt she'd spent enough time lying around and stood up before walking away from the healing stream, carrying only her dart gun and darts. Her curiosity was piqued when she spotted a large, yawning opening in the ground. She threw a number of rocks inside to make sure nobody was home. Nobody was. Adelaide crawled inside and slowly lowered herself down; her feet touched solid ground. She found that the hole led down to a large underground area that held a pleasant, earthy smell. Adelaide didn't know it, but it was the place where the unicorn mutts lived before they were removed by the gamemakers. Adelaide spent most of the day practicing with her darts; now that she had only nine fingers, there were a lot of skills she needed to rework.

Day 6 was also the day that Lincoln escaped his treetop prison. After days of steeling himself, Lincoln dropped down into the cold floodwaters. For a moment, he panicked, then he flailed around, reaching for something, anything. He grabbed onto a root and pulled himself along, then grabbed onto a rock. In this way he was able to move along very slowly. The surface grew closer and closer. By the time his head broke the surface, his lungs were screaming for air. Finally, Lincoln dragged himself to shore, gasping, shaking, and coughing up water.

Jaehaera and Nero returned to the cornucopia at noon. Jaehaera knew she could easily overpower Nero, and she also knew that she would have to kill him off sooner or later. However, the 2 girl didn't want to bump him off yet; despite being just one extra competitor, he was useful for tasks around the cornucopia. Jaehaera resolved to kill him off at the final six, after one more death occurred.

At eleven o'clock in the morning, a cannon shot shattered the peaceful quiet of the forest. The gamemakers had been far too kind to Cerise, and on Day 6 they declared she was pointless to keep around. The gamemakers caused a nearby stream to overflow, making water pour into the cave. Cerise just sighed as the water engulfed her.

 _Cerise Yew, District 7 Female: 8th, Killed by Drowning, Day 6_

By Day 6, Orford had gone completely insane; his friends and neighbors had always known he was off, but they never knew he had the capability to be so unnerving. Orford sprinted through the forest, hiding in the shadows, cackling and curling his lips into smiles that seemed just a little too wide to be possible. He was evidently on the prowl for prey, but there were no tributes nearby. The gamemakers held off from killing him for the time being; his constant mood changes were keeping the Capitol on its toes, if nothing else, so he was benefiting the entertainment factor of the games at least somewhat.

On Day 7, a wandering Jaro arrived at the ditch where Adelaide was hiding, not knowing that the girl was inside. Jaro slid down through the narrow tunnel before dropping into the open area underground. Adelaide's flashlight beam hit him square in the chest, revealing his position, and Jaro shoved himself back into the entrance channel, hurriedly trying to escape. Just before he escaped, one of Adelaide's poison darts landed in his calf. A trill of pain ran through his leg, and Jaro ran for his life in an arbitrary direction, vowing never to enter a dark area without checking inside first.

At the cornucopia, Nero shook Jaehaera awake. He'd already prepared breakfast. While Nero walked behind the cornucopia to change, Jaehaera pulled a vial out of her pocket that contained a bright-orange liquid. She slipped the poison into Nero's soup and discarded the vial just before Nero came into sight. Jaehaera began wolfing down her soup, hoping Nero would do the same. When Nero took his first sip, he collapsed, clawing at his neck, gasping and shaking as the highly acidic solution ate away at his neck and mouth.

 _Nero Ryker, District 2 Male: 7th, Killed by Jaehaera, Day 7_

Only one more notable event occurred before Day 7 was over. In the mountains, Pixel was dangerously close to the cave where the yeti mutt was sleeping. It was nighttime when Pixel sprinted into the cave, too tired to bother checking for threats before she settled down for the night. Her eyes opened wide when she heard the growling of the yeti, and both Pixel and the yeti stretched to full height. Pixel grabbed her crossbow and sprinted out of the cave, racing down the slope of the mountain without paying any mind to caution. She finally came to a wide, freezing-cold stream, and Pixel grabbed a large branch, using it like a raft to float across. When she was finally safe, Pixel sprinted farther down, the moonlight shining on her glossy black hair.

By the start of Day 8, there were only six tributes left in the arena. Jaehaera, the only remaining career, discarded, destroyed, and buried most of the cornucopia's supplies and then abandoned ship, sprinting in the direction of the forest. She hunted for the light hours of the day. When the sun set, Jaehaera found a spot where a number of whimsically curved trees had collapsed in a circle, creating a fortress with wooden walls. Jaehaera crawled inside and quickly fell asleep. Pixel continued her journey down the side of the mountain; it was a long journey, but she was fast and swift and adrenaline trilled through her veins. When she reached the mountain's base, she collapsed near a warm stream, exhausted. Jaro was dangerously close to death from Adelaide's poison dart when a silver parachute landed at his side. The carriage of the sponsor parachute carried a single hypodermic needle filled with bright-green liquid. When he pushed the plunger, a cooling sensation overwhelmed him, and he passed out for nearly ten hours.

Adelaide had a nasty wake-up call on the morning of the eighth day. The night prior, she'd abandoned the open underground space and settled a number of meters away in a patch of fuzzy green grass. In her sleep, the girl rolled into a patch of vines. It was almost as if the girl's movement woke them up; the vines instantly began moving, undulating back and forth. By the time Adelaide realized what was happening, her ankles were both bound. She tried to run, but she just fell forward, barely managing to catch her fall with elbows. Adelaide was helpless as the vines wrapped around her torso and legs, pulling her tighter and tighter until liquids literally started squirting out of her body.

 _Adelaide Hampton, District 5 Female: 6th, Killed by Choking Vines, Day 8_

After several days of hunting, the insane Orford finally found his victim: Lincoln from 6. Orford stuck to the shadows and followed Lincoln around the forest for the entire day. He was quick on his feet and quiet as a mouse, and Lincoln only peered over his shoulder two or three times throughout the day, thinking he'd heard movement behind him. At nightfall, Jaro found the perfect place to sleep. A tree was growing on a slope, and the room under the raised roots was large enough to fit him, with room to spare. Jaro settled down in the open space, and the moment he stopped moving Orford leapt out of the shadows. Jaro screamed for help, but Orford clapped his hand over his mouth, telling him he'd kill him if he said another word.

Orford buried his knife into Jaro's chest so savagely that this screams were already choked by the sound of blood. Orford dug through his torso for several minutes, pulling aside long, thin innards and scooping out handfuls of blood. He finally pulled out the boy's heart and pulled it to his mouth before taking a big bite, grinning with the energy of a madman.

Moments later, Orford felt a sharp bolt of pain fire through his arm before his world cut to black. The gamemakers had had their fun keeping Orford around, but it was too much to risk letting an insane boy move any further than they'd generously let him.

 _Lincoln Blitz, District 6 Male: 5th, Killed by Orford, Day 8_

 _Orford Shaw, District 10 Male: 4th, Killed by Exploding Tracker, Day 8_

Day 9 was the last day of the eighty-third annual Hunger Games. The three remaining competitors were Jaehaera Blackfyre from District 2, Pixel Watt from District 3, and Jaro Veldt from District 11. On the morning of the ninth day, the flooding began. The water started rising slowly and gradually rose faster and faster with time. Jaro, who had moved to the meadow, woke up to t he thundering of the water. He peered into the nearby valley and couldn't believe his eyes; the valley was almost completely flooded with water. The roar was deafening as more and more water appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Terrified, Jaro ran for his life in the direction of the cornucopia, which was the highest point in the arena.

He was less than a mile from the horn of plenty when he was intercepted by Jaehaera from 2. The girl leapt out of nowhere, and Jaro only barely managed to scurry out of the way fast enough. Jaro pulled out his axe, and their duel began. About one hundred feet away, a sheet of water was slowly moving over the grass, consuming the meadow and rising higher and higher with each second. By the time Jaehaera cut open Jaro's torso with her sword, they were both standing ankle deep in water. Jaro fell to his knees, sending out a wave of displaced water, and Jaehaera fled from the scene, finding dry footing nearer to the cornucopia.

 _Jaro Veldt, District 11 Male: 3rd, Killed by Jaehaera, Day 9_

Several miles away, at the edge of the meadow nearest to the mountain range, Pixel was running for her life. She was being chased not only by the rising surface of the flood, but also by an enormous black mutt the size of an elephant. The mutt was reminiscent of an extremely oversized hound dog, and it had razor-sharp teeth that glistened whenever it opened its mouth. The terrified 3 girl had a head start, and the gamemakers ordered the mutt to slow down slightly, allowing Pixel to pull ahead. It wouldn't do to kill off a competitor before the finale.

Pixel was about a mile from the cornucopia now, and she came across the site where Jaro's dead body lay still on the grass, his blood still fresh. Pixel didn't know why, but something nagged at her, telling her this was important. Without really knowing what she was doing, she reached down and tore off a clump of grass stained with Jaehaera's blood and shoved it into her pocket. Something told her it would come in handy in the future—so strongly it was creepy.

Jaehaera was standing on top of the cornucopia, waiting for her final competitor. Pixel leapt onto the roof of the cornucopia next to her. The flood was closing in on them in all directions. There was a circle of dry footing around the cornucopia maybe fifty feet in radius, and it was shrinking quickly. Jaehaera made the first move, and the blade of her sword grazed Pixel's shoulder. The 3 girl leapt out of the way. For about a minute, the two girls dueled back and forth, inflicting small cuts and scrapes but nothing major. Once, one of Pixel's darts landed in Jaehaera's shoulder, but the wound wasn't deep so it hardly bothered her.

Before long, water started splashing over top of the cornucopia, and they were ankle-deep in seconds. In seconds more, there was too much water to stand, and they were both swimming. Jaehaera dragged herself onto a flimsy wooden board that had broken off of the cornucopia and evened out her weight, struggling to stay afloat. Pixel climbed into a wooden barrel and used her arms to keep the barrel balanced. Multiple times, she almost capsized.

Suddenly, Pixel remembered something. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the bundle of grass stained with Jaehaera's blood. Then she tied the grass around a stick and tossed it to the mutt. The huge canine munched on the bloody grass and lunged toward Jaehaera for seconds.

"Lucky girl. Not even a single kill," Jaehaera stammered before the creature tore her in half.

 _Jaehaera Blackfyre, District 2 Female: 2nd, Killed by Dog Muttation, Day 9_

"Pixel Watt of District 3, you are the victor of the eighty-third annual Hunger Games!" Cadmus and Daria exclaimed.

Pixel panted heavily, struggling to stay afloat as the hovercraft descended to collect her.

 _Pixel Watt, District 3 Female: Victor of the Eighty-Third Hunger Games, Day 9_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 3 welcomed their tenth victor with open arms. They were the first outlying district to reach double-digits in terms of victor count, and the celebrations were endless. Pixel would go on to say it had always been her dream to be so notable that kids were let out of school in her honor. She had accomplished this dream. The Capitol liked her for her sarcasm, wit, and playful spunk. She got along well with Cadmus and Daria, and her victor interview would go down as one of the most memorable of the first Hunger Games century. Though Pixel lived a great victor life, she couldn't always keep the memories away. The most notable toll the games took on her was her intense phobia of dogs. She also got nervous around deep water. She was the nation's first twelve year old victor, though not the youngest—that record would always go to Surge Upsdell. She and Surge were also the first two victors to win the games without making a single kill. The two would become great friends as they older, and Surge would even walk her down the aisle at her wedding.

She settled into the Victor's Village of District 3, the tenth to do so.

Her victory tour was alright, though District 2, thirsting for their twenty-first victor, was sour.

Pixel would live to age sixty-nine, dying on April Fool's Day the year of the one-hundred fortieth annual Hunger Games. She would marry and have two children. Pixel had a crazy life, and there were ups and downs, but she enjoyed it thoroughly.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Pixel settles into the Victor's Village of District 3, next door to Wiress' home.

Mags Flanagan adopts her tenth child, a young boy named Garrick.

Klink Byrae marries his fiancée, Annie "Anna" Rhodesian.

Augustus Braun, the victor of the sixty-seventh annual Hunger Games, is poisoned to death by one of his party guests.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)

* * *

 **A/N: So this week I bought an extremely unhealthy amount of candy and ate it all in like an hour and now I feel like throwing up. Writing this chapter was a good distraction from the horrific pain in my digestive system. So yeah. Happy Valentine's Day, if that's a thing any of you guys celebrate.**

 **I'll try to keep this author's note on the short side, because I've already written almost 100,000 words on these tributes. Any favorites, least favorites, thoughts, or random remarks are appreciated in the reviews. You guys are the reason I can get these chapters out so quickly :D**


	85. The 84th Hunger Games

**The 84th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

President Cassia Obsidian returned to her influential position of power. However, she did not feel nearly as secure in the seat of the presidency as she once had, and for good reason. A new political sect was emerging, many of its followers admirers of the late President Snow, that thought the districts should be ruled much more cruelly than Obsidian treated them. The government had to go to any cost to preserve what little was left of the human race, this growing political party argued, and that would entail a much harsher grip than Obsidian was using. In time, this political party began to call themselves the Heads. Meanwhile, Obsidian's supporters, who thought it would be best to rule the districts peacefully, called themselves Tails. Their names were opposites because of their vastly differing political views. The Heads and Tails would remain the two main political parties of Panem for decades. Violet Turpin returned to the post of head gamemaker. Her year-long break had been well-deserved and well-spent, but it was time to return to her post and craft another arena that would wow the Capitol and the districts. Cadmus and Daria returned as the hosts of the games. When asked, Cadmus said he identified as a Tail, whereas Daria aligned more with the Heads party, even though she wasn't entirely fond of some of the methods the late Snow had used to rule the districts.

The tributes this year would find themselves in a location they'd seen in pictures but never actually been to; in fact, it was a place only a handful of humans had ever visited. The arena was a rolling expanse of crumbly, light-grey stone. The cornucopia, fashioned out of the same stone, was situated in the very center of the lunar landscape. The only weapons were a number of knives, two bows, a single trident, and a few other weapons the careers had specially requested. The sky overhead was pitch-black and scattered with stars, and instead of the moon there was a glassy blue marble that all of the tributes recognized. During the day, it was more than bright enough to see, whereas during the night it was so dark the tributes may as well have been wearing blindfolds. For this reason there were a number of flashlights in the cornucopia. In reality, days on the moon are about thirty days long, but in these games the sun would rise and set every twenty-four hours, just like on Earth. The moon was not completely empty of life, however. The landscape was inhabited by several rovers that ranged in size from mice to cars, and their deadly appendages could inflict extreme bodily harm on any tribute. There were also small structures carved out of the stone that looked like houses; this was where the slimy green alien mutts lived when they weren't terrorizing the tributes.

The career team was outstanding this year; in starch contrast to last year's pack, it was one of the most powerful in decades. Not one of their six members scored below a nine. District 1 offered up the strongest duo. The boy had a silky voice that drew the hearts of the Capitol women like flies to a sugar bowl, and he was a wizard with a bow. The girl scored an eleven. This wasn't nearly as difficult as it once had been, with the newly adjusted training score system that made it much easier to score anything over a nine, but it was still a huge accomplishment. She was even more seductive than her district partner, with skin as stunningly clear as her name. District 2 provided two tributes with unique occupations. The boy was a professional musician, and he had great lung capacity, which enabled him to run long distances, while the girl was a healer with astounding medical skills. District 4's tributes were both supposed to volunteer into the previous year's games, but for different reasons had to put everything off to this year. The boy was tall, thin, and charismatic, and the only trident in the cornucopia would probably go to him. Meanwhile, the girl was one of the most altered tributes the games had ever seen. In almost every level she looked like a cat. She'd had her skin dyed to look like fur, artificial whiskers sprouted from her cheeks, her nails were filed into claws (though these had to be dulled before the games), and she had modified her ears so that they perked up particularly high. The pack scored an eleven, three tens, and two nines.

There was a similarly powerful group of outliers. Cylinder from 6 was built like an ox and one of the strongest tributes the district of transportation had ever seen. He was the first outlier to score higher than a nine since Shocker four years prior. There was also a nine, and it went to Suede from 8. He was similarly striking and memorable; after a long streak of weak, diminutive tributes, the textile district finally had hope of taking one of their tributes home. Sevens were earned by Jackie from 3, Rodrigo and Elora from 9, and Buttercake from 11, and the rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There were two other standouts, both from the same district and the same family. Milk and Honey from 10 were siblings, and Milk had been terribly abusing Honey ever since their parents died four years prior. Honey's stylist even had to cover her face with a veil to cover up the scabbed, bruised marks on her face. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Fiddler Calecson, 18, (10) 5-1 and Glass Nordonia, 18, (11) 3-1

District 2: Geoff Dempster, 16, (10) 4-1 and Artemis Malecot, 17, (9) 6-1

District 3: Datum Fusaro, 15, (5) 26-1 and Jackie Burrey, 18, (7) 14-1

District 4: Guppy Rochford, 18, (9) 7-1 and Dock Elizabeth, 17, (10) 5-1

District 5: Corus Pederson, 17, (6) 27-1 and Vivienne Tedlow, 14, (4) 34-1

District 6: Cylinder Gauntlet, 16, (10) 5-1 and Kiara Musto, 15, (3) 52-1

District 7: Timothy Trunks, 12, (3) 54-1 and Juliet Starler, 13, (3) 49-1

District 8: Suede Lindberg, 18, (9) 7-1 and Sylvie Zanger, 16, (5) 24-1

District 9: Rodrigo Talbot, 17, (7) 15-1 and Elora Benore, 18, (7) 14-1

District 10: Milk Sadler, 18, (6) 26-1 and Honey Sadler, 12, (2) 65-1

District 11: Grass Chan, 17, (4) 30-1 and Buttercake Mellon, 15, (7) 17-1

District 12: Borris Gefter, 13, (2) 63-1 and Zoe Giarman, 14, (3) 48-1

HGBO Bets: 24% on Glass, 19% on Fiddler, 15% on Dock, 11% on Geoff, 7% on Artemis and Guppy, 6% on Cylinder, 3% on Suede, 2% on Jackie, Rodrigo, Elora, and Buttercake, 1% or less on Datum, Corus, Vivienne, Kiara, Timothy, Juliet, Sylvie, Milk, Honey, Grass, Borris, and Zoe.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The first thing the tributes saw when the entered the arena was the inky-black, starry cosmos. It took a few of them several seconds to realize they weren't completely surrounded by the black soup; the ground underfoot was made of crumbly grey stone. They weren't actually on the moon, so space suits weren't necessary; the boys wore white tuxedos with black bow ties and dress pants, while the girls wore black vests and pencil skirts. Their outfits would stand out from the light-grey landscape, making it difficult to hide.

When the gong rang, three tributes fled the bloodbath: Jackie from 3, Kiara from 6, and Elora from 9. The other twenty-one tributes sprinted in the direction of the cornucopia, hoping to gather useful supplies in the opening minutes.

Glass lead the onrush, her golden-blonde hair rippling behind her. She scooped up a hatchet that lay on the stone ground twelve yards from her pedestal. A nearby boy fell to his knees as the blade of her hatchet buried itself into his head; Glass ran to his side to retrieve her hatchet as the other tributes thundered past.

 _Datum Fusaro, District 3 Male: 24th, Killed by Glass, Bloodbath_

Geoff, another fast runner, grabbed hold of two throwing knives and then tackled a dark-haired boy with a bad case of acne. The boy flailed his limbs, trying to punch Geoff in the face, but he was strong enough to pin his limbs to the ground as he messily sawed his knives into his chest.

 _Timothy Trunks, District 7 Male: 23rd, Killed by Geoff, Bloodbath_

Dock scooped up the metal claws she'd requested from the gamemakers and fit them onto her fingertips; her whisker-covered lips curled into a smile when she realized they fit perfectly. The claws looked rather natural with the rest of her look. She snuck up on a nearby girl, and she let out a yelp as the sharp chorus of claws cut across her back, tearing open her arteries like soil being pulled up by a rake.

 _Zoe Giarman, District 12 Female: 22nd, Killed by Dock, Bloodbath_

Fiddler gritted his teeth as he fired arrow after arrow. He had his eyes set on Zoe's district partner, but the boy was so agile he easily managed to dodge his arrows. Infuriated, Fiddler lunged forward, snapping the young boy's neck in one fluid motion with a grin on his handsome face.

 _Borris Gefter, District 12 Male: 21st, Killed by Fiddler, Bloodbath_

Glass fluidly made her second kill. Having cleanly wiped Datum's blood off of her hatchet blade, she tackled a girl who was lying on her back and staring into the cosmos, slowly bleeding out from gashes inflicted by Dock. Glass buried her hatchet into her head, slicing her skull straight down the middle. She was gone in moments.

 _Vivienne Tedlow, District 5 Female: 20th, Killed by Dock and Glass, Bloodbath_

Artemis snatched up a bow and threw the quiver over her shoulder. She raced over the stony ground with all the grace of the moon goddess after whom she was named. Her first arrow flew true, and the nearest boy's screams were already choked by the sound of blood. Artemis looked up to see one of her arrows sticking straight out of his abdomen.

 _Grass Chan, District 11 Male: 19th, Killed by Artemis, Bloodbath_

Artemis made her next kill in rapid succession. Grass' ally, a shorter girl with pigtails, stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of his dead body. The girl tried to run, but she wasn't fast enough; Artemis had already fired, and her arrows were almost immediately lethal at that close range.

 _Sylvie Zanger, District 8 Female: 18th, Killed by Artemis, Bloodbath_

Guppy had yet to make a kill, but as he surveyed the quickly emptying cornucopia field, a trident in one hand and a knife in the other, he spotted the perfect victim. Seconds earlier, an outlier girl had tripped and fell onto her face; bleeding heavily, she now struggled to get back to her feet. Guppy went in for the kill, thrusting the prongs of his trident through her back as though he were spearing a marshmallow.

 _Juliet Starler, District 7 Female: 17th, Killed by Guppy, Bloodbath_

Glass had been chasing a boy in circles around the cornucopia for several minutes, and he finally found the energy to break free of the repetitive track and run for the hills. Glass took a leap of faith and threw her hatchet through the air; it flipped end over end before lodging itself into the back of his neck, killing him instantly.

 _Corus Pederson, District 5 Male: 16th, Killed by Glass, Bloodbath_

Dock made the final kill. She knocked a strong boy to the ground and enlisted the help of Fiddler and Guppy to hold him down while she tore open his chest with her claws. Blood was dripping down the 4 girl's arms by the time she was finished, and she purred softly as the ten cannon shots echoed over the arena before fading into silence.

 _Rodrigo Talbot, District 9 Male: 15th, Killed by Dock, Bloodbath_

The careers hung around at the cornucopia, their group unbroken unlike some other years. Fiddler quickly got to sorting the weapons; there were more weapons around the cornucopia field than inside of the horn this year, so it was quite a bit of work piling them into one place, but he turned down the help of the other careers as he separated them into piles based on blades and sizes and such. Geoff and Guppy found a large tarp in the back of the cornucopia and lined the ground with it; the pesky grey moon dust was sticking in layers to their supplies. The tarp did at least something to prevent this. Artemis and Dock sat in back sorting out the food rations; there was an excess of food and water this year, as they were almost inaccessible anywhere else in the arena. Glass, the strongest tribute in these games, did the traditional first hunt; she returned to the cornucopia in minutes reporting that there were no outliers waiting nearby. The pack left quickly, leaving only Artemis to guard the supplies.

The outliers sprinted in all directions. Jackie raced in the direction of the blue marble hovering in the sky, and she quickly came to a long ditch filled with sweet-smelling purple liquid. She was tempted to drink the liquid, but decided against it, not sure if it was edible. She laid on her back and named a few of the stars, which warranted a bag of dinner rolls from an impressed sponsor. Cylinder, carrying a backpack filled with knives and medical supplies, sprinted onward for nearly an hour and came to a field of craters with lots of places to hide. Cylinder ducked down into the deepest crater, hoping he'd be able to haul himself back out quickly if disaster struck. Kiara was miserable; she had absolutely nothing but the clothes on her back, and she was all by herself in the middle of literally nowhere. The girl traipsed in circles around the center of the arena, exhausted and terrified, before collapsing onto her front, unable to move any farther. Suede, carrying an apple and a belt of throwing knives, travelled in a single direction and arrived at a cloud of purple dust. He knew it wasn't the best idea to come any nearer, but his curiosity got the best of him, and Suede stepped into the cloud. It didn't obstruct his breathing at all, and it hid him from the sight of the others, so he decided he would stop there for the day. Elora settled down in one of the crudely-built stone houses. The slimy green aliens that inhabited the structure were away, so the girl didn't know she was in any danger as she lay down inside and tried to sleep. Milk and Honey, carrying a backpack that contained various supplies, settled down between two large boulders near the edge of the arena. This early in the games, it wasn't common knowledge that there was abuse involved in their brother-sister dynamic, but eyebrows were raised when Milk screamed for Honey to keep moving whenever she collapsed from exhaustion. Buttercake had one of the cornucopia's two bows, having snatched it from an obscure corner of the cornucopia when the careers were occupied. She'd only been running for a few minutes when she spotted the first alien mutt; tall, thin, and completely green. She followed the mutt back to its home before shooting it dead. A sponsor note told her that the slime was edible, and Buttercake dug in. It had an oddly satisfying taste, once she got past the thought that she was eating a dead alien. When day turned to night, absolute darkness settled over the arena, so complete that the tributes couldn't see their hands if they put them an inch in front of their faces.

Day 2 was just as uneventful. Jackie had been stealing glances at the mysterious river for several hours, and she finally decided to drink it. She put her lips to the lavender liquid and shivered from the sweet taste. It was delicious; the girl greedily gulped down the liquid for several minutes before falling back, belching. Cylinder was on the prowl; holding a knife in each hand, he looked formidable. He'd smeared the grey dust onto his white tux to blend into the landscape more easily. Once Kiara finally found the energy to get moving, she got to her feet and traipsed lazily around the cornucopia. There was a kind of lifelessness in her eyes that was creepy, terrifying even. Suede stayed put in the cloud of purple dust. He didn't feel the effects right away, but the dust was doing terrible things to his mind. He just laughed as the colors twirled and spun around him. Strange tingling sensations danced along his skin as the drug slowly shut down his brain. Elora stayed put in the pre-built stone structure, carving doodles into the ground with her fingernails. The aliens who lived there were drawing closer and closer, but Elora was blissfully unaware of the threat. Milk and Honey started assembling a shelter out of the moon stone, or at least Honey did. Milk had grabbed a book about weapons from the cornucopia, and he cracked open the volume, put his feet up, and screamed that Honey had to assemble a shelter by nightfall or she'd be in trouble. Honey worked feverishly. At one point she literally collapsed from exhaustion, and Milk threw rocks at her until she got back up. By the end of the day Honey was crying so hard she couldn't speak. Buttercake was on the hunt for more aliens; she not only liked the taste of their slime, she also knew that having something to focus on would do at least something to keep her from going crazy. The 11 girl didn't have a permanent home, though she favored low-lying areas like crater fields where there were plenty of places to hide.

The careers had gotten along well throughout training and throughout the first day, but their personalities were now starting to grate against one another. They returned to the cornucopia around noon to restock on supplies, and there was so much argument about how they should be hunting and how the pack should be run that they didn't even get around to leaving before nightfall. The pairs from 2 (Geoff and Artemis) and 4 (Guppy and Dock) banded together, each pair taking a passionate disliking for the other. Glass remained the big bad boss, shouting commands to the others, and none of them dared challenge her. Glass herself was irked that there was so much fighting going on; she found everything so annoying and petty. Fiddler tried to remain neutral, knowing that it would be dangerous to pick sides, but he ended up siding with Glass out of district loyalty and fear. The six careers slept as far away from each other as they could that night, scowling.

On the morning of Day 3, an older girl's screams shattered the utter silence and stillness of the arena. With so few physical barriers, the screams carried over for miles. Elora was sleeping soundly inside of the mysterious stone structure when the two aliens who lived there arrived. Elora felt a burning pain in her shoulder and jumped to her feet. Each of the aliens had pulled a tiny gun out of their silvery costumes, and they were now training their burning red lasers onto Elora's body. The girl struggled for the exit as her clothes began to smolder, and suddenly she was on the ground, thrashing and screaming as bolts of pure electricity danced up and down her body.

 _Elora Benore, District 9 Female: 14th, Killed by Alien Muttations, Day 3_

Elora's screams woke the nearest tribute, Cylinder. The strong boy broke camp and quickly continued his hunting journey. Mere minutes later, he spotted the form of a small girl moving quietly over the terrain: Kiara from 6, his district partner. If Cylinder had recognized the girl as his district partner, he might have had second thoughts about killing her, but the distance between them was too great for Cylinder to make out anything but her height, and even that estimate was screwy. Cylinder stayed about half a mile behind Kiara, stopping when she stopped and moving when she moved. Kiara never peered over her shoulder or stopped to listen for any reason, so stalking her wasn't hard.

At the cornucopia, Glass was the first to wake. Geoff had fallen asleep during his shift. Rather than dutifully standing guard, Geoff was slumped against the exterior wall of the cornucopia, snoring quietly to himself.

"What do we have here?" Glass asked, arms folded. "Sleeping on your shift?"

Before Geoff could respond, both Dock and Artemis had gotten out of their sleeping bags to see what was going on. Fiddler and Guppy sat up in their sleeping bags, listening intently.

"Sorry. Just forgot to set my alarm. Won't happen tomorrow, I promise," Geoff responded, a note of fear in his voice.

"You'd better hope it doesn't happen tomorrow," Glass said, holding up her hatchet so that it glinted in the first rays of the rising sun. "Now get up. We have work to do."

Several miles away, Milk and Honey were both sleeping. Milk had fallen asleep reading his handbook on weapons, and the volume was now spread out on his chest, rising and falling with his light breaths. Several feet away, Honey was curled up, trembling softly in the cool of the morning. Suddenly, a whirring sound reminiscent of a spinning drill sounded, and Honey slowly opened her eyes. Three rovers, roughly the sizes of small dogs, were rolling noisily toward the shelter Honey had assembled the day prior. Honey scrambled to knock them away, but they'd already caused the shelter to collapse. Clouds of dust and shards of stone flew here and there as the home crumpled to a heap.

"What the hell is this?" Milk demanded, pointing at the ruins of the shelter.

Honey froze to the spot, eyes wide open, dumbfounded with terror. "I… it's not my fault… they just…"

Milk grabbed Honey by the side and pulled her to the ground, slamming her in the head and the torso repeatedly. Honey screamed and tried to escape, and Milk shoved her away after nearly a minute and went back to his reading. He yelled that she'd better have a new home built by nightfall or she'd be sleeping in a coffin.

The first thing the cameras showed on the fourth day was Kiara's dead body. Her limbs were sprawled out in all directions, and red ooze dripped out of her torso through an obvious knife wound in her chest. As soon as the sun rose, Cylinder's mentor Apollo sent him a note that Kiara was off guard and too exhausted to do any fighting. Cylinder sprinted the half mile between himself and Kiara and tackled her in her sleep. Kiara was only awake for a few seconds before she was sent spiraling back into unconsciousness, having lost too much blood for her little body to keep fighting.

 _Kiara Musto, District 6 Female: 13th, Killed by Cylinder, Day 4_

The remainder of Day 4 passed with a pinpoint peak of action. At the cornucopia, Geoff had fallen asleep on his shift for the second night in a row, and Glass decided she had finally had enough. All six members of the career pack were still alive, so Glass didn't see any harm in making the split, even if it was pretty early in the competition.

"You," Glass shouted, pointing at Geoff with her hatchet. "Leave, now."

"You can't just break up the pack like that!" Artemis shouted, running to the side of her district partner, Geoff.

"Oh, so you want to fight me?" Glass barked. "I'll show you why I earned that eleven. And for that matter, Artemis, there's nothing stopping you from leaving with him. Then you can be with your _boyfriend_ all by yourself."

All of the cameras in the immediate vicinity were trained on the scene. Geoff and Artemis 2 stayed close together, holding out their weapons. Fiddler moved to Glass' side. Guppy and Dock from 4 were off to one side, watching the scene play out. Guppy was swinging his foot lightly back and forth. Dock was fiddling with her whiskers.

"Artemis," Geoff whispered, nudging her. "We have to leave. She'll kill us if we don't." And that was the end of that. Glass allowed the duo one minute to gather up all of their supplies. Then Geoff and Artemis from District 2 turned around and started away from the cornucopia, angered.

Out of the blue, Artemis whipped around and smacked Glass in the face, and all hell broke loose. Glass whipped out her hatchet and swung it back and forth, scraping her allies and tearing their clothes. Artemis tried to fire arrows back, but Fiddler had torn her bow out of her hand and snapped it under his feet. Her chief weapon now useless, Artemis turned to run, but she found herself face-to-face with Guppy, who was throwing fists left and right. Dock hissed and clawed at the others. Finally, a life was lost. Artemis, her precious bow in ruins, was helpless when Glass found her in the crowd and swung her hatchet in her direction. Artemis was decapitated in one clean slice. Her head fell with a thump onto Dock's foot, and the 4 girl reeled, cringing.

 _Artemis Malecot, District 2 Female: 12th, Killed by Glass, Day 4_

The brawl continued. Glass swung her now-bloody hatchet here and there. Fiddler and Guppy threw their fists. Geoff tried to break free as he was thrown around in the deadly brawl. Dock scratched and purred in annoyance. Several minutes passed before another kill was made. Guppy and Fiddler, who hadn't been fast enough to grab their weapons before the fight began and had resorted to using only their fists, were having varying degrees of success. Fiddler had no problem keeping the others away with brute force, but it was a different story for the much weaker Guppy. Guppy let out a screech that blended quite elegantly into the roars of the others as Dock's claws raked across his chest, and he fell to his knees, pink spit dripping from his mouth. Torrents of blood were already pouring out of his chest when the others realized what had happened.

 _Guppy Rochford, District 4 Male: 11th, Killed by Dock, Day 4_

Now that two deaths had occurred, the brawl slowly dissolved. Geoff had escaped under their noses, and he was now nearly a mile away; they would never be able to catch up to him. Fiddler, Glass, and Dock walked a few meters away so the hovercraft could collect the two corpses. It was almost comedic how quickly the brawl had ended. It was almost like their hatred for one another had fallen flat on its face and they were now friends again. Such was the way of the Hunger Games, and all of Panem in a larger sense.

Days 5 and 6 trickled past uneventfully. Geoff sprinted in a single direction for several hours, muttering about how he never realized the careers were only eight years old, and then he settled in a field of craters to rest. It was the same field of craters Cylinder had discovered on the first day of the games, but the 6 boy had since abandoned the area and he wasn't returning any time soon, if ever. Jackie remained inactive beside the river of delicious lavender liquid. When a rover about the size of a car came to terrorize her on Day 6, Jackie let out a scream and then raced down the riverside as quickly as her legs could carry her. She didn't collapse, but she looked close; a few minutes before nightfall, she dragged herself into a crater and nodded off. Cylinder continued hunting. He was keeping up the resilient, strong persona he'd established in his interview, and he was by far the top outlier favorite. A number of drones attacked him throughout the two days, but he didn't have any problem "killing" them with his knives. Suede stayed put in the cloud of purple dust. He knew it was terrible for him, but it was like a drug, and he couldn't leave no matter how much his mentor urged him to. Before long he was almost completely paralyzed; every movement felt like he was moving through jelly. Milk continued shouting orders to his younger sister, and a terrified Honey followed all of his directions despite how exhausted she was. After several entire days of labor, Honey finally finished the shelter, and Milk pointed out a small cave nearby and laughed out that they could have just used it as their home all along. Buttercake kept up her hunt for aliens. She managed to shoot two more of them dead by the end of Day 6. Their slime turned to liquid mere hours after death, so Buttercake had to find a new kill every time she got hungry.

As for the careers, their dynamic was sturdy while being somewhat dysfunctional. Glass remained the formidable leader, and Fiddler consistently agreed with her out of a combination of district loyalty and fear. Dock kept her opinions to herself, but she aligned with the views of her ex-ally Geoff in believing that Glass' rule over the career pack this year was a tad too harsh. Dock thought the banter of the others was annoying and unnecessary but she kept her hole shut, not wanting to anger the others this early in the games.

On Day 7, Cylinder spotted a victim, Jackie from 3. A few minutes earlier, Jackie had left the riverside to retrieve the contents of a sponsor parachute, and Cylinder spotted her from about a quarter of a mile away. Cylinder was fast, but adrenaline was powering Jackie's legs forward at an impossibly fast speed. When she couldn't run any farther, Jackie collapsed at the riverside and dragged herself into the shadows. Cylinder ran straight past her.

It seemed like Day 7 might continue the trend of having no deaths, but a cannon shot rolled over the lunar landscape around eleven o'clock that night. The cloud of cosmic dust had been slowly shutting down Suede's body for several days. Now, it finally got the best of him, eliminating 8's best shot at victory in ages.

 _Suede Lindberg, District 8 Male: 10th, Killed by Cosmic Dust, Day 7_

Days 8, 9, and 10 were all deathless, the most lifeless days the eighty-fourth Hunger Games had seen yet. Progress slowed to a crawl. By the end of Day 10, six entire days had been empty of conflict. Even Suede's death, which should have kept the nation on its toes, was so boring and drawn-out that it hardly counted. Fiddler, Glass, and Dock were bored and frustrated. They left the cornucopia every day to hunt, taking turns staying behind to guard the supplies. Glass was mad because she'd been hoping for a more exciting arena and group of outliers. Fiddler was mad because he'd made good friends with Geoff and now he didn't have anybody to talk to. Dock was mad because Glass and Fiddler constantly bickered back and forth, and she felt left out and insignificant. Even being the only tribute with a tail and whiskers couldn't keep her relevant forever.

The outliers weren't up to much. Geoff jumped around the lunar landscape, ducking into caves and fissures at night and staring at the cosmos. He was the most well-stocked tribute outside of the career pack, so he didn't have to worry about dehydration or hunger any time soon. Cylinder continued hunting, feeding himself on sponsor foods and lavender-colored river water. On Day 10, a crowd of rovers as high as his waist appeared out of nowhere and chased him about a mile in the direction of the cornucopia. Tensions were higher than ever in the "alliance" of Milk and Honey. Honey desperately wanted to break away, but she knew she would be safer with her much stronger brother at her side. Even if Milk continued to abuse her that was better than being dead. On Day 9, Jackie was chased away from the river by four identical rovers, and one of them nearly sliced her hand off with one of its mechanical appendages before she escaped. Jackie ran for about two miles and spotted a shadowy figure on the horizon: Buttercake from 11. Seeing Jackie in distress, Buttercake led her into a small fissure in the ground that hid them from the rovers. Several hours passed before Jackie and Buttercake officially announced they were allies.

On the morning of Day 11, the voice of head gamemaker Violet Turpin rolled across the arena, loud enough that it was impossible for any tribute to miss.

"Congratulations to the final nine tributes of the eighty-fourth annual Hunger Games," Violet announced. "At noon tomorrow, a feast will be held at the cornucopia. Though attendance is not mandatory, the items we supply will be invaluable to your survival and eventual victory. May the odds be ever in your favor. This will be the only announcement."

Moments after Violet's voice faded away fully, a scraping sound like metal against metal startled the three careers. Fiddler pointed to the source of the noise, and the others followed his gaze. About fifty meters ahead of them, a small square of ground was opening up as though it were on a hinge. At least twenty rovers the sizes of large cats were pouring out of the hole. The rovers chased Glass, Fiddler, and Dock several miles away from the cornucopia before their removal. When the careers ventured back to the cornucopia, they saw that a tall hedge had been built around it. It was too thick to pass through and far too spiky to climb. The hedge would be lowered at the commencement of the feast the following day.

Geoff decided he was heading to the feast. He wasn't low on supplies, but he wanted to show the careers what he was made of, feeling humiliated and embarrassed at being kicked from the pack by Glass. Cylinder woke up to find his pack empty except for a single knife and a dinner roll. Most of it had disappeared during the night. Scowling, Cylinder vowed he'd attend the feast the next day for a restock. Jackie and Buttercake decided to attend the feast after the sweet-smelling river dried up. It was incredible how quickly the liquid had all disappeared, and they could already feel dehydration setting in like a ferocious fiery monster in their throats.

The morning of Day 11, Honey finally gathered up the confidence to break away from Milk. She slowly opened her eyes and glanced at her brother; he was fast asleep, chest rising and falling slowly in his sleep. Without a word, Honey sprang to her feet and scampered away. She was limping and groaning with pain from the various bruises and rashes around her body, but she placed enough distance between herself and Milk that he wouldn't be able to find her before the feast. Neither of the siblings decided on attending the feast; they didn't want to risk death for any reason, even for the possibility of fresh supplies.

On Day 12, televisions across Panem displayed a sweeping aerial shot of the supplies hidden inside of the hedge. In front of the cornucopia, there was a long metal table. Both ends of the table were weighed down by orange coolers of freezing cold water. The table itself was covered with knives, packages of food, thermoses, sleeping bags, rope, wire, and much, much more. A cart of scythes sat just beyond the table. At noon, twelve loud bongs sounded, echoing so much that it was hard to distinguish any one of them from the last. By the time the twelfth bong faded away fully, the hedge had sunk fully into the ground. The tributes scrambled out of their hiding places and raced in the direction of the cornucopia.

Glass was at the head of the onrush. She discarded her old axe and snatched up a pair of sharper, sleeker hatchets. Holding one weapon in each hand, she tackled the nearest tribute, Buttercake from 11. Buttercake pulled her backpack off of her back and swung it in Glass' direction. The 1 girl hadn't been expecting the blow, and she would have fallen onto her bottom if not for the support of the supply-covered table.

Glass peered over Buttercake's shoulder and made eye contact with somebody behind her; Buttercake looked behind her just as the point of Fiddler's spear entered her chest. Screaming, Buttercake fell onto her front, bleeding out soon afterwards.

 _Buttercake Mellon, District 11 Female: 9th, Killed by Fiddler, Day 12_

That left the final eight: Fiddler Calecson and Glass Nordonia from District 1, Geoff Dempster from District 2, Jackie Burrey from District 3, Dock Elizabeth from District 4, Cylinder Gauntlet from District 6, and Milk Sadler and Honey Sadler from District 10.

On the other side of the cornucopia field, Cylinder from 6 met his end. He reached the table and grabbed a scythe in one hand and a sword in the other while simultaneously piling backpacks over his shoulders. Nearby Dock from 4 saw her chance. Dock tackled Cylinder, raking her claws across his back. Cylinder dropped everything he was holding and fell onto his back. He wiggled in an attempt to free himself from the heavy packs, but this just worked to cut open his wounds even further. Dock's whiskered lips curled into a smile as she cut open her opponent's neck, staining her claws dark red.

 _Cylinder Gauntlet, District 6 Male: 8th, Killed by Dock, Day 12_

By that point, the feast was largely over. Buttercake and Cylinder had both bled out fully, and Jackie had escaped south with enough supplies to last for weeks. Suddenly, there came the sound of stomping from the roof of the cornucopia. Fiddler, Glass, and Dock craned their necks upward and saw Geoff from 2 standing on top of the horn of plenty, a sword in each hand. They hadn't seen his face in days, but there was no doubt is was Geoff Dempster from District 2.

Geoff jumped off of the cornucopia and made an expert landing on top of the long table. "I'm still alive, bitches!" he shouted, grinning. "Better than can be said about your chances at victory. You hear that, District 1 sluts?"

At the first cry of "District 1 sluts" Fiddler and Glass tackled Geoff, knocking him straight off of the table. Fiddler had punched him in the gut so hard that the force of his falling body cracked the wooden table straight in half. The table caved inward. Food and weapons tumbled off of the sloped wood in torrents, burying Geoff before he could run. Geoff poked his head out of the mass of fallen supplies just as Glass brought down the blade of her hatchet, nearly slicing his head completely in half all the way down to his upper neck.

 _Geoff Dempster, District 2 Male: 7th, Killed by Fiddler and Glass, Day 12_

Those were the only deaths to occur on the twelfth day. Fiddler, Glass, and Dock regrouped at the cornucopia. There were loads new supplies and weapons to sort, and Fiddler volunteered for the job; he was fast and efficient and had everything sorted in minutes. He had a knack for keeping things organized, an ironic quality in a tribute trained to kill in the messiest ways possible. Glass took a few hours to rest; out of the three careers, she was the most exhausted. Glass was drenched with sweat, and she couldn't seem to satisfy her thirst no matter how much she drank. Dock sat in the back of the cornucopia, scrubbing the blood off of her claws, whiskers, and furry tail. She knew that Glass wouldn't be too happy if she found out she was using part of the pack's water supply for cleaning, so she only washed her modifications when Glass was asleep or when she left to use the restroom.

Jackie, the only outlier to survive the feast, sprinted north with a spring in her step. She had a backpack bursting with supplies, and she held a sickle in each hand and a knife in each pocket. Just before the fleeing the feast, she'd busted open one of the two water coolers at the cornucopia, draining its watery contents in seconds. Confident and happy, Jackie settled down in the dried-up bed of the river and fell asleep.

Milk was furious when he found out that Honey had split from him, though he was a bit thankful that she'd decided not to kill him before doing so. Milk's stream of sponsor supplies had plummeted to nothing after everybody saw his less-than-humane treatment of his younger sister, but he was okay to survive off of the food supply he'd grabbed from the horn on Day 1. Honey used Day 12 to place a few more miles between herself and her brother. Her tiny body couldn't make it very far each day before she needed to rest. A sponsor sent her a fold-up tent that was just large enough to fit her body, and this provided her at least some shelter from the rovers, aliens, and messy moon dust.

Not enough though, it would seem. Mere minutes after Honey settled down for the night, she woke up to the smell of smoke. Two alien mutts had surrounded her tent, and they had their laser guns aimed at the silky walls; they were now scorching holes in the sides. Honey curled up on the floor of the tent as red laser beams flew over top of her. About half a minute later, she finally decided she needed to make a run for it. Honey was doomed the instant she stepped out of the tent. With two laser guns aimed on her, holes were already being burnt into her left shoulder and lower abdomen. Her blood hissed and evaporated upon contact with her scalding-hot wounds. After her death, the slimy green mutts left quickly to search for more victims.

 _Honey Sadler, District 10 Female: 6th, Killed by Alien Muttations, Day 13_

Minutes later, another cannon shot rolled over the arena, causing clouds of grey dust to float off of the ground. Milk had been wandering aimlessly across the arena for nearly a day in the shadow of a tall piece of rock like a mountain. Because of the large rock, he didn't see the cornucopia, and he didn't realize how near he was. Milk saw the careers emerging from the shadows just as a spear sailed over his shoulder. He looked to see who had thrown the spear and saw Fiddler slowly lowering his arm, nudging the others and pointing out the 10 boy a few meters away. Milk unsheathed the knife he held in his right pocket and held it in front of him, gripping it so tightly his knuckles started bleeding. His best weapon, his spear, was tucked into his backpack, but he didn't have enough time to grab it. Milk quickly realized that it was hopeless to fight back with only a knife against three highly trained tributes with a number of weapons he couldn't name if there was a gun to his head, which there pretty much was. Milk turned to flee, and of course he couldn't escape. Fiddler's aim was true this time, and his spear punctured Milk's back, cutting open a number of arteries. By the time the others reached him, the boy was dead.

 _Milk Sadler, District 10 Male: 5th, Killed by Fiddler, Day 13_

Day 14 was deathless. Jackie was terrified out of her mind; if her memory was correct, she was up against three careers. Even if she was heavily armed it was enough to make a girl nervous. Jackie stayed put for the entire day and practiced with as many weapons as she could, hoping the knowledge would help her out in the rapidly approaching finale.

The careers returned to the cornucopia. Their group accounted for three of the four remaining tributes; they had no idea how their pack had been doing so well, but they resolved to keep doing what they were doing. One of Fiddler's sponsors sent him a note promising him that the finale would take place the next day. Fiddler showed the note to Glass and Dock. That night, the careers were like children on Christmas Eve.

In the early morning of Day 15, the meteor shower began. Jackie was resting in the riverbed when a meteor about the size of a pebble hit her in the face, landing in her ear. Jackie wiggled the pebble free and held it up to her face to investigate; it was dotted with small holes, and it was light, like a sponge. Just as she was about to discard the pebble, another one hit her in the leg. And another in the stomach. Hundreds of the pebbles were now colliding with the lunar surface, creating a sound similar to that of rain falling back home on Earth. By the time Jackie realized what was going on, the falling meteors had grown in size from pebbles to acorns to marbles. Jackie knew the only shelter was the inside of the cornucopia. Jackie ran for her life and held her pack over her head, praying her energy would last her long enough to reach the cornucopia.

Fiddler slept inside of the cornucopia, while the girls were snoozing just outside. Dock was the first to wake, a meteor having hit her in the cheek, and she roused Glass awake, whispering that she thought something was wrong. Glass and Dock rushed into the cornucopia as soon as they realized what was happening. The sound of the meteors showering down onto the roof of the horn was earsplittingly loud, but they managed to make out the sound of a cannon shot over the din.

A meteor the size of a golf ball hit one of Jackie's hands. Hissing in pain, she let her pack loose, and it fell out of her hands. She was now being pummeled by meteors without any form of shelter, and only a few of them had to hit her in the head before it was lights out.

 _Jackie Burrey, District 3 Female: 4th, Killed by Meteor Shower, Day 15_

The careers glanced silently at each other; the three of them were now the only tributes left in the arena. In unspoken agreement, the finalists grabbed their weapons and broke out into the brawl from which a lone victor was sure to emerge. They were evened out rather fairly in terms of weapons; Fiddler had his spear, Glass had her hatchet, and Dock had her claws.

For the first several minutes, there was no clear cut winner. There was a very brief moment when it seemed Dock was done for at the hands of Glass, but the 4 girl managed to stumble out of the path of Glass' hatchet blade just before she let the weapon fly. The main duel was going on between Glass and Dock, while Fiddler circled, looking for the opportunity to dive in and kill one of the two tributes.

Ten minutes into the finale, Glass met her end. Dock had been gradually inflicting a number of cuts and scrapes onto her body. They weren't very severe, but they added up, and Glass was in too much pain to react quickly when Dock abandoned all forms of caution and lunged forward. She tore open Glass' chest with her claws, and she fell to the ground, sending a pile of wooden crates toppling in her descent. The strongest tribute in the games would not be taking home the victor's crown this year.

 _Glass Nordonia, District 1 Female: 3rd, Killed by Dock, Day 15_

Fiddler and Dock's final duel was short-lived. Fiddler had the early advantage; he'd been on top of Dock when Glass died, so he easily managed to pin her to the ground. In seconds, Fiddler had pinned both of Dock's ankles to the ground with his own feet, and he was now practically lying on top of her. Dock purred and clawed madly at the air, eventually hitting Fiddler's cheek hard enough to make him let go. Dock rolled out of the way and leapt to her feet, and Fiddler was too disoriented to fight back as Dock pulled him back by his hair, revealing his bare throat. Dock slashed and tore at her opponent's exposed neck and upper chest. Fiddler tried to remain on his feet, but he wobbled over and fell straight to the ground despite his best efforts, coughing up blood.

 _Fiddler Calecson, District 1 Male: 2nd, Killed by Dock, Day 15_

"Dock Elizabeth of District 4, you are the victor of the eighty-fourth annual Hunger Games!" Cadmus and Daria announced.

Dock's cosmetic whiskers twitched with triumph as she held her clawed hands into the air, towering over the bloody corpse of her final opponent.

 _Dock Elizabeth, District 4 Female: Victor of the Eighty-Fourth Hunger Games, Day 15_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 4 was happy to take home their victor number thirteen. Dock was instantly memorable for her extraordinary look, and she attracted quite a few stolen glances at the parties celebrating her victory, but she didn't mind; Dock liked being unique, and she loved cats even more. It wasn't a surprise when she adopted several cats immediately after her victory, and there wasn't a day of her life that she didn't wake up to a cohort of feline friends meowing for their morning feed. Despite being mostly introverted, Dock knew how to have fun, and she got along well with the other 4 victors like Annie and Talisa. President Obsidian would go on to use her as a prostitute, but Talisa didn't mind; she was one of the most psychologically and emotionally sound victors, so she wasn't passionately opposed to anything that was sent her way in the first few years after her victory.

She settled into the Victor's Village of District, the thirteenth to do so.

Her victory tour was decent, but District 1 was furious for obvious reasons.

Dock would live to age eighty-one, dying from heart disease five months after the one-hundred forty-eighth annual Hunger Games. She would marry once, but her relationship with her husband would dissolve only a few months later and she would never remarry. She would also get pregnant in her thirties, but she would receive an abortion, not seeing herself as mother material.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Dock moves into the Victor's Village of District 4, next door to Talisa.

Apollo Reinold has his first child, a girl named Suzan.

Kasey Slosser marries her fiancé of four years, Kelan Tripp.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: Eeek! I faced some writer's block with this one, but I'm glad I managed to bring everything full circle and post the chapter without taking weeks and weeks and weeks. Anyway, I thought Dock was cool. I've always wondered how the citizens of the upper district dress and act. I can imagine they're too poor for the ridiculous costumes the Capitolites wear, but a few of them probably have that crazy fashion sense. E.G. this chapter's victor. If you've read the chapter you know what I mean ;)**

 **Cats are my favorite animals but I'm allergic to them. Why must the universe taunt me so?**

 **I'll see all you guys next time with the eighty-fifth games. I hope your lives are all going swell :D**


	86. The 85th Hunger Games

**The 85th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

President Cassia Obsidian remained perched precariously atop the crumbling marble tower of the presidency. Throughout the last two years, President Obsidian had been targeted by at least a dozen assassins from the Heads political sect, people who were unhappy about her treatment of the outlying districts. As assassinations increased in frequency, a single man stepped out and proclaimed himself the leader of the Heads political party. His name was Stinn Hawke, and he claimed to be directly related to ex-president Snow, though this claim would later be dispelled. Stinn rallied followers from around the Capitol who thought the districts should be treated much more harshly and stormed the presidential mansion. President Obsidian managed to escape into a hidden cellar with herself and much of the mansion's staff, and by the time they were rescued nearly half of the mansion had been burnt down. Terrified of further assassination attempts, Obsidian drew into the shadows of her dilapidated palace and rarely emerged except for mandatory events. In interviews, her answers were almost always short and concise. During this time, the president was diagnosed with a number of severe anxiety and depression disorders. Violet Turpin returned for her seventh year as head gamemaker. The Capitol was hoping for a few trailer clips to give their eyes a tiny taste of what this year's arena would be like, but Violet kept every aspect of the games much more secretive this year than some others.

When the arena was finally revealed to all, viewers across Panem had to squint to see what their screens were showing. The air was obscured by a kind of white mist that was cool and pleasant to the touch. If a tribute stood still for long enough, little pieces of water would bead up on their skin. The air smelled like salty sea spray. The arena this year was a long, thin canyon fashioned from bands of grey rock. A swift, freezing-cold river rushed through the canyon. It meandered along its path for several miles before pouring into an ocean to the west. The cornucopia was situated atop a tall, thin pillar of stone. The twenty-four pedestals were mounted onto separate stone pillars, arranged in a circle around the cornucopia. A fraying rope bridge connected each tribute's pedestal to the central cornucopia. There were also stairs carved into each stone tower, allowing tributes to flee once they had gathered the supplies they needed. The north and south were both lost in mist, but if one travelled far enough to the north they would find that the ground was made of rough rock. In this area of the arena, a number of waterfalls plummeted downward into a tributary of the broad river. To the south, there were a number of steaming hot pools, though this steam blended in with the overlaying mist and went largely unnoticed. The tributes this year would largely be feeding themselves off of fish and berries. The mutts didn't seem intimidating at first sight, but they were sure to be deadly. The steaming lakes to the south were swarming with puffins that had razor-sharp beaks reminiscent of the pink bird mutts from the second Quarter Quell. The river at the bottom of the canyon was filled with vicious piranha mutts. The most terrifying mutts, however, inhabited a sturdy wooden cabin to the north. The cabin emitted a warm glow and smelled like vanilla and chocolate, but it was occupied by three grey ghoul mutts. They looked more or less like human women, but they had gnarled hands and faces and hunched backs. Their fingers were clawed. Their eye sockets were empty, and the three ghouls shared one slimy eye that they were constantly passing between themselves.

The careers were a pretty stereotypical bunch, but they all scored well. District 1 provided a stunning duo. The boy was District 1's mainstay, the tall, blond ladies' man who liked spears, though he could fight with anything well. The girl slept with one of the gamemakers, seducing him into giving her a ten rather than the eight she deserved; that gamemaker was later tried and fired for his actions. District 2 provided a lacking duo. The boy was tall, agile, and charismatic, but he wasn't particularly strong, while the girl was a dark-haired beauty who was more petite. Both were master swordsmen. District 4 provided the most formidable fighters this year. The boy was a heavily-muscled seventeen-year-old kid with a cool accent, while the female was an attractive dark-skinned girl who was among the best archers the games had seen. The scores of the pack were great: two elevens, two tens, and two nines.

The outliers were a brilliant bunch of memorable tributes. The five strongest outliers teamed together to form the first anti-career alliance in over two decades. They were Rachel from 3, Mikey and Sycamora from 7, Hye from 9, and Bechi from 11. Rachel was on the shorter side, and she had impeccable aim. Mikey and Sycamora were the stars of the show this year, even outshining the careers in some regards. Mikey was a level headed eighteen-year-old kid who always dressed casually, while Sycamora was much more uptight and pragmatic and very pretty. Both preferred axes as their weapons of choice. Hye and Bechi developed a close-knit friendship during training, and they were almost inseparable. The boys were alike in many ways, sharing the same scores and ages, though Hye was best in long-range fights while Bechi could work magic with the blades. Headed by Sycamora, the anti-careers vowed to grapple for control of the cornucopia in the opening minutes. They hoped to kill at least three careers and send the others scattering, but this would not be easy given the high scores of this year's pack. Besides the anti-careers, there weren't many outlier standouts, but there were a few. Matisa from 8 was directly related to a famous family of Capitol officials, and the deep pockets of her family would allow her an extensive supply of sponsor gifts, if she survived the bloodbath. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers: Dasher from 6. He suffered from Tourette's syndrome. At the reaping, his nerves were up so high that he involuntarily shouted the words, "I volunteer as tribute," before he could stop himself. He insisted that he hadn't meant the words, but the Capitol forced him to enter the games anyway, knowing he would be an interesting contender. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Bright Galeotti, 18, (11) 3-1 and Sharrah Clurr, 16, (10) 5-1

District 2: Gravel Rockwell, 17, (9) 7-1 and Astrid Fronteau, 18, (9) 6-1

District 3: Halon Quilty, 16, (5) 24-1 and Rachel Ostensible, 18, (7) 15-1

District 4: Chaplin Borden, 17, (10) 4-1 and Thames Cather, 17, (11) 3-1

District 5: Edison Canterbury, 14, (3) 63-1 and Beth Mongan, 16, (4) 32-1

District 6: Dasher Robelo-Gomes, 18, (6) 20-1 and Scarlet Fran, 15, (3) 58-1

District 7: Mikey Jonah, 18, (8) 13-1 and Sycamora Bromley, 16, (10) 5-1

District 8: Damon Greer, 13, (4) 35-1 and Matisa Conquest, 18, (7) 14-1

District 9: Hye Mauris, 16, (7) 16-1 and Cara Whipple, 14, (4) 36-1

District 10: Ruddy Hassard, 17, (5) 22-1 and Jemima Angel, 17, (5) 24-1

District 11: Bechi Olsen, 16, (7) 12-1 and Dewdrop Tiltree, 12, (2) 69-1

District 12: Kenneth Waldon, 14, (3) 58-1 and Missouri Londor, 13, (2) 64-1

HGBO Bets: 21% on Bright, 20% on Thames, 9% on Sharrah and Chaplin, 7% on Astrid, 6% on Gravel, 5% on Sycamora, 4% on Mikey, 3% on Rachel, Hye, and Bechi, 2% on Matisa, 1% or less on Halon, Edison, Beth, Dasher, Scarlet, Damon, Cara, Ruddy, Jemima, Dewdrop, Kenneth, and Missouri.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The bloodbath of the eighty-fifth Hunger Games was, more than anything, a skirmish between the careers and the anti-careers. It would go down in history as the massacre of the eighty-fifth. When the ten-minute bloodbath first aired, it had to be replayed at least six times so that Cadmus and Daria could cover every major detail. It was undoubtedly the most famous bloodbath of the first Hunger Games century, and the Capitol gobbled it up like their exquisite raspberry soup.

When the tributes could see, all they could make out was the thick veil of mist hanging around their pedestals. In time, the tributes with keener eyesight made out the cornucopia far away. Many tributes were courageous enough to brave the fraying rope bridges, but many others were not willing to take the risk. When the gong rang, a total of five tributes fled down the steps on their stone pillars: Dasher from 6, Cara from 9, Ruddy from 10, and Kenneth and Missouri from 12. The other nineteen tributes grabbed hold of their rope bridges and made their precarious ways toward the supply hoard at the cornucopia.

Bright sprinted down his rope bridge and snatched up one of the three bows that the gamemakers were supplying this year. The weapon fit snugly into his grasp like it was made for him. He nocked an arrow and began firing. One of his arrows landed squarely in the neck of a young boy nearby. Shrieking, the boy fell to his knees, dying swiftly from the arrow implanted into his neck.

 _Damon Greer, District 8 Male: 24th, Killed by Bright, Bloodbath_

The girl from 6 was racing down her rope bridge when she suddenly felt the rope snapping and sliding under her weight. Both of her parents were dangerous rebels, so the girl's bridge had been rigged to break easily once she was about halfway across. Her screams slowly faded to silence as she tumbled thousands of feet downward before disappearing under the surface of the rushing river.

 _Scarlet Fran, District 6 Female: 23rd, Killed by Drowning, Bloodbath_

Sycamora, the leader of the anti-careers, found that an axe had been placed at the end of her rope bridge. Her expression remained blank as she picked up the axe and strapped it to her wrist, then swung to the left with all the strength she could muster. The blade of the axe connected with the chest of the nearest boy, and he was gone in moments.

 _Halon Quilty, District 3 Male: 22nd, Killed by Sycamora, Bloodbath_

Now that three deaths had occurred, things were starting to organize. All six of the careers had reached the cornucopia and stood their ground in front of its yawning mouth, ready to defend the supplies with their lives if they had to. Bright, Sharrah, and Thames held the three bows. Gravel had a sword, Astrid had a belt of throwing knives, and Chaplin had a spear. Meanwhile, the anti-careers were assembling just far away enough that the careers couldn't see them through the mist. Mikey, Sycamora, and Hye were all armed, while Rachel and Bechi were defenseless. Suddenly, a seventeen-year-old girl ran straight into Bechi by accident. She tried to stumble to safety, but Bechi's allies had already handed him two knives. Holding one weapon in each hand, he drove the girl to the edge of the narrow stone pillar before sawing the blades into her chest.

 _Jemima Angel, District 10 Female: 21st, Killed by Bechi, Bloodbath_

The six careers had been waiting in front of the cornucopia for nearly a minute now, and the anti-career pack hadn't come to them. They finally decided to split up: Bright, Astrid, and Thames stayed in front of the horn, while Sharrah, Gravel, and Chaplin spread across the flat top of the stone pillar to search for victims. Gravel had been running for mere seconds when he stumbled straight into the midst of the anti-careers. He raced back toward the cornucopia to alert the careers that he'd found them, but a now-armed Rachel had already speared a javelin through his back. Sharrah and Chaplin heard Gravel's screams and raced to his side just as the life faded from the 2 boy's body.

 _Gravel Rockwell, District 2 Male: 20th, Killed by Rachel, Bloodbath_

Now it was five against two: anti-careers Rachel, Mikey, Sycamora, Hye, and Bechi versus Sharrah and Chaplin. The two groups lunged toward each other. Best friends Hye and Bechi ganged up on Sharrah and knocked her bow straight out of her hand; it clattered over the stone ground before tumbling off the edge of the pillar. Meanwhile, Mikey and Sycamora were occupied warding off Chaplin's arrows, and Rachel was nowhere to be found. In fact, she was dead. Bright, Astrid, and Thames, who were guarding the cornucopia, abandoned their post and hastened to join in the deadly brawl. Astrid threw her throwing knives into the back of the first tribute she saw. Rachel let out a single gasp before tumbling off the edge of the pillar and dropping into the mist-veiled canyon.

 _Rachel Ostensible, District 3 Female: 19th, Killed by Astrid, Bloodbath_

The four anti-careers stumbled backward as Bright, Astrid, and Thames stepped out of the mist. In unspoken agreement, the five careers and four anti-careers involved abandoned all forms of caution and lashed out with their weapons, struggling to take down anyone who belonged to the opposite group. The careers were desperate to keep the anti-careers away from the cornucopia, but the anti-careers were even more desperate to gain control of the arena's main vantage point. The first of the competitors fell as Hye and Bechi slowly backed away, hiding themselves in the mist. They appeared out of nowhere right behind Thames, and the career girl whipped around just as Hye's throwing knives entered her chest. She was so shocked that she dropped her bow. Thames scrambled to pick the weapon back up, but Hye had already kicked it out of the way, leaving room for Bechi to cut open the side of her abdomen with two heavy chops.

 _Thames Cather, District 4 Female: 18th, Killed by Hye and Bechi, Bloodbath_

Another tribute fell mere seconds later. Sycamora and Mikey from District 7, both armed with axes, decided to gang up on the nearest tribute, Astrid. Astrid just chuckled as they stepped out of the mist, twirling her throwing knives in her hands. Astrid made a valiant attempt to ward off the 7s, but she'd severely underestimated their abilities. This spelled her doom. Her plan was to throw a number of throwing knives to the tributes' left, causing them to move to the right where she could easily off them. When Mikey and Sycamora didn't fall for her trick, her moment of confusion was all that was needed for the outliers to gash open her abdomen messily.

 _Astrid Fronteau, District 2 Female: 17th, Killed by Mikey and Sycamora, Bloodbath_

At the other end of the stone pillar, a girl not affiliated with either pack met her end. Carrying a pack containing loaves of bread and a water bottle, she grabbed one of the rope bridges and slowly made her way toward safety. She was less than halfway across when one of the ropes snapped. In seconds, the entire complex of ropey strands had unwound like a yarn scarf, and she dropped like a stone to the base of the canyon where she was helplessly swept away.

 _Dewdrop Tiltree, District 11 Female: 16th, Killed by Drowning, Bloodbath_

The brawl between the careers and anti-careers claimed a fourth life. Bright from 1 had a plentiful supply of arrows and wasn't concerned about wasting them. He fired left and right, not paying much attention to who was in his path as long as they moved. Bright cringed at the sound of his ally Chaplin's screams; unbeknownst to him, Chaplin had been in the path of one of his arrows.

 _Chaplin Borden, District 4 Male: 15th, Killed by Bright, Bloodbath_

Shaking with fury, Bright and Sharrah finally accepted that they had no choice but to retreat. They were all that was left of the once-powerful career pack. The duo from 1 just bowed slightly and then raced down the nearest rope bridge after piling as many supplies as possible into the arms. The 1s were humiliated and angry that they were submitting to a group of four untrained outliers, but they knew it would be insanity to keep fighting. At the cornucopia, the anti-careers reveled in their victory, whooping with their hands in their air and jumping up and down. They though the bloodbath was over, but they were wrong. Less than ten meters away, a small boy had stuffed half of his body into a large backpack in a pathetic attempt to take cover. Now he was shaking back and forth, whimpering softly. Sycamora ended him with a hatchet blow to the chest, and he barely felt it.

 _Edison Canterbury, District 5 Male: 14th, Killed by Sycamora, Bloodbath_

The rest of Day 1 was deathless. Bright and Sharrah sprinted down one of the rope bridges and then climbed down to the ground, bickering back and forth. They were both ashamed and humiliated at having to surrender control of the cornucopia. In between their arguments, they formulated a haphazard plan to sabotage the cornucopia and reclaim control of the horn of plenty. The duo from 1 eventually settled near one of the steaming hot pools to the south. The anti-careers hung around at the cornucopia. They weren't the first anti-career alliance the games had ever seen, but they were the first to succeed in gaining control of the cornucopia, so there was literally no precedent for them. They figured they should run through the stereotypical career routine, at least for the first day. Sycamora and Mikey sorted the weapons. The district partners got along well, and their friendship played well with the capitol. The other pair, Hye and Bechi, sorted the food rations in the back of the cornucopia. They were similarly jokey and amusing. Sycamora warned the others to be on the lookout for the careers; if they returned, they would have to be ready to fight back. Mikey later went on to cut several of the rope bridges to minimize the other tributes' ability to reach them at the arena's main vantage point. There were seven tributes that weren't a member of either pack. Beth was on the move; despite her youth, she was fast and resilient. She had her heart set on reaching the bottom of the canyon by the end of the day. The mist was much thinner down there, so Beth could easily make out her surroundings while being veiled from above. Dasher scrambled down his stone pillar and raced north, where the land was rocky and uneven. He was deathly afraid of heights, and it had taken every ounce of his self-control to keep from vomiting off the side of his pedestal before the gong. When night fell, Dasher settled down between two large boulders, hoping the mutts and other tributes wouldn't spot him in his makeshift hiding place. Matisa was showered with so many sponsor gifts she didn't know what to do. Her rich family sent her items from everywhere on the spectrum of practicality: a knife, a sleeping bag, a pack of dinner rolls, a pillow, a teddy bear, and a bowl of mashed potatoes. She settled near the steaming hot pools, dangerously near to the careers, though she couldn't see them through the mist. Cara was feeling extremely queasy from the heights of the arena and came to low ground as quickly as possible. Her nausea instantly melted away when she picked up on a warm, comforting scent wafting from the wooden cabin about a mile away. Cara turned in the direction of the pleasant aroma, not knowing about the three ghoul mutts that lived inside. Ruddy had a grappling hook, which worked wonders for his survival, as it kept him from slipping around on the slick stone from which the canyon was fashioned. He settled about ten meters from the edge of the ginormous chasm and quickly fell asleep. Kenneth and Missouri from 12 had allied prior to the games. They'd both been among the tributes to avoid the bloodbath, and they were some of the first tributes to find shelter. The 12s settled in a roomy cave that overlooked the sea and the setting sun, and all of a sudden Kenneth grabbed Missouri and kissed her on the lips. Missouri was shocked but didn't try to draw away. Kenneth actually had feelings for her, but Missouri was only pretending to like him back knowing it would attract the sponsors like butterflies to a dish of sugar. There was relative peace in the arena as day turned into night.

A cannon shot kicked off the second day in the arena. Matisa woke up bright and early with the help of a tin alarm clock, the millionth sponsor gift sent to her by her wealthy family. She felt surprisingly well-rested despite having slept for only a few hours. Matisa washed in one of the steaming pools and then moved in the direction of the ravine, hoping to find victims. She was much less squeamish and germophobic than the rest of her rich family and she didn't mind killing. Matisa had only been walking for a few minutes when she perked up. She moved in the direction of the soft snores and came to the place where Ruddy was sleeping, mere meters away from the edge of the canyon. Matisa knelt down and gave Ruddy's sleeping body one hard push. He woke up just as he toppled over the edge of the gorge, tumbling hundreds of feet down. His brains were bashed and his spine was snapped the instant he hit the bottom of the canyon. Matisa took his grappling hook and then left quickly.

 _Ruddy Hassard, District 10 Male: 13th, Killed by Matisa, Day 2_

At the cornucopia, the anti-careers shuffled nervously about, preparing for their first hunt. Bechi's sponsors sent him a package of lettuce and some dressing, which he mixed with a few peppers courtesy of Hye to create a kind of salad. After the group was finished with breakfast, Mikey and Sycamora left to hunt, while Bechi and Hye stayed behind to guard the cornucopia. When the cornucopia was controlled by the careers, it was enough for only one tribute to keep guard, but the less-skilled anti-careers required two guards because of their comparatively lacking weaponry smarts.

Only one more exciting moment occurred before Day 2 was over. Bright and Sharrah didn't have control over the cornucopia, but that didn't stop them from hunting. Around six in the evening, just as the sun was beginning to disappear under the surface of the churning grey sea, Bright and Sharrah spotted Matisa from 8 moved quietly amongst the pools of steaming hot water. Matisa knelt beside one of the pools for a drink, and she spotted the careers in the reflection on the surface. Trying not to scream or be too reckless with her movements, Matisa hurried toward safety. The careers chased after her, but she was lost quickly in the visibility-reducing mist.

Day 3 was deathless. After several days of playing devil's advocate, Bright and Sharrah prepared to head back to the cornucopia. They would do anything to reclaim control of the horn. Sycamora's mentor Meredith sent her a note cryptically warning her that the careers were nearer than ever. She and the other three tributes struggled to decode the ciphered note without success. By this point, the different personalities of the anti-careers were really starting to show. In the beginning, the others hadn't been particularly fond of Sycamora's control freak attitude, but now she was acting too witty to be cocky and too flexible to be considered stingy. Mikey was the comedic relief, cracking jokes left and right and never taking anything seriously. Hye and Bechi tried to sustain their friendship, but it was getting more and more difficult as the games progressed, especially as disagreements broke out between them more and more frequently. The stress of the games was getting to them like it did to all allied tributes at some point or another, and they were taking it remarkably well despite their occasional speed bumps.

The outliers weren't up to anything exciting. Beth remained hidden in the depths of the canyon, moving along the foaming demon of the river every morning for her daily relocation. She was unnerved by strange flashes of movement in the water. Once, when she reached her hands into the river for a sip, something nipped the little finger on her left hand, spooking Beth enough to keep her away from the river whenever possible. Matisa relocated to the dastardly cliffs overlooking the sea. The sponsor gifts kept on keeping on, but their flow was slightly diminished as prices for gifts rose higher. Cara stumbled mindlessly in the direction of the warm wooden cabin at the north end of the arena. She was under the control of the chocolatey fragrance as though by a kind of magic spell; at her current rate, she would arrive at the cabin in mere days more. Kenneth and Missouri's romance progressed from their first kiss to holding hands everywhere they went. Kenneth was already head over heels in love for his district partner, and Missouri wasn't sure what to do. She felt only platonic affection toward Kenneth, but she didn't want to hurt his feelings and she knew that the sponsor gifts would only increase with more time spent together. Missouri ended up deciding that she would break the news to Kenneth at the final eight—that was if they survived that far, and she tried not to think too hard about the alternative.

The first death of Day 4 occurred around nine o'clock in the morning. Bright and Sharrah had settled less than a mile from the edge of the canyon the night prior. Now, all they had to do was trek to the bottom of the canyon, find one of the pillars topped with a pedestal, and then climb up and across to reach the horn. However, they were intercepted by a group of two puffin mutts with razor sharp beaks. The careers expertly killed off the two birds, but they were both covered with blood. Bright wasn't fazed by the blood, and he halfheartedly scrubbed it off of himself before urging Sharrah to follow him to the horn. However, Sharrah was devastated about the stains on her crystal-clear skin. She had to stop for a wash, and she added that she wouldn't get nearly as many sponsors if she didn't look pretty for them.

Bright sat cross-legged facing the opposite direction as Sharrah took off all of her clothes excepting her bra and underwear and slowly sank into one of the steaming hot pools. She spent several minutes relaxing in the pool before she began to scrub the blood off of herself. Unbeknownst to her, three more puffin mutts were standing still a few feet away, ready to attack at the gamemakers' command. Sharrah screamed as the first of the puffins drilled its razor-sharp beak through her chest. Bright leapt to his feet to help her, but the puffins beat him to her. They dragged the thrashing girl to the center of the pool and tore open her chest, splattering blood across their pristine white feathers. Nobody would be drinking from that pool any time soon now that it was tainted pink with her guts.

 _Sharrah Clurr, District 1 Female: 12th, Killed by Puffin Muttations, Day 4_

Bright clenched his hands into fists and grumbled as loudly as he dared. This was among the worst years to be a career in history: there were eleven tributes left and Bright was the only career. Now he would have to pull off his attack on the cornucopia all by himself. Despite being one against four, Bright wasn't enormously discouraged. Bechi and Hye had sevens and Mikey had an eight, and even Sycamora's cool ten couldn't compare to his outstanding eleven. Sponsor gifts started pouring down to help him, and Bright put off the attack until the following day, wanting to milk every sponsor gift he could out of the audience before he began his do-or-die mission.

At the bottom of the canyon, Beth had a near-death experience. Despite her constant attempts to relocate herself, the Capitol was getting fed up with her refusal to leave the canyon, so the gamemakers sent a torrent of rocks down to kill her or at least spook her into getting on the move. She dodged the torrent of falling rocks with nothing more than a cut on her forehead, and she stumbled straight into the violently churning river. Beth was strong enough to avoid being swept straight off of her feet, but a sharp trill of pain ran through her leg seconds later. A piranha had latched onto her leg, and she could clearly make out its sparkling orange scales through the rippling surface of the river. Beth tried to stumble to shore, but at least ten piranha mutts had grabbed onto her ankles. When she finally dragged herself out of the river, the air-hating piranhas flopped away from her. Beth was bleeding heavily, and both of her legs were in extreme pain. She tore off parts of her shirt to wrap around the wounds like bandages, but without sponsor help she would be doomed to death from blood loss or infection in due time.

The remainder of the day trickled past uneventfully, and for a moment it seemed as though the death of Sharrah would be the only death of the day. However, moments before sunset, a girl's shrill screams shattered the silence of the mist-veiled canyon arena. Cara had been moving in the direction of the small wooden cabin for several days, and she finally stumbled over the threshold toward the end of the fourth day. She immediately froze to the spot as the three ghoul mutts came into sight. Their skin was gnarled like tree bark and they wore thin silver cloaks that seemed spun from moonlight. One of the ghouls, the one carrying the single eye, held up a clawed finger and pointed at Cara. The girl tried to run, but the door had locked behind her. As Cara pounded at the nearest window, screaming for help, the ghouls drew daggers from the insides of their cloaks and ended her.

 _Cara Whipple, District 9 Female: 11th, Killed by Ghoul Muttations, Day 4_

Bright was on the prowl. Now that he was the only career left in the eighty-fifth Hunger Games, he burned with fervor, and fury and adrenaline trilled through his veins like ice water. He arrived at the bottom of the canyon shortly before midnight and moved quietly over the stone before he came to one of the pillars that led upward. When Bright finished the climb, he grabbed onto the rope bridge and moved quietly across. In seemingly no time at all, the stone cornucopia was looming out of the mist, and he could hear the anti-careers' soft snores.

Mikey, Sycamora, and Bechi were asleep in the back of the cornucopia, whereas Hye was sleepily standing guard. Bright ducked behind one of the tribute pedestals and took note of their positions and other whereabouts. Bright carefully readied an arrow and fired it in Hye's direction, aiming for his chest. His hope was that the boy would die instantly without waking the others, but this was not the case. Hye whimpered and cried, his screams already choked by the sound of blood. The other three woke instantly and sprang to their feet. Sycamora gave Mikey and Bechi a short pep talk and then the brawl began.

 _Hye Mauris, District 9 Male: 10th, Killed by Bright, Day 5_

For the first several minutes, it was unclear which side would win. Lone Bright was up against three tributes, but none of them were trained nearly as well as he was and he had the most sponsors on his side. Mikey was immediately at the head of the onrush, determined to drive away the attacker, and he pounced so quickly Bright was almost taken aback. Bright fired a volley of two arrows about thirty degrees apart. Mikey deflected the first with his hatchet blade, and the other arrow would have hit Bechi in the chest if Sycamora hadn't thrown a pack through the air to absorb the blow.

Finally, Bright managed to pin one of the other tributes to the ground. With a loud roar like a battle cry, he lunged forward and knocked an unsuspecting Sycamora over like a domino. Bright pressed one of his arrows to Sycamora's neck and pushed it farther and farther into the skin. The skin broke, and blood promptly burbled forth. He was a moment from driving the arrow all the way into her flesh when Bechi and Mikey kicked him in the chest. Bright fell straight off of Sycamora, hissing in pain, and Sycamora whirled around as quick as a flash to bury the blade of her axe into his chest. With a final burst of energy, Bright showed his bow sharply to the right and fired an arrow. Bechi was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and his allies watched in horror as the 11 boy collapsed to the ground, the life already draining from his eyes. Bechi passed away moments before Bright due to his more severe state of bodily distress.

 _Bechi Olsen, District 11 Male: 9th, Killed by Bright, Day 5_

 _Bright Galeotti, District 1 Male: 8th, Killed by Sycamora, Day 5_

Due to the rapid succession of Bechi and Bright's deaths, a final seven was classified this year rather than a final eight. They were Beth Mongan from District 5, Dasher Robelo-Gomes from District 6, Mikey Jonah and Sycamora Bromley from District 7, Matisa Conquest from District 8, and Kenneth Waldon and Missouri Londor from District 12.

The rest of Day 5, as well as the entirety of Day 6, was deathless. By this point, most of the tributes had fallen into their day-to-day rhythms. Mikey and Sycamora rested at the cornucopia and recovered from their physical and psychological wounds. They were all that was left of the anti-careers, and with Bright dead they were now the strongest tributes in the arena. They felt somewhat incomplete without Hye and Bechi, but the boys were gradually forgotten as the 7s went about their business.

At the bottom of the canyon, Beth continued gradually bleeding out from the wounds inflicted by the piranha mutts. A number of sympathetic sponsors sent her medical supplies to help her out, including a roll of gauze and a blue pill to numb the pain. Beth wrapped her legs with the gauze and swallowed the pill. The bliss of the painkiller wore off after only a few hours, and the bandages did little to prevent the infection that was slowly taking root in the girl's wounds.

Dasher had been moving in the direction of the ocean for several days. A sponsored compass helped him out somewhat, but the compass was designed to go haywire for about ten minutes every hour, throwing the 6 boy off track. When he finally arrived at the dastardly cliffs overlooking the churning ocean, Dasher expertly fashioned a fishhook out of an old tin can and some rope. Dasher caught two fish before the day was out, but decided not to eat them for the time being, unsure if they were edible. A few minutes before nightfall, disaster struck. Dasher was lying on his back trying to get some sleep when he heard the high-pitched squawking of several puffin mutts come to spear him with their long, thin beaks. Sleep-addled, he stumbled backward and tumbled straight off the side of the cliff. Dasher fell down two stories and landed on a patch of damp sand, battered and bruised beyond belief. The sand had absorbed the impact of his blow, so only one of his arms had broken, but he lacked the energy to budge an inch nonetheless.

When Kenneth and Missouri woke up on the morning of Day 6, Missouri said she had something important to tell Kenneth. Kenneth insinuated that she could tell him anything. Missouri opened her mouth to tell him that she'd been faking her feelings for him, but before she could utter a single peep she froze in place. A gust of wind carrying the chocolatey smell of the ghouls' wooden cabin had blown in their direction, and the allies both turned their heads in the direction of the aroma, enraptured. Kenneth and Missouri packed up their supplies and sprinted in the direction of the smell to investigate, under its spell. They were remarkably adequate at keeping direction; at their current rate, it looked like they would be able to reach the cabin by the following morning, provided there were no accidents.

By this point in the games, Matisa had discarded most of her sponsor gifts because they were far too heavy for her to carry without her movement being obstructed. Now, all she carried with her was a small pack containing some food, some water, medical supplies, and a backup weapon in case her knives were lost or stolen. Matisa had spent several days moving slowly alongside the shore when she stumbled across Dasher's trembling, dying form. Matisa's heart hurt horribly for the poor boy, and she knelt down on the sand, using her medical supplies to help heal him. Matisa should have known that he was beyond saving. All she was doing was drawing out Dasher's suffering. The next morning, Matisa gave into the boy's quiet pleads to be ended. She thrust her knives quickly into his chest.

 _Dasher Robelo-Gomes, District 6 Male: 7th, Killed by Matisa, Day 7_

On Day 7, Mikey and Sycamora made the decision to go hunting for the first time since Bright's invasion two days prior. Since there were only two of them, only one could hunt while the other would have to stay behind and guard the supplies. They decided to hunt in twelve-hour shifts, but it quickly became apparent how inefficient and terrifying this strategy was, so they vowed to abandon the cornucopia and hunt as a pair at noon the following day.

The night prior, Kenneth and Missouri had collapsed with exhaustion about half a mile from the cabin where the three ghouls lived. They woke up bright and early on the seventh day and quickly finished their journey in the direction of the aroma. Suddenly, the wooden cabin loomed out of the mist. Cozy warm light and heat shined out of the windows, and brightly-colored flowers hung around the front door like a border. They weren't the first tributes to find the small cabin: the blood of the dead Cara from 9 was still splattered over the threshold. But the 12s were too excited by the prospect of investigating their new discovery to pay any attention to that. In all reality, Missouri was terrified of what she might find inside, so when Kenneth volunteered to check the inside all by himself, she didn't object. The moment Kenneth stepped into the cabin, he fell straight back out of the door, three silver daggers planted into his chest, screaming Missouri's name. The ghouls' dagger blades were laced with poison, and he was gone in moments.

 _Kenneth Waldon, District 12 Male: 6th, Killed by Ghoul Muttations, Day 7_

Missouri instinctively ran to Kenneth's side and checked his pulse with her right hand; of course, it was non-existent. Before Missouri could make a run for it, she felt a freezing-cold hand wrap around her wrist. Missouri shrieked and fought to escape, but the ghoul dragged her to the center of the cabin and dropped her to the floor with a thunk. She was surrounded on all three sides. She got back to her feet and tackled the nearest mutt, knocking it backward and toppling a shelf of daggers. Despite her best attempts to escape out the window, the cackling ghouls were on her in no time, planting their weapons into her back and sending her off the same way as Kenneth.

 _Missouri Londor, District 12 Female: 5th, Killed by Ghoul Muttations, Day 7_

Little of consequence filled Days 8 and 9. There were only four tributes left in the arena, and the Capitol was thirsting for a bloody finale; if there wasn't any inter-tribute conflict sooner than later, gamemaker intervention would have been necessary. Beth's infection was gradually getting worse, and by the end of Day 9 most of her scenes had to be blurred out or censored completely. The skin around the wounds on her ankles was pink and unnaturally squishy, and they were streaked with an ugly, dull kind of yellow that oozed pus whenever she moved too suddenly. The pain came in waves from her wounds, and Beth prayed for rescue as she huddled in a small fissure at the base of the canyon, weeping quietly to herself. Mikey and Sycamora abandoned the cornucopia once and for all. They moved the bare necessities to a safe location and then tossed the rest of the horn's supplies into the canyon to be caught in the river and swept off into the sea. By the time they left the cornucopia, all that was inside were a few countertops and bits of rope. They were a stellar and memorable duo, and Mikey's witty humor paired with Sycamora's determined, ambitious mindset of the games made them one of the most talked-about duos in Hunger Games history up to that point. A sponsor note told them that Matisa was hiding somewhere near the steaming hot pools, and they moved in that direction, hoping to find and eliminate the girl with the rich family before her supply of weapons could get too large. Matisa herself expertly climbed back up the rocky cliffs and then wove amongst the steaming pools, stopping once and a while for drinks. Around noon on Day 9, three puffin mutts attacked her, but Matisa effortlessly managed to outrun them. Once, she came across the pool where Sharrah from 1 had been killed several days prior; the girl's blood and guts still lined the base of the pool in chunks, and Matisa left quickly, disgusted.

The morning of Day 10, a cannon shot rolled over the arena. Beth's infection had finally progressed to the point that she was completely immobile, and she was helpless as a large rock fell from the top of the canyon and landed straight on top of her. Beth was killed instantly. Her mentor would later tell the press that she was thankful she'd been given a quick end after so many days of suffering.

 _Beth Mongan, District 5 Female: 4th, Killed by Infection and Falling Rock, Day 10_

Little of consequence filled the remainder of Day 10. Mikey and Sycamora continued their hunt for the elusive Matisa. Once, when they were less than a quarter mile from each other, the gamemakers set off a loud banging sound between them. The gamemakers were hoping that the ever-curious Matisa would move toward the anti-careers to investigate, but she fled in terror. When Matisa reached the edge of the canyon, she tucked herself into a copse of dead bushes and hoped that they would hide her from the sight of the other tributes and mutts.

Day 11 proved to be the last day of the games. Unbeknownst to her, a trio of puffin mutts had been on Matisa's trail for several days. Her frequent movements had put the deadly birds off of her trail several times, but they found her sleeping on the morning of the eleventh day and went in for the kill. Matisa woke to see the first puffin's beak inches from her chest, and she slapped it away with her hand, fight-or-flight instinct making her tremble like a leaf. Realizing she was too tired and disoriented to fight, Matisa ran for her life. Of course, the puffins chased her in the direction of the anti-careers, and Matisa stumbled straight into Sycamora, nearly knocking her to the ground. The puffins disappeared into the mist, leaving the last three tributes to fend for their lives.

Matisa stumbled backward, realizing her deadly mistake, and pulled out her two knives. There was a fold-up spear in her backpack, but by the time she retrieved it the others could have easily killed her. She would have to fend for herself with a single blade in each hand. Matisa put up an admirable effort to fend off the anti-careers, but she was ultimately doomed when the 7s whipped out their axes and went in for the kill. Sycamora had buried the blade of her axe into her chest before she could run, and Matisa stumbled backward before landing in one of the hot pools with a splash.

 _Matisa Conquest, District 8 Female: 3rd, Killed by Sycamora, Day 11_

"So I guess it's just us now," Sycamora murmured, somewhat timidly.

Mikey nodded. Neither tribute was particularly glad that it had come down to the two of them. "It's super corny, but… may the best tribute win," he replied.

The 7s backed away from one another. They were both formidably armed and skilled. Mikey had the smaller weapon and the lower training score, but Sycamora had a pounding headache after killing Matisa so they were evened out at least somewhat fairly. Once the hovercraft had retrieved the 8 girl's body, the two finalists clashed. Their duel went on for about five minutes before the first mark was made. Mikey managed to land his hatchet in Sycamora's shoulder, but she slammed the blade away with her own weapon before it could puncture her skin more than a tiny distance. After nearly half an hour, the gamemakers unleashed torrential rainfall onto the arena, and the smaller Mikey couldn't stand his ground as easily as his stronger district partner. Mikey tripped and tumbled straight onto Sycamora's axe; the blade sank into his torso and cut open far too many organs for him to get back up again.

 _Mikey Jonah, District 7 Male: 2nd, Killed by Sycamora, Day 11_

"Sycamora Bromley of District 7, you are the victor of the eighty-fifth annual Hunger Games!" Cadmus and Daria announced.

Sycamora held two fingers to her forehead and moved them to her chin before placing them onto Mikey's chest, a traditional gesture of goodbye from the lumberyards of District 7.

 _Sycamora Bromley, District 7 Female: Victor of the Eighty-Fifth Hunger Games, Day 11_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

At the time, the 7 girl had no idea what she'd started, but she was undoubtedly one of the most influential victors of the first Hunger Games century. From her games onward, an anti-career pack would form nearly every year, consisting of the four or five strongest outliers. Whether they succeeded in capturing the cornucopia or not, some of the most memorable tributes in history would come from these so-called anti-career groups. Sycamora received a hero's welcome when she returned home to District 7. Together with Johanna and Meredith, Sycamora really helped to put District 7 on the map. Some even considered them above District 3 in terms of the most powerful outlying district. Sycamora was just glad to be home. In every district, she presented detailed eulogies for each of the tributes, interviewing the families of the fallen beforehand to make each speech as heartfelt as possible. She was also responsible for one of the most famous speeches in Panem's history, the eulogy for her district partner Mikey. The speech totaled almost one-thousand words. The first draft of the speech is today preserved in a glass case near her space on the Walk of Victors in the Capitol.

Her victory tour was stellar, memorable, and heartfelt, and even the districts of the tributes she'd killed couldn't be too mad at her.

Sycamora settled into the Victor's Village of District 7, the fifth to do so.

Sycamora would live to age ninety-six, dying from unspecified medical causes days before the one-hundred sixty-fifth annual Hunger Games. After the death of her first husband, she would re-marry, bearing a total of five children in her lifetime.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Sycamora moves into the Victor's Village of District 7, next door to Meredith.

Mags Flanagan begins to show signs of epilepsy.

Barley Chisolm, the victor of the thirtieth annual Hunger Games, dies from a heart attack.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)

* * *

 **A/N: Another chapter! I hope you enjoyed Sycamora as much as I did. She's certainly one of the most influential victors we've seen so far, what with starting the tradition of an anti-career pack in every games. Mikey was also one of my favorite tributes, but one of them had to die sadly D;**

 **Lots of people have been asking if District 12 will get a third victor any time soon, and the answer is yes. Don't hold your breath though, it's not going to be like next chapter or anything.**

 **If all goes well, the eighty-sixth games should be out soon-ish. Please consider reviewing on your way out if you're able :D**


	87. The 86th Hunger Games

**The 86th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

President Cassia Obsidian fell from the presidency after a convoluted and violent ploy executed by Stinn Hawke had his dozens of friends, allies, and disciples. Stinn's flunkeys and lackeys staged a total of eight assassinations in a single day. Having narrowly escaped several knives and bullets over the course of only a few hours, Cassia fled to a bunker in the basement of the presidential mansion and took an obscure corridor about half a mile north. Several of Stinn's men had worked for President Snow when he was in power, so they knew the riddles and secrets of the presidential palace by heart. Both the Capitol and District 1 heard the deafening boom of dynamite, and the corridor collapsed onto Cassia, crushing her to death instantaneously. Stinn Hawke immediately declared himself President of Panem. By this point, many district citizens thought that, with Snow's rule at its conclusion, they would never again be treated as poorly as they had between the first and third Quarter Quells. They were wrong. Stinn was one of the most notorious presidents in Panemian history. He made Coriolanus Snow look like a Good Samaritan. Throughout the many years of his rule, Stinn would keep the districts cowering in fear in sick, twisted ways, and at points he could even be seen lighting buildings on fire just for the pleasure of hearing the screams or pulling random young ladies off of the streets to spend a night in his palace against their will. Head Gamemaker Violet Turpin mysteriously disappeared the day that Stinn took power; the recently-vacated position of head gamemaker was filled by Stinn's right hand man, the similarly dastardly Maddox Courval. After the disappearances of both Cadmus Flickerman and Daria Pennypacker, a single new host was selected by the president: daunting and dashing Titanius Lafayette. With a whole new cast of characters running the games, this year was sure to be interesting, at the very least.

This year's arena was rather plain and vanilla; Maddox knew his entire career was dependent on having a stellar first games, and he didn't want an elaborate arena detracting from the thrills and kills of the inter-tribute conflict that was sure to transpire. In short, the arena was modeled after a prairie from the old American Midwest, before the Great Disaster that covered half the world in water and forced global survivors to form Panem. The cornucopia was situated at the center of the prairie, and there were no ranged weapons this year: only machetes, swords, and sickles were provided. The prairie stretched on for five miles in all directions, a stellar distance. That was five miles of the same amber waves over and over. It wasn't hard to imagine a tribute or two could be driven crazy by the clutches of this arena. There weren't a stellar number of bushes and trees, but there were a few. At the north end of the arena, a short line of quaint little cottages sat. They had thatched rooves and sturdy glass windows; once a tribute was safely inside, the only threat to their survival would be other tributes. To the south, there was a single building, slightly larger than the rest, that functioned as a schoolhouse. It only had one room, and it consisted of ten or eleven desks facing a central blackboard and eraser. The sky was a stunningly clear, royal blue, and it was dotted with puffy white clouds. Temperatures in the arena were also agreeable, peaking around seventy degrees Fahrenheit during the days and dropping to around fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit at night. The arena was not without natural threats, however. In time, storms would brew overhead, and violent twisters would strike the arena, tearing up the ground and sending piles of debris flying in all directions. A few storm shelters were placed sporadically around the prairie, providing the only safety from the death bringing hands of Mother Nature.

These games would not be complete without a strong career pack, and Districts 1, 2, and 4 were once again up to the challenge of providing a formidable pair to fend for their lives in the arena. The boy from District 1 was the weakest this year, but despite his lacking weaponry smarts he was an incredibly fast runner. The girl was stunning, charismatic, and memorable, a model who starred in many Capitolite ads, snagging the highly-coveted eleven. In recent years, the training score system had been adjusted to make it much easier to score anything above a nine, though twelves were still seemingly impossible to score. District 2 provided a pair of siblings, born one year apart, who had vastly contrasting personalities; the boy was more a level-headed jokester who didn't take anything seriously, while the girl was much more deliberate and humorless. The boy from 4 was charming and carried the famous cool 4 accent, and he had the surfer look that Capitolites craved. The last of the careers, the girl from 4, was much more unconventional, unknown to much of her district, though she was exotically attractive in a mysterious way. The scores of the pack were once again formidable: two elevens, two tens, and two nines.

The outlier group this year was similarly impressive. Inspired by the tactics of last year's tributes, the four strongest outliers banded together to form another anti-career pack. They were Jacobi and Milandie from 6, as well as Lothum and Blanche from 9. Jacobi was the seemingly perfect blend of looks, smarts, and strength, and he was the early favorite. Meanwhile, his district partner Milandie was muscular and masculine and only considered attractive by a small few. Lothum and Blanche from 9 were similarly diverse; Lothum was a track star back home in 9 who liked the ranged weapons, while Blanche preferred hand-to-hand combat. There were several standouts outside of the two packs as well. Georgette from 8 was another looker, and she had some smarts on her head as well. Her family wasn't rich like Matisa of the year prior, but she was resilient and driven and seemed like a decent contender for the win. Two twelve-year-old tributes, Zart from 3 and Paloma from 10, allied prior to the games. Both tributes were convinced that, if they could make themselves cute enough, the Capitol would have to let them both win. Being twelve, it wasn't hard to make the crowds giggle, but they were in for a harsh dose of reality when they realized it was one victor and one victor only. There was a single volunteer outside of the careers, and a memorable one at that. Virginia Black was the first volunteer in District 12 history. In fact, when she cried out the words, "I volunteer as tribute," the escort literally thought she was going bonkers and tapped the shoulder of a nearby peacekeeper requesting some calming tonic. Virginia told the Capitol that she just couldn't stand watching so many helpless little girls being reaped every year, and in the ultimate act of chivalry she volunteered to save the life of the starving scrap of a girl who was reaped. Time would tell how the girl with the heart of gold would fare in these games. This was shaping up to be one of the best games of its day, but only time would tell. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Greatson Putters, 16, (9) 8-1 and Bliss Rhodesian, 17, (11) 3-1

District 2: Oscar Laird, 17, (10) 5-1 and Emmy Laird, 16, (10) 5-1

District 3: Zart Rundlett, 12, (3) 64-1 and Laurisa Brookeway, 18, (7) 15-1

District 4: Shore Kestrow, 18, (11) 3-1 and Caroline Islander, 18, (9) 7-1

District 5: Hunter Night, 18, (6) 22-1 and Curie Scotts, 14, (5) 26-1

District 6: Jacobi Oswald, 18, (9) 8-1 and Milandie Inlove, 16, (9) 9-1

District 7: Phil Tyte, 13, (3) 57-1 and Ferris Montgomery, 14, (3) 56-1

District 8: Bobbin Chern, 16, (2) 63-1 and Georgette Li, 18, (7) 14-1

District 9: Lothum Chiri, 18, (8) 16-1 and Blanche Savageau, 17, (8) 15-1

District 10: Cobre Sikes, 15, (4) 35-1 and Paloma Andrews, 12, (4) 40-1

District 11: Trevor Bellerose, 16, (4) 32-1 and Lily Evitt, 12, (3) 62-1

District 12: Carlo Gonzalez, 17, (5) 24-1 and Virginia Black, 18, (5) 22-1

HGBO Bets: 20% on Bliss, 17% on Shore, 10% on Oscar and Emmy, 8% on Caroline, 6% on Greatson, 5% on Jacobi, 4% on Milandie, Lothum, and Blanche, 2% on Georgette and Virginia, 1% or less on Zart, Laurisa, Hunter, Curie, Phil, Ferris, Bobbin, Cobre, Paloma, Trevor, Lily, and Carlo.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The first thing the quaking tributes saw when they entered the arena was the spotless, royal-blue sky. A cool breeze blew over the cornucopia, causing the grass in the immediate vicinity to rustle and bend. The faint whispering sound cast a sense of foreboding over the scene, and with good reason: nine tributes would fail to escape the bloodbath with their lives this year.

At the gong, a total of three tributes made a run for it: Zart from 3, Phil from 5, and Paloma from 10. The other twenty-one tributes burst forward and began scooping up supplies.

Bliss lead the charge this year, powering ahead of the other careers due to her speed. Surprisingly, one outlier managed to match her pace. Bliss grabbed a sickle and turned sharply on her heel, and the small boy froze dead in his tracks, dumbfounded with shock as the blade sank into his side. The boy fell to his knees and died swiftly.

 _Trevor Bellerose, District 11 Male: 24th, Killed by Bliss, Bloodbath_

Shore, another fast runner, eyed the cornucopia field with a machete in each hand, and he spotted the perfect first victim. About fifty meters away, a younger girl was down on her knees, tossing supplies into a magenta pack. The girl got to her feet and ran right into one of Shore's machetes. She shrieked and tried to run, but Shore landed his other blade in her neck. By the time she hit the ground with a loud noise, she was dead.

 _Curie Scotts, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Shore, Bloodbath_

Oscar and Emmy chased a slim boy away from the cornucopia. Moments earlier, he'd decided to make a run for it after the blade of Greatson's sickle missed his throat by inches. The boy screamed as Oscar and Emmy appeared out of nowhere, both of them armed with swords, and he was toast. Oscar swung the blade of his sword into his chest, and Emmy polished him off before returning to the horn.

 _Carlo Gonzalez, District 12 Male: 22nd, Killed by Oscar and Emmy, Bloodbath_

The anti-careers made their first strike. All four of them were armed: Jacobi with a sword, Milandie with a machete, and Lothum and Blanche with sickles. Lothum tackled the tiny girl from 11 and pinned her thrashing limbs to the ground before thrusting his sickle awkwardly into her abdomen. The anti-careers left quickly to search for more victims.

 _Lily Evitt, District 11 Female: 21st, Killed by Lothum, Bloodbath_

Jacobi from 6, head of the anti-careers, noticed that one of the careers was dangerously off of her guard. Caroline was searching the inside of the cornucopia for hiding outliers, her back turned to the exit. She didn't spot Jacobi coming until it was too late. With a sound like a battle cry, Jacobi buried his sword into Caroline's upper back and dug slowly downward, drawing torrents of blood. Jacobi swallowed the bile that had built up in his mouth and rejoined his allies.

 _Caroline Islander, District 4 Female: 20th, Killed by Jacobi, Bloodbath_

Jacobi had travelled less than ten steps when he was intercepted by Shore, whose machetes glittered in the light of the sun. Shore tackled Jacobi to the ground and forced his weapon out of his hand; the 6 boy was strong, but the trained career boy easily overpowered him nonetheless. Shore slowly drove his machetes into his chest, draining the life force from his body over the course of about a minute.

 _Jacobi Oswald, District 6 Male: 19th, Killed by Shore, Bloodbath_

Greatson had been chasing a screaming boy around the cornucopia for nearly a minute when he took a huge risk. Greatson hurled his sickle through the air, and it flipped end over end before landing in the grass several meters from his moving target. The boy stopped mid-step and stumbled onto his front, leaving Greatson free to reclaim his sickle and land his first official kill.

 _Hunter Night, District 5 Male: 18th, Killed by Greatson, Bloodbath_

Bliss had been unable to land a kill since her first kill fifteen seconds after the gong. Her lips curled into a smile when the female from 7 ran straight across her field of vision. Bliss tackled the girl and knocked her to the ground, and they rolled over the grass for several feet before coming to a battered stop. The outlier girl was too tired to keep fighting, but hardy Bliss effortlessly dispatched her opponent with a cut to the neck.

 _Ferris Montgomery, District 7 Female: 17th, Killed by Bliss, Bloodbath_

Bliss leapt to her feet and bumped straight into the volunteer girl from District 12. Virginia had been starting awkwardly around the cornucopia field for several minutes, searching for a way to escape without being noticed. Her plan was to run straight past Bliss and toward safety while she was occupied polishing off Ferris, but she wasn't fast enough. Virginia fell to her back and flailed her limbs, trying to knock away her attacker as she scuttled toward safety. Of course, her attempts at escape were hopeless. Virginia's screams were the last to be heard before the cannons fired.

 _Virginia Black, District 12 Female: 16th, Killed by Bliss, Bloodbath_

The careers geared up and headed on the prowl. Oscar and Emmy sorted the weapons. The task was much easier this time than some other years, as only three kinds of weapons didn't pose any problems with organization. Despite their different personalities, the brother and sister had a great dynamic that the Capitol audience gobbled up. Shore sorted the food rations in the back of the cornucopia. He noticed a lack of food and water in the cornucopia this year. He correctly guessed that Maddox wanted the tributes moving around frequently to keep themselves healthy and hydrated. Greatson and Bliss commenced the first hunt together; despite the differences in their ages and scores, they got along well enough. When it was time to go hunting for real, Greatson volunteered to guard, while the other four careers headed off to thin the crowds of outliers.

The outliers scattered in all directions. Zart was deathly afraid of the careers, and he forced his ally Paloma three miles away from the cornucopia. By the time they reached the schoolhouse, Paloma was ready to collapse, while Zart didn't look very far away himself. The pair of twelve year-olds dragged themselves into the schoolhouse and haphazardly piled some furniture in front of the entrance before passing out. Laurisa stumbled south. She'd sprained her left ankle during the bloodbath, and the pain was unbearable, like a dagger was planted into her flesh. She settled down against one of the arena's few trees and fashioned a splint out a sponsored board and some rope fashioned from the tree's flimsy branches. The anti-careers sprinted away from the cornucopia. Now that Jacobi was dead, Milandie took the role of leader. She was an overall charismatic tribute and the others liked her a lot. Milandie was acting excessively beamish to cover her inner turmoil; as it turned out, she'd had feelings for the dead Jacobi, and she was sour after the death of her boy crush. Lothum and Blanche talked quietly behind her as they moved away from the cornucopia. The duo wasn't nearly as witty as Hye and Bechi of the year prior, but every tribute had to start somewhere. Phil, one of the tributes who'd avoided the bloodbath, followed a thin stream only slightly wider than his hand. Around nightfall, he came to the place where all the arena's streams collected: a shallow, muddy pool with a small island in the middle. Phil waded through the water and lied down on the unstable island, trying to sleep. Bobbin sobbed quietly to himself as he sprinted away from the cornucopia, his whimpers reminiscent of twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls faced with the blade of a career during the bloodbath. He was about halfway to the line of cottages when he stopped for the night, collapsing in a small ditch to cry some more. Georgette was the best-stocked outlier, holding a pack that contained various foods and medical supplies. She was also a fast sprinter, and she was the first to arrive at the line of cottages. The 8 girl settled into the leftmost cottage and barricaded the door before lying down on one of the couches for a rest. Fifteen-year-old Cobre was on the prowl. He was armed with two twin machetes but nothing else, and he knew the only way to garner supplies now would be to slaughter and kill tributes. Despite his youth, he was prepared to do so. The tributes were at peace as night fell, revealing a glittering starry sky that looked like ink.

The morning of Day 2, the careers noticed something peculiar. Toward the south end of the arena, a number of dark clouds had gathered overnight, and the menacing cluster was growing larger by the hour. The pack deduced that a terrible storm was on its way. Fortunately, they had enough time to prepare before it struck. Oscar and Shore, the tributes with the largest muscle mass, worked together to cover the entrance of the horn with a number of plastic sheets that they found buried in the back of the horn. Emmy and Bliss worked together to pile all of the supplies into the cornucopia, where they would be safe from whatever threat the gamemaker gods were about to send their way. Greatson huddled in the back of the cornucopia, feeling left out. He didn't have a job to do, and he didn't like feeling useless, but he knew it would be stupid to run through the ranks of his stronger allies so he kept himself to himself and ran through traditional District 1 folk tunes to keep himself occupied.

Zart and Paloma woke around eight in the morning and began exploring the schoolhouse. The evening prior, they'd been too tired to do any real investigating, and now was their chance. Paloma found a few snacks behind the teacher's desk and split them into two piles for herself and her ally. Zart gathered a few books that looked interesting and placed them on one of the desks for them to read while the day passed by. The anti-careers were heading in their direction, but they didn't know that. One of Zart's sponsors sent him a note cryptically warning him about the anti-careers. He and Paloma managed to decipher the first ten or so letters before night fell. They vowed to finish decoding the note the next morning.

Phil bolted awake when he felt something moist and slippery wrap around his ankle. The bottom of the lake was covered with vines that Phil hadn't been able to see through the murk. Fortunately, the small boy was able to reach dry land before he was pulled all the way down. The single vine wrapped around his ankle took quite a while to pry off of himself, and he ended up using a sponsored knife like a fulcrum to build up pressure on the vine until it broke.

Day 3 was deathless. The night prior, the anti-careers had settled in a thin ditch in the ground. It was Blanche's suggestion; being from District 9, she knew all about twisters, so the others trusted her when she told them a tornado could pass them straight over if they were lying low enough. Moments after sunrise, the first drop of rain landed on Blanche's forehead. She moved to shake her allies awake, but Milandie and Lothum were already sitting straight upright, their foreheads caked with crystal-clear droplets. Blanche had two blankets in her pack to hold over their heads like umbrellas. Lothum needed an entire blanket to himself, and Milandie and Blanche had to share one. At first, their movements were awkward and clunky, but they quickly got used to it.

The outliers weren't doing much. Laurisa, the girl with the sprained ankle, was happy to find that her injury was coming along remarkably well. A few sympathetic sponsors sent medicine to help with dulling the pain. At two in the afternoon, Laurisa made an attempt to walk, and immediately fell to her knees, gasping with pain at so much weight being put on her injured ankle. She dragged herself ten feet back to the lone tree and collapsed against it, wondering how she was going to win with her detrimental injury. Cobre kept up his hunt, but his energy was slowly sapping away. A sponsor who admired his determination sent him a sleeping bag and a bowl of soup. Cobre took this as his signal to stop for the day. He couldn't think of any way to assemble a shelter, so he slept out in the open with only the grass for cover. He felt exposed and endangered but had no choice. Despite his worries a dark wave of sleep had claimed him in moments.

Phil raced away from the lake as fast as his legs could carry him, and he skidded to a stop when he heard the soft sniffles of the male from District 8. Phil pulled aside a veil of tall prairie grass and saw Bobbin curled up on the ground, his cheeks read from so many tears. When Bobbin heard Phil approaching, he slowly turned his head and met Phil's eyes with his sad, tired own. Phil tried to offer him help, but Bobbin was unresponsive. Phil finally sprinted in the opposite direction five minutes later.

Day 4 was filled with little but the anti-careers' arrival at the schoolhouse. They reached the structure around noon. Lothum and Blanche were eager to enter immediately, wanting to get out of the cold rain, but Milandie insisted that they eat lunch outside to get their strength before entering. Zart and Paloma were reading books on the sofa when they heard the handle of the door slowly turning. Milandie banged against the blockade, and the door eventually splintered in half. Zart and Paloma scrambled toward safety. Zart managed to duck into a small closet in time to escape, but Paloma was still running when the anti-careers burst into the schoolhouse. She held up one of the desks like a shield, but it was too heavy to be of use for long. Milandie planted her machete into her wrist, nearly loping off one of her hands, and Paloma collapsed, banging her head against several desks in her descent. Paloma screamed and cried out Zart's name as Milandie cut open her throat with her weapon, ending her.

 _Paloma Andrews, District 10 Female: 15th, Killed by Milandie, Day 4_

"She was saying something, did you hear?" Lothum said. "Zart, I think."

"That boy from 3?" Milandie responded. "Yeah, I saw them together in the training center. He's got to be here somewhere. Tear up the place if you have to, we're going to find him."

Zart cowered inside of the small closet, layering dust onto himself as if he could blend into the back of the closet and remain unnoticed. After nearly ten minutes of silence, Zart shakily got to his feet and turned the door handle. He thought the anti-careers had left, but they were merely remaining very quiet to draw him out of his hiding place. The moment Zart stepped out of the closet, Lothum and Blanche were onto him like hounds. Lothum cut across his forehead using the blade of his sickle, and he pinned down his flailing limbs as a cringing Blanche messily gashed open the boy's torso, finishing him off.

 _Zart Rundlett, District 3 Male: 14th, Killed by Lothum and Blanche, Day 4_

The rest of Day 4 passed swiftly. After four entire days of inactivity, Bobbin was beginning to feel the impacts of hunger and dehydration on his body. Despite being a wimp, he wasn't stupid, and he knew that he had to get moving sooner or later or else he would die, either from gamemaker tricks or dehydration or a combination of both. Besides, he didn't like the looks of the storm brewing on the horizon. Bobbin trudged about a mile through the rain before stopping for the night. He was moving in the direction of the cozy cottages at the north end of the arena, but he quickly realized a flaw in his plan: in order to reach the other end of the arena, he'd have to pass the cornucopia, which terrified him witless. Abandoning his plan, Bobbin lay down in a ditch and moved his eyes left and right as though expecting a five star hotel to pop out of nowhere.

On Day 5, a loud pinging sound filled the gamemakers center in the Capitol. The storm had been growing progressively more intense for three days, and now the first funnel cloud had poked out of the sky. The point of the twister was growing closer and closer to the ground, where it would eventually crash down and take on the form of a terrifying black vortex that consumed everything its path. The first twister had originally been planned to touch down around Day 7, but there was no stopping it now. The gamemakers and the rest of Panem watched in anticipation as the cone-shaped mass of spinning cloud grew nearer to the ground like water swirling down a drain.

Pitiful Laurisa knew she was hopeless as soon as she saw the point of the funnel cloud curling toward the ground. Finally, it struck solid ground, and a noise like a barreling train crashed over the arena, deafening Laurisa and all of the other tributes in the arena. Clouds of dirt and debris flew in all directions. Laurisa knew she had no chance of survival. If she was going to go out, she wanted to go out with a bang. Laurisa grabbed onto the tree that had been her savior and refused to let go—not even when her legs were off the ground and it took every ounce of her strength to cling on, and not when it was torn off of the ground like a sapling and carried off into the black vortex. A testament to her tenacity at the very least.

 _Laurisa Brookeway, District 3 Female: 13th, Killed by Twister, Day 5_

A parched and downtrodden Cobre was sprinting over the prairie when he stopped dead in his tracks, tumbling forward and landing on his front. He caught his fall with his arms and sprang to his feet, and his gut twisted when he heard the deafening growl of the twister as it touched down at the south end of the arena. Laurisa' cannon shot blended seamlessly into the sound of the vicious tornado, so it went unnoticed to the 10 boy. Cobre's screams were similarly drowned out by the noise of the twister. Terrified, he raced away from the vortex and then collapsed in a ditch, praying that he would be passed over and spared.

Georgette, who was napping in the leftmost cottage, woke instantly to the noise of the twister. Because of her distance, the roar wasn't deafeningly loud like it had been for Laurisa and Cobre. It was more like the faint droning of some kind of whirring machine lost in the distance. Georgette peeked out of the window, and panic settled in her gut at the sight of the disaster headed her way. Georgette acted quickly, piling her supplies into one place so that they could be moved all at once rather than separately and inefficiently. By the time she found the storm cellar near the cottage, the tornado was only about half a mile away. Georgette collapsed in the cellar moments before the house was bowled over, and she covered her ears with her hands in a useless effort to drown out the mind-numbing howl.

Bobbin let out a sniffle at the sight of the twister and broke into a sprint. He wasn't a fast runner by any stretch of the imagination, but the nearest cottage was close enough for him to reach before he was claimed by the twister's evil, death-bringing hands. He had absolutely nothing but a single knife, and he staggered into the cottage, tears streaming down his cheeks as he searched for further shelter. He wasn't able to find the storm cellar in time, so all Bobbin could do was duck under a heavy table with his hands over his neck and cry until there were no tears left in him.

The twister struck the cornucopia next. The portion of the pack that was hunting (Greatson, Bliss, Oscar, and Emmy) was less than a mile from the cornucopia when Greatson pointed out the funnel cloud brewing to the south. The pack raced back to the cornucopia and alerted Shore of the situation—he'd been inside of the horn while they were away and hadn't spotted the cloud like the others had. The careers slipped between the plastic sheets laid over the entrance of the cornucopia and huddled inside. Emmy insisted that they tie the supplies down so they wouldn't fly around and hurt them, but Bliss told her they didn't have time; the twister had already touched down, and it was moving in their direction at a scary speed. The careers slithered into their sleeping bags, hoping they wouldn't be swept away or injured by the scattering supplies. When the twister touched down on the cornucopia, the steel structure grumbled and quaked. The careers were scared it might be torn straight off of the ground, but the horn held strong against all odds. They grabbed onto whatever heavy objects they could find to keep from being blown away. They suddenly realized that only four of their five members were still inside of the cornucopia. The careers glanced upward just as Oscar disappeared out of the horn. He was swept up into the tornado and killed like Laurisa before him.

 _Oscar Laird, District 2 Male: 12th, Killed by Twister, Day 5_

Emmy's mouth was agape with horror as she watched her brother be swept away by the tornado. In her moment of horror, her entire body seized up, and her grip on one of the wooden countertops loosened just enough for the storm to suck her away. Emmy was pulled straight into the roaring twister and carried upward to who-knows-where. District 2 was officially out of the competition this year.

 _Emmy Laird, District 2 Female: 11th, Killed by Twister, Day 5_

Phil was one of the last tributes to be pursued by the vicious twister. By Day 5, he was nearly two miles from the lake he'd discovered on Day 1, and only about one mile from the place he'd stumbled across a crying Bobbin. When Phil saw the towering twister heading in his direction, his first instinct was to run away from it, but his logical sense told him he would never be able to outrun the column of swirling air. Phil collapsed to earth and scuttled to the lowest ground he could find. Luck was on his side, and the tornado hopped right over him before continuing on its path.

The anti-careers had been huddling in the cellar of the schoolhouse for several hours when the tornado struck down. Blanche pulled a dry candle out of her pack and lit it using a sponsored match. Milandie, Lothum, and Blanche stared anxiously at each other and covered their ears as the twister tore apart the schoolhouse above them. It was terribly cold down in the cellar; when the tributes tried to warm themselves with the candle, they were really just putting their imaginations to the test. The sound of the twister as it tore over the land was unnatural, monstrous even. Any of the three anti-careers would surely be scarred for life if they managed to survive these games.

Day 6 was deathless. In the aftermath of the tornado, the tributes milled about, most of them without shelter and without food. Real hunger and dehydration were starting to set in for some, and death seemed imminent if these did not become readily available in the near future. Georgette waited until the morning of Day 6 to climb out of the storm cellar. Her heart sank when she saw that her beautiful cottage was in ruins; the twister had torn it apart like kindling, and now all that was left was a trembling wooden skeleton. There wasn't any other shelter that she could see, so Georgette resorted to "rebuilding" the cottage in a way, by piling wooden planks on top of the skeleton to re-fashion the roof. It wasn't much, but it did at least something to keep out the rain that fell later that day.

An exasperated Phil hadn't had a sip of water since the afternoon of Day 4, and dehydration had begun to take its deadly toll on his body. The boy was pleased to find himself back at the lake he'd found on Day 1, the place where all of the arena's streams met. The tornado had run straight over the lake, emptying it of most of its water contents. However, there was a substantial amount of water left. Phil filled his thermoses and guzzled as much water as he could. A few sickles lay at the bottom of the lake, having been hidden by murk for the first five days of the games. Phil cleaned off the weapons and started practicing with the sickles, hoping to hone in on the skills that would help him if another tribute attacked.

The career pack made an effort to fix up the cornucopia. They only had three members left: Greatson, Bliss, and Shore. This meant that each individual tribute had to do more work, but they were all glad to have something to do so none of them complained. The twister had scattered the horn's supplies all around the cornucopia field, and it took the efforts of both Greatson and Shore to retrieve them and pile them up inside of the horn. Finally taking the advice of the dead Emmy, the boys tied down the heavier supplies to keep them moving if additional twisters struck down. All the while, Bliss was improving the blockade at the mouth of the cornucopia. The plastic sheets had torn and split during the storm. With the help of her friends stepladders and duct tape, she had the tears patched in no time.

The anti-careers stayed put in the storm cellar near the schoolhouse. In their panic, they hadn't brought anything inside the cellar to keep themselves occupied. All they had was each other. Lothum warned that they should stay in the cellar for a few more days in case there were any aftershocks. He didn't know what the word really meant, as he'd spent much of his life in the flour pressing plants of District 9 rather than going to school, but he'd heard the word in the Capitol and thought it made him sound smart. Milandie and Blanche, the girls, curled up in a corner of the cellar and huddled together to keep warm. It was freezing cold down there despite the warmth of the outside, so keeping warm was not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination.

On the morning of Day 7, a cannon shot rolled over the prairie. Cobre had been hunting enthusiastically since Day 1, only taking a short break while he waited for the storm to pass, and he finally succumbed to dehydration. He fell onto his front, gasping and shaking and clawing at his throat. Dehydration was a horribly painful way to leave the world, and he was glad when Bliss and Shore started into sight, attracted by his soft groans. Bliss was at the head of the duo, and she quickly dug the point of her sickle into Cobre's chest. The pack took a quick moment to pillage Cobre of the supplies he was carrying before starting off to search for more victims.

 _Cobre Sikes, District 10 Male: 10th, Killed by Bliss, Day 7_

When Cobre's cannon shot woke the anti-careers, the three tributes finally decided to leave the storm cellar. Milandie pushed the door open and they stepped out into the open, squinting at the first sunlight they'd felt in days. Milandie, Lothum, and Blanche moved to the lowest ground they could find. Their rationale was that more of the tributes would have flocked there after the twister, so victims would be more plentiful. However, most of the tributes had returned to high ground between the twister and their emergence into the outside world, so they found a grand total of zero victims before nightfall. Frustrated, they settled near one of the few trees that the twister had spared and assigned shifts before lying down for bed.

The first half of Day 8 featured one point of tribute interaction, and it wasn't a terribly exciting one. Georgette left the ruins of the leftmost cottage to search for water. She ended up at one of the small streams and gratefully sipped the water for several minutes before settling down for a power nap. Feeling refreshed and well-rested, a confident Georgette moved away from the river to return to her shelter. However, the tall grass threw her off track, so she was moving in the opposite direction she intended. About an hour later, Georgette stumbled upon the ditch where her district partner Bobbin was crying quietly to himself, near death from dehydration. Georgette knew only one tribute could leave these games, but she felt terrible for the poor boy and offered one of her thermoses to Bobbin. Bobbin wiped away his tears and guzzled about half the bottle before walking slowly away. If not for the breath condensed around the rim of the thermos, Georgette would have thought he had been only a dream.

The careers and the anti-careers had been moving toward each other when they finally met at seven in the evening on Day 8. The anti-careers were well-armed, well-rested, and well-fed. Only Greatson and Shore were hunting, so the careers were outnumbered by one. Could they make up for their lacking numbers with extensive smarts or strength? Time would tell.

The anti-career pack was treading silently over the prairie when Lothum suddenly shushed his allies. They froze dead in his tracks when they followed Lothum's gaze and spotted movement a few meters away. They didn't figure the tribute was a very big threat; they all assumed it was Phil or Bobbin or maybe even Georgette. They were wrong. Greatson from 1 and Shore from 4 suddenly burst out of the tall grass. The anti-careers stumbled backward, yelling in confusion. They were moving toward a small clearing that was scissored through by two small streams. Only once they reached the clearing did the anti-careers turn around to fight off the careers that they knew would either kill them all or die trying.

Greatson and Blanche immediately clashed, and there was no clear-cut winner. Greatson had two machetes while Blanche had a sickle, so she had a slight advantage in terms of range. The blade of the sickle was roughly three feet long, allowing her to cut at Greatson from a distance whereas he needed to get close to do his dirty work. Meanwhile, Milandie and Lothum ganged up to take down Shore. Milandie had a nine and Lothum had an eight, but Shore had a cool eleven, so taking him down was not an easy task. The Capitol sent about a dozen separate drone cameras to capture footage of the brawl.

The first kill was made roughly two minutes later. Blanche made a gallant and admirable effort to fend off Greatson, but she was ultimately hopeless against the trained career. Greatson finally saw the opportunity to lunge forward, and he buried both of his machetes into Blanche's abdomen. Blood splattered in all directions. Milandie and Lothum turned their attention away from Shore to help her, but they knew at once glance that their ally was beyond saving.

 _Blanche Savageau, District 9 Female: 9th, Killed by Greatson, Day 8_

That left the final eight: Greatson Putters and Bliss Rhodesian from District 1, Shore Kestrow from District 4, Milandie Inlove from District 6, Phil Tyte from District 7, Bobbin Chern and Georgette Li from District 8, and Lothum Chiri from District 9.

Greatson looked down expecting to see the dead body of his opponent, but all he saw was the point of a sickle protruding from his own chest. Milandie undertook the task of keeping Shore at bay by herself while Lothum backed away and circled around so that Greatson was facing away from him. With one swipe, he thrust his weapon forward and drove it through Greatson's chest, twirling it back and forth and cutting through his lungs and heart. Now it was Shore versus Milandie and Lothum, and the anti-careers decided they didn't want to take their chances with any more fighting. Milandie and Lothum ran for the hills, and they didn't look back until they were two miles from the site of the fight and they had lost Shore for good.

 _Greatson Putters, District 1 Male: 8th, Killed by Lothum, Day 8_

Day 9 was deathless. Dark clouds were gathering in the south, so the tributes gauged that another twister was on its way and would touch down around Day 10 or 11. Shore sprinted back to the cornucopia and slipped through the plastic sheets to recount the events of the most recent days to Bliss. When she heard that they were the only two careers left in these games, Bliss' expression hardened, as though she were weighing the pros and cons of murdering her weaker ally at that moment. Milandie and Lothum took shelter in the wreckage of one of the cottages. The roof of the cottage had collapsed onto a sturdy kitchen table, creating a hidden space underneath. The ceiling was low, and the anti-careers regularly knocked their heads against it, but it was worth it to have any roof at all over their heads when the cold rains came again. Phil left the central pond, a sickle in each hand, and ventured down one of the broader streams. He eventually came to the line of ruined cottages at the north of the arena, but left quickly; he figured the ruins would be inhabited by formidable tributes, and he didn't want to look for trouble by poking around. He ended up returning to the lake and sleeping for the night like normal. Bobbin settled into a ditch that the first twister had dug into the ground as it had meandered along its path. The ditch stretched on for several meters in both directions before disappearing into darkness. Bobbin was terrified out of his mind and couldn't manage to sleep a wink despite his best efforts. Georgette returned to the storm shelter near her cottage as soon as she saw the dark clouds rolling in. She knew it would protect her well from anything Mother Nature had to throw at her, and she almost felt safe inside of it. Almost. This was the Hunger Games, after all.

On Day 10, the second twister struck down at the south end of the arena, but the tributes were prepared this time, so there were no deaths. Bobbin, who'd finally managed to nod off around six in the morning, heard the deafening roar of the twister coming his way. He grabbed a root in each hand, the roots of the tree that had once stood there before the trunk was splintered by the first twister, and held on for all he was worth as the twister tore him over. His hands were raw and torn up from the effort of holding on, but the knowledge that he would be killed the instant he let go was enough to keep him strong. His hands were bleeding by the time the twister was gone. Bobbin tore off parts of his shirt to tie over his palms in order to quell the bleeding, hoping infection wouldn't take root in the wounds.

A sleeping Phil spotted the twister too late to be saved. This twister was much quieter and more sneaky than the Day 5 twister. Phil woke up to the howl of the cone-shaped column of wind less than a mile from him. The twister was between him and low ground, so falling down any slope was out of the question. He could do nothing but run perpendicular to the twister's path so that it wouldn't strike him. He couldn't move out of the way fast enough; while he did escape the twister proper, he was caught in the gales of wind thrown off of it. The winds tossed him around and threw him back and forth, and a battered Phil groaned in agony when he finally came to a stop, too tired to do anything but sleep soundlessly.

The twister struck the cornucopia next. Bliss and Shore's new safety precautions worked wonders for their safety. Before the twister, Bliss had bound a few of the plastic sheets to the ground so they wouldn't start flapping during high winds. While the winds outside of the horn were howling at hundreds of miles an hour, it was barely noticeable inside of the cornucopia. Shore's efforts to tie down the supplies also helped, though one crate of knives cracked open and pierced Bliss in the chin. Besides Bliss' minor wound, the two careers were entirely unharmed by the Day 10 twister.

When they spotted the storm coming, the anti-careers disappeared into their storm cellar to wait it out. Milandie and Lothum didn't have a candle this time, so they couldn't see anything, only feel the cold floor and the water dripping onto their foreheads. On the other side of the arena, Georgette proceeded similarly, stepping down into the depths of the stone cellar when the twister got too close for comfort.

That night, Shore volunteered for the first shift. There were only seven tributes left in the arena, and shore knew his odds of victory would skyrocket if he knocked off Bliss. Bliss herself was snoring softly in the back of the cornucopia. She didn't think Shore would have the nerve to kill her off before the finale, so she felt secure closing both eyes at night. She was wrong. Bliss woke up to the bite of Shore's machete in her gut. She tried to reach for her weapon, but Shore knocked it away. Bliss gasped and shook in her last few minutes, and moments before her death she told Shore to do something that would've gotten her written up at the academy back in 1.

 _Bliss Rhodesian, District 1 Female: 7th, Killed by Shore, Day 10_

The morning of Day 11, Shore went hunting by himself. He was drunk off his killing of Bliss; determined to bring these games to an end and bring honor to his district, he was being somewhat more brash and reckless than was appropriate for a fight to the death. Once, Shore came across the place where Phil was sleeping, but his diminutive body was hidden under the tall prairie grass and he went unnoticed.

Bobbin once again began to feel the effects of dehydration on his body. While he was lacking emotionally, he was not lacking physically. He was able to cover a stellar distance on the eleventh day. Around noon a small stream snatched him from the claws of dehydration and death. Bobbin followed the stream and eventually arrived at the storm cellar where Georgette was sleeping. Bobbin put his ear to the door of the cellar and heard her soft snores. Bobbin wasn't sure what to do. He knew he didn't have it in him to kill a human being, but was it worth it if it meant he could see his family again? Georgette woke up about ten minutes later and stepped out of the cellar, and the moment Bobbin saw her he shoved her back down the stairs. Georgette landed on her head at the base of the cellar stairs, and she was knocked unconscious instantly. Tears pooled up in Bobbin's eyes as he ran to the side of the unconscious girl, and he knew he couldn't turn back now. He thrust his knife into her chest and ended her. It was only after her cannon fired that Bobbin realized he had killed his district partner.

 _Georgette Li, District 8 Female: 6th, Killed by Bobbin, Day 11_

The rest of Day 11 was deathless. The anti-careers got up and moving as soon as the sun rose into the sky. The night prior, they'd cracked the doors of the cellar open to allow the warm night air to flood inside, but a rainstorm had struck, flooding the bottom of the cellar with about an inch of water. They didn't realize they were partly submerged until Lothum rolled to one side and water poured into his mouth. Lothum woke up gasping and choking. It took him several minutes to expel all of the water from his lungs, and he and Milandie left the cellar quickly after that. They didn't have the energy to actively hunt, so they merely meandered through the prairie under the guise that they were searching for victims.

The Capitol had been anticipating another clash between the careers and the anti-careers, and they got their wish on Day 12. After an entire night of hunting, Milandie and Lothum settled down in one of the ditches dug by the second twister. They were hidden well inside of the ditch, so it wouldn't have been easy for any casual observer to spot them. However, Shore's mentor Finnick sent him a note with directions to the anti-careers. Minutes later, Shore peered into the ditch and saw Milandie and Lothum snoozing contentedly, oblivious to his presence.

Suddenly, the hairs on Milandie's neck stood up on end, and a cold sweat broke out all over her body. Without moving her head, she moved her eyes upward. It took every ounce of strength she had to keep from crying out at the terrifying sight of Shore's grin. Milandie needed to wake up Lothum without moving and without making any sound. This was not an easy task. She reached out a hand and brushed Lothum's arm, but Shore saw the slight movement and leapt down into the ditch.

Milandie and Lothum scattered, terrified. They tried to reassure themselves that their enemy was outnumbered, but the prospect of facing the strongest tribute left in these games was terrifying nonetheless. Shore pounced toward Lothum, knocking him straight to the ground, but the strong outlier boy rolled out of the way before he could pierce him with his weapons. Shocked, Shore jumped to his feet, and he bumped straight into a dumbfounded Milandie. Shore's reflexes were fast; he spun around and cut Milandie's torso open with two heavy chops. The older girl's screams were drowned out by the squishing sound of blood, and she fell to her knees. Now only male tributes were left.

 _Milandie Inlove, District 6 Female: 5th, Killed by Shore, Day 12_

Days 13 and 14 were deathless and completely uneventful. The four remaining tributes, all of them male coincidentally, largely milled about or stayed still without doing much. Shore was frustrated at how Lothum had escaped from straight under his nose while he had been killing Milandie. The 4 boy hunted feverishly for most of the thirteenth day, searching for the elusive Lothum and for the other boys. On the fourteen day, he decided to return to the horn for a supply restock, and he inadvertently fell asleep for nearly six hours. Phil left the lake when the pre-twister rains started up again. With all of the cottages in ruins, there was no shelter whatsoever except the horn and the few trees that were still standing. Carrying a sickle in each hand, Phil travelled west until he came to the site of a tall, thin tree, where he dumped his scant supplies and passed out. Bobbin stayed put in the tall grass near the storm cellar. He knew it was much safer inside of the cellar than outside, but he was deathly afraid of the dark and refused to enter it until the rains started up. The gamemakers had no idea how Bobbin could hold so many tears inside of him given how little water he was consuming. Lothum did his fair share of hunting throughout the two days and then started moving in the direction of the cornucopia. He knew the finale was near, and he wanted to be as close to the arena's center as possible when it did. On Day 14, the storm clouds rolled in, dousing the prairie in cold rain. If the current pattern of a twister every five days held true, the third twister would strike on Day 15, but they would just have to wait and see.

True to the pattern, the third and final twister struck down at noon on Day 15. Unlike the Day 10 twister, which was deathless, the Day 15 twister claimed the lives of two tributes. Phil was resting with his back against the thin tree when he woke to the all-too-familiar howling of the twister. He looked to his right and saw the column of air meandering nosily over the prairie about a mile away from him, tearing up the ground and sending shrapnel in all directions. Phil lucked out this time, and he managed to go completely unharmed by simply running perpendicular to the path of the tornado. After nearly half an hour, he collapsed to the prairie grass, too exhausted to move farther.

Lothum was not nearly as lucky. When the funnel cloud started forming he made a mad dash for the cornucopia, but he faced a dilemma about halfway across his journey. Where did he go for shelter from the storm? There were no trees or ditches in the immediate vicinity. Both the cornucopia and the nearest storm cellar were too far away from him to reach before the tornado struck down. Lothum ended up making the fatal mistake of attempting to outrun the twister. He was, of course, overtaken in moments. Lothum kicked his legs and flailed his arms in a desperate attempt to free himself, but he was helpless as the spinning column of dust carried him straight off of the ground before depositing him several hundred feet away, where he broke his neck immediately.

 _Lothum Chiri, District 9 Male: 4th, Killed by Twister, Day 15_

Bobbin collapsed back into the long, meandering ditch when he noticed the twister was coming his way. The sixteen-year-old boy had gotten remarkably lucky throughout these games, and his luck did not fail him this time. Against the odds, the twister passed straight over him, and he managed to survive with nothing but a cut on his forehead from a flying piece of debris. His screams of terror blended in with the deafening bellow of the twister and went unnoticed.

Minutes later, Shore made a fatal mistake that spelled his doom. Being from District 4, he'd heard about twisters but never experienced one before, so he wasn't nearly as knowledgeable as some of the other tributes. He was out hunting when he spotted the twister tearing over the prairie. Shore's big mistake was thinking the twister wasn't moving, when in reality it was moving toward him. By the time Shore realized what was happening, it was too late, and he was already been sucked off of his feet. The last career tribute in these games was dead in moments after his lungs flooded with dust and debris.

 _Shore Kestrow, District 4 Male: 3rd, Killed by Twister, Day 15_

Now, the males from 7 and 8 were the only tributes left in the eighty-sixth annual Hunger Games. Phil and Bobbin left a lot to be desired. Phil had scored a three while Bobbin had scored a measly two, neither was particularly skilled with weaponry, and both had an unfortunate aversion toward killing. Bobbin had made one kill previously and Phil had discovered the sickles hidden at the bottom of the lake, which did at least something to help with their popularity, but they were still not the formidable finalists the Capitol had been thirsting for. On Day 16, storms brewed in the north and south. Bobbin was in the north, and Phil was in the south. The boys moved toward each other, deathly afraid of subsequent twisters, and they spotted each other from about half a mile away at two in the afternoon.

"It's the finale, dude," Phil said once they were close enough to hear one another. "One of us has got to go. No way around it."

Bobbin nodded and awkwardly stepped forward, the hand holding his machete trembling fiercely. Phil made the first move, lashing out with his sickles, but he stumbled slightly, allowing Bobbin to snatch one of the weapons out of his hand. Bobbin retaliated with striking ferocity, flinging his sickle toward Phil's chest. Two untrained tributes with inefficient weapons was the recipe for a torturously long finale. After nearly an hour, Phil fell to the ground, Bobbin's machete lodged awkwardly into his neck. The wound wasn't severe; though pink spit was foaming from Phil's mouth, it was nearly half an hour before death took him.

 _Phil Tyte, District 7 Male: 2nd, Killed by Bobbin, Day 16_

"Bobbin Chern of District 8, you are the victor of the eighty-sixth annual Hunger Games!" the new host, Titanius, shouted gleefully.

Bobbin wiped the snot from under his nose and attempted to look somewhat presentable.

 _Bobbin Chern, District 8 Male: Victor of the Eighty-Sixth Hunger Games, Day 16_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Bobbin was an interesting victor to say the very least. He would go on to garner the nicknames "Crybaby" and "Waterworks" from the other districts and even some of the other victors. Bobbin would go down in history as one of the "lucky" victors like Misty and Iuna before him, victors that had somehow managed to escape the arena with their lives despite the odds stacked humungously against them. District 8 was of course pleased to bring home their fourth victor, but they couldn't help but be let down by the sniveling disposition of their newest victor. Fortunately, he and Poplin shared the role of mentoring District 8 males, so he only had to mentor every other year. This was a good thing because Bobbin was one of the more neglectful mentors. He would never take up drugs or alcohol to dissuade his demons; crying was his drug, really.

He settled into the Victor's Village of District 8, the fourth victor to do so.

His victory tour was a disaster, as he cried at almost every stop.

Bobbin would live to age thirty-seven, dying from suicide four months before the one-hundred seventh annual Hunger Games. He would never marry nor have children.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Bobbin moves into the Victor's Village of District 8, next door to Poplin's home.

Mags Flanagan is diagnosed with epilepsy.

Enobaria Rigatti receives an abortion.

Meredith Powell gives birth to her second child, a boy she names Oakley.

Amelia Bankston, the victor of the sixteenth annual Hunger Games, dies from unspecified medical causes.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)

* * *

 **A/N: This story now has a website! It should pop up if you type "23cannons . weebly . com" without the spaces. It's far from finished and it's more than a little plain but I wanted to put something here before I forget. I'd love if you considered taking a look at it!**

 **This is one of the longest chapters yet. I was expecting 8,000-9,000 words at the most but it turned out 10,000 almost 11,000 words WHAT DID I DO?**

 **I really liked the characters in this one, especially Phil, Milandie, and Lothum :D**

 **Fun fact: a bobbin is a little metal thing that holds thread, kind of like a dental floss container.**

 **Please stay tuned for the next chapter, and once again I'd like to say thank you for all of your support. Please consider reviewing on the way out :)**


	88. The 87th Hunger Games

**The 87th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

President Stinn Hawke remained the crown jewel of Panem's dictatorship. Floggings and executions in the outlying districts were more rampant than ever before, and taxes were as bloated as Stinn's ministers. Terror tainted the hearts of Panem's citizens like the dead Snow had tainted his enemies' food with poison, festering in the Capitol and infecting the districts in slow succession like a deadly virus. His inhumane methods of keeping the districts in line kept rebellion at a bare minimum this year; the largest riot occurred outside of a meat packaging factory in District 10 and claimed a measly two lives. Members of the Tails political party shrunk into the shadows and followed the president's orders without question. It was the best thing for them and their families, even if it meant withstanding the torture of keeping their political opinions bottled inside of themselves like volcanoes. After a satisfying Hunger Games the year prior, Maddox Courval returned to the post of head gamemaker. After years of waiting in the wings and watching his sworn enemies steering the games ship, Maddox was more than prepared to craft another deadly arena and pour out the horrors of his imagination into the nightmares of district children. Titanius Lafayette ran the pre-games festivities; he was charismatic and likeable and helped to put the cherry on top of the deadly cake of the Hunger Games.

The first thing the tributes would notice when they entered the arena was the oppressive heat. The arena was set far away from Panem, in a place once known as Iran, a desert land where temperatures could peak in the one-hundred tens. The pedestal ring formed a tight circle around the cornucopia, which was fashioned from adobe and housed machetes, spears, and broadswords. Around them, the marketplace of an ancient Arabian city sprawled out in all directions. The marketplace was filled with little wooden stalls selling everything from fruit to dolls to saddles. Beyond the marketplace, there were lines of long, low apartment buildings. The roads of the city were dusty but functional—four broad pathways shot out from the central cornucopia, moving ramrod straight in the four cardinal directions. At the end of each road, there was a large palace. These four palaces were connected with tall brick walls that encircled the city. Beyond the wall there were only slum houses and windswept desert. Peppered throughout the city were small groves of dates, sweet brown fruit that would make up most of the tributes' food supply. A long, broad river wound its way through the city, and it had dozens of tributaries that would gradually dry up as these games progressed. Throughout the games, sandstorms would bring black clouds of sand over the walls of the city, enough to suffocate any tribute whose mouth and nose weren't covered. Vicious camel mutts roamed the city, with saliva that was poisonous in the smallest doses and razor sharp teeth. There were also sand foxes, antelope, and deadly cobra mutts that inhabited cool, dark spaces like the insides of buildings.

The careers were an okay bunch this year, and they seemed reliable if not exactly groundbreaking. The tributes from 1 were good family friends, and neighbors in one of the jewel-cutting villages on the outskirts of the district. The male was older, your typical all-in-it-for-the-honor career, and he made the Capitol swoon with his spear talents and his muscle. The girl, his junior by one year, was more laid back and unconventional and very pretty, and she preferred knives. District 2 stole the show this year, providing the two strongest tributes in these games. The male was a dark-haired, brutishly attractive boy who was rippling with muscle, while the girl was solitary and more quiet but charismatic enough to earn her share of sponsors. District 4 defied all of their stereotypes this year. The boy was of heavy Asian heritage, a new look for 4 and a contrast to their usual crop of red-haired, freckled kids, whereas the girl was short and had a low-pitched voice that was somewhat masculine. The scores were decent: one eleven, two tens, and three nines.

The outliers this year weren't stellar, but there were still a few standouts. The anti-career pack consisted of Fox from 7, Daniette from 8, and Sage and Zinnia from 11. Fox had been working in the lumberyards of 7 since age twelve to support his large family, so he had lots of smarts and specialized in axes and hatchets. Daniette was more quiet and reserved but still managed an impressive seven with her looks mostly. She could also use the various knives well. The pair from 11, Zinnia and Sage, had similar appearances and senses of humor, and they were both mounds of muscle who would certainly make these games just a bit more interesting. The only other standouts this year were Hector and Calculata from 3. They fell into a heated love affair after being reaped, and were inseparable. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Anklet Rinker, 17, (9) 7-1 and Organdy Karat, 16, (9) 6-1

District 2: Fitore Thernstrom, 18, (11) 3-1 and Anastasia Roppling, 18, (10) 4-1

District 3: Hector Coon, 16, (7) 15-1 and Calculata Barns, 16, (4) 32-1

District 4: Delta Channel, 17, (9) 8-1 and Melarri Luongo, 18, (10) 4-1

District 5: Looper Wattson, 12, (2) 72-1 and Tasha Spark, 13, (5) 27-1

District 6: Charle Harwell, 18, (5) 24-1 and Irene Kemper, 12, (3) 58-1

District 7: Fox Rennolls, 16, (8) 12-1 and Janka Helix, 16, (6) 18-1

District 8: Stitch McKerler, 17, (4) 31-1 and Daniette Lorian, 18, (7) 12-1

District 9: Jaime Cassel, 18, (7) 16-1 and Arza Ansbach, 17, (4) 28-1

District 10: Freddie LaFonte, 12, (4) 37-1 and Kitty Landers, 13, (5) 34-1

District 11: Sage Agora, 18, (8) 9-1 and Zinnia Coso, 16, (7) 16-1

District 12: Henri Geissler, 14, (6) 23-1 and Sorcha Callaghan, 12, (2) 69-1

HGBO Bets: 27% on Fitore, 16% on Anastasia, 14% on Melarri, 9% on Anklet, 7% on Organdy, 6% on Delta, 5% on Sage, 4% on Fox, 3% on Daniette and Zinnia, 2% on Hector, Janka, and Jaime, 1% or less on Calculata, Looper, Tasha, Charle, Irene, Stitch, Arza, Freddie, Kitty, Henri, and Sorcha.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The tributes were initially worried when they felt the hot desert air on their backs, but despite the heat of this arena dehydration would not be much of a problem this year. There was lots of water at the cornucopia and around the arena, and there were lots of shady places under which to take shelter from the scorching desert sun. A few of the taller tributes like Charle from 6 were able to see the four palaces looming overhead in the four cardinal directions. All the others could see was a relatively flat expanse of stalls, houses, temples, and apartment buildings stretching into oblivion in all directions.

When the gong rang, three tributes turned to flee: Janka from 7, Arza from 8, and Henri from 12. The other twenty-one tributes burst forward, fighting their way through the mass of little wooden stalls to reach the cornucopia.

Fitore reached the horn first, and his lips curved into a smile when he saw the blade he'd requested from the gamemakers hanging right where he'd asked. He locked his fingers around the blade and turned to face the onslaught of outliers. Fitore pounced toward the nearest girl, but she jumped away before the 2 boy could touch her with his deadly weapon. Less than five seconds later, another tribute came near Fitore, this time a boy. Fitore skewered his sword through his chest like a spear, twirling it left and right to inflict as much damage as possible as his victim moaned sickeningly.

 _Freddie LaFonte, District 10 Male: 24th, Killed by Fitore, Bloodbath_

The first girl Fitore had attacked thought she was safe, but she was wrong. She ran straight into the dark-skinned Melarri from 4, who held a spear in each hand. The girl tried to escape, but she was dumfounded with terror, feet frozen to the ground as though embedded into the stone. Melarri landed her spear in the tribute's neck, and she died swiftly.

 _Irene Kemper, District 6 Female: 23rd, Killed by Melarri, Bloodbath_

Anastasia had been nervously twirling her spear for about ten seconds when she spotted her first victim. About twenty meters away, a boy had tripped over a pack containing loaves of bread and knocked his head on the ground. The boy rubbed his head, blinking back the spots in his vision, and he saw Anastasia towering over him. The shocked outlier let out a scream, but escape was hopeless, and she was doomed to die at the point of the pretty 2 girl's weapon.

 _Jaime Cassel, District 9 Male: 22nd, Killed by Anastasia, Bloodbath_

The anti-careers made their first strike. They were all armed: Fox with a spear, Daniette with machetes, and Sage and Zinnia with swords. Fox tackled the miniscule girl from 12 and shoved the point of his spear into her chest. She collapsed against a nearby stall, coughing up blood, and Fox swallowed up the bile that had risen in his throat before leaving.

 _Sorcha Callaghan, District 12 Female: 21st, Killed by Fox, Bloodbath_

Organdy, gripping two machetes, intercepted an older boy from the textile district who was sprinting around the cornucopia field, trying to find a way to escape without being seen. The boy let out a scream as Organdy came out of nowhere, and his stiff form toppled like a domino at the slightest push from the butt of the career's blade. Organdy used her foot to kick up a cloud of sand that blocked her victim's vision; he was blind and helpless as Organdy cut open his torso with two heavy chops.

 _Stitch McKerler, District 8 Male: 20th, Killed by Organdy, Bloodbath_

Fitore had been stalking the anti-careers around the cornucopia field for nearly a minute when he charged into battle. The huge boy leapt out from behind the pile of crates he had been to hide himself, and the anti-careers scattered with the strongest tribute in these games in their midst. Sage roared with agony as Fitore sawed the blade of his sword back and forth into his side. His ally Zinnia had frozen to her spot, transfixed with horror at the sight of her dying friend. Fox and Daniette tugged Zinnia away.

 _Sage Agora, District 11 Male: 19th, Killed by Fitore, Bloodbath_

Melarri took down a tiny girl from one of the higher-numbered districts, a dangerous smile on her face as she buried the first of her spears into her back. The girl let out a scream and desperately clung onto a nearby girl with whom she had never spoken in her life, carrying her down with her in her descent. The two girls collapsed in a heap, and Melarri skewered her initial victim to death in a matter of moments, blood flooding into her lungs once her abdomen was pierced deep enough. The other girl managed to squirm to safety, but Melarri called for reinforcements, and Anastasia had arrived in seconds to end the escapee with her machetes.

 _Kitty Landers, District 10 Female: 18th, Killed by Melarri, Bloodbath_

 _Tasha Spark, District 5 Female: 17th, Killed by Anastasia, Bloodbath_

Organdy made the last kill. She was inside of the cornucopia, and she spotted a pair of eyes glowing at her from the darkness like cats'; one of the younger boys was hiding inside of the horn, hoping to stay low and come out once it was all over. He had no such luck. The boy leapt to his feet and made a desperate dash for the exit, but all six careers were closing in on him and it was hopeless to even try to escape. The boy just fell to his knees, screaming and sobbing with despair. Organdy sawed her machetes into his chest, and the cannon shots fired the moment his screams faded away fully.

 _Looper Wattson, District 5 Male: 16th, Killed by Organdy, Bloodbath_

The rest of Day 1 was deathless. The careers paraded around the cornucopia. All six of their members had survived the bloodbath, and keeping order was difficult in a group so large, so they broke out into multiple heated arguments and didn't leave to hunt until after noon. Fitore was the leader, with Anastasia as his right-hand man. Anklet and Organdy from 1 banded together, as did Delta and Melarri from 4. The tributes from these districts felt more comfortable in smaller divisions, as it was intimidating to be in the midst of a cluster of six tributes without a close friend or two. The pair from 1 sorted the weapons and the pair from 4 laid out the food rations. Meanwhile, Fitore went hunting and Anastasia stayed back to boss the others around. The pack left quickly after Fitore returned, leaving only Melarri to guard the supplies while they were away.

The outliers sprinted in all directions. Hector and Calculata held hands as they raced away from the cornucopia, each carrying a pack filled with useful supplies. The Capitol had been fawning over their romance ever since the reaping, and they were expecting a kiss, but the duo decided to wait a few days to introduce the romance element despite how much they wanted to dive right in. Hector and Calculata eventually arrived at a small golden temple, and they blockaded the exit with furniture before passing out. Charle had a throwing knife, and adrenaline allowed him to sprint a stellar distance before the first day was over. He entered the humungous palace at the north end of the arena and climbed onto a hidden balcony that looked over the slum houses and windswept desert beyond the walls of the city. The anti-careers arrived at a crystal-clear fountain that smelled sweet. They guzzled the water greedily for several minutes before filling their thermoses and moving onward. Fox, Daniette, and Zinnia ducked under a collapsed stall nearby; though it was more than a little uncomfortable, it hid them all from view as the night trickled onward. Janka climbed into a pen filled with camels, knowing she would be hidden in the middle of their group. She didn't think the camels were dangerous, but after a few hours they started acting suspiciously. They stared at her with a gaze that was a bit too human and moved too suddenly for the 7 girl to be at ease. Arza sprinted onward until she reached the outer wall of the city, which was shady and pleasantly cool. She was one of the tributes who had avoided the bloodbath, and she was too exhausted to find water; she vowed to hydrate herself the following morning. Henri settled down in a crematorium with a solid stone roof that kept out the sun. He kept away from the central furnace to avoid accidents, and the outlier boy lay down on a long cot and smeared some ashes onto himself to blend in better. Sadly, he didn't know what he was smearing all over himself. When the blazing desert sun set, temperatures in the arena dropped into the fifties and sixties, allowing the tributes to sleep at least somewhat comfortably through the night.

As early as Day 2, the careers admitted that their current strategy of hunting was extremely inefficient. This arena had so many complexities and hidden areas that it was just stupid to hunt in such a huge group of six. The pack decided to split into two groups: Organdy and Fitore hunted in the north, whereas Anklet, Anastasia, and Melarri hunted in the south. The arena had radial symmetry, so each group had an equal amount of area to cover. Delta stayed behind to guard the cornucopia. He figured there was no way a desert arena like this one wouldn't incorporate a sandstorm or two, and he wanted to be prepared. The 4 boy took a leaf out of last year's pack's book and layered thick sheets of clear plastic in front of the horn. He poked a few holes to breathe and left a few flaps for exit and entry, but he was at the ready with duct tape in case even these needed to be covered.

Anklet, Anastasia, and Melarri had been on the prowl for less than ten minutes when they arrived at a sparkling fountain. The trio was about to move onward when Anastasia stopped the others, pointing out gleaming watery footprints leading away from the fountain. In fact, there were three sets of footprints, all leading toward the nearby ruins of a collapsed stall. The careers and anti-careers just couldn't seem to stay away from each other this time around.

The careers slowly crept toward the stall, and suddenly the anti-careers burst to full height, holding their weapons at arms' length. Fox had a spear, Daniette had two machetes, and Zinnia had a sword, but the careers were much more formidably armed, holding several layers of backup weapons in case their favorites were stolen or destroyed. Fox hissed to the other anti-careers to stay back and play a defensive game, but Zinnia was already charging forward. When someone trespassed on her property, she fought back. Full stop. She was immediately surrounded by the three grinning careers, and she realized her mistake too late to be saved. Melarri skewered her spear through the girl's chest, and she let out a single soft groan before tumbling sideways, kicking up a cloud of sand when she landed on the ground with a loud noise.

 _Zinnia Coso, District 11 Female: 15th, Killed by Melarri, Day 2_

Fox and Daniette, who were hanging back nervously, accepted that it would be useless to run and sprinted forward. They were outnumbered by one, but the careers were jumbled and disoriented after their killing of the dark-skinned 11 girl so the packs were evened out rather fairly. Daniette tacked the lanky Anklet from District 1, and he might have fallen to the ground if he hadn't stumbled backward and caught his fall on one of the stall's wooden planks. Anklet recovered quickly, and Daniette scampered out of the way at the last second when he went in for another blow. His sword missed her neck by inches.

A few meters away, Fox was downtrodden. He had the seemingly impossible task of fending off both Anastasia and Melarri with a single spear. His forehead was dripping with sweat from the heat of the day and the nerves of the fight and the sheer exhaustion he felt. Fox felt a hand swipe across his back, and for a moment panic trilled through him. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw only Anklet's limp body sliding down his back in its descent. Moments earlier, Daniette had managed to pull Anklet in with surprising ferocity, knocking his weapon out of his hand and wrapping her arm around his neck. The panicking career boy didn't notice the point of her machete coming closer to his face until it was too late.

 _Anklet Rinker, District 1 Male: 14th, Killed by Daniette, Day 2_

At that, Fox gave the order to flee, and Daniette didn't complain. The anti-careers made a mad dash down an alleyway between two clay buildings. Anastasia and Melarri roared and chased after them, but with so many twists and turns it was easy to lose the anti-careers. Fox and Daniette slid into a dark corner and stayed still and silent until the careers gave up searching and stormed angrily away.

Janka was becoming more and more unnerved by the herd of camels surrounding her. The uncannily intelligent glances and movements of the camels terrified her witless. Janka was not stupid. She knew the camels were probably muttations that were programmed to lash out and kill her at the slightest provocation. Once, Janka slowly tiptoed toward the exit, but one of the camel mutts opened its mouth revealing two rows of razor-sharp fangs. Terrified and confused, Janka fell back to the ground of the pen, praying a miracle would come to rescue her.

That night, the faces of Anklet and Zinnia shone in the sky. As soon as Zinnia's face faded, the tributes' eyes opened wide with fear. There was a kind of wind gathering up, far more intelligent and calculating than normal wind. It swirled into corners and pulled up little whirlwinds of sand. The terrified tributes heard the sound the wind made as it howled over the bare desert sand; like the moaning of a mourner, like the most demented violin music imaginable. A sandstorm was on its way, and the gamemakers knew no mercy.

On the morning of the third day, the huge black cloud of sand came rolling over the desert. The cameras showed a panoramic shot of the pulsating cloud racing over the sand, heading toward the walled Arabian city and the tributes inside. When the storm struck, four of the five careers were asleep in the back of the cornucopia, while Organdy was sleepily standing guard. Organdy saw the sandstorm barreling over the city and turned around to alert the other careers, but they were all awake, having been roused from sleep by the bone-chilling howl of the storm. Delta swept up his roll of duct tape, ready to patch up the holes in the horn's plastic cover in case too much sand slipped through. One moment, the careers watched in earnest as the cloud barreled closer and closer; the next, they were being blasted with scorching hot wind, geysers of sand flying through the holes Delta had poked through the plastic. A panicked Delta struggled to find the end of the roll of duct tape. By the time his shaking hands had found the end of the roll, the horn was flooded ankle-deep with sand. Once the holes were patched, the careers sat on crates and packs and stared awkwardly at each other as the storm howled outside. The only career facing trouble was Organdy. When the sandstorm had first blasted over the cornucopia, a good teaspoon of sand had gone into her mouth and down her throat. Organdy was coughing and choking on and off for several hours before her lungs were completely empty of sand, and even then her chest felt as though it was on fire.

Hector and Calculata sat on the hidden balcony of the golden temple, their feet dangling over the edge. Their mentors and sponsors were constantly pressuring them to start the romance, but the duo just didn't think it was wise to start when there were so many tributes left. However, when they saw the cloud of black sand barreling in their direction, Calculata grabbed Hector by the face and kissed him on the lips. Calculata sprinted into the safety of the temple, and it was several seconds before a paralyzed Hector followed.

Charle had left the north palace minutes earlier. When he heard the wolf-like howl of the sandstorm, he raced down the nearest road he found, keeping his head down to keep from inhaling the sand. Unfortunately, he was too panicked to pick the right direction to travel. By the time he realized he was moving away from the temple rather than toward it, it was too late. Charle stumbled into the river and screamed at the unfamiliar sensation, and then he collapsed into the nearest building, trembling. Fox and Daniette were well-sheltered from the storm in the dark alleyway. Even though an entire day had passed since their brawl with the careers, the duo refused to leave, suspecting that the careers were still nearby and only being quiet to draw them out of their hiding place. Only a very small quantity of sand entered the alleyway, enough to be managed by scooping it away every few minutes. Henri was safe and sound in the crematorium. Smeared with ashes and lying on the warm cot, Henri watched the storm through a large window, jaw set and lips formed into a solid line.

Janka curled up into a ball on the floor of the camel pen when she heard the rumbling of the storm. Because of its distance, the rumble was very faint, but in minutes it had crescendoed into a full-on bellow like that of a running engine. When sand started to pile up in the pen, Janka leapt to her feet, bumping straight into the nearest camel mutt. She stumbled backward when she felt its teeth sinking into her left forearm, and she was trapped. The camel mutts played a strange game like ball, each camel biting some part of her body and then throwing her to a different mutt in turn. Only after the sandstorm cleared was the hovercraft able to lower to lower the claw and collect her corpse.

 _Janka Helix, District 7 Female: 13th, Killed by Camel Muttations, Day 3_

Another cannon shot fired less than a minute later. Arza had returned to the edge of the city after taking a sip from a nearby stream, a tributary of the broad river that wound through the city. One would have thought the curved wall would magnify the howl of the sandstorm, but it actually did the opposite, blocking out the sound until it was too late. Arza was taken by complete surprise when the dark wall of sand crashed over the top of the wall and fell down like snow. Several grains had already landed in her mouth, and she was choking and coughing. Eyes closed, Arza raced to a nearby date grove with the delusion that the trees would provide at least some amount of shelter from the storm. All of the nearby buildings were locked. Despite her best attempts to scoop the sand away, she was helpless as it piled up around her and flew into her mouth, suffocating her to death within an hour.

 _Arza Ansbach, District 9 Female: 12th, Killed by Sand Suffocation, Day 3_

So far, this games was one of the fastest-paced in ages. After a long, drawn-out games the year prior, Maddox wanted a quick year to bring a little variation to the table. It was a big risk—there was always the chance he could rush the games too quickly and face the severest of consequences—but Maddox was confident he could finish the eighty-seventh Hunger Games within a week while also pacing them well enough to keep the Capitol interested.

On the morning of Day 4, Henri awoke to the faintest din. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and got to his feet, peering out the window of the crematorium to investigate. The undulating crowd was too far away for Henri to see them, but within a few minutes he had picked up on the rattling sound of a tambourine and the drone of a mysterious, almost pastoral woodwind instrument. The parade of dancers was growing closer and closer. When Henri saw the first line of veiled dancers, he sprinted into the back of the crematorium, panicking. He knew it wasn't a good idea to stay in the building where there was no back exit, but he was terrified of leaving and lessening the distance between himself and the dancers. The crowd burst through the flimsy front doors of the crematorium, and Henri made a mad dash for the exit. He was immediately thrown up by the undulating crowd, and as they danced their strange dance he was carried up and down, banging against every object in sight in a strange kind of modulation to the exotic tune. Finally, Henri reached the control panel that operated the central fire; with the flick of a switch, the fire roared to life. It fried a couple of dancers to death but left the crowd largely unscathed. It only took a few more moments for Henri to be trampled under the crowd, too battered and tired to fight back any longer.

 _Henri Geissler, District 12 Male: 11th, Killed by Dancer Muttations, Day 4_

Inside of the palace, Charle woke to the faint rumbling of the mutts. He hadn't picked up on the music yet, only the thudding footsteps of their dancing feet on the sand. Charle poked his head out of the door just as a stray tambourine sailed over his head, and Charle disappeared back into the north palace, trembling. There wasn't any furniture in the entrance hall, so all he could do was bunch up the carpet in front of the door and hope it would hold. While the crowd banged against the makeshift barrier, Charle pulled a few sofas into the room to increase the strength of his blockade.

Anastasia was standing guard in front of the cornucopia when she saw the first few dancers trickling into sight. She quickly roused her allies, and they all rushed to the gaping mouth of the horn to take a look for themselves. They only saw five or six on the dancers, and they were in for a huge shock when they made out the hundreds of rows of mutts pouring out of seemingly nowhere. The five careers grabbed their weapons and shakily stood at the ready. They knew that large crowds were famously difficult to fight off, like the avox mutts of the third Quarter Quell or the student mutts of the fifty-second games. The careers had varying degrees of success in fending off the crowd. Fitore, the strongest of the careers, sent three of the dancers reeling with the first heavy chop of his sword, but he was quickly overwhelmed. One of the dancers grabbed his neck, and Fitore pulled away, but for every dancer he knocked to the ground two or three seemed to appear out of nowhere. Before he knew it, he was being dragged down, and he desperately clung onto the wall of the stone cornucopia. Small stepping stones were built into the side of the horn, and Fitore climbed on top, knocking away the dancers who could climb whenever they got too close for comfort. Anastasia tore up a few carpets from the back of the cornucopia and tossed them onto the undulating swell of dancers. Under each carpet, at least five or six of the human mutts collapsed, disoriented and blinded, and Anastasia was the next tribute to join Fitore on top of the cornucopia. Delta was doomed from the start; the only weapons he had on him were two machetes. The crowd had overwhelmed him in seconds, and the screaming 4 boy was being tossed back and forth like a rag doll. Delta's district partner, Melarri, elbowed and kicked her way through the crowd to reach her district partner and help him, but two of the dancers inadvertently smacked her in the face, knocking her to the ground where her windpipe was crushed almost immediately. Delta went moments afterward, similarly trampled by the swarm of dancers.

 _Melarri Luongo, District 4 Female: 10th, Killed by Dancer Muttations, Day 4_

 _Delta Channel, District 4 Male: 9th, Killed by Dancer Muttations, Day 4_

That left the final eight: Organdy Karat from District 1, Fitore Thernstrom and Anastasia Roppling from District 2, Hector Coon and Calculata Barns from District 3, Charle Harwell from District 6, Fox Rennolls from District 7, and Daniette Lorian from District 8.

Organdy, the only career left off of the cornucopia's roof, did a remarkably good job keeping the crowds at bay. She was inspired by the way Anastasia's blankets kicked up so much dust and blinded the mutts; all Organdy did was scoop up handfuls of sand and throw them at the dancers. The dancers weren't very smart, and with sand clogging their vision they were as blind as bats. The dancers stumbled backward, knocking each other over in their descent, and Organdy had more than enough time to climb up onto the horn and to safety.

Fox and Daniette, the anti-careers, woke up just in time. If they'd noticed the dancers moving in their direction five seconds later they would have undoubtedly been killed on the spot. Fox leapt onto the nearest stall, a mass of wooden boards piled high with fruit, and he helped Daniette up. The crowd of dancers crashed into the stall, scattering mangoes and dates in all directions, and the tributes jumped onto the next stall over. It was like the deadliest game of hopscotch imaginable as Fox and Daniette jumped from structure to structure. They all collapsed instantly under their weight and the pressure of the mysterious dancers, and a cloud of dust flared up behind the tributes. It was one of the most cinematic moments in games history. Fortunately, the anti-careers hopped their way to a sturdy stone structure and clambered onto the roof, wriggling free of the dancers that had managed to grab onto their ankles in their ascent.

Hector and Calculata had been drowning in sponsor gifts ever since their first kiss on Day 3. When Calculata pointed out the first line of dancers crashing their way through the city, they kissed for the second time. The crowd of dancers crashed into the temple, causing the metal structure to rumble and quake, but it held strong. On the roof, Hector and Calculata shook with terror and held hands, praying that the mutts couldn't climb. Luck was on their side, and the star-crossed lovers from District 3 were entirely unscathed when the mutts were removed that evening.

That night, Anastasia stayed up long past the other careers fell asleep. She'd promised her family that she would abandon the pack at the final eight, but not before killing off one or both of the other careers. Fitore was sleeping contentedly in the back of the cornucopia, snoring softly, while Organdy was hiding just outside the horn. Coincidentally, Organdy had also been planning on abandoning the pack that night, and when she heard Anastasia's soft movements she decided to wait in the shadows for farther developments. Organdy peered into the cornucopia and watched as Anastasia poured a handful of sand straight into Fitore's throat. At first, the sand did nothing but pool up in his mouth, but then it began siphoning down his throat like an hourglass. He thrashed and shook for nearly a minute before he died from suffocation, and Anastasia wrinkled her nose, disgusted at the mangled corpse of her admittedly handsome district partner.

 _Fitore Thernstrom, District 2 Male: 8th, Killed by Anastasia, Day 5_

Anastasia couldn't believe her plan had succeeded. She threw all of her supplies into her pack and then made a mad dash for the horn's sole exit, where Organdy was pretending to be asleep. Organdy pounced out of the darkness, tackling her fellow malefactor, and Anastasia was too shocked to fight back. She was frozen to the spot as Organdy sliced open her torso, lastly chopping her neck horizontally and filling her lungs with blood. Organdy's lips curved into a smile. She was now the only career left in the eighty-seventh Hunger Games.

 _Anastasia Roppling, District 2 Female: 7th, Killed by Organdy, Day 5_

These games were not slowing down for one second. Moments after Anastasia' cannon shot faded away fully, the bone-chilling howl of the desert wind started up once more. Another sandstorm was on its way, and the tributes were much more prepared this time around. Organdy hunkered down inside of the cornucopia, piling all of the careers' supplies next to her sleeping bag. Every time she napped she was taking a huge risk, but she didn't think any of the outliers would dare come near to the cornucopia with the hot sandstorm winds battering the city. The dead Delta's plastic barrier helped keep out the sandstorm somewhat, but a sizable amount still managed to slip through. Organdy kept herself occupied by sweeping all of the sand into a corner of the cornucopia where it wouldn't get in her way.

Hector and Calculata disappeared into the depths of the temple when the sandstorm struck down on the fifth night. While the Capitol adored their little romance, they were also somewhat tired of their inactivity. The gamemakers triggered a small explosion that caused the building to collapse. Hector noticed that the ceiling was caving inward and grabbed Calculata's arm, wordlessly dragging her to the exit and out of the building. The 3s escaped just in time as the temple collapsed inward, and they raced down the street, rattling at doorknobs in a desperate attempt to find any other building that wasn't locked.

A few hours before the sandstorm, Fox and Daniette had settled down to sleep inside one of the dirty stone apartment buildings that circled the cornucopia just beyond the initial mass of crude wooden stalls. The apartment was windowless; each room had a large hole in the wall where sand could enter. The sandstorm winds blew straight into the open window. The anti-careers woke up gasping and choking and then covered their mouths with their shirts, praying that would keep out the sand. They stayed put in the apartment building throughout the entire storm. By the time the scorching winds had settled down, half a foot of sand had built up on the floor.

Charle was curled up in a ball on the floor of the palace, staring blankly at the ceiling as the sandstorm winds howled outside. Suddenly, the ceiling split in two, and sand began pouring inside. The halves were completely separate in half a minute. Torrents of scorching sand poured into the palace. He stumbled through the hallways, gasping and choking, and he finally accepted that the palace wasn't safe anymore. He disassembled his blockade and raced out into the open, charging mindlessly left and right. He ended up stumbling straight into the river, and he fell like a stone to the murky bottom despite his best efforts to clamber back to shore. Charle couldn't swim. He flailed his limbs back and forth, struggling to float to the surface as torrents of bubbles streamed from his mouth. He promptly drowned.

 _Charle Harwell, District 6 Male: 6th, Killed by Drowning, Day 5_

The first half of Day 6 was deathless and empty of action. Hector and Calculata had been stumbling blindly through the sandstorm for nearly five minutes when they had finally realized they would have to tough it out. The couple hunkered down in the narrow gap between two buildings and scooped the sand away whenever it piled up too high. Under the overhanging edges of the roof, they were largely sheltered from the sand, but that didn't stop a few stray grains from entering their lungs. After the sandstorm had cleared fully, Hector and Calculata went door to door to search for prey. They were like the deadliest door-to-door salesmen in history. They only spent a few seconds on each house, searching each one up and down before they left.

Fox and Daniette, the two remaining anti-careers, proceeded similarly, running from door to door and raiding the houses of supplies. They managed to snag a few scant knives, but not much else; all of treasures hidden around the arena had already been pillaged by the other tributes, most of whom were now dead. Around noon, Daniette heard Organdy's light footsteps and pulled Fox into the shadows. They watched in silence as the 1 girl passed them straight by.

Organdy's next prey would not be evading her, however. By that point, it was around six o'clock in the afternoon, and she was preparing to begin the journey back to the horn. She stopped dead in her tracks when she heard it—a human squeak. Calculata slapped her hands over her mouth to keep further noises from escaping, but that one peep was all Organdy needed to locate the hide-out of the star-crossed lovers from 3. Hector and Calculata burst out of the shadows, screaming, and made an attempt to tackle her. The wry career girl lunged to one side, and the duo couldn't stop themselves before they came crashing to a disoriented stop several steps later. Organdy ultimately had no problem running into the fray and dispatching Hector with a quick swipe of her right machete. Hector fell to his knees, and he hardly noticed the blood leaking from his abdomen before everything went black.

 _Hector Coon, District 3 Male: 5th, Killed by Organdy, Day 6_

About five meters away, Calculata was frozen dead in her tracks. She looked as though she'd been hit in the gut with an axe. A small noise escaped from her throat at the sight of her dead lover. She finally snapped out of her trance when Organdy lunged forward with her knives, but Calculata was too dumbfounded to move more than a few steps before the career girl reached her and scored up her back like a bed of soil.

 _Calculata Barns, District 3 Female: 4th, Killed by Organdy, Day 6_

On Day 7, tensions grew in the alliance of Daniette and Fox. They both knew they had two options; stay together as long as possible and only turn on each other once they were the only tributes left, or kill each other now so it wouldn't come down to the two of them. Every night they spent together was a huge risk, and on Day 7 Daniette finally gave into the pressure. It was early morning, and the sun had hardly risen, when Daniette tackled Fox in his sleep. Daniette was strong, but she was easily overpowered by her stronger ally, who threw her off of him like a rag doll. Daniette stumbled backward and crashed into a nearby building. Her mind was cloudy with dilemma. She finally decided she had to finish what she started. She had to kill Fox. Guilt and shame trilled through her gut, but if it was the only way she could ever see her family again she knew it was a necessary evil.

At first, it seemed as though Fox was the clear-cut winner. Fox had a spear whereas Daniette had two machetes, so he both outmuscled and outgunned Daniette by a significant amount. However, Daniette was feisty and spirited and fast, so the anti-careers were evened out at least somewhat fairly. Fox's first blow entailed the point of his spear sinking into Daniette's left wrist. She staggered backward, cursing, but quickly got back onto the front lines. Nearly five minutes later, one of the tributes triumphed. With a crash, Fox sent Daniette reeling backward into one of the small stalls, and with a creaking sound it began to collapse. Fox lunged forward to finish her off, but Daniette scurried out of the way at the last second. The momentum of Fox's impact sent the stall collapsing, and a heavy plank of wood hit him on the head hard enough to knock him out. Holding back tears, Daniette thrust her machetes once into his chest before dashing away.

 _Fox Rennolls, District 7 Male: 3rd, Killed by Daniette, Day 7_

That left two females, a career and an outlier, to vie for victory. Organdy leapt for joy when she heard the cannon shot puncture the sand-clouded air of the seventh day. She knew she would easily be able to triumph over either Fox or Daniette by default. She didn't know which one had died and which one remained, so she had to be prepared to fight either of them. Daniette raced from the site of Fox's corpse with a torrent of emotions crashing down onto her shoulders. She felt beyond terrible about killing not only another human, but her only friend in the world as well. She didn't really have the energy to cry, just silently keep moving with a whimper escaping her lips from time to time.

The Capitol was eager for these fast-paced games to end within the next few hours, so Maddox hesitantly pushed the last two tributes together at six in the evening on Day 7 rather than waiting a few more days. After sprinting periodically for several hours, Daniette had come to a stop in a silver temple with a circle-shaped ceiling that was open to all heaven. The gamemakers allowed her a few hours to rest before sending a torrent of muttations after her. The swarm consisted of three camels, two ibexes, and at least ten small sand-colored cats. The mutts weren't meant to kill, but they did injure her somewhat. One of the ibexes skewered its razor-sharp horn through her wrist, and Daniette stumbled backward, shaking and screaming as blood splashed in torrents from the wound. The procession was slow, but still fast enough to catch up to Daniette if she ever stopped sprinting for more than a few moments. Once, one of the cats nipped her finger, and the 8 girl slapped it away before continuing her run. The deadly parade only drew away once the cornucopia, and Miss Karat, her dangerous final competitor, were in sight.

The finale was literally over in seconds. Terrified, Daniette stumbled toward the cornucopia, and suddenly Organdy had disappeared. Where the 1 girl had once stood there was nothing but empty sand. Organdy was standing on the roof of the cornucopia, biding her time until the outlier was most vulnerable. Suddenly, Organdy threw down two handfuls of sand. They descended like snowflakes, and Daniette flailed her arms around, struggling to clear the cloud while also keeping her eyes closed so none of the hot, sharp grains would land in them. Organdy gracefully leapt down from the top of the horn and thrust her blades into her neck. She hardly knew what had hit her.

 _Daniette Lorian, District 8 Female: 2nd, Killed by Organdy, Day 7_

"Organdy Karat of District 1, you are the victor of the eighty-seventh annual Hunger Games!" Titanius said into the arena.

All of the nearby cameras zoomed in, capturing the confident smile on the new victor's pretty face.

 _Organdy Karat, District 1 Female: Victor of the Eighty-Seventh Hunger Games, Day 7_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 1 happily welcomed their fourteenth victor. They hadn't taken home a victor since Porcelain eleven year prior, a female victor since Iuna nineteen years prior, and a career female victor since Cashmere twenty-three years prior. Organdy would ultimately go down in history as one of the most stereotypical District 1 victors, the ladies that District 1's blonde, curvy students would always be trying to model themselves after. The other districts gave her the nickname "The Obscurer" due to her tactic of obscuring the vision of her targets before killing them, as she had done to Stitch and Daniette. She would dedicate most of her life to make-up, starting several popular social media accounts where she displayed her newest unboxings, techniques, and more. Stinn Hawke would put her looks to use for about ten years following her victory, but since she was a career she didn't really mind.

Her victory tour went well and was one of the better ones, except for her stop in 8, where she was degraded and ignored for having killed both of their tributes.

The payouts on her victory weren't the best, as about 7% bet on her.

Organdy would live to age eighty-one, dying from stroke six months after the one-hundred fifty-second Hunger Games. She would marry and have three daughters.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Organdy moves into the Victor's Village of District 1, next door to Iuna.

Dock Elizabeth marries her boyfriend of five years, Maxenn Artrow.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: Ugh, life's been really nasty lately. I'm not sure exactly why but I just wasn't feeling this chapter. I'm glad that I pushed through it though. Don't worry, inspiration will find me again soon, it always does.**

 **I'm also happy I could get this chapter out before tonight. I have like 254789542 assignments to complete by Monday, wish me luck :D**


	89. The 88th Hunger Games

**The 88th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Maddox Courval knew that the eighty-eighth Hunger Games had some rather large shoes to fill. It was his third year as head gamamker, and his first two years had been widely considered nothing more or less than average. The pressure to outdo himself every year was on as the crowds of Capitolites expected the newer games to be more gallant and glamorous than ever before. President Stinn Hawke continued to rule the roost in Panem, raiding the pockets of district citizens for his personal spending needs and those of his similarly cunning ministers. While the year prior had been rather quiet and timid, a number of deadly riots sprung up this year, particularly in 6, 8, and 9, the most rebellious of Panem's various districts. Stinn authorized his peacekeeper force to use whatever methods necessary to control the stirring crowds, but in due time it became apparent that managing rebellion was no longer at the top of Stinn's presidential to-do list. A few scant rebels burned down a factory on the outskirts of District 3, not knowing that it contained a newly-developed strain of a disease more contagious and violent than virtually anything mankind had ever known. The symptoms were unpleasant; first there was nothing but intense nausea and a few sneezes, and this progressed to ugly white lesions and pox-like itching on the hands and face. The disease had to incubate inside of a human body for several weeks before symptoms shone, by which time the infected had likely unknowingly spread it to multiple other people. The infection ran rampant in District 3, infecting citizens faster and faster with each month. Bodies had to be buried extremely quickly after death to keep from spreading the disease, meaning that humanity had to revert to the old days of placing bells inside of coffins whenever somebody was buried. The epidemic wasn't severe enough for drastic measures to be taken against its spread, but the Capitol warned peacekeepers to keep an eye out for infecteds nonetheless. District 3's reaping was rigged so that two healthy kids were sent in. At least for the time being, everything was under control, and for once Stinn didn't want to cause a national panic.

Sea foam crashed onto the pedestals and scant supplies surrounding this year's cornucopia. The horn of plenty was located in a partially-submerged stone chamber. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, dangling dangerously over the pedestal ring like stone icicles. The tributes' pedestals were mounted onto stone platforms jutting out from the walls of the chamber. From there, the tributes would have to jump down two meters to the broad piece of stone where the horn was situated, feet above the waterline. The labyrinth-like cave system sprawled out in all directions, partially submerged in the water. The tributes who could swim would definitely have the upper hand this year. Blazing red torches that could burn forever without fuel were mounted onto the walls every few feet, providing the only light in this year's arena. The light was red and dim and rather creepy. This year wasn't without its fair share of dangerous mutts. The waters were inhabited by every kind of fish imaginable, including harmless fodder and deadly piranhas with razor-sharp teeth. Swarms of bat mutts hung from the ceilings of the more open chambers. The crown jewel of the underwater cave system, however, was the lone spider mutt. It had cost millions of dollars to create, but it was one of the most fearsome mutts in history and the results were sure to be spectacular. The spider was roughly the size of a pickup truck, with eight long legs spindling out from its body and two fangs foaming and dripping with poison. Whenever it moved, it made a sound like the keys of a xylophone being struck at random as though by a maniac. The spider mutt's hairs broke off at the slightest contact; they sunk into flesh like alive velcro and were as hard to remove as shards of glass. As the games progressed, the water would slowly rise, forcing the tributes farther and farther uphill until only the cornucopia was above the waterline.

This year's career group seemed pretty average, but they were still at least somewhat memorable. District 1 provided a lacking duo. The male was a prissy rich boy whose parents were millionaires, while the girl was more conventional and laid-back in her outlook of things. She was ultimately the weakest career this year. District 2 stole the show, and they were both good-looking and popular in the Capitol. The boy was older and taller, and he liked swords, but he could fight with anything well. The female was an exotically beautiful career with dark skin who was built for the ranged weapons. District 4 put on a varied showing. The boy was the youngest this year at sixteen, but he had some looks on his side, while the girl was muscular and older but not exactly a supermodel. The scores of the pack were pretty good: two elevens, a ten, two nines, and an eight.

There weren't a stellar number of standouts this year, but there were a few. The girl from District 5, Sparkanne, was a huge nerd and a math-whiz, but her small size would be an extreme hiding advantage in this cavernous arena and her smarts couldn't hurt as well. With an impressive nine, she either matched or outscored half of the career packs. Three sevens were earned, by Vellum and Eloise from 7 and Kine from 10. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. Wheaton and Sickle from 9 allied prior to the games thinking they would last longer as a duo. Wheaton was sexy and comical and quickly became a Capitol favorite, while Sickle, his senior by one year, stole much of the crowd over with her charm and her looks. Due to the lack of strong outliers, none of the outliers formed an anti-career pack this year. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Fancy Mintz, 17, (9) 8-1 and Perfect Flournoy, 17, (8) 10-1

District 2: Gerome Goff, 18, (11) 3-1 and Yama Matthews, 17, (11) 3-1

District 3: Rimno Kiely, 16, (4) 38-1 and Gracie Falcon, 13, (4) 41-1

District 4: Nevel Luther-Vise, 16, (9) 6-1 and Olivea Kirstmel, 18, (10) 4-1

District 5: Alecto Demerath, 18, (5) 22-1 and Sparkanne Stocklin, 18, (9) 9-1

District 6: Tank Drudgers, 12, (4) 45-1 and Margot Leyce, 12, (3) 56-1

District 7: Vellum Muzio, 16, (7) 15-1 and Eloise Jargun, 17, (7) 14-1

District 8: Tailor Goldner, 13, (5) 27-1 and Azlon Tusselton, 16, (6) 20-1

District 9: Wheaton Naysmith, 14, (4) 42-1 and Sickle Salgato, 15, (4) 40-1

District 10: Kine Lucker, 17, (7) 16-1 and Eugenia Vilche, 17, (5) 25-1

District 11: Crocus Talbot, 18, (6) 19-1 and Carnation Pink, 18, (5) 23-1

District 12: Dylan Sadler, 12, (3) 61-1 and Seana Collins, 13, (3) 57-1

HGBO Bets: 23% on Gerome, 17% on Yama, 12% on Olivea, 10% on Fancy, 7% on Nevel, 5% on Perfect, 4% on Sparkanne, 3% on Vellum, Eloise, and Kine, 2% on Wheaton and Sickle, 1% or less on Rimno, Gracie, Alecto, Tank, Margot, Tailor, Azlon, Eugenia, Crocus, Carnation, Dylan, and Seana.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The dimly-lit cave setting gradually came into focus as the tributes' eyes adjusted to the darkness. A few of them felt through the darkness with their arms and realized they were standing on small stone platforms jutting out from the walls of the cave. The horn was several meters below them, a difficult jump but a do-able one. The stone was slick with water. The supplies around the cornucopia and in its mouth weren't very sustainable, but the cornucopia sloped down into the water, and the very back held the most valuable supplies and weapons.

When the gong rang, Tailor from 8 and Kine from 10 avoided the bloodbath. The other twenty-two tributes leapt down onto the slick stone platform that supported the cornucopia. The bloodbath this year would claim nine lives.

Gerome led the onrush, spreading out his body weight so that he didn't slip as he thundered toward the cornucopia. The slanted floor of the horn carried him chest-deep in water before he found his preferred weapon. He grabbed a long, thin sword with a glowing orange gem embedded into the hilt and thrust it through the torso of the nearest tribute, a smaller girl with pigtails. With a splash and a scream, the girl fell into the water, sending out a tide of displaced water. She sank like a stone to the bottom, swiftly bleeding out from the grievous injury she'd sustained.

 _Eugenia Vilche, District 10 Female: 24th, Killed by Gerome, Bloodbath_

Yama held out her glowing golden spears at arms' length and squinted to make out the forms of the outliers rushing past. A terrified boy ran straight into her, and the tributes collapsed in a heap. He made a quick effort to roll away from the 2 girl and escape unnoticed, but Yama quickly flipped around, pinning him against the stone floor of the cave. With a heavy swipe of her spear, he was dead.

 _Dylan Sadler, District 12 Male: 23rd, Killed by Yama, Bloodbath_

Gerome swung his sword back and forth through the air like a blind man's cane. He felt the point of the weapon brush against something soft and lunged forward. In an instant, he was on top of the thrashing girl from 3. He subdued her with a skewer to the neck, and her terrified moans had faded to silence in moments.

 _Gracie Falcon, District 3 Female: 22nd, Killed by Gerome, Bloodbath_

Olivea had waded all the way to the back of the cornucopia to retrieve a whip, and she smiled as she fit the leather handle snugly into her grasp. She tugged herself out of the cornucopia and then lashed out in the direction of the nearest boy, Tank. She sent him reeling with the first crack of her whip, and Tank stumbled into the arms of his district partner, Margot. Margot tugged Tank away, and Olivea now found herself face-to-face with a boy that had taken shelter behind the two district partners. With a deafening crack, Olivea wound the leather strap of the whip around his arm and yanked it off with a single heavy tug.

 _Vellum Muzio, District 7 Male: 21st, Killed by Olivea, Bloodbath_

Fancy was holding a dagger in each hand, and he leapt into combat, pulling up beside a strong boy from an outlying district. Fancy lashed out with his left dagger, and the boy barely had time to deflect. He used a small pack like a shield to blow the 1 boy's blows, but his fast reflexes quickly overwhelmed him. Fancy finally tackled the disoriented boy, sawing open his chest with two heavy swipes.

 _Crocus Talbot, District 11 Male: 20th, Killed by Fancy, Bloodbath_

Luck was on Yama's side, and she found her second victim moments after her first. A red-haired boy who was cowering inside of the cornucopia spotted Yama's terrifying grin and made a mad dash for the exit, but it was blocked by Yama and her friend Perfect. He seized up, mortified, allowing Perfect to slash open her chest. Yama finished him off before sprinting out of the horn.

 _Alecto Demerath, District 5 Male: 19th, Killed by Perfect and Yama, Bloodbath_

Olivea sent a girl to the ground, howling, with a well-placed crack of her bladed whip. The teeth of the weapon had sunk into her neck, and the harder the career girl pulled the harder and harder it was for her to breathe. Before long, the skin was being torn off of her neck. A later victor would say her death was the most traumatizing she had viewed as a child.

 _Seana Collins, District 12 Female: 18th, Killed by Olivea, Bloodbath_

Nevel from 4, armed with a spear, took down the girl from the agriculture district. Her dark skin blended in well with the dark arena; it was merely a matter of misfortune that she had been in the career's path at the wrong time. She collapsed to the ground, shrieking, at the first poke of his spear, and he peppered several holes in her chest and neck before leaving her to bleed out.

 _Carnation Pink, District 11 Female: 17th, Killed by Nevel, Bloodbath_

Gerome had been chasing a screaming girl around the cornucopia for nearly thirty seconds, and she finally leapt into the frothing water. She couldn't swim a single stroke, but it was her only shot at survival and she did it only out of desperation. The girl tried to control her movements as she was carried down the river at immense speeds, but she had drowned in minutes.

 _Azlon Tusselton, District 8 Female: 16th, Killed by Drowning, Bloodbath_

For the third year in a row, the career pack was unscathed after the bloodbath except for a few cuts and scrapes, and all six of their members were still very much alive and kicking. Yama found a few long, wooden boards in the back of the cornucopia which she set on the ground about a meter away from the edge of the horn's stone platform. The boards wouldn't physically stop a career from stepping off of the side, but they would let them know they were nearing the edge if they couldn't already see in the dim light. Gerome tore down a few torches from the nearby tunnels of the cave and balanced them in a circle around the cornucopia. This lit up the horn significantly and made it easier for the careers to do their work. Fancy tied several long ropes between the edges of the stone chamber, so that they crisscrossed overhead like a spider web. He then hung flashlights from these ropes, helping to further illuminate the cornucopia. Creepily, Fancy didn't know how fitting spider web design was. Nevel and Olivea, the duo from 4, sorted the weapons provided in the horn. They were perfect for the job because they could both swim well, meaning they could easily retrieve the weapons hidden in the cornucopia's submerged back end. Perfect sorted the food rations. There wasn't a lot of food at the cornucopia this year, as Maddox wanted the tributes to take risks with the disgusting edible moss and bugs he had scattered around the arena. The pack waited a while to go hunting; they were all exhausted from their post-bloodbath rituals. It wasn't until several hours after noon that they left to thin the crowd of outliers, leaving Nevel to guard the supplies while they were away.

The outliers slipped, dashed, or floated away from the cornucopia, scattering in all directions. Rimno sprinted down one of the thinner tunnels carrying a bucket, a coil of wire, and a backpack filled with rope. He had gone on for about a mile when he collapsed into a hidden fissure-like crevice and toyed with his supplies, trying to think of an imaginative way to win the games like Beetee. Sparkanne had managed to snag a raft from the bloodbath. Once she was a safe distance away, she inflated the raft using a small pump and then set it onto the swift channel of water running through the cave. The raft carried her to a large chamber filled with edible moss, where Sparkanne disembarked and practiced with the spear the bloodbath had graced her with. Tank and Margot walked alongside each other despite having never spoken a word of alliance before the games. They'd found a narrow ledge of stone that ran a stellar distance down the cave wall before coming to a stop at a dead end. Margot stopped dead in her tracks and clapped her hand over her mouth. Tank followed her finger and saw something with eight legs stirring mere meters away. Tank and Margot sprinted in the opposite direction like mad, but the spider mutt was on their trail, and now it was only a matter of time before they would have to put on their figurative fighting gear. Eloise had sustained a horrible wound during the bloodbath; the teeth of Olivea's whip had dug into her shoulder, tearing out a whole chunk of flesh when the bloodthirsty girl had pulled it back. Hobbling and hissing with agony, Eloise settled down in a hidden space near the water and feverishly washed her wounds. Tailor sprinted about two miles away from the cornucopia and then collapsed, exhausted beyond belief. He had nothing but the clothes on his back, and even those were torn and sweaty. He took a big sip of water and then passed out. Wheaton and Sickle, each carrying a spear and a pack containing food and medical supplies, sprinted south for much of the first day before arriving in a circular chamber with a low ceiling. The moment that Sickle switched on her flashlight, a swarm of bat mutts descended from the ceiling, clawing and tearing at the allies. The 9s held their arms over their heads and ran for their lives. Wheaton and Sickle resorted to scaring the batts away with loud banging noises; fortunately, there were no other tributes nearby to hear them. Kine had fallen into the water halfway through the bloodbath, and he was now being carried quickly downstream. He could swim pretty well and knew he had everything under control. At the end of the channel, the land slanted upward; Kine trudged out of the water and then curled up on the floor, trying to sleep.

The "morning" of Day 2 came in the form of a cannon shot (without access to the sky, it was difficult to define day and night. Each tribute had a watch, but many of them had already broken from water damage). For nearly twenty-four hours, Eloise had been slowly bleeding out from the shoulder wound inflicted by Olivea, and death finally claimed her at seven in the morning on the second day. When the undulating claw of the hovercraft twinkled through a fake part of the ceiling to retrieve her, it saw the girl spread out like a dead bug in a dark pool of her own blood.

 _Eloise Jargun, District 7 Female: 15th, Killed by Olivea, Day 2_

The careers left quickly on the morning of Day 2. Fancy's watch was the only one that was still functioning properly, and he'd set an alarm for eight in the morning the night prior. Eloise's cannon shot woke up the pack nearly an hour before that, but Fancy forgot to delete the alarm. The pack quickly ate breakfast and then left, leaving Yama behind to guard the supplies. About an hour later, the careers arrived at the small tunnel where Tailor was sleeping. Suddenly, Fancy's alarm blared, and Tailor jumped to his feet. The careers had lost him in the labyrinth of dark tunnels within minutes, and Fancy's face burned with embarrassment as he vowed to be more careful in the future.

The vicious spider mutt kept up the chase, scuttling over the cave walls and ceiling as it chased after the allies from 6. Tank and Margot were about half a mile ahead of the mutt, but it was carefully engineered to smell human blood and it knew that the tributes were near. Margot suggested that they smear dirt onto themselves to mask their smell, but this did little to get in the way of the spider's impeccable smelling sense. Around noon, two more tributes came near the spider mutt: Wheaton and Sickle from 9. The 9s settled down for lunch between the spider mutt and the Tank-Margot duo. Wheaton and Sickle dropped their sandwiches and pulled out their weapons as the terrifying mutt stumbled out of the darkness, fangs foaming with satisfaction. With the first swipe of his spear, Wheaton drew a fountain of black muttation blood out of its nearest leg, and the mutt hissed, withdrawing into the shadows for roughly five seconds as it healed. This mutt was designed to be virtually un-killable, only injure-able. Sickle stumbled backward as the spider shot two jets of poison out of its fangs. The poison sizzled as it made contact with the cave floor meters away from Sickle's feet. The 9s fended off the huge arachnid for nearly thirty minutes before it finally crumpled into a heap, rapidly healing. Wheaton and Sickle sprinted for roughly fifteen minutes straight despite their exhaustion. By the time they came to a stop, there were too exhausted to keep their eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time. They passed out almost instantly once they came to a stop near the edge of the cave system, where the tunnels were narrower and straighter.

Meanwhile, Rimno was hard at work with the few supplies he'd managed from the cornucopia. He was wrapping wires around the iron pail with intricate detail. He borrowed many elements of his design from Beetee's ever-famed contraption, but he took his own few creative twists at the end. By the end of Day 2, all he needed was some kind of iron core and some kind of battery. If he were sent these objects, Rimno hoped he could cause the fifty or so coils of conductive wire to rotate around the central core, charging up the bucket with an immense electrical force. The only issue was obtaining these objects. Rimno knew the only way to earn himself sponsors was to make kills and slaughter tributes, and he was prepared to do so. He grabbed a sharp rock in each hand and hid his precious contraption before sprinting down one of the cave's main tunnels in pursuit of victims.

On Day 3, Sparkanne left the roomy, moss-filled chamber she'd been resting inside of for two days straight. Her body was tired and hot from lack of water, and she knew the gamemakers never took kindly to tributes that stayed still for too many days at a time. Sparkanne returned to the tunnels of the cavern that were flooded and noticed that the water had risen significantly, at least a meter, since the bloodbath. Unbeknownst to her, the waterline would keep rising, consuming the arena as it rose higher and higher. Sparkanne was about to return home when she saw a flash of movement in the corner of her eye: Kine from 10, who was at the riverside grabbing brightly-colored fish out of the water. Sparkanne chased after Kine, her spear lofted overhead. A lengthy chase then ensued, ending with a terrified Kine ducking into a shadowy corner which Sparkanne ran right past.

Two cannon shots fired in rapid succession later that day. Tank and Margot had settled down a few hours prior in a large, near pitch-black chamber for a short power nap. They'd only meant to sleep for a few minutes but had accidentally slept for nearly a quarter of a day. Margot heard a mysterious hissing sound and sat bolt upright, and when she saw what was happening right in front of her eyes she let out a high-pitched scream that echoed around the cave for nearly a minute. The enormous spider mutt had reached them at last, and both of its fangs were buried into Tank's chest. It was now tearing his torso apart, pulling out chunks of flesh and spitting foaming globs of poison into the gaps. Tank's cannon fired, and the spider mutt tackled Margot with its many legs. It was too late for Margot to run; her arms and legs were all pinned down. With a triumphant hiss, the spider sank its fangs into her neck, repeatedly hacking away at her neck and upper chest until the reaper claimed her.

 _Tank Drudgers, District 6 Male: 14th, Killed by Spider Muttation, Day 3_

 _Margot Leyce, District 6 Female: 13th, Killed by Spider Muttation, Day 3_

The majority of Day 3 passed quietly after that. The careers had been hunting in the cave tunnels far away from the cornucopia thinking more prey would be hiding there, but Gerome suggested they should try hunting nearer to the cornucopia. He was right in thinking a few of the tributes hadn't found the edges of the arena and were hiding poorly in the center. These tributes included Rimno, Tailor, and Kine. The careers' hunting trip took them to a precarious jump. The stone pathways on either side of the rushing channel split farther and farther apart at the end of the tunnel. The pathway they were on led to a dead end, whereas the other path led onward into a whole section of the cavern system they'd yet to explode. They didn't have any choice but to jump over the gap. It was about a meter, so it wasn't an easy jump by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't a hard one either. Yama was adamantly against risking her life with a simple jump, so she raced back to the cornucopia to retrieve one of the wooden boards so that she could lay it over the channel like a fallen branch to get across.

Yama returned about half an hour later, sweating profusely, neck and shoulders sore from carrying the plank. Yama laid the long wooden plank over the channel and then walked carefully across. Fancy, Gerome, Nevel, and Olivea passed similarly, without much trouble. Perfect was the last tribute to cross. She was deathly afraid of dark water, and her entire body shook with terror when she set one of her feet onto the plank. She was less than halfway across when she felt herself toppling to one side. Perfect screamed and tried to regain her balance, but her cries for help were already drowned out by the sound of water. The river washed her about a quarter of a mile east and then deposited her in a large stone chamber filled with bat mutts. The bloodthirsty creatures dove down and each took a few short nips at her flesh before the gamemakers sent them reeling with powerful electrical pulses so they could collect her body.

 _Perfect Flournoy, District 1 Female: 12th, Killed by Drowning and Bat Muttations, Day 3_

Day 4 was deathless. On the pack's journey back to the cornucopia, a swarm of bat mutts descended onto them, tearing at their flesh with their claws and teeth. Four of them escaped uninjured, but one of bats had torn a sizable gash across the left side of Nevel's cheek, and he was now bleeding profusely. Yama helped him out with all of the medical help he needed; her mother was a nurse in one of the mining towns of 2, so she knew a thing or two about common injuries. Gerome and Yama were getting along well so far; normally, the strongest careers grated against each other, fighting for the role of leader, but the tributes from District 2 were working somewhat more harmoniously than some other years despite the rising stakes. Fancy was somewhat shaken up after the death of his district partner, so he resorted to supply sorting to soothe his nerves. First he finished sorting the rations, then he mixed together the piles of weapons just so that he could sort them again. The careers didn't go hunting on the fourth day. They needed a day to rest, but they vowed to resume hunting at noon the following day.

The outliers weren't up to anything exciting. Sparkanne was resting on the morning of the fourth day when she heard the faint scuttling of the spider mutt from nearby. She leapt to her feet and held out her spear at its full length. She stood her ground for several seconds and proceeded with caution after that, squinting to make out the shape that was slinking out of the darkness. Sparkanne hardly had time to leap out of the way when the spider mutt pounced out of the darkness, fangs bared and frothing with poison. After nearly a minute, Sparkanne had managed to poke one of its legs with her spear, while a few drops of its poison had landed on her upper chest. The skin sizzled under the highly acidic solution, and a hissing Sparkanne turned to make a run for her life.

Tailor and Kine were the most inactive and forgettable tributes so far. Tailor stayed still in various areas of the cave, scratching doodles into the chalky grey stone with his fingernails and feeding himself on the repulsive edible moss whenever his appetite got up. He relocated every morning, but the lack of any other action was starting to get the Capitol fed up. Kine just sprinted aimlessly around the arena, stopping to rest every once in a while. Kine stopped to rest on a flat expanse of stone near the channel, and he woke up about an hour later to find that he was inch-deep in water. Sopping wet, Kine trudged up the slanted floor and sprinted toward dry footing at higher levels.

Wheaton and Sickle had been sprinting in an organized pattern around the cave system ever since their narrow escape from the spider mutt on Day 2. Using sponsored pen and paper, the baker boy and the farm hand girl sketched a rough map of the maze using the small area they'd explored. They correctly guessed that the arena was symmetric in multiple directions; the twisting tunnels had some kind of order to them after all. At six o'clock that evening, Wheaton began to lay out the duo's sleeping bags and supplies on a flat stone expanse. Sickle was a few meters away, mindlessly stroking the wall of the cave. Suddenly, she felt her arm fly away into nothingness. There was a narrow gap in the cave wall that led into a hidden, roomy space. The area held few torches, so the opening was nearly impossible to see. It hid them well as the fourth night wore on.

With sponsor help, Rimno put the finishing touches on his electrical trap, and it soon became apparent that it wasn't really a trap at all, more like a weapon. Rimno would have to throw the bucket over the head of his victim and then flick on the device, frying their brain in a matter of moments. He was being extremely careful not to get any part of his creation wet, knowing that electricity and water didn't mix, so he placed a few larger rocks between it and the rising channel whenever he went to sleep.

On the morning of Day 5, Rimno heard the soft groans of a fellow tribute. He slowly sat straight up and saw Tailor from 8 about ten meters away, down on his knees. Tailor had woken fairly early on the fifth morning, wanting to get in a few good hours of exploration before the others were awake. Tailor's foot had landed on a spare screw that Rimno had forgotten to clean up, and he had topped onto his knees without warning. Rimno leapt into action, pulling out his electrified pail and throwing it over Tailor's head. Tailor screamed and tried to shake the thing off of him, but Rimno had already pushed down on the trigger, and several thousand volts of electricity were now running through the conductive metal. Tailor shook and contorted rather grotesquely with such a strong current running through his brain, hijacking his nervous system and making him unable to control his own movements.

 _Tailor Goldner, District 8 Male: 11th, Killed by Rimno, Day 5_

The careers, woken from their heavy slumber by Tailor's cannon shot, left the cornucopia quickly. They were immensely frustrated after so many days of either failing to find prey or quickly losing their fleeing victims in the labyrinth-like cave system. Their determination would prove fruitful, and they cornered their first victim since the bloodbath shortly after noon on the fifth day. Yama was back at the cornucopia, dutifully guarding the supplies, and she heard three cannon shots fire within the span of half a minute. Two of the cannon shots belonged to her career allies, and one of them belonged to an outlier.

Fancy, Gerome, Nevel, and Olivea had been sprinting down one of the cavern's main tunnels for about half an hour when they came across the chamber where Sparkanne was sleeping, lazily caked with dirt. The girl's sweat acted like glue, keeping the dirt stuck to her skin, but this did little to keep the careers from spotting her. The reason Sparkanne was hiding so poorly was because she'd been too exhausted to search for anything better, having literally collapsed from exhaustion the evening prior. Nevel's flashlight beam landed on Sparkanne's face, illuminating her tired, emaciated form. Sparkanne leapt to her feet and grabbed her spear, thrusting it in Nevel's direction with a kind of split-second instinct she didn't even know she had. Nevel had no idea such a spastic burst of energy could come from an outlier. The point of the spear opened a gaping wound in his chest, and he fell at the feet of his career allies, choking on the blood that was now pouring out of his mouth.

 _Nevel Luther-Vise, District 4 Male: 10th, Killed by Sparkanne, Day 5_

From there, all hell broke loose. Sparkanne stumbled backward, a torrent of emotions attacking her after making her first kill. She had more pressing matters on her mind, however, and she was quickly overwhelmed by the trio of bloodthirsty careers. The deafening first crack of Olivea's whip rolled over the others like thunder, and Sparkanne let out a scream of agony, several of the teeth having torn long gashes into her arms. Gerome thrust his sword out in an attempt to stab the strong outlier girl, and Fancy tried to get the clearance to launch at least one of his knives into her abdomen. Olivea was being much more careless, swinging her whip back and forth and not really caring where it landed. The whip wrapped around Gerome's upper torso, and Olivea instinctively yanked back the leather strap of the weapon. With a kind of tearing sound, his skin was ripped open like leather, revealing the bone underneath to the infrared cameras mounted nearby. He was gone in moments.

 _Gerome Goff, District 2 Male: 9th, Killed by Olivea, Day 5_

That left the final eight: Fancy Mintz from District 1, Yama Matthews from District 2, Rimno Kiely from District 3, Olivea Kirstmel from District 4, Sparkanne Stocklin from District 5, Wheaton Naysmith and Sickle Salgato from District 9, and Kine Lucker from District 10.

Gerome's heavy dead body toppled sideways like a domino, landing in the central channel of water with a splash. A terrified Sparkanne was stunned into silence at the sight of his bloody body floating on the current and the spear-wounded 4 boy who lied lifelessly at her feet. Sparkanne let out a small sound when Fancy tore her spear straight out of her hand; the strongest outlier in these games was now frozen to her spot, trapped in a whirlwind of depression, shock, and terror. From there, she was easy work for Fancy and Olivea. The hovercraft had three bodies to collect once the survivors had gotten far enough away.

 _Sparkanne Stocklin, District 5 Female: 8th, Killed by Fancy and Olivea, Day 5_

Days 6 and 7 were both deathless, rounding off the first week in the arena with a lackluster finish. Fancy and Olivea returned to the cornucopia. The two of them, along with the charismatic Yama, were the only three careers left in the arena. Yama was shocked to find out that her district partner was dead, but she was secretly satisfied, as she had always ambitioned to be a pack leader. She ordered a few changes around the cornucopia and watched with satisfaction as Olivea and Fancy began to follow her orders and trust her more and more. Olivea, who was similarly idealistic, sparked up a few good conversations with Yama, and the two became good friends. Fancy largely laid low. He didn't want to be in the others' sight because he thought that would just remind them of his existence and encourage them to kill him off, knowing he was the weakest link in their trio.

The outliers kept up their day-to-day routines. Rimno was pleased by how well his bucket-trap was working, once he got over the morbid guilt. Tailor's thrashing had damaged parts of the steel pail significantly, and some wires had been frayed or torn completely. The channel of water had risen at least ten meters in the last few days, completely submerging a few of the lower tunnels. Rimno relocated about a mile eastward. He stumbled into the midst of a swarm of bat mutts, and they chased him an additional quarter mile east before giving up. The boy settled down and rested for a few minutes before staring the long repair. Wheaton and Sickle took turns leaving the hidden chamber that had completely hidden them from sight for three straight days. For the first half of the day, only one of them hunted at a time. The theory was that one of them should always stay behind to guard the hiding spot, but at noon they scrapped that plan and just left together. The space was well-hidden by default and didn't really need a guard to keep its contents safe. After facing their fair share of bat mutts and other threats, the 9s returned to their shelter around ten that night, their precious map tucked carefully into Sickle's pocket. Kine aimlessly ran for his life through the various twist and turns of the cavernous arena. He'd been roused from sleep that morning by the carefully feeling legs of the spider mutt, and now it was on his trail. He alternated between sprinting and briskly walking, and at the farthest distance he placed about a mile between himself and the mutt. The larger-than-life arachnid would inevitably catch up to him in due time, however.

The morning of Day 8, Kine woke up screaming at the top of his lungs. He hadn't wanted to stop running, but he'd fallen against the wall of the cave with exhaustion and slowly slid to the ground. He slept like a rock for nearly ten hours and only awoke to the tingling sensation of the spider's front legs on his neck and chest. Kine screamed and made a dash down the tunnel, but the mutt eeked, leaping in his path. It turned to block his new path whenever he so much as twitched a finger. The terrified boy had been torn apart in seconds, and the spider scuttled away, satisfied. Wheaton and Sickle were near, and they heard the boy's soft sniffles about five minutes after the spider had abandoned him to die. They followed the sound of his dying breaths and knew they had no choice but to end his suffering. In unison, they thrust their spears into his abdomen, then left quickly.

 _Kine Lucker, District 10 Male: 7th, Killed by Spider Muttation, Wheaton, and Sickle, Day 8_

The first half of Day 9 was deathless. The charismatic duo of Yama and Olivea left to hunt in the morning, and Fancy started packing his bags the moment they were out of sight. He was planning to make a break from the pack, not wanting to be picked off at the split, as he knew it was far too late in the games for a three-piece career alliance to continue much longer. Fancy escaped down a side tunnel and sprinted about a mile from the cornucopia before he came to a stop. The chamber he chose was flooded ankle-deep in water, but rising fast. By the end of the day the water level was chest-deep, and Fancy trudged up the sloped ground. He found dry footing around the same level as the cornucopia and curled up in a shadowed corner, hoping he could remain unnoticed.

Yama and Olivea stumbled upon the hidden chamber by pure chance, exposing the hiding place of Wheaton and Sickle. Yama was running her hand absentmindedly along the wall when it flew into the empty space of the near-invisible gap, nudging a sleeping Wheaton. Wheaton woke up screaming, and he and Sickle jumped to their feet, quaking, as the career girls moved closer, smiling dangerously.

Wheaton tackled Olivea, not seeing her whip, but he soon came to regret that decision as Yama threw him to the ground with one arm, leaving Olivea free to slam down the toothed leather strap onto his back. Wheaton roared, writhing with agony on the floor as Olivea yanked the teeth sharply and quickly out of his chest, exposing his gaping wounds. Sickle tried to knock Olivea off of her feet, but the 4 girl just kicked her to one side and continued mercilessly beating the baker boy with her weapon of death.

 _Wheaton Naysmith, District 9 Male: 6th, Killed by Olivea, Day 9_

As Olivea polished off her victim, Yama threw Sickle against the wall of the cave. She felt warm blood dripping down her chin, and Sickle punched back, throwing as much force as she could muster into her fist. Her clenched hand slammed into Yama's face, stunning her for the split second she needed to escape. Sickle slipped from her grasp and dashed down the darkest hallway in the immediate vicinity. The floor of the tunnel sloped downward, and before long she felt water splashing up around her ankles. When she was waist-deep, she ducked into a crevice in the cave wall, panting and gasping as the cursing careers searched around for her.

Day 10 was deathless. Olivea and Yama gave up searching for Sickle after about an hour. They were having a higher-than-average difficulty keeping their prey from escaping this year. Sickle stayed still in the shadowed crevice, trying not to panic as the water rose higher and higher. When she finally decided to make a run for it, Sickle took a gulp of breath and slipped down under the surface. She swam to shore far away from the careers and quickly dashed toward the safety of the higher levels. Olivea and Yama knew the tunnel would be flooded in due time. Yama cringed as the water covered her shoe and shouted for Olivea to follow her as she scrambled toward safety.

The spider mutt chose Fancy as its next prey. He had settled down for breakfast in a long, thin hallway that was ankle-deep in water when he heard the xylophone-like scuttling of the spider mutt. Somehow, a wet spider was ten times more terrifying than a dry one, as it somehow managed to move its legs in perfect synchronization despite the water damage it should have been taking. Fancy ran for the hills, followed closely by the scuttling mass of legs, and he holed up near the cornucopia in a cubby-like hole in the wall where the spider couldn't reach him.

On Day 11, Olivea and Yama made the split. The girls stuffed their packs full of everything they could carry and then tossed the remainder of the cornucopia's supplies into the flooded tunnels to the north. In only a few hours, they were completely flooded. The outliers would not be getting their hands on the careers' precious supplies. Olivea headed east, and Yama headed west. Yama had been jogging in a straight line for less than an hour when she heard a small shuffling sound. She stopped dead in her tracks and squinted in the dim light to see the form of Rimno from 3 treading silently over the stone cave floor, absentmindedly swinging his wired-up pail back and forth. Yama leapt out of nowhere, brandishing twin spears, and Rimno reacted instantly. Knowing he had no chance against the strongest tribute left in these games he threw the bucket over his head. Rimno hesitated for a quick moment and then pulled the trigger. His brains were busted instantly, and the pail clattered against the stone as he fell to the ground in a heap. The contraption tumbled off of his head and rolled into the rising channel, dying along with its creator.

 _Rimno Kiely, District 3 Male: 5th, Killed by Himself, Day 11_

Sickle stumbled in circles, terrified. If she was keeping track correctly, she was up against three careers, all three of whom had scored a nine or higher while she held a meager four. The only thing she had on her after the incident of two days prior was a single spear, and even that was waterlogged and damaged. She repaired the spear using some sponsored rope and spent the rest of the day practicing on and off. She didn't even think about returning to the hidden chamber where she and the dead Wheaton had hid for several days. She couldn't if she wanted to, as it was now completely buried under the rising water. She was about one and a half miles from the cornucopia now, and she caked herself with dirt and other natural camouflage before dropping at the dead-end of a dark hallway for the night.

Fancy had been on the run for nearly twenty-four hours when he spotted the spider mutt crawling out of the darkness, showing all the signs that it was ready for a battle. Fancy stumbled backward, holding his knives in front of him, warning it not to draw any closer as though it could understand his words. The spider lashed out, sending Fancy reeling with the first swipe of its front legs. The trembling boy turned tail and raced for his life down the nearest tunnel, but he quickly found himself up to the chest in water, and he couldn't swim nearly as well as the spider mutt could. With a punching sound, the mutt drilled its teeth into his torso, injecting its venom into his bloodstream. The spider mutt dragged him to shore and then shook like a dog to dry itself before digging in.

 _Fancy Mintz, District 1 Male: 4th, Killed by Spider Muttation, Day 11_

On the morning of Day 12, the gamemakers terminated Olivea from 4. Sickle was one of the most popular tributes of her day; District 9, as well as all of the other outlying districts, were rooting for her, as she would bring home District 9's third ever victor if she won. Unwilling to move past his chance for a successful underdog story, Maddox decided to kill off the less popular career to give the outlier girl a fighting chance.

Olivea was curled up in a ball on the floor of the cave when she heard a faint whooshing sound, like mist being sprayed out of a spray bottle. A faint, transparent mist had appeared out of nowhere, and it was now gradually floating downward. Olivea was gagging and choking the moment the steam covered her nose, and she stumbled mindlessly uphill, eyes closed to keep the strange chemical out. In mere minutes she had reached the cornucopia, and she opened her eyes from one bad dream into another when she saw the point of Yama's spear drawing closer to her abdomen. Coughing and gagging all the while, Olivea retaliated, lashing out with her whip, but her much stronger opponent grabbed the opposite end of the leather strap and tugged her along for a few feet before tearing it straight out of her hands. Olivea collapsed in agony as Yama used her own weapon against her, slamming its teeth repeatedly into her back until she bled to death.

 _Olivea Kirstmel, District 4 Female: 3rd, Killed by Yama, Day 12_

That left Yama Matthews of District 2 and Sickle Salgato of District 9 to vie for victory. Both girls were armed and on the move, hoping to reach each other soon and end these games as quickly as possible. The trouble was that Yama's training score was nearly three times that of Sickle's, but she couldn't let that stop her—she either had to take down her final opponent or die trying. The girls clashed in a broad hallway near the center of the arena, so close to the cornucopia they could make out its shadowy, silhouetted shape. Yama made the first move, lunging forward with her spear, and Sickle sidestepped quickly enough to thrust her spear in the direction of her left side. The spear pierced Yama's side, and she slapped it out of the way, annoyed. The wooden shaft of her spear cracked and frayed like a twig, and Sickle knew she had no choice but to run.

Sickle took an obscure side route in the direction of the chamber that had hidden her and Wheaton well for several days toward the beginning of these games. Olivea would have recognized the area, but Yama did not, having never seen it before. Sickle felt much more comfortable on her home turf, and she picked up a rock in each hand and tossed them both in Yama's direction. She tried to use her arm like a shield, but one of the sharp rocks smacked into her forehead, and Yama reeled, cursing.

Sickle knew it was now or never. She charged forward and shoved her to the ground. Yama's head made a bloodcurdling cracking noise upon contact with the hard floor of the cave, and the 9 girl grabbed another rock, steeling herself for the difficult task ahead. Sickle repeatedly slammed the rock into the 2 girl's head and then pulled it away, revealing a number of small dents. It took nearly a minute for the girl to die from head trauma, and then there was only one tribute left in the arena.

 _Yama Matthews, District 2 Female: 2nd, Killed by Sickle, Day 12_

"Sickle Salgato of District 9, you are the victor of the eighty-eighth annual Hunger Games!" Titanius exclaimed.

Sickle staggered away from the mangled corpse of her final victim, already trying to shove the graphic memories of the games out of her mind.

 _Sickle Salgato, District 9 Male: Victor of the Eighty-Eighth Hunger Games, Day 12_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Sickle made the welcome third addition to District 9's lineup of victors, their first in forty-four years. District 9 had been watching their tributes die literally every single time for nearly half a century, and celebrations in the grain district were endless when the young lady returned home. A few of its residents had been dreading that District 9 might never have another victor, and understandably Sickle served as a kind of beacon of hope to its youth—if she could withstand the horrors of the arena and make it home safe and sound, they might not have all been doomed if they were reaped for the arena. She was one of the quieter and more reserved victors, and she would often be forgotten on history tests taken by Capitol children in the future, but she didn't mind. Sickle was an introverted woman who liked keeping to herself. People often said her only loves were the flowers that grew on her balcony and the hummingbirds that drank their nectar.

Her victory tour was average, and nothing of note happening during it.

The payouts on her victory were good, as about 2% bet on her.

Sickle would live to age eighty-five, dying from an allergic reaction seven months before the one-hundred fifty-eighth Hunger Games. She would never marry, and she would remain celibate throughout her life.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Sickle moves into the Victor's Village of District 9, next door to Barley's home.

Apollo Reinold has a baby girl named Tania.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)

* * *

 **A/N: Here's another victor from District 9! It's been a while, hasn't it? Now that I think about it, I don't think District 9 is ever mentioned in any of the books of films. Nobody even knew its industry until promotional material. This lack of information also gives us writers the permission to do whatever the heck we want with District 9 characters because there isn't really anything to go by.**

 **I liked this arena, particularly the giant spider mutt. Huge spiders are enough to make any games more interesting, I think :)**

 **This decade passed quickly. Just two more games and it's over. Please stay tuned for the next chapter :D**


	90. The 89th Hunger Games

**The 89th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The man-made disease accidentally unleashed onto the masses the year prior continued to spread through the streets of District 3 like wildfire. For several months, the mayor of District 3 refused to close down schools and workplaces; President Stinn Hawke's labor quotas were higher than ever, and with so many citizens too sick to work, the only way to meet the quotas was to work the healthy half to death. Many historians in later years would go on to pin the close quarters of 3's factories as the reason the infection spread so quickly. Even if the population of 3 decreased by several thousand, Stinn Hawke didn't think it was a big deal as long as he could prevent the illness from spreading to other districts. Of course, natural enemies were and are famously difficult to contain, and before long the epidemic had spread to nearby districts like 9 and 12. Rigging the reapings to make sure only the healthiest children were sent into the games would be substantially more difficult this time around. The games team remained the same. Maddox Courval returned as head gamemaker, ready to satisfy the screaming crowds and placate the furious ones. Maddox was engaged to be married seven months after these games came to a close, and he drew heavy inspiration from his life at the time when designing his fourth arena. Titanius Lafayette kept the Capitol chuckling with his witty banter and effortless humor. This was the last year that he would run the pre-games festivities alone, as a close friend would join him next year, the Claudius to his Caesar. The penultimate year of the ninth Hunger Games decade featured minimal rebellion in the districts, and Stinn was pleased at the effectiveness of his ruling methods. He and the dead Coriolanus Snow would have gotten along well.

The career districts put on a mixed showing this year. The tributes from District 1 were both stunning and talented, and they were one of the most memorable duos in the Hunger Games history. The boy was the son of District 1's head academy trainer, and he made the nation swoon with his smarts, looks, and swordplay skills. The girl was just as attractive, and she was a master archer and a stellar trickster and temptress. The boy from District 2 was the first of the eight famous Talbot siblings to enter the Hunger Games, and his sword talents would inspire his seven younger brothers and sisters to fight in a similar style. The girl was a bit more forgettable, but she was funny and laid-back and played well with the more easy-going part of the Capitol. District 4 was a disaster this year. The boy broke his leg on his way to the stage; despite the best treatment the Capitol could offer, there was no way his wound could heal fully before the bloodbath. The female volunteer died in a car crash on her way to the reaping, having drunk too much alcohol the night prior when she was partying with her boyfriend. The news didn't arrive fast enough for a backup volunteer to be chosen, so a flabby fifteen-year-old girl was reaped and sent into the games. The scores of the five-member pack were decent: two elevens, two tens, and an eight.

The outliers were much more forgettable than some others years, but that didn't mean these games couldn't exciting if Maddox played his cards right. The anti-career pack consisted of four tributes: Bentley from 6, Sulema from 6, Aria from 7, and Harpsichord from 9. Bentley was sexy and jocular and extremely popular in the Capitol, while Sulema was an unassuming, calculated girl with outstanding intelligence. Aria was your typical hatchet-wielding, red-haired District 7 resident, and Harpsichord was a famous musician who'd been saving up nickels for years, hoping to move to the Capitol. In a way, she had gotten her wish, even if her stay in the Capitol was temporary. The highest scores out of the two packs went to Kathlin from 5 and Velvetina from 8, and the rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Admired Thompson, 18, (11) 3-1 and Nouvelle Harris, 18, (11) 3-1

District 2: Mercury Talbot, 16, (10) 5-1 and Alsalla Rabe, 16, (10) 4-1

District 3: Satis Hartford, 17, (5) 24-1 and Techa Socolow, 12, (3) 49-1

District 4: Ermin Shipley, 16, (8) 11-1 and Naiad Marlowe, 15, (4) 30-1

District 5: Felix Dawkins, 12, (3) 52-1 and Kathlin Hart, 16, (7) 15-1

District 6: Bentley Ibach, 18, (9) 10-1 and Sulema Cartley, 17, (8) 12-1

District 7: Beecher Ward, 13, (4) 29-1 and Aria Dauphine, 18, (8) 12-1

District 8: Fleece Congrutts, 18, (5) 25-1 and Velvetina Quinn, 18, (7) 13-1

District 9: Ezra Ondopetris, 14, (4) 32-1 and Harpsichord Bevel, 15, (7) 14-1

District 10: Feline Tethers, 17, (6) 29-1 and Arachne Bundly, 18, (4) 30-1

District 11: Sorrel Duster, 12, (2) 57-1 and Rose Danthbury, 16, (4) 33-1

District 12: Orrin Rush, 15, (5) 26-1 and Alice Straiden, 16, (3) 45-1

HGBO Bets: 20% on Admired and Nouvelle, 12% on Mercury, 10% on Alsalla, 7% on Ermin, 4% on Bentley, 3% on Sulema, Aria, and Harpsichord, 2% on Kathlin and Velvetina, 1% or less on Satis, Techa, Felix, Beecher, Fleece, Ezra, Feline, Arachne, Sorrel, Rose, Orrin, and Alice.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The tributes found themselves dressed to the nines, surrounded in all directions by rows of red velvet seats. They were standing in the center of a towering stone cathedral, and the bell tower could be seen through the mass of crisscrossing wooden beams if the tributes looked upward. The cornucopia, fashioned from wood, was stocked with eight circular wedding cakes with pristine (at least for now) white frosting. Besides the cakes, there was little else in the ways of food and water. Tin thermoses were stocked near the edges of the horn, and a few packs of dinner rolls, soups, and salads were supplied around the horn of plenty. Rather than cannons, the bell wound ring once whenever a tribute met their end. Outside of the cathedral, a rolling green field spread out in all directions, laden with picturesque wooden fences and animals like sheep, rabbits, and dogs. Farther and farther away from the cornucopia, the tributes could find playgrounds, colleges, and houses, depicting the progression of a human life. The colleges and houses were stocked with food and weapons, but only the most determined tributes would be able to reach them given their distance from the cornucopia. The central green field was lightly blanketed with trees, and the sun sparkled overhead like a gem. Despite the lush greenery of this year's arena, water was scarce. Only a few small streams sliced through the terrain, and they were so thin most of them could be crossed in a single stride. When the gong rang, three tributes fled from the bloodbath: Felix from 5, Ezra from 9, and Arachne from 10. The other twenty-one tributes surged forward and started scooping up supplies. The close quarters and strong pair from 1 would make for a relatively large bloodbath, with eleven deaths.

Kathlin from District 5 wanted to make a splash early on the impress the sponsors, so she tackled Ermin, whose pedestal was situated next to hers. The career boy was caught completely off of his guard, and he fell straight to the floor under her weight, frozen with shock. Kathlin grabbed him by either side of the head and slammed him repeatedly against the stone floor of the cathedral. Once he was unconscious, Kathlin ended him by sliding a dagger that sat on a pack nearby into his chest.

 _Ermin Shipley, District 4 Male: 24th, Killed by Kathlin, Bloodbath_

Kathlin jumped to her feet, and she was instantly met by the bite of Admired's sword in her gut. She'd been too caught up in her own matters to pay attention to the other careers, and in the time it took her to kill Ermin both of the 1s had armed themselves. Kathlin fell to her knees with a loud noise, and Admired gave Nouvelle the clear to run off and search for more victims.

 _Kathlin Hart, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Admired, Bloodbath_

Nouvelle grabbed the dark-haired boy from District 10 and pushed him straight to the ground. He managed to keep his balance and keep from falling onto his back, but he stumbled backward and crashed into a pile of crates containing knives and spears. The pile of weapons toppled over and scattered, peppering dozens of holes on his neck and head, and Nouvelle polished him off with two heavy chops of her sword.

 _Feline Tethers, District 10 Male: 22nd, Killed by Nouvelle, Bloodbath_

Admired chased a screaming girl away from the cornucopia. She banged on the nearest window, and a small hairline crack appeared in the grass. The girl eventually managed to break the glass, but the window wasn't big enough to accommodate her wide shoulders. Admired buried the blade of his sword into Techa's back, killing her in moments.

 _Techa Socolow, District 3 Female: 21st, Killed by Admired, Bloodbath_

Mercury, the first of the famous Talbot siblings, scouted the interior of the cathedral with a sword gripped tightly in his right arm. With the first forceful swipe of the blade, he sent the nearest boy reeling. He stumbled into the nearest leather seat and collapsed onto the leather, leaving Mercury free to thrust his weapon into his throat.

 _Sorrel Duster, District 11 Male: 20th, Killed by Mercury, Bloodbath_

The four anti-careers had all gathered inside of the cornucopia. Bentley and Sulema had swords, Aria had an axe, and Harpsichord had a spear. They were just about to flee when Alsalla, the last career without a kill, sprinted into the cornucopia for a sip of water. Sulema charged forward and thrust her sword into her torso. Her face contorted with disgust as she slid straight of her blade, and the career girl hit the floor with a thud as Sulema swallowed down the bile that had built up in the back of her mouth.

 _Alsalla Rabe, District 2 Female: 19th, Killed by Sulema, Bloodbath_

Bentley and Harpsichord sprinted out of the horn, eager to get away from the bloodbath before the careers ran toward the screams of the dying Alsalla. Aria was close behind them, and Sulema was the last out, her eyes glued with sick fascination to the lifeless body of her victim. The anti-careers clashed with Admired from District 1. He leapt out of nowhere, grinning wildly, and Bentley probably would have been killed if Harpsichord hadn't tugged him out of his blade's wide path at the last moment. The anti-careers fought their way farther forward, Aria having punched Admired in the mouth to disorient him. Bentley, Sulema, Aria, and Harpsichord burst out of the cathedral's front doors, and they were about a quarter of a mile away from the cornucopia when they spotted Naiad stumbling silently over the grass. Naiad screeched and tried to run, but there was no way she could keep ahead for more than a few seconds. Harpsichord skewered her spear through Naiad's neck and kept on sprinting with her allies close behind.

 _Naiad Marlowe, District 4 Female: 18th, Killed by Harpsichord, Bloodbath_

Back at the cornucopia, Admired sprinted toward the mouth of the horn, regularly wiping the blood away from his mouth where Aria had punched him. The miner girl ran straight into Admired and bounced off of him, knocking her head against the interior wall of the cornucopia in her descent. Alice was too dazed to fight back as he mercilessly hacked away at her neck and upper torso.

 _Alice Straiden, District 12 Female: 17th, Killed by Admired, Bloodbath_

Satis was sitting on a chair inside of the cornucopia, tearing out chunks of wedding cake and stuffing them into his mouth. He'd never tasted anything but tesserae grain and tepid river water before the games. His entire face was covered with frosting and chunks of cake. The moment that Mercury knocked him in the back of the head with the butt of his sword, Satis fell sideways, a chunky kind of yellow vomit falling from his mouth. Mercury slashed his sword into his side with all the force he could muster. He was gone in moments.

 _Satis Hartford, District 3 Male: 16th, Killed by Mercury, Bloodbath_

Admired tore the blade of his sword out of Alice's abdomen and turned sharply on his heel to make yet another kill. The girl from the textile district was nearby, and she was the strongest tribute outside of the two packs. Not one to pass up the opportunity to land a solid kill, Admired tackled the older girl, expertly forcing her to the ground. She kicked and flailed, but her futile attempts at escape were ended when Admired slid the point of his sword into her neck.

 _Velvetina Quinn, District 8 Female: 15th, Killed by Admired, Bloodbath_

Nouvelle made the final kill. The last outlier in the vicinity of the cornucopia, the wealthy merchant girl from District 11, made a mad rush for the exit when she realized Nouvelle had spotted her. Admired leapt in front of the double doors, trapping Rose with nowhere to run. Nouvelle grabbed her by her shoulders and slammed her into the nearest window. The colorful glass display shattered in a shower of a million shards, and the force of Nouvelle's sword sent her stumbling backward onto the few shards of grace that still remained firm on the frame like teeth.

 _Rose Danthbury, District 11 Female: 14th, Killed by Nouvelle, Bloodbath_

The careers ran through their post-bloodbath rituals and then left quickly. Admired and Nouvelle had already captured the hearts of the audience five minutes of the games; they got along well, and they had a kind of witty, sarcastic chemistry that the audience gobbled up. They sorted the supplies and the food rations and then sprinted out of the cathedral's front doors, leaving Mercury behind to guard the supplies. All the while, Mercury sat in the back of the cornucopia, his spirits diminished. He knew he was nowhere near as popular as the pair from District 1. He spent much of the day shoving wedding cake into his mouth and staring blankly at the walls and ceiling of the cathedral.

The ten surviving outliers scattered in all directions. Felix, crying softly with terror, sprinted about a mile away from the cornucopia before he collapsed from exhaustion. His small body was too tired to move any farther on the first day, so he dragged himself into a small copse of bushes and tried to sleep. The anti-careers set up their base on one of the playgrounds representing the early stages of human life. Bentley climbed up onto the play structure, and the others handed him their supplies before climbing up themselves. The play structure was an ideal shelter because it had three different exits, and if all three of those were blocked they could always slip down the slide and run to safety. Sulema's sponsors sent her a long blanket, which she laid down in the slide to reduce the friction and make the ride down smoother. She hoped they would never need to use it, but it was good to be prepared. While Bentley and Sulema set up camp, Aria and Harpsichord had a bit of fun around the playground. They took turns on the jungle gym and the tire swing to get their exercise and keep from getting too off of their guard. Beecher ran around to the back of the cathedral and found a camouflaged wooden hatch with steps that led down to the dark, musty wine cellar. He spent the rest of the day guzzling down the various wines, and his drunk thrashing and contorting was mistaken for a deadly mutt by Mercury, who was guarding the cornucopia. Fleece had eaten a vast quantity of wedding cake during the bloodbath, more than all of the other tributes combined. He was only about a quarter mile from the cathedral when he collapsed in a heap and emptied his stomach of its fresh contents. Throat and mouth burning like fire, Fleece covered himself with dirt to camouflage himself and then curled up for a nap. Ezra and Arachne had allied prior to the games. They alternated between walking and jogging until they came to the first college, a large brick building with classrooms and dorm rooms alike. They entered the building and raided the receptionist's office of the food and drinks that were supplied there. They were too exhausted after their trans-arena trek to explore any more, and the vowed to comb through the rest of the college the next day. Orrin set his eyes on one of the mansion houses in the far distance. He knew it was an ambitious journey for a tribute as weak as him, but ambitious was his middle name. Even for the fastest tribute, the journey would have taken at least two days if not more. When he had lessened the distance between himself and the mansion house by at least four miles, he settled under a shady grove of trees and munched on a few berries before he passed out. There was relative peace in the arena as day turned into night, but this peace would not last for very long.

The morning of the second day began with a single heavy ring from the high-up bell tower of the central cathedral. Fleece was trapped in the clutches of a deep, dreamless sleep, and he was lying as still as a stone only a few thousand feet away from the cornucopia, smeared with mud as a lazy method of camouflage. It was only a matter of time before he had to pay dearly for his mistake. Admired and Nouvelle had camped out the night prior near the north end of the central green, and they broke camp on the morning of the next day. They planned to sprint back to the cornucopia, restock on supplies, rest for an hour or two, and devote the rest of the day to more hunting. On the way back, Admired stopped dead in his tracks, and a smile formed on Nouvelle's face when she saw the dirt-smeared body of the boy lying in a cluster of bright yellow blossoms. Admired pounced, knocking the air out of the outlier boy. Fleece woke in a daze, and he whipped his head hastily back and forth, his mind flat-out rejecting the scene playing out right before his eyes. Admired sliced into the side of Fleece's abdomen with a single heavy slice of his sword. He treaded confidently away as Fleece bled out, blood dripping down the lower edge of his blade.

 _Fleece Congrutts, District 8 Male: 13th, Killed by Admired, Day 2_

In the hidden cellar below the cathedral, Beecher slowly opened his eyes. He'd drunk at least three full bottles of wine in the past twenty-four hours, and the dusty floor of the cellar was littered with shards of glass as though a tornado had struck down on the place. Beecher had never drunk a sip of alcohol before entering the games, and he actually hated the taste. The one thing he liked was the way it made him forget, and he thought that was the best way he could live his last few days alive. The careers heard the noises his flailing fists made and searched all around the cathedral for any kind of passageway that led to the cellar. Understandably, they failed to find the tiny and well-hidden trapdoor at the back of the stone building. They stormed back inside angrily after a solid two hours of searching. Mercury suggested the noises might have been made by a mutt that wasn't meant to be released until later on in the games, but his opinion went unheard in the exchange between Admired and Nouvelle that was going on at the time.

Felix had found himself a nice home, but he knew that he couldn't stay there forever for a number of reasons. He was at least two miles from the nearest stream, and he could already feel the effects of dehydration on his body like a slow-acting poison that shut down his system. After a day of travel carrying nothing but the clothes on his back, Felix knelt at the side of one of the thin streams and sipped greedily for several seconds. He was on a solid path to the line of colleges on the horizon, but he was understandably too tired to continue the journey any longer so he curled up at the riverside and let the sound of trickling water put him to sleep.

Ezra and Arachne had plenty of fun exploring the college building they had discovered the day prior, and the cameras followed them around for most of the day as they pulled useful supplies out of the various classrooms they came across. Once, they came to a science classroom, and Ezra had the perfect idea. Despite his youth, he had some smarts on his head, and he wanted to fan out his feathers and impress the audience early on. He pulled out a science textbook and pulled a crate of various chemicals out of a storage closet at the back of the classroom. Arachne stood back and watched with curiosity as Ezra mixed together a number of different chemicals to firm a highly potent, toxic solution. He separated the concoction into a number of little glass vials and handed a few of them to Arachne. "If you're ever attacked, throw this in their eyes and I swear to Snow you won't have any problems escaping," he said. When night fell, they settled down in one of the dorm rooms that had a working toilet and shower as well as a whole pantry of non-perishable food. The deadly vials were stored at their bedsides so that they'd be able to grab them at an instant's notice if it was necessary.

On the morning of Day 3, the pair of careers from District 1 came across a fresh victim. Orrin from 12 leapt up from his hiding place in the shadow of a tall beech tree when a twig snapped under Nouvelle's foot. Cursing the small twig for revealing her presence, Nouvelle sprinted after the fleeing boy, Admired close behind her. Admired was the faster runner, and he eventually overtook Nouvelle. Admired knocked the miner boy to the ground, and he stumbled forward, screaming with terror and trying to untangle his limbs. Ignoring the burning pain all over his body, Orrin leapt back to his feet and smacked Admired in the mouth. It wasn't a hard hit, but it was enough to disorient him and enough to let him escape. By the time Admired had blinked back the spots in his vision, Orrin had placed at least twenty precious meters between himself at the careers. Adrenaline powered him forward though his muscles screamed with exhausted, and Orrin eventually managed to lose his pursuers in a hilly area with lots of places to hide. Orrin laid against a tall hill, hardly daring to breathe, and he shifted away very slowly over the course of about an hour as the careers searched feverishly for him. They returned to the horn in low spirits that night.

The anti-careers were forced to abandon their home on the playground when the gamemakers threw the first of the games' mutts in their direction. What none of the tributes knew was that a cloud-like swarm of at least one thousand raven mutts was hidden at the top of the bell tower. The stone that made up the cathedral hid their hiding place well, and the gamemakers made sure there was no place in the arena high enough for any tribute to see the ravens' secret hiding place. At exactly noon, the raven mutts descended in a swarm from the sky. At that point, Bentley was standing guard, while the other three anti-careers were snoozing contentedly. He let out a scream of shock, and the others woke instantly. Bentley, Sulema, Aria, and Harpsichord ran from the raven mutts for about ten minutes before they came to a stop in the well-hidden area between two tall, grassy hills. The raven mutts were programmed to only descend to a certain altitude, so the four tributes were safe in the low-levelled area. They didn't sleep a wink as the squawking swarm of angry avians fought against the invisible barrier like fish banging against the wall of a fish tank.

On Day 4, Mercury decided to take a huge risk. He knew he was by far the least memorable of the three careers. With Admired and Nouvelle hogging all of the screen time, he knew the only way to give himself a chance at survival was to knock them both off. When Admired and Nouvelle left to hunt, Mercury sprinted out of the cathedral and silently approached a bush bearing deadly nightlock berries. Nightlock berries were easily recognizable as deadly, so the bushes had remained untouched thus far. Donning a pair of rubber gloves, Mercury picked several of the berries and mashed them into a black paste with his hands. Then, he returned to the cathedral and sprinkled them into the cake that he knew the 1s were eating. He made sure to cover the chunks up with frosting so his allies wouldn't suspect anything until it was too late.

The day trickled past, and eventually Admired and Nouvelle returned to the cathedral, chatting and laughing at their latest adventures. Mercury broke out into a cold sweat when he saw them. Trying not to shake too much, Mercury watched as they each cut themselves some cake. Nouvelle was just about to put her slice into her mouth when she stopped and point a finger at the 2 boy.

"Something's up with you. You're acting funny."

Mercury squinted his eyes, trying to look as innocent as possible. "I'm fine," he responded, a note of fear in his voice. "I don't know what you're talking about."

The moment that Admired and Nouvelle tasted something funny in their cake, they tackled Mercury, pummeling him straight out of the chair and onto the ground. His head knocked against the cake in his descent, and the great culinary masterpiece toppled like a collapsing tower, revealing the black chunks of nightlock inside. Admired thrust the point of his sword into the screaming boy's abdomen, and Nouvelle subdued him with one more heavy prod to the abdomen.

"Traitor," she sighed hollowly as the bell tower chimed once.

 _Mercury Talbot, District 2 Male: 12th, Killed by Admired and Nouvelle, Day 4_

By this point, the flock of ravens had returned to their hidden perch on top of the bell tower. The anti-careers decided to wait for a few hours in case they decided to make a surprise return. They did not, and Harpsichord was the first to suggest it was time to leave. She and Aria took a quick peek around to make sure the coast was clear. The anti-careers travelled north for several hours, and it was around nightfall when they came to a stop at the widest stream in the arena, a rocky brook that was fast and freezing-cold. They took a few long sips and then curled up for the night, huddling under the one blanket that Sulema had saved from their original camp on the play structure far away.

Day 5 was deathless and uneventful. It served as an opportunity for the cameras to catch up on the whereabouts of the eleven remaining tributes, especially those had had begun to fade into the background during the first four days. Admired had only consumed a small amount of the nightlock poison. It wasn't enough to kill him, but it was more than enough to send him through a world of hurt. He curled up in the back of the cornucopia with a bowl, gasping, shaking, and retching as the poison slowly worked its way out of his system. Nouvelle took the opportunity to practice with her sword. She was glad to be alone for a while even if she was great friends with her district partner, and she liked the short period of down time. Felix, after five entire days of on-and-off sprinting, reached one of the mansion houses at the far north end of the arena. He sprinted around the creepy wooden house, raiding the knives from all of the places they were hidden. The master bedroom, which was so fancy it looked like the sleeping place for royalty, had a painting hanging above the fireplace of an old woman and a young girl staring blankly out of the canvas. The painting terrified young Felix, and he always went to sleep with the blanket completely covering his head. The anti-careers kept up their travels around the hilly regions of the arena. Around this time, Bentley, Sulema, and Harpsichord noticed that Aria was acting strange. She peered over her shoulder a lot and tried to stay away from the others as much as possible. Whenever she did interact with the other anti-careers, she seemed a little bit too bubbly and kind. They knew she was hiding something, but they weren't sure what for the time being. Beecher stayed put in the cellar underneath the cathedral, downing bottles of wine and then shaking them to get out every last drop. It seemed a miracle he got his water content from the alcohol alone, but the alcohol he drank was diluted significantly, which was also why he could drink so much without dying from alcohol poisoning. Ezra and Arachne kept on exploring the various classrooms and dorms of the university, their vials of deadly poison tucked safely in their pockets. Their explorations had lost the original charm and were now more repetitive than anything else. Orrin arrived at the same university where Ezra and Arachne were located. He moved frequently throughout the building but weirdly never came into contact with the allies. In fact, the dorm he chose to sleep inside of was just down the hallway from the place where Ezra and Arachne were sleeping. Orrin made himself a cup of coffee and a cup of noodles and then went to sleep. The caffeine kept him tossing and turning for a while, but sleep found him eventually.

The gamemakers had been far too kind to Beecher throughout the first five days of the games, but they had officially had enough of his inactivity. Admired and Nouvelle's mentors, the two Linden twins, sent each of them a note printed on transparent paper. When the notes were overlapped, they revealed instructions to the cellar door. Admired was feeling too sick from his unexpected nightlock breakfast two days before to do any more moving, so Nouvelle scampered off by herself to see what the note had been all about. She lightly opened the door of the cellar and plugged her nose when she stepped down into the dusty, dark interior. Her face contorted into a weird grimace at the sight of Beecher's unconscious body, his limbs spread in all directions like a dead bug. Nouvelle cut open his torso with two chops. Then, she dragged him into the open to make the collection job easier before returning to the cornucopia.

 _Beecher Ward, District 7 Male: 11th, Killed by Nouvelle, Day 6_

Aria's behavior was growing increasingly more suspicious now that the sixth day had arrived. She was planning to kill off all three of her allies at once, but she knew it wouldn't be easy. Aria thought she was being sneaky by stealing all of their matches gradually, but the mysterious disappearances of their matches did not go unnoticed. On Day 6, Sulema confronted her, demanding that she tell her what was up. Aria tried her best to pretend she didn't know what she was talking about, but Sulema knew better. When Aria sprinted away for a quick wash in the nearest river, Sulema told Bentley and Harpsichord that the safest option would be to kill her in her sleep that night. The others agreed, and Aria went to sleep that night with no clue that the others knew about her plan.

That night, Aria stayed up long past the others were asleep. The night was cold and a biting wind battered the terrain. The moon was as bright and clear as a polished crystal. She carefully slithered out of her sleeping bag and retrieved all of the matches she'd hoarded, about ten in total. Aria pinched three of them between her forefinger and thumb and then spread them out like a fan. She lit the three matches at once and tossed one of them onto each of the three sleeping bags inside which her allies were sleeping. In no time at all, the sleeping bags were engulfed in smoke. Aria grabbed her supplies and fled for her life. She heard the church bell ring only once before she settled down to rest, underneath one of the play structures near the cornucopia. The play structure hid her well, and it did at least something to keep out the biting wind.

Pandemonium ensued at the camp of the anti-careers. Sulema scrambled out of her sleeping bag, screaming at the top of her lungs with agony. The fire had touched her upper leg. A black circle of clothes had smoldered away, revealing charred black skin underneath. Sulema leapt to her feet just as the sleeping bag burned completely away. She was lucky to have survived. The other two tributes, Bentley and Harpsichord, had various degrees of success in their separate escapes. Harpsichord faced a bit of her setback when her foot got caught on a metal hook near the end of the sleeping bag. When she tried to crawl out, the sleeping bag just crumpled up. It took her a dangerously long amount of time to escape, but she eventually managed to jump to safety with only a few minor burns. Bentley was a different story. By the time he realized what was happening, his lungs were completely full of smoke. He did manage to get out of the sleeping bag unharmed, but the smoke inhalation was what ended up spelling his doom. Bentley spat and vomited, trying desperately to expel the smoke from his body. The others watched helplessly as he suffocated to death before their eyes, the black smoke pouring from his mouth and nose like steam from a kettle.

 _Bentley Ibach, District 6 Male: 10th, Killed by Aria, Day 7_

In due time, the sun rose for the seventh time, and Aria left her hiding place under the kids' play structure. She'd forgotten to take any water from the camp before she abandoned, and she knew it wasn't a good idea to put water anywhere but the very top of her priority list. Besides, she didn't feel safe staying so close to the cornucopia for any longer than she had to. Aria sprinted away from the cornucopia and came to a cluster of trees that were well-hydrated, guiding her in the direction of the broad stream about a quarter mile away, hidden between two large hills.

The next day at the cornucopia, a minor upset occurred in the beloved alliance of Admired and Nouvelle. Their water stores were running dangerously low, so they were both groggy and somewhat more delirious than usual. Nouvelle was practically going crazy from the lack of nutrients and liquids entering her system. They were having a friendly practice duel in the cathedral, and Admired accidentally thrust his sword in one direction with too much force, creating a small cut in Nouvelle's side. Nouvelle immediately tackled Admired, believing that he'd hurt her on purpose. Admired dropped his weapon and eventually worked everything out with her. What was clear to Admired then and clear to Nouvelle when she calmed down was that they needed to find more water, and soon.

Orrin continued going about his business, miraculously avoiding Ezra and Arachne. Once, he heard the allies' footsteps from down the hallway, but he dismissed them as the echoes of his own footsteps and tried not to let them bother him. His luck didn't hold out forever, though. Around noon, Orrin and Arachne spotted each other from either end of a long hallway. Orrin turned around and made a mad dash for the nearest exit. All the while, Arachne was screaming for Ezra to come help her out. A few meters in front of the university's wooden double doors, Orrin turned around to face the allies. Each of them had at least five knives that they'd scavenged from the various classrooms, and they had their vials of poison. However, they were hidden well in their pockets, so Orrin didn't see them. Ezra reminded Arachne about the handy murder weapons in their pockets, and Arachne snatched the vial of thick yellow liquid and held it at arms' length. Orrin suddenly snatched it out of her hands, and without really knowing what he was doing he popped off the cork and threw the liquid in Arachne's face. Arachne screamed at the top of her lungs and stumbled backward into Ezra's arms, gasping and shaking as the highly acidic solution ate away at her face and neck. Ezra thrust her knives into her torso, ending her suffering without hesitation, and she fell to the ground with a loud noise that coincided seamlessly with the chiming of the distant church bell. Orrin fled from the college, weaving up and down hills to place as much distance between himself and the survivor. Ezra didn't bother chasing after him. He just sighed and stepped back into the double doors of the giant cement building.

 _Arachne Bundly, District 10 Female: 9th, Killed by Orrin and Ezra, Day 8_

That left the final eight: Admired Thompson and Nouvelle Harris from District 1, Felix Dawkins from District 5, Sulema Cartley from District 6, Aria Dauphine from District 7, Ezra Ondopetris and Harpsichord Bevel from District 9, and Orrin Rush from District 12.

The next two days were deathless and empty of conflict, and the tributes did little of note as Days 9 and 10 trickled past. Admired and Nouvelle left the cathedral together to search for water, and they were somewhat confused as to why the sponsor gifts had stopped coming given that they were the most popular tributes in these games. Maddox knew they were the strongest tributes left, but he didn't want to make their path through the games any easier because of that, so by limiting their water supply he hoped to test the boundaries of both their alliance and their sanity. After about half a day of searching, they came to one of the few streams that hadn't dried up. They drank so much water so quickly that they had terrible stomach cramps for the rest of the day, but it was worth it to rid themselves of the agony of dehydration.

Felix remained completely still in the mansion house at the north end of the arena. He'd piled enough food and water at the bedside to last him at least a week. Felix's mentor sent him a note suggesting he should get moving soon, but Felix just discarded the note and ate the buttery dinner roll that had come with it. Sulema and Harpsichord didn't take very long to realize that Aria was missing, and it didn't take any longer to deduce that she was responsible for Bentley's fiery end. The anti-careers spent most of their time walking in circles around the cornucopia. They never left the central green, as they thought prey would be unlikely to be hiding in the flat expanse of cement beyond that. They also knew that travelling too far away from the cornucopia would single them out and make them more susceptible to gamemaker threats. The conniving Aria Dauphine sprinted to the outskirts of the central green, where the first playgrounds began. Despite having the courage to break away from her allies and do it successfully, she didn't have the courage to face the careers, even with the axe she'd taken at the bloodbath ten days prior. A quartet of bunny mutts with razor sharp teeth attacked her about halfway through the tenth day. She expertly killed all of them, warranting her a bowl of steaming hot soup from her sponsors. Aria settled in a low-lying valley that night and tried to sleep. After spending one more night in the university, Ezra sprinted out of the front doors and sprinted in the direction of the cornucopia. He knew he'd been staying put for far too long, and now that his alliance with Arachne was over he knew he didn't have the plot armor of the gamemakers any longer. He ended up settling down at the wide stream where Admired and Nouvelle were also sleeping, but there was a heavy fog that day and they were at least a mile away so Ezra never came into contact with the duo from District 1. Orrin continued sprinting aimlessly around the arena. He didn't think much when the cathedral came into sight, but he didn't realize that he was running straight toward the cornucopia for about a quarter of a day. Orrin shifted his path slightly so that he would be running parallel to the wall of the cathedral rather than toward it, and at nightfall he fell down into a small ditch and hoped it would cover him.

Starting on Day 11, the gamemakers changed their game plan. The tributes were so spread out around the arena that it was unlikely for any inter-tribute conflict to occur as often as the Capitol hoped. The gamemakers decided to begin slowly driving the tributes toward the cornucopia, and they would resort to a feast if that was what it took. The notes from Felix's mentor were practically begging for him to get out of the mansion house and run for his life toward the cornucopia, but he didn't listen. He felt safe and secure in the large structure and felt as though he could survive the games just fine by waiting until all the other tributes killed each other off.

Admired and Nouvelle sprinted back to the cathedral as soon as the Linden sibling suggested it. They were in desperate need of a supply restock anyway. When they got back to the cornucopia, they saw that many of its supplies had disappeared, seemingly into thin air. The only logical explanation was the gamemakers were planning a feast, and Admired and Nouvelle vowed to be prepared when the announcement came over the loudspeakers.

Day 11 was not deathless, however. Aria's travels around the central cathedral brought her to the home of her ex-allies Sulema and Harpsichord. Aria was travelling on one of the flatter areas of the green when a downward slope appeared out of nowhere. Aria didn't have time to stop herself, and she was tumbling down the slope like a rolling pin. She bumped straight into a sleeping Harpsichord, and Harpsichord leapt to her feet, screaming with terror at the sight of Aria's axe. Harpsicord sprinted a few meters away, terrified, but Sulema was a different story. That girl, monster, Aria, had killed her district partner, and all she saw was red. Sulema lunged forward, tackling Aria to the ground, and Aria almost dropped her axe. Harpsichord had built up the courage to sprint back to the front lines, and she tugged at the blade of Aria's axe, trying to pull it out of her hands. Aria managed to reach up and punch Sulema in the mouth, and in her moment of hesitation Aria thrust her axe upward. It landed squarely in Harpsichord's chest, breaking several of her ribs immediately. Pink spit was already foaming up in her mouth, and Harpsichord fell limp like a rag doll as Sulema watched with horror and Aria smiled slightly. When the bell rang, Aria sprang upright and ran for her life, a fuming Sulema chasing after her. She was so mad that smoke could well have started pouring out of her ears, but she quickly lost Aria in the land of sudden drops and heights. Sulema stabbed her sword angrily into the earth and then buried her head in her hands.

 _Harpsichord Bevel, District 9 Female: 8th, Killed by Aria, Day 11_

At nine o'clock in the morning on Day 12, Titanius Lafayette's voice spoke into the arena. The tributes knew what this entailed the moment the first syllable was spoken. "A feast is to be held at noon tomorrow at the cornucopia. Attendance is not mandatory, but please think twice about not showing up. Good luck, tributes. May the odds be ever in your favor."

The seven remaining tributes had varying reactions to the news. Six of the seven tributes ended up deciding to attend. Admired and Nouvelle leapt for joy when they heard the news, and they opened the cathedral doors wide, welcoming in any outliers who were to come. They both had elevens, and the highest scores outside of their alliance were the eights of Sulema and Aria. They spent the day practicing with their swords, and at nightfall they sprinted about half a mile away from the cornucopia so that the feast could be prepared. Sulema was all by herself after the death of her ally Harpsichord, and she was dangerously low on supplies. All of the arena's streams dried up over the course of the twelfth day, including those near Sulema, so she decided to head to the feast for a supply restock. Besides, she knew she might get the opportunity to kill her sworn enemy Aria. Aria was worried about the feast, but her logical sense told her that it was absolutely worth it to attend. Whenever there was a feast, the tributes who decided against attending almost always died soon after. Ezra continued his long sprint back to the cornucopia. He couldn't make it all the way back in one day, so he settled down on one of the playgrounds. Unbeknownst to him, it was the playground that the anti-careers had taken over all the way back on Day 1. He slept peacefully in one of the tube-shaped slides, and it kept out the cold night wind well. The swarm of Raven mutts descended on Orrin about halfway through his journey to the cornucopia. He pulled his shirt over his head and scrambled downhill, where he was safe from the swarm of black birds. Doing so required him to take a short detour away from the horn, but as long as he woke up before eight the next morning he would still have more than enough time to reach the horn before the feast.

Felix from 5 was the only tribute who decided against attending. He stayed stubbornly still in the large mansion house, eyes glued to the creepy painting of the old woman and the little girl. Their eyes were sad and filled with a kind of longing, and it terrified Felix out of his mind. The gamemakers didn't want to resort to killing him, but it might have been necessary if he stayed still for a few more days.

Admired and Nouvelle awoke the following morning to see that a large hedge had been placed around the cathedral, far too spiky to climb or pass through. Their camp was at the top of a hill that was the second main vantage point of the arena besides the cornucopia. They sprinted back to the cornucopia and waited eagerly outside of the hedge, prepared to lunge forward and scoop up the new supplies the second the hedge was lowered.

At exactly noon, the hedge slowly lowered into the ground, and the tributes scrambled out of their hiding places. Admired burst through the front doors of the cathedral first. He discarded his old sword and picked up a longer, thinner blade with a razor-sharp edge. The blade was designed to kill via either stabbing or slashing, which theoretically made it two times as dangerous. Admired and Nouvelle stood on either side of the front doors, prepared to tackle the first tribute that ran through. Ezra didn't see them until it was too late, and he sprinted straight through the front doors with his eyes set on the jug of water and sickle sitting on a table mere meters away. Admired and Nouvelle tackled Ezra to the ground. The boy screamed and thrashed his limbs back and forth. He managed to smack Nouvelle in the upper chest, but it wasn't a very hard hit. Escape was hopeless. Ezra was helpless as Admired thrust the bladed edge of his sword into his side and sawed it back and forth, creating a deep gash oddly reminiscent of an axe wound.

 _Ezra Ondopetris, District 9 Male: 7th, Killed by Admired, Day 13_

Orrin from District 12 burst out of his hiding place and made a mad dash for the cathedral doors. While Admired and Nouvelle were occupied killing Ezra, Orrin leapt straight over them. He thundered to the cornucopia and threw a backpack over either shoulder. He quickly realized his mistake; Admired and Nouvelle were blocking the front doors. Orrin's eyes landed on the window that Rose from District 11 had shattered during the bloodbath and ran for his life. Orrin leapt out of the empty frame. Nouvelle chased after him while Admired stayed behind to guard the cathedral, but Nouvelle gave up the chase in moments. Sulema and Aria had still yet to show up to the feast; there were more pressing matters on her mind than pinning down the running miner boy.

There was a reason Sulema and Aria were taking such a long time to reach the feast. Sulema was sprinting quietly over the fuzzy lime-colored grass of the central green when she spotted another tribute about half a mile away. Sulema had no doubt that it was Aria, the girl who had killed her two closest friends. Sulema charged in Aria's direction, seeing nothing but red. Aria gasped as Sulema appeared out of nowhere. She scrambled to grab her hatchet, but it fell straight out of her hands when Sulema jammed the point of her sword into her upper abdomen. Aria fell onto her back, shaking and gasping, the life force being siphoned farther out of her with each drop of blood she lost. Sulema was extremely loyal and very devoted. Nobody killed her friends under her watch.

"Karma really is a bitch, isn't it?" Sulema mused as the distant bell chimed once.

 _Aria Dauphine, District 7 Female: 6th, Killed by Sulema, Day 13_

Sulema quickly ran the rest of the way to the cornucopia, and she managed to escape the feast without being seen and without a single scratch being laid on her body. What none of the other tributes had discovered was that there were several disguised entrances around the perimeter of the cathedral apart from the main double doors. Sulema slipped through the ivy-covered door and silently gathered everything she needed before scampering away.

Day 14 was deathless. Admired and Nouvelle were in high spirits after the feast. With five young men and women still alive and kicking, they only had three more victims to hunt down before the finale, and they didn't want to waste a moment of hunting. They rested overnight and left as soon as the sun rose in the sky on the morning of the fourteenth day. Around noon, a pack of the fluffy white bunny mutts attacked, baring their razor sharp teeth. Nouvelle managed to survive the attack without injury, but Admired had sustained a small wound to his ankle. He was hobbling for the rest of the day but ultimately healed quickly.

Felix stubbornly stayed put the bedroom of the mansion house at the north end of the arena. The begging notes from his mentor suddenly stopped on Day 14. The gamemakers had decided to end any and all connections between him and the Capitol, planning to terminate the inactive boy at noon the following day. Sulema raced about a mile from the cornucopia and rested on the outskirts of the central green. She was too exhausted from the feast and her encounter with Aria to do any hunting, but she quietly promised the gamemakers she'd do something exciting the following day if they let her live. Orrin slept in the bare bed of one of the wider rivers that had once run through the arena. He was shaken and terrified out of his mind from the feast, but the huge risk had been worth it; he now had enough water to last for at least five days and several new, more efficient weapons than the single knife he'd been sponsored all the way back on Day 4.

Felix woke on the morning of Day 15 to a faint rumble. He peered over top of the blanket's white satin hem. The rumble wasn't very loud at all, but it was certainly there, like the echoing hum in the aftermath of an orchestra's final note. Suddenly, the noise rose to an explosion-like medley of popping and banging, and Felix burst out from underneath the covers. Using a series of small explosions, the gamemakers had caused the east wing of the house to collapse to rubble, and the rest of the house was now slowly collapsing. Felix sprinted down the hallway and suddenly felt the ground snapping and bending underfoot. The nearest tribute, Orrin from 12, watched grimly as the house collapsed in on itself. The gamemakers had more than a little bit of trouble trying to retrieve his corpse from the mass of rubble.

 _Felix Dawkins, District 5 Male: 5th, Killed by Collapsing House, Day 15_

True to her promise, Sulema fit in several good hours of hunting on Day 16. The supplies she'd grabbed from the horn included a sickle, which fit snugly into her grip and ultimately suited her supple, lithe form. She already had one kill under her belt, so the audience knew she had at least some skill to her. For this reason, they were excited when Sulema unknowingly turned in Orrin's direction. The two remaining outliers in these games were expected to clash late Day 16 or early Day 17 if they continued moving toward each other at their current paces.

Until then, the cameras mostly focused on Admired and Nouvelle and their hunting journey. They only hunted for about half as long as they had done the day prior; knowing the finale was near, they didn't want to wander too far away from the cornucopia. Their high spirits from just after the feast were beginning to wear off ever-so-slightly, and they were beginning to spiral back down into mild depression and insanity due to lack of water and lack of victims. Admired was the first to suggest they head back to the horn at noon on Day 16, and Admired didn't argue.

The sun had set for the sixteenth time, and Sulema was sprinting quietly over the green. She heard Orrin's soft snores and froze dead in her tracks. It was merely a blip on her radar, and it blended in almost completely with the sounds of the night, but she knew for certain she had heard something. Sulema started around the area for nearly ten minutes before she converged on the sleeping boy. He was curled up somewhat peacefully in a bed of thick grass that towered over his thin form. Sulema bit her lip and pulled her sickle out of her belt, steeling herself for the task ahead. Orrin woke up screaming when Sulema slashed the sickle across his chest. The blade cut a gash about a foot long in its wake. Orrin hissed in pain and grabbed the business end of the sickle in an effort to tug it out of his killer's hand, but she yanked it backward, sending Orrin tumbling to the ground. The friction of his chest against the grass just tore open his cut farther. The writhing boy gradually stilled over the course of about thirty minutes, and then only three tributes were left in the arena.

 _Orrin Rush, District 12 Male: 4th, Killed by Sulema, Day 16_

Sulema watched with squinted eyes and a set jaw as Orrin bled out, and then she raced toward the cornucopia like her life depended on it. The only remaining tributes besides herself were Admired and Nouvelle, and Sulema figured they were both at the cornucopia or very close. Knowing the gamemakers would force her to head to the cathedral if she didn't move there on her own accord, she sprinted for about fifteen minutes until she was within a day's journey of the large stone structure. She wanted to keep running, but she was far too exhausted to travel any farther. Sulema practically collapsed with exhausted and dragged herself into a low-lying, shadowed cluster of trees before passing out.

On the morning of Day 17, a cannon shot rolled over the arena, and it belonged to one of the District 1 tributes. In the cathedral, a dehydration-crazed Nouvelle was resting in the back of the cornucopia, while Admired was farther toward the front, sharpening his sword. This was the straw that broke the camel's back for Nouvelle. She thought that Admired was sharpening his sword with the intent of killing her in her sleep. Nouvelle leapt to her feet and grabbed her own sword, holding it out in front of her like a peacekeeper's gun.

Admired tried to explain himself, but Nouvelle wasn't listening, and she charged. Admired leapt out of the way hoping to disorient her, but Nouvelle stopped herself before she could stumble a single step. The blade that she thought had been meant to kill her was now out to take her life for real. The first injury was dealt roughly two minutes later, with Nouvelle thrusting the point of her sword into Admired's abdomen. The wound was roughly half an inch deep, and blood oozed out of it in one solid river that dripped down between his legs.

Admired raced toward the exit of the cathedral. He didn't like having such a heated duel in such close quarters, as he preferred the openness of the outdoors. He was only about halfway there when the entrance was blocked by a charging, fuming, cackling Nouvelle. Admired abandoned all forms of caution and tackled his district partner, expertly twisting her sword out of her hand. Nouvelle's head banged against the door frame in her descent. Nouvelle rubbed her head and tried to blink back the spots in her vision. Admired cut open her torso with two heavy chops, and then carried her outside for the hovercraft to collect as the single note of the church bell echoed around the cathedral like thunder.

 _Nouvelle Harris, District 1 Female: 3rd, Killed by Admired, Day 17_

On Day 18, Maddox herded Sulema farther toward the cornucopia using fireballs. A fireball struck down one one of the colleges at the north end of the arena, and in moments the building was a column of smoke and flame. Despite how lush and well-hydrated the arena grass was, the fire spread quickly, and Sulema woke to the smell of smoke when the fire was about three quarters of a mile away from her.

Sulema charged in the direction of the cathedral with the fire close behind her. She had a significant head start, but the flames were tearing over the ground significantly faster than she was running; if she stopped for a rest, it was only a matter of time before she was helplessly overtaken. She prayed that the gamemakers wouldn't unleash the swarm of carnivorous raven mutts, and they did not; they wanted to give Sulema a fighting chance of reaching the cornucopia, and that would be substantially more difficult with two natural threats to evade rather than one.

Sulema staggered into the cathedral roughly fifteen minutes later. Admired was sitting in front of the cornucopia on a fold-up chair, cross legged, bouncing his sword over the stone ground to keep himself occupied. Sulema froze in fear when Admired stood up and walked toward her at a leisurely stroll. She peered over her shoulder and considered making a run for it, but she could already feel the scorching heat of the fire on the back of her neck. Both of the tributes were effectively trapped.

Despite their size differences, the finalists' scores were relatively close: Admired had a cool eleven, but Sulema still had an impressive eight. The most serious injury dealt in the first minute was sustained by Sulema, who stumbled into the stone wall of the cathedral after Admired yanked the blade of his sword out of her thigh. It took every ounce of Sulema's self-control to keep from falling to her knees.

Her fatal mistake was thinking she could fight off Admired from that one spot without moving. She thought the point she'd chosen was advantageous because he could only approach her from three directions rather than four. In reality, when Admired decided to charge, she had nowhere to run. She tried to escape to the left, but she was helpless as the career boy sawed the blade of his sword back and forth over her chest before spearing it through in one deft thrusting motion.

 _Sulema Cartley, District 6 Female: 2nd, Killed by Admired, Day 18_

"Admired Thompson of District 1, you are the victor of the eighty-ninth annual Hunger Games!" Titanius cheered.

Admired put on a striking grin and held his sword into the air for all to see.

 _Admired Thompson, District 1 Male: Victor of the Eighty-Ninth Hunger Games, Day 18_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 1 welcomed Admired as their fifteenth victor. They were now halfway to their second multiple of ten, and only five victors behind District 2. They were also a solid two victors ahead of District 4, which meant they had outdone them for the time being even if District 2 had outdone them both. Admired was glad for all of the honor and attention he received in the immediate aftermath of his victory, and he was one of the true patriot victors that Capitol loved, very much similar to Gold Carson and Brutus Cordley before him. President Stinn Hawke would use him in ways he had used similarly attractive victors like Tarquinius and Organdy, but he didn't care; Admired had accomplished his life's goal, and nothing could diminish the sense of pride and accomplishment that was to ripple through the remaining years of his life.

His victory tour wasn't the best, particularly in District 6, where he received ugly stares and gestures for the entirety of his stay.

The payouts on his victory were pretty much nonexistent, as 20% bet on him.

Admired would live to age one-hundred four, living a long and healthy life before his death the month before the seventh Quarter Quell. He would marry and have three children.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Admired moves into the Victor's Village of District 1, the fifteenth to do so.

Kasey Slosser gives birth to her first and only child, a girl named Elizabeth after her ally during the games.

Sycamora Bromley marries her boyfriend Oakley Lane.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)  
89HG: Admired Thompson (#15, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: I hope you enjoyed this one! I know I say this a lot, but this year was honestly one of my favorites. I just buried myself in the arena and the tributes and I couldn't stop writing! Next chapter we're wrapping up decade number 9 and then we're on the turf of the fourth Quarter Quell. I've got a lot of ideas for the coming decade, and I hope you all decide to stick around :D**

 **P.S. This is one of the longest chapters yet. Over 11,000 words!**

 **Please consider reviewing on your way out :D**


	91. The 90th Hunger Games

**The 90th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The nation of Panem was in turmoil as the ninth Hunger Games decade came to a conclusion. An estimated tenth of Panem's population was infected by the rampant epidemic that had begun in District 3 two years prior, and the first death counts were beginning to be raked in as the virus took root in the bodies of its victims and slowly, painfully shut down their bodies. Investments in cure research were through the roof as the brainiest researchers from the Capitol struggled to rush a cure into action. Finally, on 25 February, President Stinn Hawke signed a law into place authorizing various quarantine zones to be built around Panem—places were the hopeless infected were sent to live out their last few months. These quarantine zones were jokingly called "palaces" by the infected. Conditions were terrible; the stench of rotting bodies was perpetually present, stores of food and water were dangerously low, and air conditioning was non-existent. Crime also bloomed in the palaces, as the infected figured there was no punishment worse than what they already condemned to. Theft, murder, and rape were of particular prevalence. On the flip side of the coin, safe houses were established with the healthy, only those who had been tried and tested multiple times and confirmed to be clear of the virus. Some of these safe houses were as small as a few hidden cabins and some were as large as cities. Corruption and crime were similarly prevalent in these areas. Peacekeepers could shoot and kill literally anybody with the excuse that they were acting like an infected and tried to run. Floggings and executions were once again being carried out at high rates as Stinn's labor quotas were not being met. Unless a cure could be found soon, loss of life would be immeasurable and potentially irrecoverable. Time would tell if the funds for medical research would pay off in the long run. The Hunger Games team remained the same this year, with one new addition. Maddox Courval returned for another year as head gamemaker, ready to pull the attention of the Capitol away from the pathogen killing most of the nation and toward the kills and thrills that would certainly transpire this year. The host, Titanius Lafayette, was joined by a close friend this year. Dexter Malcolms was a short, younger man with curly brown hair and thick-rimmed steel glasses. He owned his own line of fashion wigs and aromatherapy and he was very well-known in the Capitol. He was lively and idealistic and was sure to add a little spice to this year's games.

The careers were a good bunch this year. They weren't nearly as stellar as the legendary pack from the eighty-sixth games, but they were certainly better than the bland group of the year prior. District 1's tributes were the most interesting, even if they had the lowest scores. The boy was extremely intelligent, creative, and passionate, and there was more sheer soul to him than anything else. The girl similarly defied all of 1's stereotypes. She was a shorter girl with thick-rimmed steel glasses and curly black hair, and her parents owned their own perfume company. She wore so much perfume to the interviews that her Fragrance only began to fade around the time the District 4 Male was being interviewed. 2 put on the strongest showing, and they were both sure to go far. The boy was a likeable, charming seventeen-year-old with a cool kind of wit. The girl was the second of the eight Talbot siblings, and she was muscular and brown-haired much like the rest of her family. 4 put on a varied showing. The boy was the second strongest tribute this year behind the boy from 2, and he was distantly related to Victor Annie Cresta, while the girl scored only a nine but had stellar defensive skills and looks to match. The scores of the pack were two elevens, a ten, two nines, and an eight.

The anti-career pack consisted of Chipson from 3, Lylith from 7, and Tarrian from 9. They offered acceptance to two other strong tributes, but they both declined, preferring to go into the games on their own. Chipson was a black-haired sixteen-year-old with a playful smile, and he was one of the few District 3 tributes to earn his high score via physical prowess rather than sheer brains. Lylith was shorter and more reserved and preferred axes, but the sense of mystery around her kept her from fading into the background. Finally, Tarrian was a dark-skinned field hand boy who could fight with sickles and swords well. The strongest outlier this year was Ishania from 6, who earned an impressive eight via her smarts, dagger skills, and medical kills. Surprisingly, a tiny twelve-year-old from District 11, Hydrangea, managed to match her score with an eight of her own. It was later revealed that Hydrangea had stellar trap-building, fire-starting, and water purification skills. The girl from 5, Candela, managed a seven, and the rest of the tributes scored between six and two in their private sessions. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. The last standout was the female from District 3, Harriet. She was openly gender fluid and bisexual, and she spent her interview delivering a heartfelt speech about LGBT rights in the districts. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Fifer Golden, 17, (9) 7-1 and Fragrance Mullins, 16, (8) 9-1

District 2: Kenton Haullis, 17, (11) 3-1 and Venus Talbot, 18, (10) 5-1

District 3: Chipson Harris, 16, (7) 14-1 and Harriet Duke, 18, (5) 23-1

District 4: Zoryn Tempest, 16, (11) 3-1 and Sirena Conrad, 18, (9) 6-1

District 5: Orbit Mendoza, 13, (4) 35-1 and Candela Welder, 17, (7) 15-1

District 6: Vector Slocum, 15, (4) 32-1 and Ishania Pendergrass, 18, (8) 12-1

District 7: Chopper Turnbull, 16, (6) 20-1 and Lylith Blanchard, 16, (7) 16-1

District 8: Russet Sanchez, 12, (3) 44-1 and Voile Brownlee, 14, (4) 33-1

District 9: Tarrian Browder, 18, (7) 15-1 and Ava Claimer, 12, (2) 53-1

District 10: Rancher Driscoll, 16, (5) 24-1 and Hester Goldstein, 15, (3) 37-1

District 11: Mik Susurrus, 12, (2) 55-1 and Hydrangea Tinsel, 12, (8) 13-1

District 12: Crosby Puckett, 18, (4) 30-1 and Twyla McPhail, 14, (3) 38-1

HGBO Bets: 24% on Kenton, 20% on Zoryn, 9% on Venus, 6% on Fifer and Sirena, 5% on Fragrance, 4% on Ishania and Hydrangea, 3% on Chipson, Lylith, and Tarrian, 2% on Candela, 1% or less on Harriet, Orbit, Vector, Chopper, Russet, Voile, Ava, Rancher, Hester, Mik, Crosby, and Twyla.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The tributes rose up into a world of flashing lights, rippling sheets of cloth, and sudden jets of fire. They were standing in the center ring of a big top circus tent, and their reactions were priceless. Each tribute's pedestal was mounted onto a tall wooden post. The pedestals formed a tight circle around the cornucopia, so close together that the tributes could have held hands in a semicircle around the horn if they had outstretched their arms. A solid wall of nets, trapezes, and handlebars led to the cornucopia. Far below them was a field of sand that turned and bubbled, sucking down and crushing anything that landed in it. The cornucopia itself was mounted on a hanging platform, meaning that the cornucopia itself would be shaking and rocking under the weight of so many heavy, panicked footsteps. In order to escape, the tributes would have to reach the cornucopia and grab onto a series of spinning ropes that would carry them away like conveyer belts; the tributes really had no choice but to head into the bloodbath this year. Hidden speakers played the extremely iconic "Entry of the Gladiators" tune. Surrounding the central sand pit was row after row of props, magic tricks, and daunting obstacle courses. Even farther beyond, a number of tiered rows of seats rose up to the edges of the circus tent. The seats were covered with various supplies from weapons to medicine to food and water. The only other obvious shelter was the prop rooms, the makeup rooms, and the changing rooms, which were located at the back of the brightly-colored tent. Every now and again, the flashing, turning lights would illuminate the two iron grates built into a solid wall where the first row of seats began. A deadly lion mutt was housed inside each cage, and they would be released throughout the games as Maddox saw fit. The arena had no shortage of traps, of course. Everything from sudden jets of flame to barrages of knives to shards of glass were rigged and set nearly everywhere in the large cloth tent, all of which were more than ready to do their killing duty at a moment's notice. This was by far the smallest arena in Hunger Games history, which would almost certainly make for a thrilling, fast-paced games. Surprisingly, the bloodbath this year would claim only seven lives. The arena around them was so jam-packed with color and supplies that most of them were merely focused on escaping with their lives rather than gathering supplies. Also, many of them foresaw a short games with such a small arena, so they didn't think it was very important to stock up on resources in the initial bloodbath.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Kenton led the onrush, powering ahead of the others due to his speed. Only Zoryn could run as fast as him, and he had fallen to the ground, struggling to keep his balance on the rocking, shaking platform that held the cornucopia. Kenton swept up a sword and thrust it through the abdomen of the nearest boy. Blood spewing from his torso, he stumbled backward and landed inside of the horn, where he was tossed around like a bead in a maraca until his death.

 _Orbit Mendoza, District 5 Male: 24th, Killed by Kenton, Bloodbath_

Fragrance, another fast runner, grabbed a knife in each hand and tackled the slim boy from 6. The force of their colliding bodies sent them rolling toward the edge of the cornucopia platform. They probably would have fallen off, but a number of tributes ran over to the other end of the platform, pulling it back to a more-or-less flat level. Fragrance dug her knives into the boy's chest, sawing open his flesh and eventually his lungs just as the first outliers were escaping the bloodbath.

 _Vector Slocum, District 6 Male: 23rd, Killed by Fragrance, Bloodbath_

By this point, at least six of the tributes had figured out that they could escape by grabbing the conveyer belt-like ropes mounted to the roof of the tent. Zoryn got to his feet and staggered the rest of the distance to the cornucopia, and he clipped a belt of throwing knives around his waist. It took several attempts given the uneven ground, but Zoryn eventually managed to land one of his blades in the back of a panicked girl who was riding one of the conveyer belts away from the horn. She dropped down instantly, and she landed in the churning vortex of sand far below. She was torn to bits in moments.

 _Voile Brownlee, District 8 Female: 22nd, Killed by Zoryn, Bloodbath_

The idealistic Fifer Golden from District 1 landed his first kill with style. He held a spear in each hand, and he cornered a screaming girl against the cornucopia with no problem at all. Then, Fifer grabbed onto a rope that was dangling from the ceiling and shinnied up it like a squirrel. The girl was paralyzed with both confusion and terror, and she didn't realize that Fifer was falling right on top of her until it was too late. Both of his spears landed in her upper abdomen with all the momentum of the fall, killing her instantly.

 _Candela Welder, District 5 Female: 21st, Killed by Fifer, Bloodbath_

The three anti-careers congregated beside the left wall of the cornucopia. There, there were lots of ropes and bars hanging from the ceiling, which meant there was a lot to grab onto whenever they started sliding. They weren't alone, however; the three anti-careers were fighting for their lives against Zoryn from 4, who was swinging his new sword back and forth with a crazy grin on his face. Lylith sustained a more-than-mild injury when the point of Zoryn's sword connected with her left wrist. Almost half of the hand was now hanging off as though by a hinge. Chipson and Tarrian, seeing the damage Zoryn had done to their friend, tackled him, and even with his superior skills he was outnumbered two to one. Chipson had a dagger in each hand, and Tarrian had a spear. Tarrian kept Zoryn occupied by repeatedly smacking him in the head as Chipson hacked away at his neck and upper chest with his twin daggers.

 _Zoryn Tempest, District 4 Male: 20th, Killed by Chipson, Bloodbath_

Venus ran back and forth across the cornucopia platform like a pinball in a pinball machine being piloted by a maniac. She tackled the miner boy who still stank like coal despite the week he'd spent in the Capitol. He screamed and tried to run, but Venus was quick to skewer her sword through his neck. His shrieks were soon choked by the sound of blood, and he died swiftly.

 _Crosby Puckett, District 12 Male: 19th, Killed by Venus, Bloodbath_

Ishania from 6 made the final kill. She'd been running in circles around the cornucopia for several dozen seconds, anxiously turning the leather strap of her whip back and forth in her hand. She wasn't entirely on board with the sheer malicious power it would take to kill someone with the spiked weapon, but she knew the only way to garner sponsors was to draw blood and murder tributes. Ishania was prepared to do so. Besides the five careers, only two tributes were left in the immediate vicinity of the cornucopia: Ishania and the rancher girl from District 10. Ishania lashed out with her whip, and the leather strap wrapped around the girl's arm with a lethal firm grip. With a heavy yank, half of the limb was torn off. The girl fell to the ground, writhing, as Ishinia grabbed onto the nearest rope and left the cornucopia behind.

 _Hester Goldstein, District 10 Female: 18th, Killed by Ishania, Bloodbath_

A total of twenty-eight seconds after it had all begun, the bloodbath had reached its conclusion. The five remaining careers (Fifer, Fragrance, Kenton, Venus, and Sirena) hastily geared up and headed on the prowl. In this tiny arena, finding victims would be easier than ever before, and they didn't want to waste a single second of precious hunting time. They correctly guessed that Maddox wanted these games to be the shortest ever; he was planning to end them before the end of the second day, and maybe even the first day if he was feeling ambitious. Chipson, Lylith, and Tarrian sprinted through the thick of props, dodging traps and the several sudden pitfalls scattered around the place. The trio hunkered down in one of the prop rooms at the north end of the circus tent. Lylith was bleeding heavily from her left wrist, and Chipson and Tarrian helped her fashion a thick bandage out of cloth and a bit of spare adhesive they found in one of the drawers. The pain was still unbearable, but it did at least something to staunch Lylith's bleeding. Harriet dashed through the rows of seats, scooping up the various supplies that were hidden among them. She found that some areas of seating held more supplies than the actual cornucopia, and before long she'd filled an entire backpack with weapons, medical supplies, and packages of food. Ishania was a gymnast back home in District 6, so she knew a thing or two about defying gravity. She climbed up one of the trapezes and secured herself up there so that she was hanging by her middle. The stellar height would have been terrifying for most, but Ishania felt safe and secure high above the rest of the tributes. Chopper locked himself in one of the dressing rooms and turned the light off, plunging himself into pitch darkness. He'd come dangerously close to death at two different points during the bloodbath, and he was terrified out of his mind. He crawled into a closet and closed his eyes, lightly rocking back and forth and whimpering softly. Russet thought that the iron grates mounted into the ground near the sandpit led somewhere, like rooms that held useful supplies or maybe whole other sections of the arena. In reality, vicious lion mutts were being held behind them. Russet tried to pick one of the locks, hoping to reach whatever imaginary treasure was on the other side. Ava sprinted to the top row of seats, crying. Her forehead was drenched with sweat, both from exhaustion and terror. Her small size allowed her to crawl comfortable under the seats, with a bit of room to breathe as well. She grabbed a bucket of popcorn that sat nearby and munched nervously on the buttery snack. Mik discovered one of the few doors that led underneath the tiered seats. Underneath, he was completely hidden from sight, and it was pleasantly cool. He bunched himself up into a dark corner and tried to rest. He was almost exactly below the spot where Ava was hiding. Hydrangea was about thirty feet from the cornucopia when a sudden jet of fire blasted into the side of her torso, scorching her instantly. For several seconds, she felt nothing at all, and then an explosive kind of agony exploded through her. She fell to her knees, screaming at the top of her lungs, and the charred black skin on her side crumbled away like burnt paper. She dragged herself the remaining few feet to a make-up room, where she nervously brushed herself to keep calm. Twyla settled down on the edge of the sand pit, in a slightly lowered crevice just in front of the first row of seats. She tore down the thick red banner that hung there and wrapped it around herself. She hoped it would work like armor and do at least something to protect her from the more bloodthirsty tributes, but she ended up removing it after a few minutes because she was getting so sweaty. Rancher sprinted through the rows of seats scooping up supplies to his heart's content. Unbeknownst to him, he was drawing nearer and nearer to one of the arena's most dangerous traps, a mechanism that would fling a torrent of knives down onto whoever broke the tripwire. He was running too fast to pay any attention to what was sitting on the ground, and the wire blended in almost seamlessly with the bleacher-like seats. Rancher felt a faint tickle on his lower leg when he broke the wire, and the next instant at least two dozen knives had appeared out of nowhere, flying in his direction. Seven of them landed in his body. He instinctively yanked them all out, which only made him bleed out faster. His sponsors hastily sent him a roll of gauze and some adhesive, but this only drew out his suffering. He was dead in minutes, but his body was so shattered that he was better off anyway.

 _Rancher Driscoll, District 10 Male: 17th, Killed by Knife Trap, Day 1_

The careers were hunting wildly still, and with the first post-bloodbath cannon shot firing less than two minutes afterward their suspicions were confirmed that these games were meant to be extremely short. The arena was so small that there was no point splitting up, however unproductive it seemed at first to hunt in one large pack of five. Kenton was the glue that held the group together, shouting little motivational spiels to the others to keep them up and running. He'd removed the red nose the gamemakers had given him as his uniform, but he still had a ridiculous amount of make-up and a silly clown suit that he didn't have time to properly remove. His district partner Venus was close at hand, and Fifer, Fragrance, and Sirena were a few meters farther back. Sirena was somewhat awkward and just a tad bit too childish, and she kept bursting out into laughing fits at the sights of the others' ridiculous costumes. When Fragrance almost tripped over her own clown shoes and Sirena burst out laughing, Fifer reminded her that her own clothes weren't too flattering either. That shut her up for the next few moments.

The careers had been hunting for about five minutes when Fifer stopped dead in his tracks, having spotted Harriet moving quietly through the top row of seats. Her body was only a dark, faint silhouette against the wall of the tent, but there was no mistaking her. The careers charged, Kenton and Venus leading the onrush. Harriet had just stumbled upon a box of popcorn and a two-liter bottle of soda pop, and she was marveling at her find when she heard the battle cries of the nearing pack. She hurled the bucket of popcorn in Venus' face, and she momentarily faltered long enough for Sirena to knock into her. The girls collapsed in a heap, nearly toppling Fifer in their descent. Kenton and Fragrance kept up the chase, but it was difficult to keep up with a now-bolting Harriet in the dark seating area. In moments, she'd escaped, and Kenton just sighed hollowly as he and Fragrance turned around to rejoin their jumbled allies.

The diminutive girl from 9, Ava, had been watching the chase play out from underneath one of the nearby seats. At one point, Sirena came within five feet of her, and it took every ounce of Ava's self-control to keep from screaming and bolting with terror. With both Harriet and the careers off of her chest, Ava lightly slithered out from underneath the seat. Crouched down so that the seats towered over the top of her head, she lightly moved toward safety.

Hydrangea was still in the make-up room. By this point, at least ten minutes had passed since the fire trap had scorched her side, and Hydrangea was seriously considering suicide to put herself out of her misery. With a faint beeping sound, a silver parachute twinkled through a fake part of the ceiling and landed in her lap. Medicine sent by her wealthy sponsors. Hydrangea sighed with relief as she slathered the pink goop onto her wounds. Hoping to track down at least one victim to thank her wealthy savior, Hydrangea left the make-up room. What she didn't know was that Russet was just outside the door, hiding from the nearby anti-career trio in the dark hallway. When Hydrangea opened the door, Russet was almost knocked to the ground. He hastily grabbed the nearest weapon, a spare plank of wood, and thrust it in Hydrangea's direction. His blood turned to ice when he realized Hydrangea had a spear and outgunned him by a significant amount. Russet made a run for it. Hydrangea tried to chase after him, but she had much shorter legs. Fortunately, the nearby anti-career trio had been thrown off of Russet's trail by the faint footsteps of another tribute. Russet had no further difficulties in ducking down behind a nearby popcorn machine and staring silently at his feet. He hadn't abandoned his attempts to break through the iron grates just off of the central sand pit, though. He swore he'd break through and see what was on the other side if it was the last thing he did.

Even the careers, these games' keenest tributes, had difficulty making out the faint tripwire that was around twenty meters ahead of the place they chose to stop for a quick rest. Venus handed out the food rations to the others and they practically inhaled their helpings. The others stayed relatively still while they ate, but Venus walked back and forth anxiously. She was nervous, excited, and intimidated, and this whirlwind of emotions occupied her whole psyche and distracted her from the obvious tripwire in front of her. Her waist hit the tripwire and broke it, and Venus stumbled backward, terrified at what she'd triggered as a shattering sound filled the air. The other careers froze, several of them mid-bite, as a torrent of glass shards appeared seemingly out of thin air. Some were as small as grains of sand and the largest were as wide as sheets of paper. At least a hundred of them impaled her flesh, and Venus curled up on the ground, shaking and screaming at the prickling agony of impalement. Her district partner Kenton ran to her side and tried hastily to save her, but her cannon shot fired when he'd hardly pulled two dozen shards out of her skin.

 _Venus Talbot, District 2 Female: 16th, Killed by Glass Trap, Day 1_

It was now seven o'clock in the morning, exactly one hour after the gong. Down in the central sandpit, Russet worked feverishly to pick the lock on the iron grate that led away into darkness. He knew there was a sizable chance he didn't want to meet what was on the other side, but the not knowing was too much to bear. Russet's uncle was a locksmith, so he did know a thing or two about how to pick them effectively. His downfall was that he brushing the teeth of the lock from front to back rather than back to front; in this way, his progress was instantly erased whenever he removed his device (an unfolded paper clip he'd found in a trash can a few meters away).

As Russet worked hard to open up the gate, the cameras caught up on the anti-career pack and their whereabouts. Lylith had healed significantly in the hour since the bloodbath, but she still seemed on her way to death from blood loss if she didn't get serious medical help sooner than later. The trio had been sprinting around the circus tent for about ten minutes straight when they all agreed they needed to sleep. The ducked down behind a concession stand and munched on chips and popcorn. Chipson peeled back Lylith's bandages to check up on her injury, and he was instantly struck with the resounding realization that she was beyond saving. The look in his eyes said it all, and Tarrian nodded gravely while Lylith herself just kept eating her potato chips, sour cream flavor, her favorite.

Finally, around his hundredth attempt, Russet managed to fully unlock the iron grate. The lock let out a satisfying click and then then the gate slowly began lifting itself into the stone wall above. Russet slowly treaded inside, and his screams signaled his fatal mistake. His cannon shot fired, and the bloodthirsty mutt walked slowly out of its dark prison, stretching its limbs as though it hadn't walked in years. Its claws and maw were both splattered with human blood. The lion mutt thundered off to search for more victims, and the cameras zoomed in to show Russet's torn, unrecognizable body shredded to bits and scattered around the dark stone chamber.

 _Russet Sanchez, District 8 Male: 15th, Killed by Lion Muttation, Day 1_

Tarrian woke up screaming to the sensation of the lion mutt's scorching hot slobber on his foreleg. For the past twenty minutes or so, he and the other anti-careers had been sleeping soundly behind a concession stand with a red and white parasol umbrella overtop. Chipson and Lylith leapt to their feet and staggered backward, dumbfounded with terror as the lion mutt raked its claws across his leg. Tarrian fell to his knees, gasping and shaking; blood was already pouring in torrents from his gash-like wounds. With Tarrian on the ground screaming his head off and Lylith standing with her mouth wide open, her club-like bandaged fist hanging limp at her side, it was Chipson's job alone to drive the lion mutt away from himself and his friends. He quickly snatched a soda off of the concessions stand and held it at arm's length like a club. He ended up throwing it into the lion's mouth, and the mutt instinctively chomped down. The plastic bottle exploded instantly, and the lion mutt roared, the strange new flavor shocking it to the core. A terrified Tarrian quickly got to his feet and helped out Chipson with the job. They sent it reeling with a mixture of sodas, chips, and other snacks.

They quickly realized that Lylith was nowhere to be found; she was running for her life through the front row of seats, crying softly to herself and yelping with terror at the slightest sound. She felt bad about abandoning her allies to fend for themselves against the deadly lion, but with one hand severed and leaking blood she knew it would have been suicide to stick around. Lylith eventually sprinted into a women's restroom, and she locked herself into one of the stalls and hoped it would protect her from the oncoming threats she knew she would not be able to fend off.

The four-strong career pack was dangerously near the ferocious feline. They heard its roars quickly enough to move to safety. A panicked Sirena began sprinting down the nearest aisle, but Fifer grabbed onto her and pulled her back. Mutts were usually designed with poor eyesight, and Fifer knew that if the pack was still and silent enough they just might be able to go unnoticed. He was right, in a way. Kenton quickly caught on and instructed the others to follow suit as he crouched down and then crawled like a crab into the nearest row of seats, which more or less hid him from sight.

Despite their smart attempt to go unnoticed, the lion mutt inevitably caught onto their scent sooner than later. Four tasty humans, however sneaky, couldn't stay off of its radar for very long. The careers scattered like bowling pins when the lion mutt pounced into their midst. Sirena stayed close to Kenton, hoping that the strongest tribute in these games could protect her if the lion chose her as its next victim. The 1s ran in opposite directions. In a way, the pack encircled the mutt. Fifer just grinned when it turned toward him, and the audience knew he had something up his sleeve. Just as the lion came near enough to ram into him, he grabbed hold of its mane and pulled himself onto its back. It tried to buck him off, but Fifer's grip on its mane was strong. The others fell back into the shadows and watched with fascination as Fifer buried the first of his twin spears into its neck. He was preparing to use the other when his grip loosened enough for the lion to buck him off. Fifer crumpled down into the nearest seat, gasping with pain. The profusely bleeding lion mutt sprinted back to its home. Fragrance helped to cover up Fifer's wounds. The charismatic boy was up and running in no time, and the pack continued their hunt after a short rest thereafter.

Mik remained still as a stone in the dark, empty space underneath the tiered rows of seating. Suddenly, he heard a deafening boom, and he jumped to his feet. Breathing heavily, he whipped out his flashlight and swept it back and forth. There was nothing to be seen that was out of the ordinary. The boom came again, and he realized that it was coming from above. In fact, the careers' tussle with the bloodthirsty lion mutt was taking place directly above him. Mik knew he was probably safe down in his hiding place, but he did want to place a little more distance between himself and the epicenter of the deafening rumbles. He soon realized that he was not alone in the long, hidden space. Harriet laid low and crawled into a poorly-lit corner when she saw Mik coming. When he was close enough, Harriet jumped out of her hiding place. Mik screamed and stumbled backward, and he collided with one of the metal posts that held up the tiers of seating. His skull hit the post and made a sound like a bell. He rubbed his eyes and blinked back the spots in his vision and saw Harriet towering over him. She punched Mik in the torso with all the strength she could muster, and now he was far too weak to fight back. Harriet knocked him unconscious with a few heavy tosses of her fists, and then she wrapped her arm around his neck. Harriet's face crinkled up as she let go of her victim about a minute later, and Mik flopped to the ground like a rag doll.

 _Mik Susurrus, District 11 Male: 14th, Killed by Harriet, Day 1_

After that, roughly an hour passed without incident. The four remaining careers, Fifer, Fragrance, Kenton, and Sirena, were all exhausted after their fight against the escaped lion mutt. Fifer was in the most desperate need of rest. The pack sat down at a snack bar near the entrance of the circus tent and munched on bananas, apples, popcorn, and orange rice to get their energy back. Kenton pulled open the entrance and tossed a popcorn kernel out of it; a fraction of a second later, it bounced back and hit his forehead. They had been resting for about ten minutes when Twyla appeared out of nowhere, bolting at top speed after a near-death experience with a fire trap about thirty feet back. Kenton and Sirena jumped up and chased after her, while Fifer and Fragrance stayed behind. Kenton and Sirena tried their best to corner her, but Kenton set off a glass trap, causing dozens of little glass shards to bury themselves into himself and Sirena. By the time they got their bearings, Twyla was nowhere to be found, having ducked through a hidden trapdoor that led to a passageway to the central sand pit.

The outliers weren't doing much. The gamemakers had unleashed the second lion mutt, and it almost caught Chipson and Tarrian off of their guard. The boys were resting in the dark seating area when the lion mutt pounced out of nowhere. Tarrian's body seized up with terror and shock, and a more grounded Chipson had to tug him along for the first few seconds before he realized he could use his own legs again. The boys hid in the first closed room they saw, the dressing room, and locked themselves inside. They hastily searched for a back exit they could escape through. There wasn't one. Chipson and Tarrian seemed as good as dead, but that didn't stop them from brainstorming different ways to escape before the mutt busted down the door and ate them both. Harriet lied down for a rest, and she deserved it; she was now the only tribute to have made a kill since the bloodbath, and the audience showered her with various sponsor gifts, a belt of throwing knives being the most valuable. Ishania remained calm and level-headed, swinging slightly back and forth with a great view of the entire circus tent. Her whip was clenched tightly in hand. The audience continued to be impressed by her fearlessness. Once, the rope that held her began to slip, and Ishania reinforced it without breaking a sweat. There was something intriguing and easy-going about her that the audience loved. Chopper was terrified. He sprinted aimlessly around the circus tent, and the awful thing was that he could hear the screams and shouts of the others without actually being able to see them. In the closed space, every slight noise echoed like thunder. Chopper was just about to sit down cross-legged for a break when he made out the dark silhouette of a small girl scampering nearby, as light and small as a mouse. Ava had no idea that Chopper had seen her. Chopper lightly chased after her. Once, Ava thought she heard something and peered over her shoulder, but Chopper stayed still enough to blend into the dark background and remain unseen. Lylith and Hydrangea ganged up after the former stumbled into the latter's shadowy hiding place in the spot where two rows of the bleacher-like seats intersected. Hydrangea had already made one kill, and she wasn't above making another one, but she had taken a liking to Lylith during training and didn't see the harm to taking her as an ally. For about forty-five minutes, the girls showed each other how to use their weapons. Lylith's bandaged wound where her left hand had been nearly severed during the bloodbath had finally stopped bleeding, but the true agony was now beginning to set in, like the most pure hellish fire Lylith had ever felt. Hydrangea didn't have any medical supplies on her, and it was all she could do to console her new ally as she rolled back and forth, gasping and begging for the pain to leave her.

Moments after nine in the morning, three cannon shots fired, ending the long period of tranquility in the arena. Chopper had been stalking Ava around the circus tent for roughly fifteen minutes when the little girl sat down in one of the seats for a short nap; her feet barely touched the floor. Chopper waited until she fell asleep. Her soft snores were his signal to go in for the kill. Chopper pounced out of the shadows and produced the single knife he'd grabbed from the bloodbath, a dagger with an oddly sparkly blade. Ava woke up screaming at the top of her lungs, and she looked down and saw Chopper's dagger lodged awkwardly into her abdomen. The nearby career team heard Ava's screams and ran in their direction; Chopper had opened up a whole can of worms for himself that would be interesting for the cameras, at the very least.

 _Ava Claimer, District 9 Female: 13th, Killed by Chopper, Day 1_

Breathing heavily from both guilt and tiredness, Chopper walked slowly forward and searched Ava to see if she'd been carrying anything valuable at the time of her death. All she had on her was a half-empty bucket of popcorn and a completely empty bottle of flavored soda. Chopper gobbled down the remainder of the popcorn and turned around. He was instantly met with the bite of Sirena's knife in his gut. Chopper's eyes dropped, and he realized that his worst fears had become reality as the four trained tributes surrounded him on all sides. The knife in his gut was seemingly sapping away at his strength, and with the last ounce of his willpower he grabbed Sirena by the shoulders and shoved her backward. She tripped over one of the seats and went crashing to the ground. The others rushed in to stop him, but it was too late. Chopper had already lodged his shiny knife into her chest. Sirena's lungs had flooded with blood in moments, and she drowned quickly. Chopper collapsed at her side soon after, bleeding out from the severe injury he'd sustained. Two cannon shots fired in rapid succession.

 _Sirena Conrad, District 4 Female: 12th, Killed by Chopper, Day 1_

 _Chopper Turnbull, District 7 Male: 11th, Killed by Sirena, Day 1_

Fifer, Fragrance, and Kenton looked up from the dead bodies of the two tributes and stared at each other for several seconds before their departure. A few minutes later, Fifer perked up. He heard Lylith's faint moans of pain, and Kenton and Fragrance could hear them too once Fifer got them to quiet down. The careers sprinted toward the dying Lylith and her ally Hydreangea. They took a number of wrong turns along the way, but they were headed generally in the right direction. They were expected to reach the girls' camp within ten minutes at the most.

Hydrangea had done all she could to ease the pain of her ally, but she finally accepted that there was no saving her. Hydrangea didn't like being around her given how much noise she was making; if another tribute caught onto Lylith's soft moans, Hydrangea would probably be killed also. Lylith eventually fell into an uneasy sleep. Hydrangea hesitated for a moment, then grabbed her spear and made a mad dash for the exit. When she left the room, the career team was less than one hundred feet away, and they were sprinting in her directions. She had about five seconds to make her choice before she was seen. Hydrangea ran into the nearest rows of seats and desperately dashed toward the darkest area nearby. Miraculously, it worked, and she remained unseen. The careers peered into the make-up room where Lylith was sleeping but didn't see her tucked away into her dark corner, so they left quickly. They figured the screams had merely been fabricated by the gamemakers to add a bit of excitement to the competition, but why they would do that rather than just give them an actual tribute they didn't know.

Chipson and Tarrian had been cowering inside of the dressing room for over an hour now, but the lion mutt was still banging and clawing at the door, trying with all of its strength to break through. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and their method of escape was extremely risky to say the least. Chipson had the idea, and he ordered Tarrian to grab everything flammable that he could. Tarrian already thought he knew what was going on. The boys piled up costumes and spare pieces of paper into the center of the room. A match twinkled through the ceiling in a silver parachute, and Chipson tossed it into the pile. Fortunately, the pile quickly began to burn, and Tarrian sprinted toward the door, preparing to unlock it and throw all caution to the wind.

The moment that Tarrian opened the door, the lion mutt burst inside. It was an ugly thing, with a mane the color of vomit and bubbles of spit foaming out of the sides of its mouth. Most terrifyingly, it was stained with blood. Chipson hurriedly grabbed a burning black dress off of the pile and tossed it in the lion's direction. The dress caught on its snout, and the lion roared as its fur turned black and then smoldered away. Tarrian followed suit. They had to burn the lion in at least twenty different places before it ran for the exit and bolted away to look for less unruly victims. It was somewhat of a cowardly lion, after all.

Twyla had been camping out in the central ring for far too long, and she knew it was time to move. She got to her feet, wiped the sand off of her pants, and ran toward the first row of seats. She was too anxious to pay any attention to traps. Before she could take ten steps, her foot caught onto a tripwire, and Twyla screeched like a banshee as a jet of fire appeared out of nowhere, scorching her legs and abdomen. She immediately collapsed to the ground, screaming at the top of her lungs. She looked like a villain dissolving into dust at the end of a fantasy movie.

Ishania, who was still perched calmly at the top of the circus tent, heard Twyla's screams and felt terrible for the poor girl. She knew it was the kindest thing to put her out of her suffering, and Ishania didn't see the harm in racking up another kill along the way. Ishania gently untied herself and then grabbed onto the rope with both hands. If she was scared, she didn't show it. She shinnied down the rope and then dropped down meters away from Twyla. Ishania was reluctant to use her whip, as it made far too much noise and she knew it was the last weapon she wanted to use to give someone a painless death. Ishania scooped up a handful of sand and dropped it down into the writhing girl's mouth. It ran down her throat like an hourglass. Twyla tried desperately to cough up the alien substance, but she was dead in minutes despite her attempts to save herself.

 _Twyla McPhail, District 12 Female: 10th, Killed by Ishania, Day 1_

Hydrangea was seated comfortably near the edge of the circus tent, biting her nails anxiously. The most terrifying thing was that so many deaths were being crammed into one day that there was no death recap; the tributes had no idea which of the tributes were alive and which were dead. Unbeknownst to her, Hydrangea was dangerously near the dressing room that Chipson and Tarrian had recently broken out of, meaning that she was the lion's next victim. Hydrangea heard the light footsteps of the lion to her left, and she slowly turned her head to face the dark aisle. She let out a small noise when the big cat stepped out of the darkness. Abandoning all forms of caution, Hydrangea ran for her life. The chase was over after roughly ten minutes. Hydrangea stopped dead in her tracks, gasping and sweating, and turned around to face the charging feline. At the last second, she dove out of the way, and the lion tackled the space where she had been standing the instant prior. The entire row of seats buckled under the weight of the impact, and with a deafening crash the tiered seating area began collapsing. Hydrangea heard the lion growling under the pile of collapsed seats and bowls of popcorn, and she sprinted in the opposite direction as quickly as her feet could carry her.

The nearest tributes, the three remaining careers, heard the deafening crash of the collapse and ran toward it to investigate. They figured that some random outlier had loosened the seats enough to collapse with the intent of crushing some other tribute to death, and the pack thought it would be a mere matter of polishing them off. Big mistake. As soon as they grew close enough to peer down into the gap, the lion mutt leapt out of the gaping wound. Fifer, Fragrance, and Kenton stumbled backward, terrified, as the cat bared its sharp claws and went in for the kill.

On the other side of the arena, Harriet received a blessing in disguise. She heard the roars of the second lion mutt and grabbed the belt of five throwing knives she'd been sponsored a few hours prior. Just as she mumbled that she wished she had just a few more useful weapons, her ankle broke a tripwire and a torrent of knives fired themselves in her direction. Harriet lunged forward and managed to dodge the trap; only one of the knives made contact with her, and even that only inflicted a minor cut. Smiling slightly, Harriet gathered up the various knives scattered around and stuffed them into her pockets.

The cameras zoomed in and showed as the gamemakers sedated and retrieved the lion mutt. The cameras also showed the dead body of Fifer sprawled out on the ground like a dead bug. Fragrance and Kenton towered over him, grimacing at his unsightly remains. The career pack's fight against the deadly muttation had been long and hard, but the gamemakers instructed it to keep on fighting until it killed at least one of the trio. Fifer met his doom when the mutt tackled him and raked its claws across his chest. Blood spurted in torrents from the chorus of thin, parallel wounds. The others tried to help him, but he was far too shattered to ever get back up again.

 _Fifer Golden, District 1 Male: 9th, Killed by Lion Muttation, Day 1_

That left the final eight: Fragrance Mullins from District 1, Kenton Haullis from District 2, Chipson Harris and Harriet Duke from District 3, Ishania Pendergrass from District 6, Lylith Blanchard from District 7, Tarrian Browder from District 9, and Hydrangea Tinsel from District 11.

A cannon shot fired less than a minute afterward. Chipson and Tarrian's travels at the far north end of the circus tent brought them to the small make-up room. Five mirrors were mounted into the back wall, each surrounded by glowing lights, and shelves lined the walls with enough makeup to paint a house. The boys sat cross-legged on the ground and snacked on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches courtesy of their sponsors. Tarrian felt more than a little uncomfortable out in the open, and he suggested that the move into the dark corner for the remainder of their break. That way, he said, they wouldn't be spotted instantly if another tribute entered the room. Tarrian walked into the dark corner and almost screamed when he tripped over another tribute: Lylith Blanchard, the third member of the anti-career triangle. Lylith was mere minutes from death from blood loss, and she just stared sadly at Tarrian, whispering, "please please please please please," over and over again. Tarrian couldn't tell if she was begging for him to spare her or end her suffering. Tarrian thrust his knives into her neck. The poor girl barely felt it.

 _Lylith Blanchard, District 7 Female: 8th, Killed by Tarrian, Day 1_

Fragrance and Kenton hunted more wildly than ever before. There were only seven tributes left in the arena, and the conditions of this year's arena seemed perfect for a "stampede" kind of event to take place sooner than later, like the dancer mutts of the eighty-seventh games or the student mutts of the fifty-second games. They were right; an entire parade of mutts carefully designed by Maddox and his team were waiting just outside the tent, waiting in perfect silence only so they could sabotage the arena at Maddox's command once the time was right. Bloodthirsty Kenton was always a few strides ahead of Fragrance, and sometimes he even left her in the dust. Fragrance was exhausted and maybe even a little bored, but she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut and keep from talking back to her stronger ally.

At her latest count, Harriet Duke had a total of fourteen knives, and it was only a matter of time before the gamemakers moved a tribute toward her to see what she was capable of. The nearest tribute was Hydrangea from 11, and the audience waited with bated breath as the tributes grew nearer and nearer. With two of the most popular outliers mere meters away from one another, the results were sure to be interesting. Hydrangea was breathing heavily in and out. Moments earlier, she'd been roused from sleep by a terrifying clown mutt with a bloody face and razor sharp claws. Little did anyone know that this clown mutt was the first of several hundred that would appear in these games. The clown mutt only drew away once Hydrangea and Harriet came near enough to see each other through the dimly-lit circus tent. A beam of flashing light originating above the center ring fell over Hydrangea, illuminating her tiny form, and Harriet leapt into action. The fight that ensued was roughly five minutes long, and it ended in a draw. Once, Harriet managed to bury one of her knives into Hydrangea's shoulder, and Hydrangea tore it straight out and hurled it back in Harriet's direction. The blade pierced her gut, and Harriet screamed in agony, blinded from the pain long enough for Hydrangea to escape.

Hydrangea Tinsel had been running for less than five minutes when she came to a rather peculiar location: what she thought was the front entrance of the circus tent. The entrance was set up somewhat like a curtain, with two layers that would slide apart when a drawstring was pulled. Hydrangea reached through the veil and only felt a solid stone wall behind. Hydrangea turned in frustration, but a human voice caught her attention and she turned back around.

The face of Head Gamemaker Maddox Courval was projected onto the curtain, and Hydrangea realized for the first time that it wasn't an exit at all; it was a screen. Maddox gave Hydrangea a long speech about the clown mutt that had attacked her only a few minutes before: who designed it, how it was created, and more. Then, Maddox dove into the various other mutts throughout Hunger Games history. Hydrangea was both intrigued and fascinated by the display, and her eyes were glued to the screen. Maddox told her about the kraken mutt of the seventy-sixth, the wolf mutts of the seventy-seventh, the vulture mutts of the seventy-eighth, the basilisk mutt of the seventy-ninth, the snake mutts of the eightieth, the dragon mutt of the eighty-first, the ghost mutts of the eighty-second, the unicorn mutts of the eighty-third, the rover mutts of the eighty-fourth, the ghoul mutts of the eighty-fifth, the flea mutts of the eighty-sixth, the camel mutts of the eighty-seventh, the spider mutt of the eighty-eighth, and the raven mutts of the eighty-ninth.

"Thank you for listening, miss. I hope you've learned a thing or two. And now for the mutts of the ninetieth annual Hunger Games. Ladies and gentlemen, if you will."

Hydrangea didn't have time to breathe before the curtain was torn down and the swarm of nearly two-hundred clown mutts poured into the arena. They were all tall and thin, and their fingers were topped with razor-sharp claws that were about five inches long and curved at the ends. Their faces and hands were covered with blood. Somewhat like the ghost mutts of the eighty-second, they all had some kind of bodily abnormality, like a missing eye or an extra arm or no head. Hydrangea was too petrified to take a single step before the clown mutts shoved her straight to the ground. She screamed her head off and struggled to break free of their undulating swell, but Hydrangea was helpless as the clown mutts threw her up and down and tore her to bits with their deadly claws.

 _Hydrangea Tinsel, District 11 Female: 7th, Killed by Clown Muttations, Day 1_

Nearby, Harriet jumped to her feet when she heard the deafening rumble of the mutts. The cackling of the creepy clowns rose up into a hideous kind of choir, like the sound of pebbles being shaken around a glass jar amplified to nearly one-hundred and thirty decibels. Harriet ran parallel to the growing crowd. They seemed to be rushing into the cloth tent in groups of about twenty, which made it at least somewhat possible to predict their movements. However, the clowns were smarter than Harriet gave them credit for, and she didn't realize that they were closing it around her until it was too late. Harriet tackled the nearest mutt and sent it to the ground with one of her knives, and it knocked down two of its neighbors in its descent. She felled four more and sent nine reeling before one of them grabbed her by the back of the neck. Harriet threw her fist and smacked it straight in the mouth. The mutt roared in agony and let go of Harriet, who ran for her life before any of them could take hold of her again.

Tarrian and Chipson were both in the makeup room, and Tarrian was sleeping lightly in the corner once occupied by Lylith. Meanwhile, Chipson was tiredly standing guard. Chipson roused Tarrian at the first signs of trouble. The boys peeked out of the door and saw the first crowd of mutts closing in on little Hydrangea from 11. Chipson stood his ground and forced himself to think straight despite his initial wave of panic. Tarrian was a different story. His fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, and he abandoned his ally without a backward glance. Tarrian disappeared into the depths of the tiered seats, and Chipson just groaned hollowly.

Trying not to shake too much, Chipson ran to the nearest shelf of nail polish and peered at the labels. They were all flammable. He cut out a section of the carpet with his knife and bunched it up into a remote corner; he didn't want his fire getting too out of hand. The Capitol quickly caught onto his plan and sent him a case of matches. Chipson lit the bunched-up carpet on fire, and it rose to a roaring inferno just as the first tide of clown mutts poured into the room.

Chipson Harris wasn't the smartest tribute the games had ever seen, but his father loved baseball, and he sure knew how to throw like a pro.

He grabbed a sparkly blue nail polish and tipped it toward the fire so that the wooden cork caught ablaze. Then, he closed one eye and tossed it into the midst of the crowd. For a scary second, nothing happened. Then the cork burned through and the bottle of nail polish exploded, splashing flaming liquid onto each of the clowns in the immediate vicinity. They collapsed like rag dolls, burning away like paper, and soon the entire crowd was a mass of roaring flame. He quickly splashed himself with water from the nearest sink and burst into the hallway. He tossed another bottle of liquid fire onto the next tide of killer mutts. Then he sprinted for all his life was worth. With the help of his knives and more than a little bit more fire, he fought his way out of the crowd. Chipson collapsed in one of the seats and fell asleep instantly, both sweating profusely and tired beyond belief.

Chipson's fires were bad news for two tributes that were lost in the crowd. Fragrance and Kenton had been cornered against the wall of the tent. They pounded against the cloth and tried to break out, but all they felt was the force field beyond. With the help of their trusty weapons, Fragrance and Kenton managed to kill at least twenty of the mutts. Suddenly, the smell of smoke filled the air, and the scared careers saw the fire rolling over the crowd at an alarming speed. Soon, all of the mutts surrounding them were engulfed in flame, and the careers had literally nowhere to run without being fried to death. Fragrance's clothes caught on fire first, and the hungry inferno quickly transferred to her ally. They tried their best to put themselves out. It was useless. Stop, drop, and roll has its limits, it would seem.

 _Fragrance Mullins, District 1 Female: 6th, Killed by Chipson, Day 1_

 _Kenton Haullis, District 2 Male: 5th, Killed by Chipson, Day 1_

The gamemakers had their fun letting the clown mutts run rampant through the arena, but now that only four tributes remained it was time for their removal. First, a series of fire sprinkles went off in the heavily crowded areas of the tent, dousing the fires. The fireproof material which made up the tent was burnt black, but it had not collapsed or weakened at all. The District 8 factory workers that had designed the material were delivered large stores of grain and oil as a reward. Getting all of the creepy clowns back out of the exit in an orderly fashion was a nasty and long process, and it took about an hour to accomplish fully. Then the only sound was the heavy breathing of the tributes and the blaring "Entry of the Gladiators" tune.

The four remaining tributes did very little as minute after minute ticked by without incident. Chipson was tired, battered, and covered with small bruises and scrapes. Most severely, a black injury was beginning to form on his leg where a drop of the flaming nail polish had hit him. A sponsor sent him some disinfectant cream and a damp rag to clean and bind the wound, and then Chipson put his feet up, breathing steadily in and out and willing himself to heal. Harriet found a little souvenir stall that was selling small rubber figurines of elephants, lions, and other circus animals. She spread out under the stall and removed her belt and her pack. The feeling of relief was heavenly, and Harriet fell asleep quickly. Ishania stayed near the cornucopia; in fact, she was actively moving toward it. She climbed up one of the trapezes and crawled across a number of nets before she came to one of the conveyer belts. Reaching the horn was difficult; she had to move across the rope in the opposite direction that it was moving. Ishania reached the horn after several scary minutes and crouched down inside of it. Unfortunately, the horn was empty of supplies; just after the bloodbath, the careers had tossed all their excess supplies into the churning sand pit before they left to hunt. Ishania laid down in the cornucopia and tried to sleep. Tarrian was the one tribute who was moving rather than resting. He travelled in a wide arc-shaped path around the cornucopia, spear held firmly in his grasp. He was determined to make at least one more kill before the finale; only now, he realized how stupid he'd been to abandon Chipson rather than stay at his side and have a part in his memorable scheme. He hoped that by making a bloody kill he could get back on the Capitol's good side, as he knew he was the least popular of this year's final four.

It was now ten o'clock in the morning. The ninetieth annual Hunger Games had ten minutes left.

Harriet peered out of the wooden stall when she heard Tarrian's footsteps. There was no point staying the closed space any longer, so Harriet got to her feet. Tarrian chuckled, feigning absolute confidence. Tarrian severely underestimated Harriet's prowess; she had only scored a five in her private session, but she had absolutely not been showing her full potential. Tarrian pounced, brandishing his spear. His grin quickly turned to a look of terror as Harriet produced all fourteen of her knives. Tarrian couldn't change the direction of his path before Harriet lashed out and buried two of the blades into his chest. Tarrian fell to his knees, coughing up blood. Harriet pulled her knives out of his abdomen and then scampered away. His cannon shot coincided almost seamlessly with the beat of the blaring trumpet tune.

 _Tarrian Browder, District 9 Male: 4th, Killed by Harriet, Day 1_

Harriet rushed in the direction of the cornucopia, and Chipson did the same when he heard Tarrian's cannon shot. The gamemakers disabled all of the traps in the arena; they had a solid final three, and they didn't want one of them to die before the finale. Harriet reached the daunting obstacle course first and grabbed onto the first net. It flipped and frayed and tried to make her fall off, but Harriet was strong and determined and didn't give up until the cornucopia came into sight. Ishania was crouched down in the back of the cornucopia, and she let out a scream when Harriet came into sight. She leapt to her feet, brandishing her whip. Harriet produced her famous knives and the duel began.

Chipson was the last tribute to reach the cornucopia. He had to swing between a number of trapezes to reach the cornucopia, which weren't his strong suit by any stretch of the imagination, as he wasn't particularly fond of heights. When Chipson finally reached the cornucopia, he ducked behind it. He wasn't interested in fighting Harriet and Ishania. What he was interested in were the ropes that held up the cornucopia. The cornucopia platform hung from the ceiling of the tent by three different ropes. Chipson pulled out his knife and started sawing at the nearest rope, slowly cutting through strand after strand. The ropes were strong, and it was exhausting work. The groans of the girls and the cracks of Ishania's whip kept them from hearing him, fortunately. By the time he'd cut halfway through the rope, four of Chipson's fingers were merely bruised, and the other six were torn, scabbed, and bleeding to high heaven. But he kept up the difficult work.

When the cornucopia began creaking and rocking back and forth more so than usual, Chipson grabbed onto the rope about two feet above the spot where he was cutting it. He held on for a few seconds, and that was all it took for the rope to break. The rope soundlessly snapped in half, and all at once the cornucopia platform tipped sideways. Harriet and Ishania screamed and flailed their limbs back and forth as they slid downhill. They both rolled straight off and plummeted a stellar distance before landing in the pit of turning sand. Harriet's death was a few moments earlier than Ishania's because of her smaller size.

 _Harriet Duke, District 3 Female: 3rd, Killed by Chipson, Day 1_

 _Ishania Pendergrass, District 6 Female: 2nd, Killed by Chipson, Day 1_

"Chipson Harris of District 3, you are the victor of the ninetieth annual Hunger Games!" Titanus cheered heartily.

Chipson tightened his grip around the rope, and a definite sigh of relief could be heard amidst his gasps of exhaustion.

 _Chipson Harris, District 3 Male: Victor of the Ninetieth Hunger Games, Day 1_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Chipson had won the games faster than any other victor in Hunger Games history. Even the fifty-eighth games, which were later revealed to have had a duration of about five hours, were longer by about an hour. Chipson would go down in history as one of the few District 3 tributes to win the games via physical strength rather than technical smarts, so he was certainly an interesting addition to District 3's growing lineup of victors. He would go on to develop an intense phobia of fire due to the events of his games, and he would join the circle of alcoholics that stretched from Haymitch to Router to Poplin. The Capitol would quickly learn to love their newest victor for his charm and his humor, and Chipson did a great job of covering up his inner turmoil whenever he was called to public events and most notably when he was called to mentor.

The payouts on his victory were average, as about 3% bet on him.

His victory tour was pretty great and one of the better ones, with the understandable exception of his stop in District 6.

Chipson would live to age fifty-six, dying from an alcohol overdose three months after the one-hundred thirtieth annual Hunger Games. He would enter two marriages in his lifetime, both of which would fail within twelve months. He would never have children.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Chipson moves into the Victor's Village of District 3, across the street from Pixel's home.

Mags Flanagan adopts a girl named Rain.

Surge Upsdell reaches age twelve and moves into the Victor's Village of District 5, next door to Klink.

Olivia Seager, victor of the sixth annual Hunger Games, dies from heart disease.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)  
89HG: Admired Thompson (#15, District 1)  
90HG: Chipson Harris (#11, District 3)

* * *

 **A/N: Given that this is the shortest games in history, I was expecting a 7k-8k word long chapter, so I was surprised by almost 12k words, oh my lord I could not stop writing this one WHAT THE HECK DID I DO?**

 **Those clown mutts will undoubtedly haunt my nightmares now.**

 **All in all, I think this was a pretty solid conclusion to the ninth Hunger Games decade. The fourth Quarter Quell looms on the horizon…**


	92. The 91st Hunger Games

**The 91st Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The marble tower that was Panem was crumbling farther and farther each year. Death tolls were higher than ever before, particularly in District 3, where at least a fourth of the population was dead or dying from the mysterious new pathogen. Even some of the most loyal districts like District 1 and District 2 were beginning to lose faith in the Capitol. Capitol doctors kept promising that a magic cure was just on the horizon, but at the dawn of the tenth Hunger Games decade the citizens of Panem decided they had had enough. They didn't want explanations. They wanted answers. Riots were immeasurable, and citizens were felled like ducks. Finally, President Stinn Hawke declared a mandatory viewing for all Panem. Nobody was sure whether to feel hopeful or terrified as they tuned in to see what their president had to say. Stinn announced to all Panem that he had been spoken to by a god. He also declared that he had been seeking advice from this anonymous higher power for several years. His power came from the divine, and the plague was a punishment from God for defying him and failing to meet his labor quotas. Stinn also wrote a holy book laying out the optimal government: one where each of the twelve children districts provided goods to their Capitol in exchange for government and security. Finally, he authorized the building of worship houses in every district and ordered every citizen of Panem to worship him as a god or die. There were small rebel groups at first, but they quickly petered out and died when peacekeepers started shooting and killing anyone who failed to show up to prayers without mercy. The residents of the districts were torn between their religious beliefs and the lives of themselves and their families. Everybody ended up switching to the new official religion of Panem or they quickly faced the bitter consequences. The games team remained the same, with Maddox Courval steering the games ship. Titanius Lafayette and Dexter Malcolms remained the charismatic duo running the pre-games festivities, keeping the Capitol entertained and distracted with their clever humor. Bread and circuses never failed.

This year's career pack was a solid group of strong kids. District 1 provided their most beautiful and talented recruits, but they were the weakest duo. The boy was the youngest this year at only fourteen, and he was relatively laid-back and unconventional, while the girl was older and fiercely independent and zealous. District 2 stole the show, and they were by far the strongest tributes in these games. The boy, the third of the famous Talbot siblings, was handsome, charming, and extremely popular in the Capitol. The girl was the star of the show this year: fifteen-year-old Atasia stole the spotlight with her beauty and mastery of weaponry, particularly with swords and axes. District 4 had a stereotypical pair. The boy was a famous and heavily-tanned surfer, while the girl, his senior by one year, had wavy black hair and olive skin. The scores of the pack were admirable: two elevens, two tens, a nine, and an eight.

The pairs from 7 and 10 banded together to form the anti-career pack, and they all scored sevens or eights. Oakson and Ivy from 7 were neighbors and close family friends, and they were similar in many ways. They had the same dirty blond hair and blue eyes and they both liked hatchets. Lorian from 10 was talented, crafty, and likeable, while his district partner Rebecca was more quiet and reserved, and she could be awkward, but in a cute way. Oakson scored the only seven, while Ivy, Lorian, and Rebecca scored eights. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. The only other standout this year was Julia Frost from District 12. She was a grandniece of Victor Haymitch Abernathy, and she was the last legacy tribute from District 12 to enter the games for decades. She only scored a four, but she was still one to be remembered. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Woah Thorbjorn, 14, (8) 11-1 and Fantastica Collen, 16, (10) 6-1

District 2: Mars Talbot, 18, (11) 4-1 and Atasia Leyce, 15, (11) 3-1

District 3: Graceo Bronte, 16, (4) 28-1 and Elise Shorrock, 17, (5) 24-1

District 4: Gulley Pierce, 17, (9) 8-1 and Aqua Handell, 18, (10) 5-1

District 5: Henry Garner, 14, (4) 31-1 and Sonya Lupton, 13, (4) 34-1

District 6: Ashton Rudnick, 16, (6) 20-1 and Lizzie Narvaez, 12, (3) 42-1

District 7: Oakson Iglesias, 18, (7) 13-1 and Ivy Braidon, 18, (8) 10-1

District 8: Weaver Lilli, 13, (5) 25-1 and Silky Barillo, 15, (5) 25-1

District 9: Wylie Niklaus, 16, (4) 30-1 and Reece Gasman, 17, (4) 28-1

District 10: Lorian Bridger, 17, (8) 9-1 and Rebecca Geralds, 18, (8) 10-1

District 11: Lemon Rutherford, 13, (3) 41-1 and Tulip Entler, 15, (5) 24-1

District 12: Abdi Chacko, 18, (5) 24-1 and Julia Frost, 18, (4) 31-1

HGBO Bets: 18% on Atasia, 16% on Mars, 13% on Fantastica, 10% on Aqua, 9% on Gulley, 7% on Woah, 5% on Ivy, Lorian, and Rebecca, 2% on Oakson and Ashton, 1% or less on Graceo, Elise, Henry, Sonya, Lizzie, Weaver, Silky, Wylie, Reece, Lemon, Tulip, Abdi, and Julia.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Hunger Games arenas were always terrifying for the district children unlucky enough to be sent inside, but that didn't mean they couldn't be stunningly beautiful in their own way. The tributes wore loose-fitting silk robes and flower necklaces. The girls all had pink blossoms woven in their hair, while the boys wore flower crowns made of purple and blue blossoms woven tightly together. Waves crashed onto the beach of the tropical island paradise, and the smell of sea foam was enough to calm their nerves even if it was only slightly. The cornucopia was situated on the beach, and it housed primal weapons like stone axes, crude hunting bows, and arrowhead spears. The rest of the island was a thick of dense jungle. Vines ran from tree to tree like the strands of spider webs, and the towering trunks curved and bent in an almost whimsical way. The air was strikingly hot and humid, but water was of no shortage of all. Dozens of lakes and streams were placed around the arena, and they all originated from the towering mountain at the center of the tropical island. The mountain was covered with lush greenery and scenic views, and a lazy flow of lava ran down its south face before pouring into the sea. The noises of chirping birds, croaking frogs, and rustling fronds were perpetually audible everywhere in the arena. At the arena's north end, opposite of the cornucopia, there was a small fishing village of grass huts where the island's native tribe lived. They were all dark-skinned and muscular and extremely violent when provoked. The remainder of the arena's mutts were terrifying hybrid creatures that had cost millions of dollars to create. A swarm of jaguar-shark hybrid mutts inhabited the arena's largest lake, and the remainder of the arena was filled with bird-spider mutts that had pristine feathery wings and beaks mounted terrifyingly on eight furry black legs. This year's arena also brought back the famous bird mutts of the second Quarter Quell that had been responsible for the death of Ms. Donner. They roosted in the highest peaks of the leafy palm trees. Due to the natural bounty of the arena, a number of tributes fled the bloodbath immediately. They were Elise from 3, Henry from 5, Weaver and Silky from 8, and Julia from 12. The bloodbath this year was to claim nine lives.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Atasia sprinted at the head of the onrush, kicking up a cloud of sand behind her as she thundered toward the cornucopia. She snatched up one of the three stone swords in the cornucopia and then tackled the nearest boy, who was zigzagging to avoid attacks as he raced toward the cornucopia. Atasia cut open his torso with two heavy chops. His blood was the first to stain the pristine white sand.

 _Lemon Rutherford, District 11 Male: 24th, Killed by Atasia, Bloodbath_

Atasia's district partner, the third of the Talbot siblings, was pleased to find that a sword had been placed conveniently at the halfway point of his pedestal and the cornucopia. He locked his fingers around the cumbersome stone hilt and thrust it into the upper leg of a nearby girl. Her knees buckled, and she fell to her elbows, screaming her head off before Mars thrust the point of his blade through her neck.

 _Sonya Lupton, District 5 Female: 23rd, Killed by Mars, Bloodbath_

Atasia made her next strike. Lemon's ally, the willowy girl from District 9, was standing frozen several feet away, dumbfounded with shock and terror as she watched her friend be chopped open by the grinning girl from 2. Atasia pounced away from Lemon and tackled the girl to the ground, and she toppled like a domino. Her head hit a solid, sharp rock in her descent. She struggled hopelessly to fight back and blink back the spots in her vision while Atasia scored open her upper abdomen mercilessly with her weapon.

 _Reece Gasman, District 9 Female: 22nd, Killed by Atasia, Bloodbath_

Gulley specialized in tridents, so he was disappointed to find that there were none in the cornucopia this year. The closest things were spears, so he grabbed one in each hand and shoved a dark-haired boy to the ground. The boy swung the pack he was carrying like a club, and it smacked Gulley straight in the mouth. He reeled, cursing. It took nearly twenty seconds for Gulley to corner the boy again, and this time there was no escaping his wrath. He was a mess of peppered holes and bleeding spots by the time he was finished.

 _Ashton Rudnick, District 6 Male: 21st, Killed by Gulley, Bloodbath_

Fantastica liked a challenge, and she grinned fiercely as she scooped up one of the horn's crudely fashioned wooden bows. It took her nearly a minute of firing shots in arbitrary directions to get used to the feel of the primal weapon, but she eventually got the hang of things. The four anti-careers were nearby, and they all had their backs turned; they were busy fending off the boy from 3, who was carrying a spear and a weird spiked club-like weapon. Fantastica fired an arrow at the nearest tribute, and Ivy let out a shriek as the point of the arrow pierced her back. She fell to the sand and bled out swiftly, bringing the four anti-careers down to three.

 _Ivy Braidon, District 7 Female: 20th, Killed by Fantastica, Bloodbath_

The anti-careers succeeded in their killing of the boy from 3 just as Ivy bled out fully. Lorian and Rebecca both had spears, and Oakson had a hatchet. Oakson heard the screams of his district partner and turned around to feud with his killer, whereas Lorian and Rebecca remained grounded and continued working on their original victim. Lorian eventually came close enough to grab him by the shoulders, and he dropped both of his weapons when he pushed him to the ground. Rebecca skewered her sword through his abdomen and then turned with Lorian to face Fantastica.

 _Graceo Bronte, District 3 Male: 19th, Killed by Lorian and Rebecca, Bloodbath_

On the other side of the cornucopia field, Mars made his second kill. With a single thrusting motion of his sword, he sent a lithe girl toppling. She hit the sand with a loud noise, and Mars sealed her fate by thrusting his sword through her neck before galloping away to search for more victims.

 _Tulip Entler, District 11 Female: 18th, Killed by Mars, Bloodbath_

The anti-careers managed to dispatch Fantastica over the course of about a minute. She had outscored all of them, but she was still one up against three. Lorian ended up smacking her in the mouth, disorienting her long enough for himself and his two surviving allies to escape.

As Oakson, Lorian, and Rebecca disappeared into the jungle thick, Abdi from District 12 claimed a life. He'd been tussling over a pack with a smaller boy for several minutes. When Abdi finally tore the pack out of his hands, he grabbed the tin thermos inside and slammed it into his head. The boy screamed and tried to scuttle to safety, but Abdi leapt onto him and continued beating him to death with the tin canister. The sound it made as it bashed against his skull was like the most demented bell imaginable. When he was finally unconscious, Abdi threw the pack over his shoulder and ran. Moments afterward, a softly humming Mars came across the boy's unconscious, but still breathing, body. He was dead with only a slight prod from Mars' blade.

 _Wylie Niklaus, District 9 Male: 17th, Killed by Abdi and Mars, Bloodbath_

The triumphant Abdi sprinted away from the cornucopia as quickly as his legs could carry him, trying not to vomit at the memory of Wylie's lifeless form. He was only a few hundred feet away from the horn when he was intercepted by Fantastica from District 1 and her district partner, Woah. Abdi hastily looked back and forth between the two 1s, and he wasn't fast enough to form a solid plan before he was tackled from both sides. Fantastica held the thrashing boy down while Woah sawed his knives back and forth across his chest. He was gone in moments.

 _Abdi Chacko, District 12 Male: 16th, Killed by Fantastica and Woah, Bloodbath_

The careers paraded around the cornucopia, sifting through their supplies and quickly becoming bored with the task. All of their sights drifted toward the impressive mountain feature in the dead center of the arena, and they vowed to head toward its base at noon the following day. They chose not to hunt because both Woah and Gulley were significantly injured. Each of their district partners (Fantastica and Aqua) helped them out with cleaning up and bandaging their injuries, while Mars and Atasia from District 2 did a quick hunt of the nearby land. The audience was quick to notice how often they were stealing glances at one another; romantic feelings between careers had been unseen since Swordfish and Annie of the seventieth games. Mars and Atasia were sure to be an interesting pair as the games progressed.

The morning was veiled by a warm, thick mist stirred only by the occasional breeze. Elise from 3 had been one of the five tributes to make a quick retreat from the bloodbath. She sprinted south as quickly as her legs could carry her before she collapsed with exhaustion near one of the arena's widest streams. Elise slurped down a helping of the crystal clear river water and then started gathering fallen palm fronds and vines to fashion a shelter. Tiny Henry from 5 sprinted as far as he could carry himself for the first day, and he crinkled his eyebrows when the small fishing village came into sight. He was too tired to investigate, so he curled up behind a boulder-like rock and vowed to do his fair share of exploration the following day. Lizzie from 6, much like the careers, was entranced by the picturesque mountain towering over the rest of the arena. She sprinted up the slope for about ten minutes straight, carrying nothing but the clothes on her back. Drenched with sweat and panting from exhaustion, she stopped on a wide, rocky ledge overlooking the green island and tried to sleep. The anti-careers proceeded similarly. They thought the mountain's picturesque slopes would attract the most tributes, and they were eager to get exploring quickly. The alliance's three members, Oakson, Lorian, and Rebecca, trudged up the mountain's steep face for about half of the day. They stopped for the evening on a ledge covered with a carpet of vines and ferns, and they fell asleep quickly. Weaver and Silky from 8 had allied prior to the games. For the first few minutes, they had a somewhat simple journey away from the cornucopia, but a slope appeared out of nowhere and they both tumbled down it. They hadn't spotted it earlier because the solid green of the rainforest was like an optical illusion, robbing them of their depth perception. The small boy and girl came to a battered stop at the base of the slope and cried softly for the rest of the day, hoping their various cuts and bruises would heal as they were only capable of making slight movements without extreme pain. Julia from 12 sprinted onward for most of the day, kept hydrated by a tin spile sent to her by her rich sponsors. By nightfall, she had practically reached the opposite coast. Julia tied herself into a tree with a thick vine and hummed quietly to herself as she fell asleep. There was peace in the arena as day turned into night, but the peace did not last for long.

The dawn came in the form of a cannon shot. Elise was roused from sleep by a beam of sun that fell through a gap in the forest roof and landed on her face. She didn't know how much danger she was in, but two of the jaguar/shark mutts had been staying put at the bottom of the river for several hours, waiting to pounce at the gamemakers' command. Elise gorged herself on a handful of edible berries and then stepped slowly into the river. She instantly felt the sharp claws of the first mutt, and Elise stumbled out of the water, screaming as blood squirted down her ankles and pooled up around her feet. The ugly, unnatural creatures slowly rose out of the river. They had grey shark bodies with gills, but they had the heads of tan-colored jaguar cats with black spots. Each of the mutts had fins and legs, allowing them to move swiftly through both air and water. Elise screamed even louder as the nearest mutt closed its jaw around her leg, chomping the limb straight off of her body. She fell to one side like a three-legged stool with a leg removed, and she was helpless as the other hybrid mutt ensnared her with its jaguar tail and dragged her down into the river's watery depths.

 _Elise Shorrock, District 3 Female: 15th, Killed by Jaguar/Shark Muttations, Day 2_

The rest of Day 2 was deathless. Weaver and Silky woke to find that their pains and aches had healed enough for them to stand up and move. They were both limping slightly, but miraculously they hadn't broken any bones. They also weren't punctured beyond minor cuts and scrapes. Their eyes were set on the large volcano in the center of the arena. They'd seen the second Quarter Quell more times than they could count, and they knew mountains in the Hunger Games weren't typically trustworthy, but they still decided it was their best bet because of the safety of its heights and hidden areas. They'd done themselves a disfavor the day prior by moving in an awkward curved path around the island, which added several miles to their journey. Halfway through the day, Weaver and Silky crouched down at the base of the mountain and wiggled under the thick layer of foliage before passing out.

At the same time, the anti-careers were slowly but surely winding their way up the slope. They had several scares in which one or more of them almost fell to their deaths, but they eventually found stable footing on a long, thin strip of rock that wound around the grand mountain. From the perch they established about a quarter of a mile up, they had a somewhat grandiose view of the island, the lava flow, and the sparkling blue ocean beyond. While Rebecca and Lorian quickly made a shelter out of vines and branches, Oakson ventured a few hundred meters away to gather food. His allies were scared when he didn't return within a few hours, but he eventually did return, drenched in sweat. He'd been attacked by two of the pink bird mutts, and he had been forced to abandon his basket of berries to keep them occupied while he ran for his life. The trio went to sleep with relatively empty stomachs that night.

The careers were hunting wildly still, making fast progress back and forth across the island as the sun arced across the sky. Gulley and Aqua from 4 were the expert navigators, and the others trusted their judgement to keep them from getting lost on the tropical island where pretty much every area looked the same. They faced a setback when Woah absentmindedly tore a few inky black berries from a small bush and shoved them into his mouth. He mistook them for common elder berries, but they were deadly poison. Fortunately, Woah hadn't ingested enough to kill him. Unfortunately, the pack had to quickly halt their travelling journey to let him heal. Fantastica, Mars, Atasia, Gulley, and Aqua quickly set up a shelter and waited impatiently for the poison to work its way out of the quietly moaning boy's body.

Day 3 was deathless. The careers were growing nearer and nearer to central volcano by the hour, but they took a slight detour to visit the small fishing village at the north end of the arena. Tables were upturned, boats were half-sunk, and buildings were collapsed. It looked as though a tornado had struck the place. The six careers split up into two groups to investigate. Woah, Fantastica, and Mars were in one group, whereas Atasia, Gulley, and Aqua were in the other. Gully softly opened the door of one of the cabins, and a spear hit him in the chest an instant later. As if on cue, the other tribespeople opened their doors and sprinted out into the narrow streets with weapons galore. Surprisingly, all six of the careers managed to escape with their lives. Gulley's spear injury was the most severe, but even that was expected to heal fully within days if not hours. The audience squealed with excitement when Mars sprinted into a slowly collapsing structure to save Atasia before she could be crushed to death. Having killed about half of the crowd, the careers fled for their lives. They ran straight past the large boulder behind which Henry was hiding, and the 5 boy just shivered slightly as the pack ran past him.

On Day 4, the careers set their sights back on the central mountain feature and resumed their long journey toward it. They thought that Gully's injury was minor, while in reality there was much more bleeding on the inside that none of them knew about. As the days passed, his body would slowly shut down for seemingly no reason.

By that point, Weaver and Silky had disembarked from the mountain, creeped out by the sheer height and instability of the slope. At eight in the morning, Silky slipped on a crumbling rock and fell straight off of the mountain face. Weaver hurriedly grabbed her by the wrists and tugged her back over, and Silky was crying too hard to talk for the next few hours. Throughout the day, the 8s moved farther and farther toward the ground, and they couldn't see the nearby career pack through the carpet-like forest ceiling. The settled near a stream about a quarter mile from the pack, and in seemingly no time at all they had been spotted. The bloodthirsty career pack burst out of the trees, roaring, and the 8s had both been pushed to the ground in moments. Woah, Fantastica, Gulley, and Aqua hung several meters back while Mars and Atasia circled slowly around the bound and gagged outliers, lunging forward from time to time just to make them groan louder. About fifteen minutes later, Mars went in for the kill for real. Weaver left out a squeal that was muffled by his cloth gag as the 2 boy planted his sword into his chest. He quickly fell still.

 _Weaver Lilli, District 8 Male: 14th, Killed by Mars, Day 4_

Silky finally managed to dislodge her gag with the help of her strong jaw, and the slimy rag fell slowly to her chest with a squishing noise. Silky immediately screamed at the top of her lungs. Nearby Julia heard Silky's screams and briefly considered running to help her before returning to her perch in the lowest bough of the whimsically curved tree. Atasia scowled and thrust her spear into Silky's neck. Her screams swiftly decrescendoed to an ugly kind of gurgle as her lungs flooded with blood.

 _Silky Barillo, District 8 Female: 13th, Killed by Atasia, Day 4_

The anti-careers remained put on the side of the mountain. They thought the gamemakers would allow them a solid day of break time after three days of near-continuous movement, but they were wrong; due to the smaller arena, keeping everybody moving was paramount to keeping any aspect of the games from getting too boring. The sun was around its peak in the sky when the anti-careers were pulled from sleep by the chirping of the arena's demented bird hybrid mutts. Rebecca was the front of the group, and she let out a high-pitched scream when the first of the beaked, winged tarantulas landed on her face. Rebecca stumbled back into the shadows, where a terrified Oakson and Lorian were watching with sick fascination. The swarm descended like a black cloud, and the trio ran for their lives. They sprinted down the rocky slope carefully and therefore slowly. Minutes later, the swarm was drawn away by the gamemakers. Lorian was separated from the others, and it took a scary hour to find him again. Despite their minor injuries, they were all just fine. They returned to their camp to gather up their supplies and moved about a mile across the north slope, on a similar ledge with a slightly less grand view of the arena.

Julia had been moving somewhat aimlessly around the tropical island for much of the games, and she finally came to the shore. She pushed aside the last few vines and ferns and stepped out onto the sand. The ocean was stunningly clear and crystalline, and Julia was drawn to it as though by a magic spell. She filled her belly with a few edible oysters and then began exploring the shore. She eventually came to an inlet heavily veiled by vines and fronds. She took a quick wash and then curled up on the sands, willing sleep to come to her. The sand stick to her wet skin in a gross way, and it was rather uncomfortable, but she didn't have anywhere more comfortable so she just had to put up with it.

The fifth day passed swiftly. The careers had set up their camp in a small fissure at the base of the mountain the night prior. They broke camp and dawn and started their journey upward. It quickly became apparent that they had made a decision regarding Gulley. There was literally nothing they could do to help him but put him out of his suffering. The spear wound in his shoulder had grown increasingly gangrenous and infected over the past few days. They were about to do him a kindness, really.

Aqua moved several meters away, not wanting to watch the death of her district partner. Woah and Fantastica watched with blank-slate looks on their faces as Mars and Atasia approached the softly snoring boy. They thrust their blades into his torso in unison; his cannon promptly fired, and the pack left quickly.

 _Gulley Pierce, District 4 Male: 12th, Killed by Mars and Atasia, Day 5_

Neither pack knew it, but the careers and the anti-careers were moving toward each other throughout the fifth day, albeit slowly. They were on relatively the same level of the tiered slope, and they were expected to meet late Day 5 or early Day 6, but not later. In fact, the lazily flowing volcano would soon become a burnt, hellish, uninhabitable land when the first true eruption was to occur the next day. That night, the careers and the anti-careers slept less than a quarter of a mile from each other.

The three other tributes weren't doing much. Henry abandoned his plan to investigate the fishing village when he saw the harm they'd done to the now-deceased Gulley from 4. He started a shelter made of palm leaves and vines about half a mile away from the village, and he was woken in the middle of the night by the rabid, dissonant squawking of the pink bird mutts. One of them nearly skewered its razor-sharp beak through his neck before he escaped. Screaming and shaking with terror, Henry ran toward the thicker areas of the tropical forest. He was panicking terribly, but Henry was a calculated boy despite his youth. He quickly reached a ditch covered with a net of fallen vines. Henry crawled into the safe ditch and watched with terror as the pink birds beat helplessly at the net of vines.

Julia continued relaxing in her veiled inlet. Despite her beauty, she was modest enough not to get any more naked than momentarily pulling up her shirt to scrub off the dirt that had built up underneath. At one point, a single jaguar-shark hybrid mutt came near. Julia fended it off for about fifteen minutes before it took the hint that she wasn't to be messed with and retreated into the jungle thick. Julia had fought awfully well for a girl with only a four in training; it was then clear she had not been showcasing her full potential during her private session.

After a day of alternating between walking and jogging, Lizzie lied down in a bed of vines and put her feet up on a scorching-hot boulder for a rest. With her ear pressed against the volcano's rocky surface, she heard something she hadn't been able to hear before. She heard the faint rumbling, churning noise of the volcano's fiery inner hell. Lizzie wasn't stupid. The moment the birds quieted down enough for Lizzie to hear the noise for real, she packed up her things and ran down the slope like a madman. She'd reached the ground level within an hour, and Lizzie sprinted an additional two miles away from the mountain before she collapsed in a bed of vines that drooped low like a hammock. Her sense of hearing had literally saved her life.

A loud pinging sound filled the gamemakers center in the Capitol as the dozens of sensors planted inside and outside of the volcano sensed that the first true eruption was about to occur. Unlike the volcano of the second quell, which blew its top much earlier than expected, this volcano was erupting right on schedule. Pleased, the gamemakers sat back and adjusted their cameras to get the best view of the carnage that was about to occur.

The careers awoke to loud, loud rumbles, far too loud to be pegged as figments of their imaginations this time. They looked uncomfortably at each other and then sprinted several hundred meters west to see what was making the sound, and when the side of the mountain began cracking and crumbling, the careers seized up with terror and sprinted downhill.

The first plume of lava that shot out of the volcano was mere feet from Aqua's face. She staggered backward, too petrified to scream, and the other careers froze in their tracks, dumbfounded with shock as the side of the mountain collapsed faster and faster. The ground was liquefying under her feet, and there was nothing she could do. Aqua quickly prayed that her allies would escape safely before the ground gave way and she fell like a stone into the volcano's inner hell.

 _Aqua Handell, District 4 Female: 11th, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 6_

Oakson, Lorian, and Rebecca started their quick sprint down the slope as soon as they were awoken by the loud rumbles. Unfortunately, they were all heavy sleepers, and they hadn't awoken until it was too late. A plume of lava and ash shot through a large rock and engulfed Rebecca's left arm. Oakson and Lorian kept running while Rebecca stumbled sideways, struggling to stay on her feet despite the excruciating pain.

The nearby career pack heard her screams and slowed down slightly when her staggering form came into focus. Always the good career, Woah nocked an arrow in his bow and fired in Rebecca's direction. Rebecca screamed at the top of her lungs and kept on running, but she quickly realized she was trapped between the pack and the undulating lava flow. Woah broke away from the others and tackled Rebecca, shoving her to the vine-laden mountain face with a loud noise. The lava quickly engulfed Rebecca, killing her with its death-bringing hands in due time.

 _Rebecca Geralds, District 10 Female: 10th, Killed by Woah and Volcanic Eruption, Day 6_

Woah swiftly caught up with the rest of the pack. They were several precious strides ahead of the lava, but it was gaining on them dangerously quickly. They'd abandoned all forms of coherent strategy several minutes prior and were now leaping and sprinting down the steep face like madmen. Suddenly, a stressed, almost insane Fantastica grabbed her district partner Woah by the shoulders and shoved him sideways into the lava flow in an almost archaic sacrifice to the gamemaker gods, as though that could somehow slow its flow. Woah was dead before he even knew what had happened.

 _Woah Thorbjorn, District 1 Male: 9th, Killed by Fantastica and Volcanic Eruption, Day 6_

That left the final eight: Fantastica Collen from District 1, Mars Talbot and Atasia Leyce from District 2, Henry Garner from District 5, Lizzie Narvaez from District 6, Oakson Iglesias from District 7, Lorian Bridger from District 10, and Julia Frost from District 12.

Karma's a bitch, especially in the arena. Fantastica couldn't take five more steps before she tripped on her untied shoelace and toppled onto her front. She nearly took down Mars in his descent, but Atasia tugged him away before he could fall. Fantastica let out a gasp of horror as she felt the quickly moving lava flow consume her feet and legs. She made a desperate effort to drag herself away; of course, she was a goner.

 _Fantastica Collen, District 1 Female: 8th, Killed by Volcanic Eruption, Day 6_

The four tributes left on the volcano managed to survive the eruption. This was yet another contrast to the second Quarter Quell, where every one of the twelve tributes on the face of the volcano was incinerated. Oakson and Lorian were not only fast, they were also very agile. They managed to make it all the way to the base of the mountain without tripping or stumbling. Sweating profusely and taking breaths so loud they sounded like screams, Oakson and Lorian dashed into the moist jungle. They were far too exhausted to set up a shelter. They just laid down on the ground when their knees buckled, and they were asleep almost instantly.

The two other tributes left on the mountain, Mars and Atasia, held hands as they sprinted downward. With lava crashing behind them, it would have made for a somewhat cinematic kissing scene, but they were far too focused on not being sizzled alive to think about kissing. The lava was less than two meters behind them by the time they reached the base, and the intense heat of the eruption was so intense on their backs that their shirts had begun to smolder slightly. Now on solid ground, Mars and Atasia thundered toward safety. Much like Oakson and Lorian, they were far too exhausted to do anything but sleep like rocks once their legs gave in.

Mars and Atasia returned to the cornucopia on Day 7. They clearly still liked each other, but they were evidently trying to suppress their romantic feelings because they knew that at least one of them would have to die sooner than later. Just to make sure their relationship didn't progress any further than it already had, they split apart. Atasia shoved everything she could carry into a number of camouflaged packs and then sprinted off into the jungle. She found a clearing veiled by vines that she decided to make her new home. Atasia dumped all of her supplies there before stalking off, carrying only a thermos of water and her two weapons, her sword and a stone machete with a jagged edge.

Early in the morning, Lizzie from 6 met her end. She abandoned her small shelter two miles away from the mountain and continued her trek through the dense, hot jungle, avoiding beaches and steering clear of the fiery mountain at the center of the arena. She was one of the few tributes who hadn't seen the people of the small fishing village out of their homes. Curious, she approached the wooden village to investigate. She only had to come an eighth of a mile from the first house when the first tribesperson burst out of the trees, brandishing a spear. Little Lizzie screamed and grabbed a large stick, praying it would be good enough to fend off the tall man and his friends, if he had any. She was swiftly overwhelmed. Less than a minute later, a spear pierced her side, and Lizzie staggered backward, screaming her head off as blood drizzled down her leg and into her right shoe. The rest quickly got to work. When Lizzie's cannon fired, they grunted with satisfaction before returning to their homes to wait for another defenseless victim.

 _Lizzie Narvaez, District 6 Female: 7th, Killed by Tribe Muttations, Day 7_

Henry was by the far the least popular of the remaining tributes, but the gamemakers didn't want to kill him off, at least not yet. The ninety-first Hunger Games hadn't seen actual blood since the deaths of Weaver and Silky on Day 4, and Henry would be great for that purpose if he made it any farther into the games on his own. Making sure to stay as far away from the fishing village and the volcano spewing liquid fire, he moved quietly through the trees and eventually settled down with his back against a broad-trunked palm tree.

Oakson and Lorian woke up on the morning of Day 7 and rubbed their eyes groggily. It felt like they had only been asleep for a few seconds, but it really had been nearly thirteen hours. They broke camp and then ate breakfast, and Lorian froze mid-bite, eyes agape with horror. In explanation, he raised his finger and pointed at the bush bearing deadly nightlock berries that had been mere feet from his head the night prior. Oakson slowly approached the bush and put on the rubber gloves he'd grabbed from the cornucopia. A sponsor sent him a small paper bowl, and Oakson mashed up the black berries of death into a thick paste. He nodded once to Lorian, and then they were off.

The anti-careers didn't take long to find their victim. They entered the veiled inlet where Julia was hiding and saw the 12 girl starting nervously back and forth, humming to herself. Oakson and Lorian hid behind a large rock and watched as she ate breakfast before sprinting off to search for victims. The moment she was away, Oakson charged forward and emptied the entire contents of the bowl into Julia's thermos. He gave Lorian the clear, and then they sprinted away.

Julia returned to the camp about half an hour later. She'd been attacked by three of the pink birds, and she had narrowly escaped with her life. Exhausted, she knelt in front of her thermos and splashed the cold liquid onto her mouth and face. She immediately started screaming as the highly potent, toxic solution ate away at her face and throat, and Julia collapsed onto her back, retching, gasping, and shaking. Her cannon shot was almost immediate.

 _Julia Frost, District 12 Female: 6th, Killed by Oakson, Day 7_

Mars left the cornucopia as soon as the sun was in the sky on Day 8. He'd gotten the furthest of the three Talbot siblings thus far, and he was determined to keep up his stride and make it to the victor's throne. When he woke up, many of the horn's supplies were destroyed or missing; Maddox was a head gamemaker who liked messing with his tributes, even the most popular ones. Trying not to imagine he may have been going crazy, Mars picked a few berries for breakfast and then galloped away to search for victims.

Oakson and Lorian were barreling through the jungle at top speed, their packs bouncing against their backs as one of the jaguar-shark mutts chased after them. The mutt was fast, but the terrified boys were faster. Once, Lorian stumbled, and the mutt opened a long gash in his back. Lorian almost collapsed from the agony, but Oakson tugged him along. Their movements were making quite a bit of noise, and this attracted the attention of the two nearest tributes; the disjoined 2s, Mars Talbot and Atasia Leyce.

When the 2s spotted the anti-careers from opposite directions, the hybrid mutt withdrew into the shadows. Atasia charged, and she tackled the nearest tribute to her, Oakson from 7. At the other end of the clearing, Mars wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion. He didn't know another tribute had been nearby except for himself and the anti-careers. Atasia dug the point of her sword into Oakson's chest and dragged it down like a knife being dragged through butter, and Oakson screams could be heard for miles around. His ally Lorian froze dead in his tracks at the sight of his dying ally. He made the decision to run for his life as soon as Oakson's cannon fired.

 _Oakson Iglesias, District 7 Male: 5th, Killed by Atasia, Day 8_

When Lorian turned, he was immediately met by the bite of Mars' sword in his gut. Lorian let out a choked gasp and then fell limp, slowly sliding off of the blade over the course of about five seconds. He landed on the jungle floor with a loud thumping sound, and Mars turned his sword around in his grasp, grinning.

 _Lorian Bridger, District 10 Male: 4th, Killed by Mars, Day 8_

Mars and Atasia, who didn't recognize each other, pointed their weapons at each other's chests, snarling. When they recognized one another, they slowly lowered their weapons and stood in awkward silence for several seconds. At least one of them was going to have to die in the immediate future and there was nothing they could do about it. But suppressing romantic feelings is far from easy, and Atasia couldn't help herself. She grabbed Mars by the shoulders and drew in for a kiss. Mars just pulled away, mumbling under his breath. He really did like Atasia back, and he really did want to let her kiss him, but his critical thinking skills demanded he resist. Mars just shook his head, the slightest hint of sadness in his eyes, and thundered away.

Henry had miraculously slept through the cannon shots of both Oakson and Lorian. He only realized he was the only outlier left in the arena when the death recap was shown that night. When he saw the faces of the two boys in the sky, an intense stroke of panic hit him in the chest and he burst into tears. He was up against both Mars and Atasia, the strongest and most popular tributes out of the original twenty-four. He was fourteen years old and only had a four in training. He had no chance. He was doomed.

A cannon shot fired moments afterward. The infrared cameras zoomed in to show Henry's dead body. He had once been sitting down his back against a tree, but had since fallen sideways, his arms falling in front of him as he did so. Two heavy lines were carved into his flesh, running from his wrists to his elbows, and he held a sharp stone in each hand. He'd taken the initiative of ending his own life, without the drawn-out agony of letting himself die at the hands of the vicious careers.

 _Henry Garner, District 5 Male: 3rd, Killed by Himself, Day 9_

The remainder of Day 9 was deathless. Mars and Atasia were now at opposite ends of the arena, at least a full day's journey apart. The day prior, Mars had sprinted along a path of at least four miles. In a weird way, it seemed as though he was trying to place as much distance between himself and Atasia as possible. Henry's cannon shot was his signal to get moving, and Mars groaned slightly as he got to his feet and sprinted back into the mist-laden jungle thick.

Atasia had finally managed to fall asleep after tossing and turning for several hours, and she woke up on the tenth morning to the raspy, high-pitched squawking of the pink bird mutt. Atasia whipped her head around and searched for the source of the noise, and the bird swooped down from the highest bough of a nearby tree. It was the same bird mutt that had killed Maysilee Donner all the way back in the second Quarter Quell. When victor Haymitch Abernathy saw the exact mutt that he had been trying so hard to forget for forty-one years, still missing the feathers a terrified Maysilee had torn out of its skin in her last moments, he fled to his apartment screaming. He was found on his sofa an hour later an inch from alcohol poisoning, but the medical teams of the Capitol did manage to save him. He was in hospital for weeks.

The bird mutts chased Atasia toward Mars, and the 2s spotted each other from about fifty yards away in a clearing crisscrossed from above by rope-like, bright-green vines. Mars made the first move, slashing his sword in Atasia's direction. Atasia deflected the blow with a blow of her own, and the scream of metal against metal ran around the clearing as Mars spun around and hit Atasia's blade from the other direction.

They truly were the best recruits out of all of 2's students, and they had one of the most entertaining final fights in history. After so many years of seeing them training alongside each other at the academy, it was interesting to see them pitted against each other. About fifteen minutes later, the gamemakers sent torrential rainfall onto the arena. Atasia twitched slightly when the first drop landed on her forehead, and she hesitated for just long enough for Mars to bury the blade of his sword into her side. Atasia howled, and Mars leapt out of the trajectory of her sword before she could hurt him back.

The victor was determined roughly thirty minutes after the start of the fight. They were ankle-deep in water when Mars sent Atasia reeling with a well-placed thrusting motion of his sword. Atasia tripped over her own feet in her stumble, and she fell onto her back, groaning. She blinked back her vision to see Mars towering over her with his sword held high, and her world quickly cut to black.

 _Atasia Leyce, District 2 Female: 2nd, Killed by Mars, Day 10_

"Mars Talbot of District 2, you are the victor of the ninety-first annual Hunger Games!" Titanus shouted.

Mars just smiled warmly. He'd had a great time since his arrival in the Capitol and the arena, but he was ready to go home.

 _Mars Talbot, District 2 Male: Victor of the Ninety-First Hunger Games, Day 10_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Mars had brought the first victory to the historically famous Talbot family, and his victory rekindled the flames of his younger brothers. They were more than a little discouraged after watching the deaths of Mercury and Venus before him, and Mars showed them that if they played their cards right they could absolutely come home and make their other siblings proud. District 2 would praise the Talbot name for many years to come, and Mars had brought the quarrying district its twenty-first victor, placing it a stellar six victors ahead of District 1 and seven ahead of 4. Mars was just happy to be home, and he was one of the most prime examples of district pride. He flew the emblem of District 2 over his house seven days a week and always put it at half-mast when one of the other victors died. President Stinn Hawke would enroll him in the sex industry, but Mars didn't mind. He might have even enjoyed it.

The payouts on his victory were pretty meager, as just over 16% bet on him.

His victory tour served its intended purpose, scaring and placating the outlying districts into silence and compliance. His voice cracked ever-so-slightly when he read Atasia's eulogy at his final stop in 2.

Mars would live to age ninety-four, dying from unspecified medical causes five weeks before the one-hundred sixty-seventh annual Hunger Games. He would marry and have three children. He would take up alcohol shortly after his victory, but it wasn't to wipe away the memories of his games; he just liked to drink.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Mars moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, the twentieth to do so.

Woof Dozier, the victor of the thirteenth Hunger Games, dies from heart disease.

Odius Ruttler, the victor of the nineteenth Hunger Games, dies from respiratory failure.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)  
89HG: Admired Thompson (#15, District 1)  
90HG: Chipson Harris (#11, District 3)  
91HG: Mars Talbot (#21, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks for all of the great reviews, guys. This story truly shows my progression as a writer more than anything else I have ever written and I'm so thankful for your support. As this story is nearing 500 reviews it boggles my mind that people actually care about these little summaries of each games.**

 **Sappy aunt-at-the-family-reunion time over, I hope this one was enjoyable. And how was it to see one of the Talbot siblings make it home? :D**

 **And yes, this chapter was absolutely inspired by Moana.**

 **And yes, Haymitch Abernathy is so miserable. You've got to feel for the guy. Seeing one of his only family members die AND seeing Maysilee's avian killer again all in one year has got to be tough. Panem is such a cruel world, isn't it ;(**


	93. The 92nd Hunger Games

**The 92nd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

A bulky cement building loomed out of the darkness. Tall smokestacks were lined neatly onto the ceiling, spiraling off into the heavens. The air was filled with a terrifyingly heavy morning fog. The town sprawling out around the facility had been abandoned for nearly five years, but it already looked like it hadn't been touched for centuries. Basements were flooded with water. Some building had collapsed. The central research facility towered over the rest of the town like a watchman who sits silent and still, unmoving. Wearing gas masks, the research team busted down the front door and slowly walked inside. They pulled out their maps of the half-destroyed complex. The entire east half of the cement building was caved in, and the research team knew they would have to dig through the rubble for several hours to find what they were looking for. It was nearly a week before they found it; the original steel case holding the original vials of the pathogen, labeled "Extreme Contagion". Comparing the original strain of the virus to more recent strains was a surprisingly effective tactic as far as the development of the cure was concerned. By February, the team had actually begun their first prototypes for the cure. Due to the nasty side-effects, it was far too early for actual deployment to begin. President Stinn Hawke kept the residents of Panem under his strict totalitarianist and theocratic rule. Pretty much everybody outside of Districts 3, 6, 8, and 9 accepted that the new religion of Panem was just a fact of life, but people from the aforementioned four districts said no-no to sacrificing their own beliefs and values for a man who wasn't even fairly elected into the presidency. Riots in these four districts were again innumerable, particularly in District 8. If the government was doing one thing well, it was keeping the pathogen out of the Capitol. The isolated city was located hundreds of miles from the nearest town, a small jewel-mining village on the outskirts of District 1, so it wasn't exactly difficult to prevent infection as long as none of the citizens were allowed to leave and as long as all imports were carefully inspected. This had to be done because factory workers in District 8 were intentionally shipping infected blankets to the Capitol out of rebellion. Maddox Courval returned to the post of the gamemaker, Titanus and Dexter returned as the charismatic hosts, and the games team remained the same this year with the exceptions of a few minor gamemakers.

This year had one of the strongest career packs in a while. The male from 1 was older and great with a bow, and he was a strikingly fast runner. The girl was shier than most, but she managed the games' only eleven with her beauty and her mastery of weaponry, particularly with bows and axes. District 2 put on another solid showing. The boy was the fourth of the Talbot siblings to enter the games, and he was 2's stereotypical, uber muscular sword fighter. The girl was the youngest this year at only fifteen, but she still attracted quite a bit of attention via her stellar public speaking skills. Both of the 4s were more solitary and quiet, and both were dark-haired and brown-eyed. The boy was a master fisher, and the girl was a master sailor. The scores of the pack were great: one eleven, three tens, a nine, and an eight.

There was also a relatively healthy, strong group of outliers to give the careers some competition. The anti-careers consisted of Riker and Lulu from 6, Salix from 7, and Tarun and Theodora from 9. Riker and Lulu were similarly outgoing and good-humored, and they were the same age, while Salix was older and skilled with an axe whereas they liked knives. Tarun was the strongest member of the anti-careers, having scored an impressive eight with his swordplay skills, while Theodora was weaker physically but attracted most of the Capitol's attention via her charm and her looks. These games also saw District 12's strongest tribute to date: Arnold Scruggs had muscles like steel cords, and he was one of the fastest runners that District 12 had ever seen. He was the careers' number one target, and also the sponsors' number one target. He was the first District 12 tribute to score a ten in history. The only other standout was the boy from District 3, Ravest. Nobody knew it at the time, but he was infected with the virus. Knowing his days were numbered, he planned to infect as many of the other tributes as possible before the end of his life. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Grandeur Flash, 17, (10) 5-1 and Levanna Moonbeam, 16, (11) 3-1

District 2: Jupiter Talbot, 17, (10) 4-1 and Wystella Knapp, 15, (10) 6-1

District 3: Ravest Holdrege, 15, (5) 26-1 and Deliva Curtin, 12, (3) 44-1

District 4: Rhine Townsend, 18, (9) 7-1 and Isley Hopkins, 16, (8) 10-1

District 5: Colloid Deegan, 13, (3) 41-1 and Coasa Risher, 15, (4) 30-1

District 6: Riker Corbello, 17, (7) 15-1 and Lulu Redbelted, 17, (6) 19-1

District 7: Salix Levkoff, 18, (7) 14-1 and Rosa Hilliard, 18, (5) 23-1

District 8: Madras Chintz, 16, (6) 20-1 and Lacey Stitch, 17, (4) 28-1

District 9: Tarun Absom, 18, (8) 10-1 and Theodora Knowles, 17, (7) 15-1

District 10: Bovine Dulawan, 14, (4) 32-1 and Robina Caite, 12, (4) 34-1

District 11: Zumo Planter, 15, (5) 24-1 and Meadow Terres, 13, (4) 35-1

District 12: Arnold Scruggs, 18, (10) 4-1 and Oda Vign, 12, (3) 48-1

HGBO Bets: 26% on Levanna, 15% on Jupiter, 10% on Grandeur, 8% on Wystella and Arnold, 5% on Rhine, 4% on Isley, 3% on Tarun, 2% on Riker, Lulu, Salix, and Theodora, 1% or less on Ravest, Deliva, Colloid, Coasa, Rosa, Madras, Lacey, Bovine, Robina, Zumo, Meadow, and Oda.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The twenty-four tributes of varying heights, ages, and skin tones saw a ground that was consumed by a swath of color, almost like a multicolored carpet. They were standing much farther away from the cornucopia than usual; the sprint to the horn of plenty spanned somewhat more than a quarter of a mile. They were standing in the middle of a rolling green field dotted with wildflowers that were every color of the rainbow and more: there were pink flowers, blue flowers, purple flowers, yellow flowers, and literally anything else imaginable. There were also blossoms of every shape and size under the sun. The field featured a few trees and bushes placed sporadically here and there, which could provide at least some shelter to the tributes that couldn't make it out of the field in the first few days. The flower-filled field stretched on for five miles in all directions, a stellar distance, before it terminated and the forest began. It was not a normal forest, however. Instead of trees, thousands of humungous flowers towered over the tributes, their stems as broad as tree trunks. The forest completely encircled the meadow, and a tall brick wall encircled the forest, keeping the tributes from reaching the force field. There were thousands of butterfly mutts in the arena, every one of them completely unique, and they flew in swarms around the field and the forest. Their long, curly proboscises could suck more things than just nectar. Keeping their blood in their bodies would not be an easy task for the tributes this year. Bumblebees were also plentiful, though not in as enormous a quantity as the butterfly mutts. The only large water source in the entire arena was a sweet-smelling lake just beyond the cornucopia. Maddox hoped that by limiting the arena's water supply, he could keep the tributes within a smaller space. Puffy white clouds dotted a robin's-egg-blue sky. The smell of the millions upon millions of flowers melted together into the most glorious aroma imaginable, so entrancing the many of the tributes stood sniffing on their pedestals in sheer awe and wonder until the first screams pierced the morning quiet. Nine deaths would be claimed in this year's opening bloodbath. This would be a beautiful place to die, no two ways about it.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Levanna lead the opening sprint this year. She quickly swept up a glossy wooden bow and pulled back the string, preparing to fire at the first outlier who came within range. The boy from 8, Madras, froze dead in his tracks when the point of the arrow landed in his chest. Mouth agape, he pulled the arrow slowly from his chest, and he wobbled slightly back and forth for several seconds before collapsing in a heap.

 _Madras Chintz, District 8 Male: 24th, Killed by Levanna, Bloodbath_

Tarun, the leader of the anti-career pack, grabbed a dagger in each hand and tackled the blonde-haired girl from 11. Meadow lashed out and punched him in the mouth, and Tarun faltered long enough for the girl to wiggle free from his grasp. She'd gone less than ten steps when Tarun tackled her from behind, digging his knives into her back and choking her screams with the noise of blood.

 _Meadow Terres, District 11 Female: 23rd, Killed by Tarun, Bloodbath_

Jupiter Talbot was the next tribute to reach the cornucopia, and he swiftly pulled a sword out of the mass of weapons. Deliva from District 3 was zigzagging to avoid attacks from Isley and Levanna as she thundered toward the cornucopia. Jupiter ended her with his sword, tearing open her abdomen with two heavy chops.

 _Deliva Curtin, District 3 Female: 22nd, Killed by Jupiter, Bloodbath_

Wystella grinned as she wrapped her fingers around a hatchet that sat at the midway point of her pedestal and the cornucopia. She closed one eye and tossed the weapon through the air. The blade sank into the nearest boy's back. With a crunch, Bovine fell onto his front, and Wystella rushed forward to retrieve her weapon as her first victim bled out fully.

 _Bovine Dulawan, District 10 Male: 21st, Killed by Wystella, Bloodbath_

Rhine had been chasing Arnold from District 12 around the cornucopia field for most of the bloodbath, while the others picked off the weaklings. Arnold was among the strongest tributes in these games, and Rhine did not want him escaping the initial tussle with his life. Rhine tossed two throwing knives in his direction, and Arnold grabbed the nearest boy off of his feet. Like a human shield, the boy absorbed both of the knives. Arnold immediately let him go, and he twitched slightly before falling still.

 _Colloid Deegan, District 5 Male: 20th, Killed by Rhine, Bloodbath_

Wystella had wrenched her hatchet fully out of Bovine's chest, and she was tackled from behind by the girl from 12, who was armed with a hatchet of her own and hoped to take down competition early. Wystella had her disarmed in seconds. With the first blow of her hatchet, she sent Oda reeling, before lastly sawing out a large chunk of her torso with her deadly blade.

 _Oda Vign, District 12 Female: 19th, Killed by Wystella, Bloodbath_

Rhine had sprinted back to the cornucopia after Arnold disappeared into the field of flowers, and he was quickly attacked by Rosa, the tall girl from District 7. Rhine had an entire belt of throwing knives, but Rosa had a spear, so she wasn't completely helpless. She let out a shriek when Rhine finally managed to lodge one of his knives awkwardly into her chest, and she collapsed like a dying fish. In minutes, she had lost too much blood for her body to keep fighting.

 _Rosa Hilliard, District 7 Female: 18th, Killed by Rhine, Bloodbath_

Rosa's district partner Salix let out a scream of fury when he saw Rosa fall to the flowery carpet. They weren't allied, and there was nothing more than a casual friendship between them, but Salix had promised Rosa that he would try his best to protect her in the games if it came to that. That was a promise Salix intended to keep. Salix sprinted in Rhine's direction, but he was hardly halfway there when Levanna's arrow landed in his back. Salix was dead in moments, and Rhine and Levanna shared a quick smile before sprinting in opposite directions.

 _Salix Levkoff, District 7 Male: 17th, Killed by Levanna, Bloodbath_

Grandeur from District 1 felt strong hands wrap around his neck, and he whipped quickly around, expecting to see a strong outlier like Arnold, Tarun, or maybe Theodora. Instead, he saw Jupiter Talbot. Grandeur stared with eyes agape at the boy he'd thought to be his ally as Jupiter stabbed his sword into his chest, killing him with a single thrusting motion. Jupiter grinned slightly before abandoning the cornucopia and the other careers, leaving the boy from the luxury district to bleed out behind him.

 _Grandeur Flash, District 1 Male: 16th, Killed by Jupiter, Bloodbath_

The careers regrouped at the cornucopia. Levanna and Isley were unscathed with the exceptions of a few minor cuts and scrapes. Rhine was smeared with dirt and drenched with sweat, and Wystella was splattered up and down with the blood of her two victims. The pack was quick to notice the absences of both Grandeur and Jupiter. They walked slowly around the cornucopia field, inspecting the bodies of the dead. Levanna stumbled upon Grandeur's lifeless corpse, and she called the others over. Wystella, Rhine, and Isley gathered around her, and Levanna quickly flipped Grandeur over, revealing the blatant sword wound in his chest.

"Traitor," Levanna sighed hollowly. The four careers marched back to the cornucopia and quickly geared up. Wystella felt the most betrayed; she'd developed a deep friendship with Jupiter during the years they'd trained alongside each other at the academy, and the betrayal was like a knife lodged into her gut. Isley was the most miserable, though. She was terribly allergic to pollen, and her eyes had been red from the moment she'd entered the arena. Sniffling regularly, she helped the careers out with their post-bloodbath rounds and volunteered to stay behind while the others went hunting.

The outliers spread themselves across the arena. The deserter, Jupiter from 2, sprinted through the central field before arriving in the forest, one of the first tributes to do so. His first priority was to search for water; unbeknownst to him, the sweet-smelling lake just beyond the cornucopia was the arena's only water source apart from the cornucopia, sponsors, and rain. When night fell, Jupiter laid down in a dried-up riverbed and stared at the towering multicolored blossoms that rose into the sky like trees. He had a sleeping bag, which helped him keep warm throughout the cold night. Ravest from 3 raced away from the cornucopia in a zig-zag pattern, touching and spitting on everything he could find. He wanted to get as much infecting done as possible before he started showing symptoms and the gamemakers were forced to terminate him. Coasa from 5 was chased all the way to the forest by a swarm of brightly-colored butterfly mutts. A few of them nipped the back of her neck, but she was ultimately unharmed. She climbed into the light-purple flower and pulled the petals inward, trapping herself inside like a wrapped gift. The anti-careers stayed in the central field rather than heading to the forest. They correctly guessed that the central lake was the only water source in the arena, and they didn't want to stray too far away from it in case dehydration started calling their names. Riker and Tarun stayed close together as they walked, as did Lulu and Theodora, and they eventually settled down at the lakeside in the shadowy valley between two large hills. Lacey from 8 settled down in the forest after a whole day of alternating between walking and jogging. She smeared herself and her only pack with mud; the dark, airy soil of the arena stuck to her skin like a dream. Covered with the essence of Mother Nature, Lacey crouched down in a thick area of the forest and hoped her natural camouflage would keep her from being spotted. Robina from 10 was the only twelve-year-old left in these games, and her small body wasn't strong enough to reach the flower forest in one day. Despite her lacking physical prowess, Robina was extremely level-headed and composed. Sweating, she sat down in a rare cluster of trees and tried to get some sleep. Zumo from 11 was similarly too weak to travel all the way to the forest. He piqued the interest of the audience with a rather unique method of shelter building. He'd gotten a pack of rubber bands from the cornucopia, and Zumo bent clusters of the waist-high wildflowers together before binding them together at the tips. Soon, he'd created a kind of low-roofed shelter large enough for him to fit inside. Arnold from 12 sprinted to the forest and took a quick moment to sort through his supplies before heading on the prowl. He had a pack filled with beef strips and a bowl of fruit, a high-end medical kit, at least five knives, and much more. He was the most well-stocked outlier, and he knew the only way to increase his supply stock even more would be to make kills and slaughter tributes. Arnold was prepared to do so. Things were pretty peaceful as day turned to night in the arena.

The morning of Day 2 was pretty tame and relaxed. Most of the tributes let themselves relax after the long physical and psychological stress of the day prior. However, Zumo from 11 got up bright and early to expand his shelter even more. Using his rubber bands, he'd created a whole network of flowers bent toward each other, giving himself a little more elbow room when he crawled into the empty space between. A sponsor sent him a thermos of water, impressed by his efforts, which eliminated Zumo's need to head back toward the lake for the time being.

The three careers that were hunting (Levanna, Wystella, and Rhine) broke camp at dawn and quickly sprinted back to the cornucopia for a supply restock. Rhine felt somewhat off, though he couldn't exactly explain how. He wasn't particularly dizzy, but everything he saw and heard felt somewhat more distant. These were only the first symptoms of the disease taking root in his body. Wystella was the most observant of the group, and it didn't take long before she noticed something was up with the boy from District 4. She didn't say anything, however. She didn't want to jump to any conclusions and get herself killed.

What is often considered the defining moment of the ninety-second Hunger Games occurred just before noon on Day 2. Nobody can call themselves a games fan who is unable to describe the following events in detail. Having left Rhine behind to guard the cornucopia, the three hunters picked up on the 12 boy's gruff snores. Grinning as wide as the moon, Levanna pointed upward. The others followed her gaze and saw Arnold sleeping soundly on a soft yellow petal. The three crept forward, brandishing their weapons, and they quickly rushed into formation, surrounding him on three sides. It was oddly reminiscent of the second Quarter Quell, where Lavish, Cognac, and Estelle had surrounded Mr. Abernathy.

Something snapped under Isley's foot, and Arnold's eyes shot open. Levanna gave the command to charge. Arnold Scruggs was quite possibly the strongest tribute the mining district had ever seen, and he executed his plan in the blink of an eye. He used his left hand to smack Wystella heavily in the mouth, and the 2 girl fell off of the flower, roughly ten feet to the ground. She wasn't injured, but she was in too much pain to move for several seconds. Using his other hand, Arnold pulled a sturdy rope out of his pack and swung it around Isley's abdomen. Isley let out a scream as the 12 boy wrapped it repeatedly around her chest and then tied it off with one heavy knot.

Arnold hadn't forgotten about Ms. Moonbeam, however. Levanna was behind him, and Arnold leapt off the side of the petal when she pounced. Levanna made hard contact with the rope suspending Isley, hitting it with enough force to push it upward to her neck. Isley immediately fell perpendicular to the ground, and with a short crunch and a short groan, she was dead. Arnold had escaped by the time that Levanna and Wystella regained their bearings. Now it was just the two of them and the lightly swinging body of their friend from 4.

 _Isley Hopkins, District 4 Female: 15th, Killed by Arnold, Day 2_

Robina was the only other point of note as Day 2 came to its conclusion. The second day still wasn't enough for her to reach the forest, but it was enough to bring her close. When night fell, she camped out about a mile from the first line of "trees" and curled up for the night. A few sponsors pooled together their funds to send her a pair of red hand warmers to help her through the cold night. Robina was one of the most popular outliers despite her youth and her low score, and things were looking pretty bright for her future at that point.

The careers continued to be short on luck in the first half of Day 3. Wystella was getting more and more suspicious about the behavior of Levanna and Rhine. They would randomly stop to scratch themselves, and this would suddenly trigger dozens of little spots around their bodies to itch. Sometimes they froze dead in their tracks and their eyes drooped. They sneezed regularly. Wystella refused to go near the others, and she started to take serious precautions to keep from getting infected, like washing her hands and face regularly. Their hunt through the forest was fruitless, and they returned to the cornucopia at dusk in low spirits.

The anti-careers had better luck. After two days of stubbornly staying in the field, they filled their thermoses from the lake and then moved to the forest. Suddenly, the gamemakers played the sound of rustling leaves, and the anti-careers rushed toward the noise, expecting to see a tasty squirrel or other small animal. Instead, they saw Ravest from 3 in the worst condition they'd ever seen a human in. He was curled up on the ground, and his face was sunken. His eyes were hollow and lifeless. Ugly red hives covered his face and neck.

Lulu, the most squeamish of the group, fell backward while the others crept slowly forward. Tarun ordered Riker and Theodora to keep their distance from the slightly twitching boy. Ravest knew he was an inch from death, but he also knew he'd done what he set out to do, and he felt satisfied about that. Riker pulled his shirt over his mouth and nose and crept slowly forward to kill the boy with his spear. He washed his hands immediately afterward, but the extremely contagious virus had already latched onto him. Time would tell if he would spread the infection to the other anti-careers.

 _Ravest Holdrege, District 3 Male: 14th, Killed by Riker, Day 3_

The remainder of Day 3 featured a single exciting moment. Jupiter and Arnold had been camping out at the lakeside for several days, but they'd managed to avoid seeing each other because the landscape was hilly and uneven. Also, the ground was covered with such a swath of different colors that the tributes' multicolored clothing blended into the landscape like a dream. Jupiter stopped on the picturesque shore of the lake for a midday nap, and Arnold stumbled upon him mere minutes later. Jupiter's chest slowly rose and fell with his even breaths.

Arnold crept across the side of the lake to meet him, and Jupiter woke up to the noise of his light footsteps. When Arnold grew close enough, Jupiter lashed out, grabbing Arnold's ankle with his right hand. Arnold fell straight onto his bottom, and when Jupiter jumped to his feet he was almost pulled completely upside-down. Their duel lasted for about ten minutes. Arnold ended up lodging one of his daggers into the career deserter's chest, distracting him long enough for him to escape. Arnold ran for his life, and he was quickly lost in the land of rolling green hills and perfectly-formed, colorful flowers.

Day 4 was deathless. The behavior of both Levanna and Rhine was getting increasingly stranger. They hadn't yet begun to show severe physical symptoms, but the degenerative pathogen was sending them farther and farther to bat-shit-crazy-town. Wystella's efforts to keep from becoming infected were paying off significantly. She knew she was using up huge amounts of water to keep herself clean, and she highly considered abandoning the others multiple times, but the mistakes of tributes past always held her back. The last career deserter to win the games was Mags Flanagan all the way back in the eleventh games. The pack kept up their hunt through the forest, and they disembarked from the forest about halfway through Day 4 in favor of the more open field.

Jupiter had been apprehensive to move away from the lake for several days, and he only left once he'd built up enough sponsored water to last for several days. He did end up returning after a few hours, however; he knew that the lake would be like a magnet for the weak outliers, and he made the decision to camp out for a little while and wait for prey to come to him rather than actively search for it.

The outliers weren't up to anything very exciting. Coasa remained relatively still in the forest before the gamemakers forced her into the field with a swarm of bumblebee mutts. They weren't nearly as powerful as Tracker Jackers, but their stings did have at least some hallucinogenic power to them. Coasa thought she heard a small boy's screams, and she searched feverishly for the source of the sound. Of course, she never found it. Lacey remained pretty still in the forest. With her natural camouflage, she managed to remain safely out of the sight of the others. Robina, who had finally reached the forest, was starting to get extremely worried about dehydration. Her nerves lessened slightly about halfway through the fourth day, when the first rain clouds started rolling in. Her mentor, Alexander, sent her a note instructing her to stay put in the forest and rehydrate herself with the rain water rather than risk her life by heading to the lake. Zumo was chased away from his shelter by a swarm of poisonous bumblebee mutts. They were no ordinary bumblebees—they were the size of mice, and, like the ones that had attacked Coasa, they could cause hallucinations. He dropped from exhausted about two miles away from his shelter, and he dragged himself back over the course of several hours, muttering softly to himself. Arnold camped out at the lakeside, moving gradually along the shoreline as the day progressed. He was remaining just a tad too still for the Capitol's taste, but the gamemakers didn't send any mutts in his direction; he was one of the Capitol's favorite tributes, close behind Levanna, and they didn't want to risk scratching him up this early in the games.

Lulu, Tarun, and Theodora were quick to notice that Riker was acting funny, and Tarun didn't hesitate to break away. The group woke up on the fifth morning to find Tarun completely missing along with most of their supplies. Lulu was absolutely miserable; she hated watching her friend Riker slowly break down. Theodora was similarly terrified, and was immensely relieved when she realized that Lulu was just as terrified as she was. Both girls were considering following in Tarun's footsteps and breaking away from the infected boy.

They were talking quietly over breakfast when Riker tackled Lulu from behind and wrapped his hands firmly around her neck. Theodora gasped and stumbled backward, screaming with terror as she watched Lulu writhe and gasp in Riker's strong grip. Lulu quickly fell still, and Riker looked back up, a crazy glint in his eyes. Theodora was paralyzed with terror. She'd never known just what the virus could do to people.

 _Lulu Redbelted, District 6 Female: 13th, Killed by Riker, Day 5_

"You!" Riker shouted, pointing at Theodora. "It's your fault! You said you were curing me, but it didn't work! I'm still sick! You lied to me! You… you killed me!"

Theodora staggered backward, confused and terrified. Riker continued his seemingly insane ramblings. "They're gonna kill us all! They're gonna kill us all except for the one who works! Every else is gonna die!"

As it turned out, Riker wasn't completely insane. The Capitol had done something to all twenty-four of them, and Riker was the only one whose anesthesia hadn't worked properly. He was the only one who had memories of the things the Capitol had done to him.

The ninety-second Hunger Games was very different from any other games before or after. All twenty-four tributes were infected with the virus, and the Capitol had given them each a different prototype of the cure. The knowledge of how the tributes' mental and physical processes functioned in the high-stress situations of the games while under each of the different possible cures was paramount in perfecting the single cure that worked the most efficiently.

Ravest hadn't been the "one" infected tribute to spread the disease to everybody else. They were all infected at varying stages, and he had just been the first to break completely. The hoax that Ravest had infected everybody else was just a sham to make the games more interesting. The Capitol could safely rule out the versions of the cure they'd given to Ravest and Riker, as well as Levanna and Rhine.

But Theodora didn't know that. She thought Riker was a madman, and rightfully so. Riker collapsed at her feet, sobbing, murmuring, "They'll kill us all, they'll kill us all, they'll kill us all," under his breath. Theodora thrust a nearby dagger into the back of his neck. Riker moaned and gurgled slightly before his cannon shot sounded.

 _Riker Corbello, District 6 Male: 12th, Killed by Theodora, Day 5_

Robina had been wise to stay in the forest rather than return to the lake, and the rains came about halfway through Day 5. The rain came with its fair share of wind, and it was miserably cold for anybody without a sleeping bag or at least some kind of jacket. One of Robina's sponsors sent her a thin cloth blanket. It did at least something to protect her from the bitter chill, but the 10 girl was shivering nonetheless. The career and anti-career packs wore the cold temperatures rather well, as did Jupiter, Theodora, and Zumo.

Tarun had fled to the edge of the forest after abandoning the other anti-careers. He'd grabbed the quartet's only jacket before he ran, which kept him warm through the cold night. Overall, Coasa and Lacey were the most miserable. The rain washed away Lacey's natural camouflage and drenched her to the bone, and she dragged herself under a flower with big blue petals and curled up in a ball to keep warm. Coasa had been near death from dehydration when the storm struck, and she ran back and forth like a kid in a snowstorm, trying to catch as much rain in her mouth as she could. Arnold was sweaty and exhausted after a whole day of travelling; he'd finally abandoned the lake, and he settled down about three miles away when the first cold drops started falling.

Levanna and Rhine awoke on the sixth morning to find that Wystella had left in the night. After several days of keeping dangerously close to her infected allies, she'd finally gotten up the courage to make a run for it. Wystella didn't know that she was just as infected as everybody else; her version of the cure just worked rather efficiently, keeping the symptoms from plaguing her as strongly. Her frequent hand and face washes weren't actually doing anything, but they made her feel safer and she didn't slow down with them as Day 6 trickled past. Levanna and Rhine had a long verbal quarrel about which of them had killed Wystella, when in reality the 2 girl was safe and sound about four miles away from the cornucopia. When she reached the forest, Wystella found that several of the dry beds had been flooded due to the rainstorm. She camped out near one of the wider streams when night fell.

Jupiter Talbot was relaxing with his feet in the lake. The last few days, he'd been feeling somewhat off. He didn't know why, of course. A smile formed on his face when he saw a boy moving quietly toward the lakeside about a quarter of a mile away: Tarun from 9, whose life had been saved a few days earlier when he decided to abandon the other anti-careers. Jupiter slowly crept in Tarun's direction, and Tarun screamed when he leapt out of the shadows, his sword glistening in the gem of the sun overhead. A nearby swarm of passive butterflies scattered with alarm as Jupiter slammed his sword into Tarun's side and sawed it back and forth several times. Jupiter took a quick moment to pilfer him of his supplies before sprinting away.

 _Tarun Absom, District 9 Male: 11th, Killed by Jupiter, Day 6_

The disease was getting increasingly more intense on both Levanna and Rhine. They were going to heck in an odd kind of synchronization, and they passed all of the major milestones together; losing the capability of speech, breaking out with the first itchy red blisters, throwing up. Two insane careers were much more terrifying than two healthy ones. They quickly dashed across the length of the field and then entered the forest, where several of the outliers were hiding.

Zumo was the next tribute to start showing signs. Oddly, he was only experiencing physical symptoms like coughing, nausea, and vomiting, and no severe psychological ones. This told the Capitol cure researchers a lot about the version of the cure they'd put into Zumo's body. At the time being, he was telling science more information than any of the other tributes, and the gamemakers installed a temporary force field around him with a radius of about half a mile to keep the other tributes away. They'd put a few of these bubbles around tributes like Jupiter and Arnold throughout the games so far, but they had all been inactivated within hours.

Wystella's travels through the forest brought her to the low-lying area between two hills. A few minutes prior, she'd agitated a swarm of deadly butterfly mutts, and she was forced to flee to the low-lying region for safety. The moment she sat down, she heard a human squeak. Coasa was mere meters away, and she clapped her hands over her mouth. It cut the noise short, but she had already been heard by Wystella. The moonlight glistened off of her silver necklace token as Coasa leapt to her feet. She tried hurriedly to run for cover, but she fell to the ground moments later. Wystella had tossed the blade of her hatchet into her back, and Coasa fell with a loud crunch, forcing the blade of the weapon farther into her system. Wystella yanked it out with one sharp tug.

 _Coasa Risher, District 5 Female: 10th, Killed by Wystella, Day 6_

The first half of Day 7 was deathless. Levanna and Rhine returned to the field after a long day of hunting through the forest. They were now rapidly salivating and breathing heavily in and out like zombies in a horror movie. They had far too much energy left to just return to the cornucopia and hunt; they wanted to get in a few hours of hunting time in the central field, particularly near the lake, where they knew the most outliers would be hiding.

Lacey was finally feeling the effects of dehydration on her body, and she disembarked from the forest in favor of the central lake. She was dangerously near the two rabid careers, but she didn't know it. Lacey ended up kneeling at the side of the lake and sipping the water greedily for several minutes before curling up for a short rest. The tall flowers hid her well. She was rather short and petite for her age, meaning it was easy to conceal herself under the natural roof of colorful blossoms. Theodora continued travelling in a spiral-like shape around the cornucopia. She didn't have the energy or the moral flexibility to actively hunt for tributes, but by slowly closing on the cornucopia it was easy to pretend she was on the prowl for outliers. The gamemakers inactivated Zumo's little personal force field and pretty much let him run wherever he wanted. Once, he came just a tad bit too close to Jupiter from 2. The gamemakers promptly drew him away by sending a crowd of the poison butterflies after him.

Arnold from 12 and Wystella from 2 were the only two tributes who hadn't shown any symptoms at all. Wystella was in the forest, while Arnold was at the lake. Keeping the two most prized test subjects as away from each other as possible was paramount for the Capitol's research. Wider varieties of stimuli meant more brain activity and bodily reactions to monitor, which meant more data, and that was always a good thing.

Levanna and Rhine were about a mile from the lake when they spotted Lacey moving quietly through the field of flowers, humming very softly to herself to keep occupied. The careers charged. They didn't even attempt to remain hidden, and Lacey heard them coming when they were several dozen yards away. She had a huge head start, but her speed couldn't compare to the two trained careers. One of Levanna's arrows landed into the small of her back, and Lacey fell backward, screaming in agony and terror as Levanna and Rhine grew closer. She lashed out and kicked Rhine in the shin, and the angry boy launched two throwing knives into her chest. Lacey died quickly, and the careers just stared at her corpse, laughing slightly. The gamemakers sent them reeling with strong electrical pulses so that the hovercraft could collect the body.

 _Lacey Stitch, District 8 Female: 9th, Killed by Levanna and Rhine, Day 7_

That left the final eight: Levanna Moonbeam from District 1, Jupiter Talbot and Wystella Knapp from District 2, Rhine Townsend from District 4, Theodora Knowles from District 9, Robina Caite from District 10, Zumo Planter from District 11, and Arnold Scruggs from District 12.

Moments after Lacey's death, two cannon shots fired in rapid succession. Levanna and Rhine were running for their lives after the strong electrical pulses from the gamemakers, and they quickly came to the central lake. Peculiarly, the careers were showing all of the psychological symptoms, while showing virtually none of the physical symptoms. The duo laid out their crumpled, old blanket at the lakeside and stopped for a short rest.

Unbeknownst to them, Arnold from 12 was less than a quarter mile away. From his area of higher ground, he saw the two tributes, two dark silhouettes against the milky white light of the rising moon. He was under the impression it was only two weak outliers who would be easy kills, but he was wrong. He only recognized them as the careers when he was mere meters away, and then he had no choice but to head in and kill them both or die trying.

Levanna made the first move. Her bow was inefficient in such a brutal fight, and Arnold had tugged it out of her hands in seconds. Arnold threw it to the ground and stamped on the wooden beam until it broke. Her chief weapon now useless, Levanna turned to run, but Arnold had already grabbed her by the back of the neck. He gave her one heavy shove. Levanna staggered away, and her knees gradually weakened until she collapsed in a heap. Arnold pounced and landed both of her knives into her back, and Levanna just moaned incomprehensibly while she died.

 _Levanna Moonbeam, District 1 Female: 8th, Killed by Arnold, Day 7_

Arnold's mistake was forgetting about the boy from District 4 until after Levanna was dead. Arnold sprang back to his feet and whipped his head back and forth, quivering. Rhine was nowhere to be seen. He finally leapt out of the darkness more than a minute later, and Arnold was too stunned to fight back. In an instant, Rhine was on top of him. He had a throwing knife placed on his neck, and Rhine was slowly driving it downward into the skin. Arnold gasped with exhaustion and fear as the skin broke and blood burbled forth.

Suddenly, Rhine fell still, and his canon shot fired. Arnold wiggled out from underneath him, confused. He was under the impression that the killer was some other tribute, the Maysilee to his Haymitch, but there were no tributes in the immediate vicinity. Alongside Wystella, Arnold was one of the most valuable tributes in these games because of how well their different prototypes of the cure were working. It was therefore the gamemakers' goal to keep them alive as long as possible, and Rhine had been far beyond saving anyway. They were able to kill Rhine instantly with a strong pulse of electricity via his tracker.

 _Rhine Townsend, District 4 Male: 7th, Killed by Gamemakers, Day 7_

Day 8 was deathless. The six remaining test subjects didn't do much, to be honest. Jupiter kept up his hunts through the field. No matter how much water he was sponsored, he stubbornly refused to wander too far away from the lake. No number of poison butterfly and bumblebee mutts could drive him to the edges of the field, where most of the tributes were hiding. By this point, the gamemakers were starting to slowly move the tributes away from the forest. Wystella's version of the cure was working absolutely wonderfully; eight days into the games, she'd experienced literally no symptoms besides very minor nausea and a runny nose. Hatchet in hand, she sprinted around the central field in pursuit of victims.

Theodora was terrified; she was starting to experience both psychological and physical symptoms of the disease. She knew that only a rare strain of the disease caused people to spiral downward into heartless monsters, but the fact that she was pretty much doomed to die was too much for Theodora to handle. She ducked down in a ditch near the edge of the field and just cried until there were no tears left in her. Robina once again keep admirably calm and composed despite the high-stress situations of the games. By Day 8, she was the only tribute left in the forest. The gamemakers didn't really have a problem with her, given her popularity, but they planned to drive her out of the forest with force if she didn't leave on her own accord within the next few days.

Arnold finally abandoned the lake for good. The gamemakers had been protecting him at all costs thus far. He correctly guessed that there was something special about him, and that the gamemakers would continue protecting him as the games progressed. Once, he spotted Theodora from about a hundred yards off. A long chase ensued, and it ended with Theodora collapsing in a small valley. Part of her thought she'd hallucinated Arnold, as he'd seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Could she really be going crazy?

A cannon shot rolled over the arena on the morning of Day 8. Zumo was by far the most inactive tribute in the games. For several days, the gamemakers had been shielding him from the others because of the valuable information he provided, but now they'd gotten everything out of him they needed. Zumo woke up screaming to the bites of the first butterfly mutts on his cheeks. Their venom was like fire as it worked its way through his veins. Zumo jumped to his feet and screamed at the top of his lungs, swatting the swarms of butterfly mutts away. They surrounded him like a solid wall and followed him when he tried to run. The collective sound of their flapping wings was the last thing he heard before the crazy hallucinations came.

 _Zumo Planter, District 11 Male: 6th, Killed by Butterfly Muttations, Day 10_

Day 11 was largely filled with tributes moving toward and away from the forest. Robina's mentor Alexander sent her a blank piece of paper. Confused, Robina held the paper up, and she could make out the glossy printed message in the light of the sun. The message told her to disembark from the forest and sprint to the field as quickly as her legs could carry her. It was written in an urgent tone, and it scared Robina enough to get moving on the minute. When she arrived in the field, she collapsed in a bed of pink flowers and stared at the puffy white clouds, too exhausted to move any farther for the time being.

Jupiter was doing the opposite. After so many days in the field, he was eager to explore the forest. He was about two and a half miles from the first line of "trees" when the gamemakers set off a swarm of bumblebee mutts to chase him back toward the center of the arena. Now that there were only five tributes left, the forest was off-limits. The tributes would have to battle it out in the open field where there was little shelter and very few places to hide.

In the evening of Day 11, the hovercraft descended and began sprinkling chemicals over the field of flowers. The gamemakers wanted the flowers to all wilt and die, which would make it much harder for the tributes to blend in. The tributes woke up on Day 12 to find themselves in an unrecognizable land of greys, browns, and vomit-like yellows. Virtually every single flower in the arena was now dead.

Wystella woke up bright and early that morning to search for victims. She quickly came across the valley where Theodora was sleeping. Theodora had slept through the mass death, so she didn't know just how vulnerable she was. It was difficult to move without making sound now that everything was crumbly and brittle, but Wystella somehow managed it. She really did have a kind of grace that was virtually unprecedented in the games. She crept up behind Theodora and brought down the blade of her hatchet, and Theodora literally never woke up. The blade nearly cleaved her head completely in half, and she was gone in a fraction of a second.

 _Theodora Knowles, District 9 Female: 5th, Killed by Wystella, Day 12_

The rest of Day 12 was deathless. For most of the day, the gamemakers stopped focusing on killing the tributes and started focusing on the mountains of data they were raking in. Jupiter showed the disease the most intensely, but he was only showing the physical signs, not the psychological ones. Zumo from 11 had been in a similar boat, and this allowed the Capitol to pinpoint just what ingredients of the cure were necessary to keep the human mind from going to hell when the disease took root. Robina displayed moderate symptoms, including sweating and coughing. She was also mumbling softly under her breath, the classic first sign of insanity. Wystella and Arnold were once again completely clear of all major symptoms. Wystella was going downhill slightly faster than Arnold; the 2 girl was growing unpredictable in her movements. She alternated between walking very quickly and walking very slowly, and she jumped into the air at seemingly random times.

The tributes didn't do anything very exciting on the twelfth day. Wystella continued hunting in circles, hatchet in hand. Arnold ventured toward and away from the lake with his knives. Twelve-year-old Robina sprinted from place to place and ducked down in the lowest-grounded areas she could find whenever she heard unfamiliar noises. Jupiter stayed more or less near the cornucopia, hunting on and off and feeding himself on flower stems and sponsor foods.

The biggest fight of Day 13 occurred just after noon. Wystella and Jupiter had been growing progressively closer for several hours. Their paths finally crossed when the gamemakers set off a loud banging noise between them. They rushed toward the noise to investigate, and they spotted each other from about an eighth of a mile off. They were now left facing one another, and they both rushed forward.

Jupiter acted first, drawing his sword and lashing out in Wystella's direction. Wystella swerved so the blow intended for her chest landed in her side. She didn't want to risk tossing her hatchet and missing, then leaving her defenseless against the onslaught of slashes and stabs from Jupiter's sword. Wystella largely resorted to moving as much as possible, making herself a more difficult target.

The battle lasted for a couple of minutes, with the two dancing around each other, inflicting minor cuts and scrapes but nothing major. Roughly five minutes after the start of the fight, Jupiter sliced off one of Wystella's golden tresses. Wystella just saw red; her prime method of keeping sponsors alongside her battle tactics were her looks. Her look now ruined, Wystella charged, abandoning all forms of caution out of rage. Jupiter was too shocked to sidestep before the blade of the hatchet connected with his chest. Jupiter was sent spiraling to the ground, and he wept softly as Wystella tore up his neck and abdomen mercilessly with her weapon.

 _Jupiter Talbot, District 2 Male: 4th, Killed by Wystella, Day 13_

On the morning of Day 14, Maddox let the world blaze. Fires started behind each of the three tributes, forcing them inward. Robina was the farthest north, and Arnold was the farthest south, whereas Wystella was nearest the cornucopia. Wystella would have been confident in any other scenario, but she was up against the most popular outlier in these games. In fact, Arnold had been the Capitol's very favorite tribute since Levanna's downward spiral into insanity. Wystella also didn't think Robina would be much of a problem. Robina herself was terrified; she was only twelve years old, and she was up against two tributes who both scored tens in their private sessions. Arnold was in the same boat as Wystella in being nervous against such a strong competitor. The three tributes converged on the cornucopia, and the final fight began.

What happened to the last three tributes was very disputed. The story was pieced together over the many centuries of the Hunger Games, and we will probably never know the full story. The cameras did not show what was happening inside of the cornucopia. Only the sounds could be heard. Robina's young screams were the first to pierce the morning quiet, and the hovercraft's claw dragged her out in the open. Robina had an obvious dagger wound in her chest, leaving the Capitol to suspect she had been killed by Arnold.

 _Robina Caite, District 10 Female: 3rd, "Killed" by Arnold, Day 14_

For the next several minutes, the grunts and groans of both Wystella and Arnold could be heard. The Capitol could assume that a long, difficult fight was transpiring between them. Still, the cameras refused to show anything but the metallic side of the cornucopia. After nearly half an hour, a cannon shot fired. The hovercraft picked up the body of Wystella from 2 and carried her high into the sky.

 _Wystella Knapp, District 2 Female: 2nd, "Killed" by Arnold, Day 14_

"Arnold Scruggs of District 12, you are the victor of the ninety-second annual Hunger Games!" Titanus Lafayette exclaimed. Arnold just sighed, ready to return to the land of coal dust and grey slum houses that he called home.

The day prior, Head Gamemaker Maddox Courval had scheduled a private meeting with President Stinn Hawke. Not even Stinn's most trusted peacekeepers were allowed in the study while the meeting was taking place.

"Good morning, Mr. President," Maddox said in an extremely formal tone. Nobody used any other tone when talking to the president of Panem. "As you know, we have been carefully monitoring the brain activity and bodily functions of our tributes. We have done this because each of them is injected with a different prototype of the cure, and we aim to determine which prototype is the most effective. We also aim to determine which elements of each prototype cause individual symptoms to lessen in the infected."

Stinn Hakwe nodded, and Maddox continued talking. "Now, our crowd of twenty-four tributes has been whittled down to a final three. Ms. Knapp, Ms. Caite, and Mr. Scruggs now have the entire weight of the human race on their shoulders. The three of them are invaluable as far as cure research is concerned."

"I'm very well aware, Mr. President, that only one victor is allowed from each Hunger Games. I urge you to take my words into consideration, however. We now have three invaluable test subjects from three different walks of life who have all reacted to the virus and the various cures in very different, interesting ways. We have so many experiments left to try and tests left to run. We need to keep all three of these tributes alive."

For the next half hour or so, Maddox showed Stinn hundreds of data tables, automated simulations, and more.

"Very well," Stinn said at last (Maddox breathed a sigh of relief here). "I'll let you take all three tributes out of the arena. That boy from District 12, Arnold—he can be our singular victor. We'll put him on a pedestal and parade him around Panem and make him mentor each year. Wystella and Robina are going to have to take on new names and new identities and new lives. Outside of our research teams, nobody can know that they are still alive. _Nobody._ "

That was all Maddox needed. He thanked the president for his time and quietly left the room.

None of this was known until Stinn died and all of the documents and tapes hidden in the Presidential Mansion were turned out. For many years, Panem thought that Arnold Scruggs was the sole victor of the ninety-second annual Hunger Games. He'd been working himself half to death in the slums of District 12 with his alcohol-addicted brother and prostitute mother after his father died in a mining accident five years prior. He had virtually no family, and he had no friends, but he had the Capitol. They had given him fame and they had given him wealth. He would bow to them forever.

 _Arnold Scruggs, District 12 Male: Victor of the Ninety-Second Hunger Games, Day 14_

 _Wystella Knapp, District 2 Female: Unofficial Victor of the Ninety-Second Hunger Games, Day 14_

 _Robina Caite, District 10 Female: Unofficial Victor of the Ninety-Second Hunger Games, Day 14_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Arnold Scruggs

District 12 welcomed their third victor with thunderous applause. They hadn't gotten a victor since Haymitch Abernathy all the way back in the second Quarter Quell, and a good portion of Panem was too young to have ever seen a District 12 tribute win the games. Celebrations were endless in the mining district, and for the first time in over four decades the residents of District 12 went to sleep with stomachs that were not quite so empty. Arnold was happy to be home of course, but he was a very changed boy. As he grew and developed, he would turn into one of the most patriotic victors, a full supporter of everything the Capitol did, not a rebel at all. Seeing such a career-like victor in a place as desolate as 12 was strange, to say the least, but the Capitol loved him and gobbled him up. He was funny, smart, and strong, and he was certainly one of the most beloved victors of the first Hunger Games century.

His victory tour was stellar; all of the outlying districts were refreshed to see a 12 victor after so many years.

The payouts on his victory weren't very good, as 8% bet on him.

Arnold would live to age eighty-three, dying from cancer two months after the one-hundred fifty-seventh Hunger Games. He would marry a rich Capitol businesswoman, and they would have four children together. He ultimately integrated into the Capitol society and enjoyed it.

Wystella Knapp

After the cure was perfected and she was finally allowed to go free, Wystella was given a choice between heading home to 2 and staying in the Capitol. Wystella, who virtually everybody in Panem thought was dead, was smuggled back to District 2 and deposited at the academy, where she set up residence as a trainer. She quickly sought out her old trainer, a fifty-ish year old lady named Amber Bellerose. Wystella was forced to take on extensive plastic surgery to ensure nobody recognized her, and he changed her name to Reece Cinty shortly after her victory. She kept her biggest secret well throughout her life at the academy, training young ladies and gentlemen who had no idea she had actually entered the Hunger Games and lived to tell the tale.

"Reece" would live to age seventy, dying from breast cancer five months before the one-hundred forty-seventh annual Hunger Games. She would never marry or have children; she always said the academy was enough for her.

Robina Caite

Robina returned home to District 10 the instant that the Capitol offered the opportunity. However, she was not allowed to return to her family or her friends, and this led to a long period of immense depression and even a few suicidal thoughts. Having changed her name to Jemima Angouleme, Robina was hired as a maid for the Victor's Village of District 10. She cleaned the houses of both Margaret and Alexander, and all of the other 10 victors who would emerge in her lifetime. Besides Surge, she was the youngest victor in Hunger Games history, even younger than Pixel, and the traumatic experiences of her games shook her like a leaf. For the rest of her life, Robina never seemed to be entirely there, what with lacking social skills and reclusive behavior.

"Jemima" would live to age seventy-nine, dying in a car accident a few weeks before the one-hundred fifty-ninth Hunger Games. She would marry and have two children. For centuries, Arnold was hailed as the ninety-second Hunger Games' only victor. Today, however, Wystella and Robina are both recognized on the Walk of Victors in the Capitol. We can now piece together a more or less coherent picture of these two women's lives.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Arnold settles into the Victor's Village of District 12, next door to Haymitch's home.

Wystella moves to the academy of District 2, where she sets up residence as a trainer.

Robina returns home to District 10, where she takes up work as a maid in the Victor's Village.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)  
89HG: Admired Thompson (#15, District 1)  
90HG: Chipson Harris (#11, District 3)  
91HG: Mars Talbot (#21, District 2)  
92HG: Arnold Scruggs (#3, District 12), Wystella Knapp (#22, District 2), and Robina Caite (#3, District 10)

* * *

 **A/N: Holy mother of sweet god pearl, this chapter was a whirlwind! I'll admit I was facing some serious writer's block near the beginning, but as soon as I dropped that PLOT TWIST I turned into a writing machine. Seriously, sleep is for the weak, I had a chapter to write!**

 **I'm glad I could fit in another District 12 victor AND another District 10 victor here. And another twelve-year-old victor, of course.**

 **Which of these three kids was your favorite? Any other standouts you found interesting? Please consider leaving a quick review on your way out :D**


	94. The 93rd Hunger Games

**The 93rd Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The cure was finally perfected after several months of testing on Arnold, Wystella, and Robina. Wystella and Robina had it the hardest; Arnold was given regular breaks from the testing to attend to his victory tour, various interviews with the charismatic games host Titanius, and various other public events. It was a long, hard journey, but all three of the test subjects made it out with their lives. They were physically unscathed, but all of the terrible things the Capitol had done to their minds and bodies would haunt them forever, particularly little Robina. The cure was first broadcasted publically around Halloween. Once everybody in the Capitol and the crucial districts like 1 and 2 was clear of the pathogen, trains carrying loaded syringes were shipped out to all the nooks and crannies of Panem. It was an expensive and chaotic process, but it certainly put Panem on the path toward recovery. The games team this year once again remained the same. Stinn Hawke ruled the roost in Panem; while Arnold's revolutionary win for District 12 had refreshed the districts, losing twenty-three (or so they thought) of their children had once again taken its toll. No major uprisings or riots plagued the districts this year. Maddox Courval kept a firm grip on the steering wheel of the games ship. After the dazzling success of last year's games, the Capitol was anticipating another stunningly beautiful arena. However, Maddox was famously secretive about his arenas, so only time would tell for sure.

This year featured an extraordinary career pack. They were all good-looking and talented and none of them scored lower than a nine. District 1 provided another stereotypical pair; the boy was your usual funny, calming 1 boy, while the girl was blonde and curvy and seductive like many others before her. District 2 provided a decent duo. The boy was the next of the famous Talbot siblings, and he was younger and liked swords, while the girl was much older. Bows and spears suited her lithe form and her quick reflexes. District 4 put on the best showing, however. The boy was a master swordsman and archer, and he was muscular and extremely popular in the Capitol. The girl was similarly attractive, and she was more solitary and quiet, but she had an intriguing sense of mystery plaguing her. Their scores were great: two elevens, three tens, and a single nine.

The outliers scored well, but they were somewhat quieter and more forgettable than usual. Trax from District 6 was the strongest of the bunch. He earned an impressive eight through his skills with brute force weapons including maces. Another eight was earned by Talulah from 9, whose survival skills were impeccable. Trax and Talulah banded together to form the career group, along with Sentra from 6 and Coalson from 12, who both earned sevens. The only other standout was the girl from District 12, who had a very familiar last name. She was Arnold Scruggs' younger sister, and the riches of her family practically ensured she would go far, if she survived the bloodbath. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Taj King, 16, (11) 3-1 and Adacha Calder, 17, (10) 6-1

District 2: Saturn Talbot, 16, (9) 8-1 and Rama Pellish, 18, (10) 5-1

District 3: Myphex Burnley, 18, (7) 14-1 and Ezuma Kiernan, 18, (4) 28-1

District 4: Swell Hager, 18, (11) 3-1 and Swan Marsden, 18, (10) 4-1

District 5: Hyphen Skylstad, 14, (4) 30-1 and Intara Witzel, 16, (5) 24-1

District 6: Trax Garland, 18, (8) 10-1 and Sentra Bootshoe, 18, (7) 15-1

District 7: Sapling Morlock, 17, (7) 14-1 and Birchette Saleh, 16, (5) 24-1

District 8: Poplar Westra, 16, (4) 29-1 and Lycra Peller, 16, (4) 30-1

District 9: Delano Benitz, 15, (5) 26-1 and Talulah Okafor, 17, (8) 11-1

District 10: Lowan Killip, 18, (6) 16-1 and Aviana Wruck, 15, (4) 32-1

District 11: Gardner Madore, 16, (4) 31-1 and Ardith Fearnley, 16, (7) 15-1

District 12: Coalson Fires, 18, (7) 13-1 and Sasha Scruggs, 18, (7) 14-1

HGBO Bets: 22% on Swell, 19% on Taj, 13% on Swan, 8% on Adacha, 7% on Rama, 5% on Saturn, 4% on Trax and Talulah, 3% on Sentra and Coalson, 2% on Sasha, 1% or less on Myphex, Ezuma, Hyphen, Intara, Sapling, Birchette, Poplar, Lycra, Delano, Lowan, Aviana, Gardner, and Ardith.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The newest batch of twenty-four tributes ascended into the arena wearing dark-green, skin tight body suits made of a plasticky material. This was yet another entirely outdoor arena, Maddox's new favorite, and the sheer harsh natural conditions would make this an interesting year for sure. A small life preserver was bound around each tribute's chest; this was another games where it would really help to be able to swim. The murky, soupy swamp water was roughly five feet deep, which meant the tributes could walk across the bottom if they couldn't swim. A thick grey fog hung over the swamp, blocking out virtually all of the sunlight except for a few scant rays. The air was uncomfortably muggy, sticky, and hot. The tributes' pedestals were about a foot below the waterline, and they formed a large circle around the cornucopia, which only housed swords and bows. There was also a single trident, which was placed there specifically for Swell. As the tributes moved farther away from the cornucopia, they wound find small and unstable islands made out of mud, as well as clusters of mangrove trees that rose out of the water in neat rows. The mangrove trees would provide most of the tributes' shelter, as they offered the only sanctuary from the vicious mutts hiding in the murky water. Bright green alligator mutts hid in the depths, and they had razor-sharp teeth ready to tear apart any unsuspecting, defenseless tributes. Larger-than-life snakes, spiders, and other creatures of the dark and damp could be found in plentiful amounts everywhere in the arena. Arguably the most bothersome creatures were the mosquitoes. They flew in swarms that literally looked like dark-grey clouds, and human blood was their favorite snack. Due to the strong career pack, a surprisingly large number of tributes fled from the bloodbath at the gong: Ezuma from 3, Birchette from 7, Poplar and Lycra from 8, Ardith from 11, and Sasha from 12. Due to the low visibility of the arena and the large number of bloodbath deserters, the bloodbath would only claim five lives this year. It was the third smallest bloodbath in history at the time.

Swell lead the opening charge, slicing through the murky swamp water with expert speed. He clambered onto the cornucopia and swept up the only trident, ready to take on the diminished swarm of outliers. Lowan from 10 tried to dive into the swamp water when he realized Swell had spotted him, but it was too late. With one swift thrusting motion, Swell skewered the prongs of the bronze trident through his back. He was gone in moments.

 _Lowan Killip, District 10 Male: 24th, Killed by Swell, Bloodbath_

Rama was the next up. She grabbed a sword and tackled Lowan's ally, who had frozen dead in her tracks when she saw Swell murder her district partner. The girl was too panicked to fight back as Rama shoved her off of her feet. She cut open her abdomen with two heavy chops before splashing away.

 _Aviana Wruck, District 10 Female: 23rd, Killed by Rama, Bloodbath_

Taj took a bow and spotted two allied boys splashing through the chest-high water a few meters away. He fired a volley of two arrows in their direction. The swamp arena was dark and foggy, but Taj really did know how to shoot like a pro, and both of his arrows hit home. The first of the boys was dead instantly after the arrow pierced his skull. The other boy, who was merely unconscious, floated toward Adacha, Taj's district partner, who finished him off with a single blow to the chest.

 _Hyphen Skylstad, District 5 Male: 22nd, Killed by Taj, Bloodbath_

 _Sapling Morlock, District 7 Male: 21st, Killed by Taj and Adacha, Bloodbath_

Swell made the last kill. Trident in hand, he grabbed an emaciated boy by the torso and shoved him underwater. Bubbles streamed from his mouth as he fought desperately against Swell's firm grip. Swell's trident came for him like a deadly fish through the murky water, ending him.

 _Delano Benitz, District 9 Male: 20th, Killed by Swell, Bloodbath_

With the bloodbath at its conclusion, the careers trudged toward the cornucopia. It was terribly hot and muggy, and they were all drenched in sweat. Swan's mentor, Annie, sent her a large box fan. She mounted the fan in the back of the cornucopia with the help of her district partner Swell, and the six careers all crowded around the fan, sighing as the cool air engulfed them. Taj and Rama were sent small inflatable rafts by their sponsors. They blew them up and spent the whole day trying to attach them together. Frustratingly, they couldn't figure out how to attach the two rafts without them buckling instantly under their weight. Swell just laid out a mat in the back of the cornucopia and did yoga while telling stories to the audience. He was cool, relaxed, and unconventional, and the Capitol loved him. The remaining two careers, Adacha and Saturn, just organized the weapons and the food rations. They didn't go hunting on the first day, but they vowed to leave as soon as Taj and Rama figured out how to attach their small rafts together.

The rest of Day 1 was rather quiet and timid. Myphex from 3 had nothing but a coil of rope. He closed his eyes and floated on his back as the whims of Mother Nature carried him away from the cornucopia, hoping nobody would spot him. Ezuma from 3 and Intara from 5 trudged about two miles away from the cornucopia. They stopped when they reached a squishy, unstable island. It was only large enough to fit one of them, so they took turns lying on the small patch of mud. The anti-careers, Trax, Sentra, Talulah, and Coalson, climbed up into the highest bough of a lofty mangrove tree when a duo of alligator mutts attacked them out of the depths of the murky water. Talulah had remembered to grab lots of rope from the cornucopia. She was an expert knot-tier, and she tied all her allies down before tying herself in. Birchette from 7 found three buoyant logs and climbed on top of them like a raft. She rode her makeshift raft several miles away from the cornucopia, sweating and swatting away mosquitoes. Poplar and Lycra from 8 had allied prior to the games. They floated on their backs and drifted slowly through the bog, holding hands like otters. Gardner from 11 was deathly afraid of dark water after a playmate drowned at night when he was five. Mumbling softly to himself to keep from freaking out, he spun his way through the water before dropping down on a small, cushy island of mud. Ardith from 11 fell asleep on her back and willed the water currents and the slight wind to carry her away. When she bumped into a mangrove tree, she panicked, thinking it was an alligator mutt. Breathing a sigh of relief, Ardith grabbed hold of the root and dragged herself upward into the lowest bough. Sasha from 12 swam for her life, spinning through the water at an amazing speed. She could swim extremely well for somebody from District 12, and an impressed sponsor sent her a case of crackers and cheese. She pulled herself upward into a mangrove tree and took deep, even breaths, nervously munching on her food. Things were pretty peaceful as dark turned to pitch dark in the arena.

The next morning, Intara woke to the deafening screams of her ally Ezuma. Intara squinted and moved her hands in front of her to clear away the fog, and her eyes opened wide when she saw what was happening. Ezuma's torso was closed in the bright-green, knobby maw of a large alligator mutt. Intara let out a scream of her own when the alligator mutt closed its jaws with full force. They closed around Ezuma like a voice, and her screams were quickly cut short by her cannon shot. Intara shuffled off the side of the island and spun slowly away through the bog, trying not to panic or splash too much. She escaped to the safety of a nearby island, and she collapsed on the unstable heap of mud, sobbing softly.

 _Ezuma Kiernan, District 3 Female: 19th, Killed by alligator mutt, Day 2_

Ezuma's cannon shot woke the six members of the career pack, who had been sleeping comfortably around the box fan in the back of the cornucopia. Taj and Rama quickly got back to the frustrating process of binding their two rafts together. They ended up succeeding after way too many hours, and then it was time to go hunting. It was Taj's seventeenth birthday, and his mentor Admired sent him a hard hat with an adjustable light affixed to the front. The gift came with a note saying, "You have no idea how expensive this was. Happy birthday –A." The rafts were only large enough to fit two tributes. Rama was exhausted and chose to stay back at the horn, so Taj and Saturn ended up doing the honors. The other four sat down inside of the cornucopia and talked quietly amongst themselves as the two paddled away to thin the crowd of remaining outliers.

Next, the cameras zoomed in to show a lightly snoozing Birchette. She was curled up on the three logs she'd found the day prior, and the water currents carried her slowly in a number of different directions while she breathed steadily in and out. A strong water current spurred on by Maddox moved her toward Poplar and Lycra. Lycra spotted her first, and she and Poplar spent several minutes debating whether to ignore her, welcome her, or kill her. They ended up taking her in, and the three tributes continued their aimless journey over the murky swamp water with their arms linked.

The anti-careers had a near-death experience about halfway through the second day, when a large alligator mutt saw them hanging out in the lofty mangrove tree and decided to crash their party. Its razor sharp teeth grazed Trax's shoulder, and he reflexively smacked it in the maw, knocking it a short distance backward. Trax and his district partner Sentra shook Talulah and Coalson awake, and the anti-careers scared the alligator away using a combination of well-placed fist throws and prods from their weapons.

Taj and Saturn weren't able to come across any victims on Day 2, but they did come close on at least one occasion. Saturn caught a glimpse of Sasha from 12, and he grabbed the paddle and started steering in her direction. Sasha escaped without much trouble, and Taj pegged Saturn as a lunatic who'd seen something that wasn't even there. Sasha knew she could have been killed if she'd timed her escape a second slower; shaken, she pulled herself up into a mangrove tree and tried to get some more sleep.

The next day, the careers had better luck. The Birchette-Poplar-Lycra trio had still yet to settle on any solid landmass. They were simply drifting wherever the water currents carried them, feeding themselves on Birchette's tin of crackers and other sponsor foods. Unbeknownst to them, Taj and Saturn were nearby. Saturn had the hard hat tied firmly to his head, and he adjusted the light, illuminating the sleeping tributes. The beam of light glanced off of Lycra's tribute token, a thin silver bracelet, and this spelled her doom. If she'd concealed the token better, she and her allies might have been able to escape without being spotted. Taj drew his bow and ordered Saturn to keep the light steady as he fit an arrow into the tight string. The arrow landed squarely in Lycra's chest, killing her in moments. Cue pandemonium.

 _Lycra Peller, District 8 Female: 18th, Killed by Taj, Day 3_

The instant Lycra's cannon shot fired, Birchette and Poplar threw all forms of caution out of the metaphorical window and started swimming for their lives. Taj leapt off of the raft to swim after them, and Saturn quickly dropped the small anchor before following. Birchette wasn't the best swimmer in the world, but she could recall a few strokes her older sister had taught her back home in 7. Poplar couldn't swim to save his life (which was exactly what he had to do) and the only reason he had survived this far was the blow-up life preserver strapped to his neck.

The next few minutes passed without a single drop of blood being drawn by either side. Taj and Saturn didn't want the two outliers to escape, but they were also reluctant to place too much distance between themselves and their raft; it was their only source of sanctuary from the alligator-infested swamp water whenever they were away from the cornucopia, and it was also their chief method of transportation. A nearby swarm of mosquitoes scattered when Birchette turned and smacked Saturn in the jaw, and he cursed, momentarily losing his rhythm long enough for Birchette to shove him under.

Saturn panicked and took in a large gulp of water, and he was pretty much doomed from there. Swallowing down the small amount of bile that had built up in the back of her throat, Birchette turned and swam after Poplar while Taj screamed for reinforcements and Saturn drowned swiftly.

 _Saturn Talbot, District 2 Male: 17th, Killed by Birchette, Day 3_

Birchette and Poplar had no idea how quickly reinforcements would come. The four other careers were relaxing at the cornucopia. When they heard Taj's yells for help, they sprang to their feet and dove into the water like firefighters rushing to put out a fire. Adacha stayed back to guard, and she stood anxiously in the back of the cornucopia, waiting for her allies to return.

Rama, Swell, and Swan arrived at the scene in a matter of minutes, and they used Taj as the fourth member of their square to encircle Birchette and Poplar. Swell's trident was the most efficient weapon there, but the 4 boy had sustained a minor injury to his ankle that morning which seriously reduced his swimming speed. He ended up handing his trident to Swan and taking her twin daggers in return (a sponsor gift from earlier that day).

The careers quickly closed in on the two allied outliers. Birchette knew it was risky to put her head under the water, especially considering how murky and unclean it was, but she really had no other choice. Birchette disappeared into the muck and swam as far away as she could before poking her head back up for a quick breath. The stench was foul, and the feeling of being fully submerged in the muddy water was disgusting. She ended up escaping while Swan thrust the prongs of Swell's trident into Poplar's chest. Without any physical obstructions in the water arena, Poplar's screams carried for miles. They returned to the horn quickly after his life force faded fully.

 _Poplar Westra, District 8 Male: 16th, Killed by Swan, Day 3_

Myphex was one of the least popular tributes at this point in the games. The only sponsor gift he'd gotten was a small lemon-flavored cookie, and even that had contained only a few calories. He'd also thrown up multiple times; during his week in the Capitol, he'd eaten an extremely unhealthy amount of food in preparation for the so-called Hunger Games, but the stench of the arena had caused him to throw it all up back on Day 1. On Day 3, he finally gave in to drinking the swamp water without any sort of filter, and he soon came to regret that decision when his stomach cramped up from the almost toxic swamp water. The entire point of this year's arena was to encourage the tributes to make bloody kills in their desperation for clean water, but Myphex still refused to actively search for outliers. He mostly floated aimlessly around the bog as the dirty water worked its way slowly out of his system.

Birchette had rocketed upward on the popularity list after killing Saturn and escaping the other careers without a scratch, and her wealthy and impressed sponsors sent her a mosquito net and a thermos of clean water. She downed about half of the thermos' contents before continuing her float away from the sight of her allies' death, draped in the net. At nightfall, she pulled herself up into a tree for safety and quickly fell asleep.

On Day 4, the cameras mostly focused on the careers and the anti-careers. In the morning, the five remaining careers regrouped at the cornucopia to restock on supplies. Their sponsors sent them a second raft that could house two tributes. Adacha and Rama headed out on the first raft, while Taj and Swan paddled away on the newer one. Swell stayed put at the cornucopia; at that point, he was like the hinge that was holding the two halves of the pack together, and he sifted through the cornucopia' supplies, quickly growing bored with the task.

Adacha and Rama headed north, a flashlight tied around each of their necks with a thin cord. The mosquitoes were particularly heavy in the north part of the arena. That didn't stop them from hunting ravenously, but it did piss them off. The tiny little bugs landed on their arms and necks in entire rows. One of Rama's sponsors sent her a half can of bug spray, which she hurriedly sprayed on herself and Adacha. It didn't do a whole lot to deter the mosquitoes, but it did lessen their numbers, if only slightly.

Speaking of mosquitoes, they were making the anti-careers miserable. The quartet sat on the lofty branch of their original mangrove tree, swatting away the little bugs as they descended in their swarms. They were apprehensive about leaving the tree because of the alligator mutts encircling them. On Day 4, the gamemakers drew the mutts away to allow them to escape; the Capitol didn't enjoy their inactivity any more than they did. They escaped about a mile westward before settling down on a small island. Sentra had it the worst; the mosquitoes seemed to be in love with her blood. She was covered all over with little red spots, and she scratched each of them until they bled. They were dangerously low on clean water, and they were miserable in every sense of the word. They were now desperate to hunt down a victim and make some kind of splash to impress the sponsors.

Day 5 was deathless. Myphex was growing steadily more and more miserable. He had no choice but to keep consuming the filthy water that constituted most of the arena. He tried filtering the water through the material of his shirt; while this took out most of the dirt, it did little to keep out the microorganisms living inside. Filth spouted from both ends of his digestive system, and Myphex continued his aimless float around the arena, weeping without weeping. Intara had been swimming in circles ever since Ezuma's death back on Day 2. She used a bit of sponsored rope to tie herself to a tree with a trunk too broad for her to climb. The anti-careers kept up their hunt for outliers, desperate to make a kill. They were in desperate need of clean water, a mosquito net, or at least some bug spray. Birchette stayed put on a small muddy island draped with her mosquito net, feeding herself on sponsor foods and her largely-empty tin of crackers. Gardner stayed as still as a stone on his tiny island. His phobia of the dark water surrounding him kept him from moving an inch. His fears were justified, as dangerous alligator mutts inhabited the water, but he had to take a risk sooner than later or the gamemakers would force him to. Like Myphex, he was taking in large quantities of the unclean swamp water out of desperation. Ardith climbed around her mangrove tree. She was a surprisingly good climber; she had a firm grip and a good eye, and her regular relocations kept the Capitol from growing bored, even if she never left the throes of the large tree's expansive branches. Sasha survived off of the large stock of supplies sponsored to her by the rest of the Scruggs family, including cases of her favorite foods and several weapons she didn't even know how to use. She was chased up into a tall tree by a pair of vicious alligator mutts, but she was fine past the initial trauma; her flow of sponsor supplies could have lasted for weeks if she needed it to, so entrapment wasn't a huge concern for her.

In the early morning of Day 6, a cannon shot went off, causing the murky swamp water to ripple slightly. The anti-careers had gotten up "bright" and early to keep up their hunt for outliers. Their resolve was quickly disappearing, from Sentra most quickly of all, and hope was all but extinct for the group. They had wound along a path of about half a mile when Coalson felt something close around his left leg. The others scrambled, shocked, and they could all see the cloud of blood spreading out from his severed limb despite the fact that the water was practically mud.

The eyes of the alligator mutt protruded from the surface. Talulah splashed away, trying not to make too much noise. Sentra froze in her tracks, dumbfounded with terror as the alligator mutt tore into Coalson's abdomen. Trax tugged her away. Sentra wondered if the attack would be fatal, but a cannon shot beat her to it.

 _Coalson Fires, District 12 Male: 15th, Killed by alligator mutt, Day 6_

The remainder of Day 6 was uneventful. The anti-careers were more desperate than ever. They were all thinking the same thing, and Talulah was the first to say it out loud. She suggested they head toward the cornucopia and try to raid as many supplies as they could. They would die if they didn't and there was a chance they could die if they did, and they all preferred the latter option. The mosquito mutts continued attacking Sentra in the largest numbers. The pain all over her body was like fire, but she managed to keep from complaining. A sponsor who admired her resolve sent her a thermos of clean water, which she shared with Trax and Talulah. You know you're in the Hunger Games when two cups of clean water looks like Thanksgiving dinner.

The outliers didn't do much. Ardith kept up her frequent moves around the branches of the lofty mangrove tree. The gamemakers sent down a few lightning strikes to scare her into sprinting faster, and this set about half of the tree on fire. Ardith managed to crouch down and remain still until the fire naturally put itself out. Unfortunately, the lightning strikes also attracted the attention of Taj and Swan, who were drifting on the newer raft about a mile away. Time would tell if Ardith would be spotted by the pair of careers.

Sasha similarly remained still. She blocked out the snapping of the alligators' jaws using a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, the thousandth sponsor gift delivered to her by her rich family. Her family actually had to send her a cardboard box to store all of the old silver parachutes.

On Day 7, Taj and Swan arrived at the half-destroyed tree where Ardith was roosting, crouched precariously yet delicately at the end of one of the long, droopy branches. Swan took the paddle and steered the raft in the direction of the tree's base. Conveniently, a number of vines hung from the lowest branches. They pulled themselves upward, and they were about halfway up the vine when it snapped. Swan fell into the swamp with a loud splash, and Ardith woke with a start.

Trying not to panic, she sat back down and slipped off the side of the branch. She fell about ten feet before landing in the water, and her leg struck a rough rock beneath the surface. She hissed in agony while her leg grated against the rough surface. She was quickly tackled from the side by Swan and from above by Taj, who jumped off of the branch a few moments after her.

 _Ardith Fearnley, District 11 Female: 14th, Killed by Taj and Swan, Day 7_

That was the biggest fight of the seventh day. The thirteen remaining tributes were all in pretty bad shape, particularly with lack of clean water. Halfway through Day 7, the heavy fog pulled away ever-so-slightly, revealing a canopy of dark grey clouds high above. The freezing-cold rain began falling with the first clap of thunder. Not only did this dilute the muddy swamp ever so slightly, it let anybody with a container collect water for later consumption. The careers hunted more feverishly than ever before, particularly Adacha and Swan, who hadn't made a single kill since leaving the horn back on Day 3. With the fog slightly clearer than normal, their visibility greatly increased.

Swell was sleeping lightly in the back of the cornucopia when the first crack of thunder rumbled over the arena. Grinning, he took out literally every container in the cornucopia and placed them outside to collect the cool, clean water. He ended up taking most of the weapons out of their cases just to clear them up for water collection. Afterward, Swell shut off the fan and leaned against the exterior of the cornucopia, savoring the sensation of the cool drops hitting his skin.

Myphex, Intara, and Gardner didn't have much of a reaction; Myphex and Intara continued their aimless floating, and Gardner remained stubbornly still on the small island. The muddy island started collapsing and sinking with so much new running water; it decreased in size by at least half over the course of the storm. Now, there was only enough room for Gardner to sit cross-legged without the terrifying dark water touching him.

Sasha stayed up in the tall mangrove tree as alligator mutts snapped their jaws and tried to climb upward, toward her. Legitimate fear was starting to set in; she knew the gamemakers would make her move sooner than later. It only she could fashion some kind of hang glider to get herself away safely.

The anti-careers continued their journey toward the cornucopia. The raindrops provided some refreshment, but they were still desperately thirsty and hungry. They were expected to reach the horn late Day 8 or early Day 9 if they kept up their current pace. Sentra was most glad for the rain because it kept away the mosquitoes.

Birchette had been lying low under the protection of the mosquito net for far too long now, and she figured it was time she fashioned some kind of raft. Her sponsors weren't allowed to send her an actual raft, but they were more than happy to send her the parts she needed. A small metal case delivered her the materials needed and a booklet with cryptic instructions, along with a few tools she'd never seen before. Birchette was daunted by the task, and she knew deciphering the instructions would not be easy, but she was prepared to give it her best shot if it meant staying relevant in the deadly reality television show.

The anti-careers arrived at the cornucopia at seven in the morning on Day 8. They were weak, and they were disheveled, but they had nothing to lose, and that made them extremely deadly. Swan and Swell were waiting at the cornucopia at the time, while the other three careers were hunting. Adacha had accidentally popped one of their inflatable rafts, meaning that only three tributes were able to hunt rather than four. Rama was nearest the cornucopia, while Taj and Adacha were farther away.

Trax, Sentra, and Talulah charged out of the darkness. Talulah carried a sword, Sentra carried a bow, and Trax carried nothing but two sharp stones. He quickly discarded these in favor of a stubby sword that was meant for stabbing rather than slashing. Swan and Swell scattered to the left and right, and the anti-careers faced a quick moment of indecision as to how they should split up. Talulah ended up going for Swell, while Trax and Sentra fought against Swan.

Talulah dueled with Swell with a remarkable degree of success. He had the only trident, the best weapon in the arena, but Talulah was strong and healthy and wasn't one to let down her guard or her resolve during a fight. Swell lashed out with his trident, and Talulah swerved so the blow intended for her chest hit her in the side. Talulah hissed as the weapon grazed her shoulder, and the fight went on for about two minutes with no major wounds being dealt.

When she was drawn closer in by a stray arrow fired by Swan, Talulah slapped him in the side of the head; Swell cursed and stumbled backward, and Talulah smacked him in the chin, sending him reeling.

Trax and Sentra managed to take down Swan in a matter of minutes once Talulah joined them. After Trax hit her in the waist with his stubby sword, Swan loosened her grip on her bow ever-so-slightly, and Trax tore the weapon out of her hands. He snapped the wooden bow in half, and Swan gasped with grief, her chief weapon now in shambles. Talulah tackled her, and the point of her sword connected with her chin; Swan died just as nearby Rama heard the commotion and started paddling back toward the cornucopia.

 _Swan Marsden, District 4 Female: 13th, Killed by Talulah, Day 8_

Rama arrived in minutes. Sentra heard her splashing out of the water and whipped around, and she yelled in a phlegmy voice for her allies to be prepared as Rama charged, holding out her sword. Taj and Adacha were also on their way, but they were not expected to arrive at the cornucopia for several minutes, by which point the fight would likely be resolved. It was now three against two; though Rama and Swell were outnumbered, they had trained for years, and they would not go down without a fight.

Trax, Sentra, and Talulah stepped backward with virtually every blow in their direction, and they quickly reached the edge of the cornucopia island. In moments more, they were knee-deep. Swell grinned, brandishing his trident; this was his element. Swell splashed through the water and grabbed Trax by his upper abdomen.

A dazed Sentra and a furious Talulah helped wrench Swell off of him, and Trax immediately felt the bite of Rama's sword in his side. He instinctively turned and thrust the point of his sword into her chest. Rama gasped once before collapsing into the water. She spun and turned in the current for several seconds before floating to the surface.

 _Rama Pellish, District 2 Female: 12th, Killed by Trax, Day 8_

Now it was Swell's sole objective to keep the anti-careers occupied long enough for Taj and Adacha to arrive. Swell was an excellent swimmer and the strongest tribute out of the original twenty-four, but he was still outnumbered three to one, and he didn't fail to sustain a few nasty injuries. The worst blow was dealt by Trax, who tore open the middle of his chest with a heavy scrape of his strange knife-sword weapon. Swell momentarily stumbled, hissing in agony, and he almost fell onto his bottom before he regained his footing and prodded Trax and nearby Sentra with his trident, keeping them away for the next few moments.

When Taj and Adacha arrived, they hastily dragged their raft onto the cornucopia island and raced toward the scene to help out their ally Swell. The anti-careers quickly realized they were outmuscled and outgunned by a significant margin, and the three of them tackled Swell in unison. Talulah managed to knock him in the head, sending him spiraling into unconsciousness, and the trio splashed away from the island with the 1s close behind. They were quickly lost in the thick, soupy mire. Taj and Adacha were in low spirits as they stormed back toward the cornucopia. By the time they got back, Swell had regained consciousness. He still had quite a bit of healing to do, as did Taj, whose wrist had been scraped by one of Sentra's stray arrows; they didn't risk going hunting that day. They just rested inside of the cornucopia and let themselves heal.

The anti-careers continued their trudge away from the cornucopia as Day 8 turned into Day 9. They were finally sponsored their highly coveted mosquito net around noon on the ninth day. It was large enough to drape over the three of them, and the relief of the bothersome mosquito swarms was such a simple pleasure yet such an enormous one. It was far too late for one tribute, however. Throughout the hundreds of bites she'd sustained, Sentra had contracted malaria, and it was slowly killing her without any kind of help in sight. Talulah was bleeding heavily, and Trax was terribly achy and sore from so much travelling. They ended up binding themselves to the trunk of a mangrove tree on Day 9 using Talulah's rope.

Intara had been floating aimlessly around the outskirts of the arena for an entire week now. The gamemakers had given her her fair share of chances to redeem herself, but to no avail. She awoke to the hissing of an alligator mutt around sunset. She screamed and started violently thrashing her limbs when she saw the alligator's eye protruding from the murky surface, the color of a rotten pair. Intara lashed out and slammed the alligator's heavily-armored mouth. She was aiming for its eyes, but she kept missing, and that just annoyed it more.

The next moment, the mutt closed the two halves of its maw around her abdomen, and blood started spewing from gaps in its two overlapping rows of teeth like a series of sprinklers. The alligator sent her off the same way it had sent off her late ally Ezuma. It swallowed down a large chunk of her torso before spinning away through the thick water.

 _Intara Witzel, District 5 Female: 11th, Killed by alligator mutt, Day 9_

Days 10 and 11 were deathless. The careers were feeling particularly humiliated after the anti-careers' escape, and they left to hunt as soon as they were healed enough to do so without risking their health further. Taj and Swell boarded the one raft that was still in-tact and paddled away from the cornucopia in pursuit of prey. They hunted eagerly and efficiently, but the screaming and general ruckus of the Day 8 encounter had scared most of the remaining outliers away, clearing their hunting ground of potential victims. Adacha stayed back at the cornucopia, mindlessly sifting through the supplies. Taj and Swell were much more popular in the Capitol that she was, and she could already tell she was going to be the third wheel of the pack from there on out. All of the rainwater Swell had collected back on Day 7 kept her hydrated, however warm and gross it may have been after so many days going stale in the hot, muggy arena.

Amongst the seven remaining outliers, there was a lot of movement, but little action. Myphex was more emaciated and weak from dehydration than ever, and he still had no choice but to keep drinking the dirty water provided by the arena itself. By that point, he was too weak to actively hunt for victims even if he wanted to. Now, it was just a matter of watching dehydration slowly wrench him from this life. Trax and Talulah stayed still in the lofty mangrove tree they'd chosen as their home. They didn't know it, but it was their original mangrove tree, the one they'd discovered all the way back on Day 1. They just fed themselves on sponsor foods and watched Sentra slowly but surely slip from life. Her sponsors sent her a few blue pills to numb the pain; Trax placed them under her tongue while Talulah watched with a grimace. Birchette had finally finished her do-it-yourself inflatable raft after several days of deciphering the strange instructions. She rode around the arena, using the torn branches gripped tightly in each of her hands as paddles. The alligator mutts finally drew away from the tree where Sasha was hiding. She slowly lowered herself from the tree and splashed through the water until she came to the small island where Gardner was curled up, staring at the pulsating dark water with eyes agape, quivering.

"How long have you been here?" Sasha demanded, shifting her bulging pack of supplies slightly.

"Since the beginning… of the games," Gardner's voice warbled.

"Stop crying," Sasha said. "There are three careers left. We'd better team up. We'd last longer."

Sasha didn't realize just how terrified Gardner was of touching the dark water. His quivering turned to flat-out shaking when Sasha pulled him off the side of the cushy, unstable muddy island, and he quickly burst into tears. Sasha forced him about a mile away before they settled down on one of the more concrete islands. The blood rushed back to Gardner's face the instant he stepped onto dry land. The Capitol was expecting Sasha to kill Gardner in his sleep, but she didn't; despite her victor background, she was strictly against killing, and she couldn't bring herself to take the life of her hesitant new ally.

A cannon shot fired a few minutes after midnight. The amount of water in Myphex's body had been gradually depleting itself over the weeks, and dehydration finally claimed him on the twelfth morning. He'd been completely immobile for several hours by that point, and the pitiful boy barely felt it.

 _Myphex Burnley, District 3 Male: 10th, Killed by dehydration, Day 12_

The dark clouds started rolling in about an hour after Myphex's death; sooner than later, the freezing-cold rain was pouring down onto the nine remaining tributes. At the cornucopia, Adacha pulled out all of the empty containers and placed them in the flattest parts of the cornucopia island to collect the rain water. With so much clean water readily available, it was the first time Adacha had been truly able to wash herself since leaving the Capitol. She didn't take all of her clothes off or anything, but scrubbing the dried mud off of herself helped her get back some of her 1-ly dignity, which significantly boosted her morale.

Trax and Talulah stayed put in the high-up mangrove tree. By that point, Sentra was nearly unconscious from her malaria. Trax and Talulah debated whether they should kill her out of mercy. Trax was adamantly against this; however selfish it may have been, they would be able to use Sentra as a kind of human snack in case some kind of mutt or predator attacked them for dinner. Birchette floated around the arena on her completed raft. She'd opened up her waterproof metal case, which collected the raindrops slowly but surely as she cruised along. She wasn't actively hunting for prey, but she was moving, and that did at least something to keep her from fading into the background.

Taj and Swell dropped their anchor when the cool raindrops started falling. They were both sweaty and exhausted, and they took a quick moment to relax with the cool drops hitting their skin. They got back to their hunt after a few minutes; they didn't want the Capitol to think they were getting any lazier now that the tribute count was dwindling down to single-digits.

Gardner and Sasha's alliance wasn't an alliance as much as it was a pact not to kill each other. Sasha hardly ever spoke to Gardner; she knew she would have to kill him sooner than later if she ever wanted to see her family again, so she didn't want to get too attached to him. Gardner was constantly looking out for ways to help Sasha; she'd chosen not to kill him, and he wanted to show how grateful he was.

Taj and Swell disembarked from the foggy outer edges of the arena. Instead, they floated back toward the center region, where the weaker and more cowardly tributes would likely be hiding. Gardner and Sasha were also planning to travel closer to the cornucopia, and Gardner suggested that he scout the nearby areas in search of dry land or some other kind of shelter. He was able to stow away his phobia if it meant paying Sasha back for deciding not to kill him. Gardner was roughly a quarter mile away from Sasha when Sasha's screams tore over the bog. Taj and Swell had found her; Swell dropped off of the raft and swam to Sasha's either side, trapping her. Taj lunged, and Sasha leapt in Swell's direction to avoid his fists and his arrows. Swell thrust the prongs of his trident into her chest, and she screamed and shook as she bled out in under a minute.

 _Sasha Scruggs, District 12 Female: 9th, Killed by Swell, Day 12_

That left the final eight: Taj King and Adacha Calder from District 1, Swell Hager from District 4, Trax Garland and Sentra Bootshoe from District 6, Birchette Saleh from District 7, Talulah Okafor from District 9, and Gardner Madore from District 11.

Gardner heard Sasha's screams and ran in her direction out of impulse. Taj and Swell saw Gardner sloshing through the water, and they hid behind a nearby mangrove tree. Gardner wept soundlessly as he grabbed Sasha's dead body, checking her vitals even though her cannon shot had already sounded. Gardner didn't see the careers behind the broad trunk of the mangrove tree. Taj fired a volley of three arrows into his back; Gardner's mouth opened wide before he fell still.

 _Gardner Madore, District 11 Male: 8th, Killed by Taj, Day 12_

Taj and Swell arrived back at the cornucopia on the morning of Day 13. Adacha was snoozing softly in the back of the cornucopia, and the boys scared the living daylights out of her; she thought they were outliers, and she almost shot them both before they stepped out of the shadows. Taj and Swell had been looking forward to standing in front of the box fan, but it had run out of battery several days prior. The cornucopia was filled with hot, stale air. They guzzled down a small amount of the rain water Adacha had gathered the day prior before lying down to rest.

Birchette needed a break after piloting her do-it-yourself raft around the arena for several days. When she arrived at a tree that looked promising, she slid under the roots. The roots formed a canopy above her, and she tied the raft to several of them to ensure she wouldn't float away before passing out. Birchette didn't know how to climb a tree; she'd tried once, around her eighth birthday, and she'd been sent to the medical ward with a broken arm. There wasn't a chance she was trying that again.

By Day 13, it became apparent that Trax and Talulah had made a decision regarding Sentra. She was completely unresponsive, and they had no idea how she was still alive. Her heartbeat was faint and very uneven. Trax and Talulah packed up their mosquito net and other supplies. They were making their preparations to paddle away from the tree when a cannon shot fired. Talulah put her fingers to her neck to check for her heartbeat. There was nothing.

 _Sentra Bootshoe, District 6 Female: 7th, Killed by malaria, Day 13_

Trax and Talulah swam slowly away from the site of Sentra's death for most of the day. They were moving parallel to the cornucopia, which seemed counterproductive, but it was actually a smart idea; they were able to cover a good part of the circular arena's diameter without ever getting nearer to the cornucopia. Besides the careers and the anti-careers, the only tribute left in the arena was Birchette from 7, and she was the anti-careers' main target at the time.

A cannon shot fired on the fourteenth morning. Birchette didn't know it, but her knots had been slowly slipping over the course of the night; she was no Talulah, and her knots weren't exactly the best. She started slowly drifting away from the mangrove tree around midnight, and she was about one hundred fifty meters away from the place she'd fallen asleep when she woke up at seven in the morning.

When she did wake up, however, it was the last thing from peaceful. The water had become more and more choppy and uneven over the night, and a particularly strong wave created by Maddox caused the raft to capsize. Birchette was thrown off of the side and plunged down into the water. By the time she rocketed back to the surface, the raft was several meters away. When she finally caught it, she tied herself down to it so she wouldn't fall off again. It was a stupid idea, but she wasn't exactly thinking clearly given how close she'd come to death a few moments earlier. Big mistake.

The next big wave made her capsize again, and this time she didn't drop off the raft. She'd tied herself to it too tight. She was now bound to the upside-down piece of plastic, completely underwater. She tried to flip the raft back over or untie the knots, but Birchette was doomed despite her best efforts to save herself. The Capitol had quite a bit of trouble untangling the rope and the raft from her body after she was carried into the hovercraft.

 _Birchette Saleh, District 7 Female: 6th, Killed by drowning, Day 13_

Days 14 and 15 were deathless. Progress slowed to a crawl, and they were the most boring days the ninety-third Hunger Games had seen yet. Taj, Adacha, and Swell stayed put at the cornucopia. Taj dug around the back of the cornucopia and found a bottle of bug spray that Adacha had somehow skipped over in her several rounds of sorting the supplies.

Swell was sponsored a clear plastic sheet, and he pinned it over the mouth of the horn with Adacha's help. Once, Swell came dangerously close to tumbling off the side of the cornucopia, but he regained his footing at the last moment.

The careers were in a really awkward place; the only other tributes were Trax and Talulah, and they knew they would have a much higher chance of beating them down with three members. Even so, all three careers were tempted to betray, no matter how loyal that had once been to each other. This was the Hunger Games, and every friendship in the games had to be tested at some point or another.

Trax and Talulah spent the two days training. On Day 15, they discovered one of the more concrete islands, a patch of tightly-packed dirt protruding several feet above the water line. They both had swords, and they fought friendlily against each other for almost two days straight. They were both glad to be learning, but they were also nervous they were just teaching the other how to kill them. Their frequent practice battles were the reason the gamemakers were able to get away with two deathless days this late in the games. Tensions were rising in both alliances, and there was no sign of them lowering in sight.

In the early morning of Day 16, the careers awoke to the bloodcurdling screams of the girl from 1. Taj and Swell grabbed their flashlights and shone them on the source of the screams. A thickly-armored alligator mutt had the two halves of its maw closed around Adacha's left arm. The alligator was quiet and stealthy, and Adacha hadn't seen it coming until it was too late. Her screams crescendoed to a deafening level before lowering to a small whine as her body gradually stopped working.

 _Adacha Calder, District 1 Female: 5th, Killed by alligator mutt, Day 16_

Taj and Swell proceeded to fend off the alligator mutt over the course of about twenty minutes. It made for Swell first, and he prodded it at the end of its mouth with a heavy thrusting motion of his trident. The mutt hissed with fury and lunged forward, and Swell leapt out of its path, causing it to crash into the wall of the cornucopia, hurting its snout.

It turned around with its mouth wide open, letting Taj fire two arrows into its vulnerable inner mouth. It was somewhat comedic to watch as the deadly reptile disappeared under the bouncing water, choking and shaking as bubbles streamed from its mouth. They dragged Adacha's body out into the open for the hovercraft to collect before going to sleep.

Moments later, Taj woke to the bite of Swell's trident in his. He immediately leapt to his feet and grabbed his bow. Swell had his trident grasped in both hands, and it was pointed in his direction. Taj fit an arrow into his bow and drew back the string. He would only fire if Swell decided to continue firing at him, which he did. Taj swerved so that the trident intended to hit him in the chest clanged into the silvery wall behind him, and he danced out of the way of Swell's next few blows. In only a few more moments, one of Taj's arrows landed in Swell's shoulder; he cursed and tore it out. The blood started pouring instantly, and this reminded Taj just how injured he was; the three holes in his back were still drizzling blood and were unlikely to let down without sponsor help.

The duel went on for about ten minutes, with the tributes inflicting minor cuts and scrapes, but nothing major. Swell didn't want to risk throwing his weapon and missing, leaving him defenseless against the onslaught of Taj's arrows. Finally, Swell hit Taj in the palm of his hand with the leftmost prong of his trident. Taj lashed out in a bout of fury, smacking Swell in the mouth hard enough to throw him off of his balance. Swell was dead by the time Taj had landed three arrows in his neck. Taj King just grinned delicately, the only career left in the ninety-third Hunger Games.

 _Swell Hager, District 4 Male: 4th, Killed by Taj, Day 16_

Day 17 was deathless. Taj remained completely still at the cornucopia, nursing his two most severe injuries; the trident wound in his back, and the nearly-severed pinky and ring fingers on his right hand. Taj was-right handed, and he was at a significant drawback now that his dominant hand was injured. He managed to close up the holes in his back with the help of a jar of yellow cream he was sponsored. His hand was a different story. The wound was already beginning to take on an ugly yellow color; Taj wasn't a medical expert, but he could tell that some sort of infection was taking root.

Trax and Talulah continued their difficult journey toward the cornucopia. Their mosquito net made travelling much more comfortable than it had once been. However, trudging through the thick, soupy water was still an uncomfortable and miserable process. They were finally on the move after several days of training, and the gamemakers sped up the process further with the help of a few alligator mutts. They were expected to arrive at the cornucopia late Day 18 or early Day 19; if it took that long; these games would likely show up on the leaderboard for the longest games in history. The fifty-third games had lasted nineteen days, and the first games had lasted thirty-one days.

Day 18 was a beautiful sight. After seventeen consecutive days of thick grey fog, the fog finally drew back, revealing an azure blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds. The temperature of the arena plummeted from the nineties to the fifties in a matter of half a day, and the fog was replaced with a cool mist that was pleasant to the touch.

Trax and Talulah resiliently trudged toward the cornucopia, quickly closing in the distance between themselves and their final opponent. They were in an area of the bog that was particularly thick, and they needed extensive persuasion to keep their sights set on the cornucopia rather than sleep. About halfway through the day, one of the alligator mutts spun out of the water, and they fended it off over the course of about five minutes. Both Trax and Talulah escaped unscathed.

Taj woke on the eighteenth morning and stretched to full height. The temperature drop in the arena was jarring, but that wasn't what had woken him up. A small, beeping silver parachute sat just outside of the cornucopia. The carriage held a single slip of paper.

 _Look at the time on your right. It's not doing well –Admired_

When Taj pulled up his sleeve and saw the condition of his right hand, he almost gagged. His entire hand was a gross greenish-yellow color, as though the injury had been gradually spreading across his hand under the skin. The skin around the wound was yellow and squishy, and it oozed tendrils of watery puss whenever he moved too suddenly.

It didn't matter how hard be bit down on the leather handle of the knife; he couldn't control the unbearable pain as he sawed back and forth, slicing off his hand over the course of a slow and extremely painful ten minutes. He tossed it off the side of the cornucopia island and immediately covered the bloody stump with a bundle of cloth to stop the bleeding. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and he tried to staunch them, but he knew he'd just made the best decision for himself, even if the immediate prospect had been extremely unpleasant.

Trax and Talulah let their arms go limp on the evening of the eighteenth day. They'd been trudging onward for an entire day, and there was now less than a mile between themselves and the moss-choked cornucopia. Unfortunately, they'd chosen a really bad place to stop for the night. Trax woke up a few minutes later to the sound of Talulah's screams.

The thickly-armored alligator mutt had already risen entirely out of the water; the surface of its skin was rough, knobby, and rock-hard. His sword wasn't getting through that. Trax gently paddled away, trying not to make too much of a splash. The alligator had to completely tear her abdomen in half before her cannon sounded; by that point, Trax was a safe distance away. He didn't sleep a wink for the rest of the night.

 _Talulah Okafor, District 9 Female: 3rd, Killed by alligator mutt, Day 18_

Trax arrived at the cornucopia in the early morning of Day 19. Taj was lightly snoozing in the back of the cornucopia at the time. He sprang to his feet when he heard Trax splashing onto the cornucopia island. Before charging, the career boy risked a quick peek under his bandages. The bandage was staunching the flow of blood rather well, and the wound itself had at least begun to close up. Still, he was left with only his non-dominant hand to slaughter the boy from 6, which would not be an easy task by any stretch of the imagination.

Taj's first few blows were surprisingly effective. With only one hand, he managed to bury the blade of his sword into Trax's side. He stumbled backward, dislodging the sword from his skin, but the blade wiggled and shifted a lot in the process, drawing more blood. Trax retaliated with a single thrusting motion of his sword; he missed entirely, and Taj almost managed to smack the weapon out of his hand before he stomped on his foot, shocking him enough to make him loosen his grip.

Now that the duo was evened out rather fairly, the duel reached its climax. Taj was forced to fight with only his left hand, while Trax had access to both hands but had the less efficient weapon and the lower training score. After a few minutes, Taj buried his sword into Trax's lower abdomen. Trax let out a shrieking scream, and he thrust the point of his blade into Taj's waist with the last ounce of his energy. The boys collapsed beside each other, and the hovercraft descended, ready to pick up the victor the instant that one of them succumbed to blood loss. Both boys clung onto life for a surprisingly long time. In the end, Trax's injury proved more severe. The boy from 6 bled out as Taj clung onto his life, leaving him the only tribute in the arena.

 _Trax Garland, District 6 Male: 2nd, Killed by Taj, Day 19_

"Taj King of District 1, you are the victor of the ninety-third annual Hunger Games!" Titanus shouted.

Taj just shifted slightly on the unstable cornucopia island, fighting with all of his energy to remain conscious as the hovercraft lowered its claw to collect him.

 _Taj King, District 1 Male: Victor of the Ninety-Third Hunger Games, Day 19_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 1's last victor was Admired four years prior, and they were glad to see the emergence of their sixteenth victor. Taj was another walking stereotype, the tall, blond-haired patriot from District 1 that the Capitol loved. He was the first victor to actively sever a part of their own body since Meredith, and the Capitol would go on to replace his severed hand with a prosthetic. He was also the first victor to celebrate their birthday during the games since Annie. Furthermore, he had the shortest name of any victor thus far, a record that had been held by Lucy Said for almost six decades. He was clearly revolutionary in more ways than one, even if he played in to all of 1's stereotypes perfectly. Taj spent much of his life in the modeling industry, and he turned to several art forms like painting and drawing in his retirement. He respected the Capitol and they respected him, and he enjoyed his life in the Victor's Village. He was always glad to return and mentor when the Capitol called his name.

The payouts on his victory weren't good, as 19% bet on him.

His victory tour was pretty average, and nothing of note happened during it.

Taj would live to age seventy-eight, dying from respiratory complications around the time of the one-hundred fifty-fifth Hunger Games. He would marry and have twin sons.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Taj moves into the Victor's Village of District 1, next door to his mentor Admired.

Arnold Scruggs marries a Capitol businesswoman named Portia Sylver.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)  
89HG: Admired Thompson (#15, District 1)  
90HG: Chipson Harris (#11, District 3)  
91HG: Mars Talbot (#21, District 2)  
92HG: Arnold Scruggs (#3, District 12), Wystella Knapp (#22, District 2), and Robina Caite (#3, District 10)  
93HG: Taj King (#16, District 1)

* * *

 **A/N: A few days ago I split open one of my fingers and there was blood and everything. So I had to type the majority of this chapter with nine fingers rather than ten, which was an interesting experience to say the least. I've tried to take out all the spelling errors I could find, but if there's a few stray mistakes left behind, I hope you'll forgive me one day :D**

 **Any thoughts on the arena and the victor? I had some fun with Taj, I really gotta HAND it to him.**

 **Okay I've leave now XD**


	95. The 94th Hunger Games

**A/N: Sorry for making you wait any longer, but I have another SYOT going! Lots of slots I could use submissions for. Please consider checking that out, and now onto the actual chapter :D**

* * *

 **The 94th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

With the newly-developed cure being carried by the truckload to every one of the twelve districts, things were starting to get back to normal in Panem. For several years, the Capitol had been forced to sacrifice many aspects of its lavish lifestyle due to lack of imported goods. Now that all twelve districts were back at work doing their part as the marble columns holding up the great temple of Panem, the Capitol was in a rush. Fashion designers who had gone for years without new cloth had it now, tech designers who had gone years without materials had them now, and whole sections of the Capitol where the lights hadn't worked in ages were finally glowing again with the colorful, rotating lights that nobody had seen in over half a decade. District 3 had lost the most citizens to the plague, at least an eighth of its population, most of them factory workers and young children. Districts 6 and 8 also faced heavy losses. Still, Panem was on the path toward recovery, and the light of hope that had once seemed all but dead was now burning with fervor. Maddox Courval returned to the head gamemaker post. It had taken him several years, but it seemed like he'd finally hit his stride, and he told the Capitol via his social media that they could be expecting another one-hundred percent natural arena this year. By this point, the Tails political party was all but extinct, all of its members having been killed or forced into hiding by Stinn Hawke's theocratic regime. However, talk of campaigning for more Tails representation in the government was rising in the streets of the Capitol. This was largely ignored for the time being, however, especially when games time rolled around and Stinn was too busy overseeing the ninety-fourth Hunger Games to pay much attention to minor political opposition.

The careers were reliable, if not exactly groundbreaking, and they all scored nines or tens. District 1 provided a muscular miner boy and a jewel cutter girl, and they were both striking attractive and skilled with weaponry. District 2 offered the strongest pair, however. The boy was yet another Talbot sibling, and he liked swords, while the girl was younger and liked axes. Both were more laid-back and unconventional than usual when they weren't training, but the Capitol loved them. District 4 put on the most interesting showing; the boy was a feisty, charismatic eighteen-year-old with the stereotypical surfer look. The girl was the most popular tribute in these games, stealing the show with her beauty, charisma, and bow smarts. She was sure to be a deadly opponent. The pack earned four tens and two nines.

The outliers were much blander and more forgettable than usual, but there were a few standouts and they were good ones. Steer Drudgers from District 10 was tall, wiry, and extremely sculpted. Years of work in the barns and meadows of District 10 had trained him to lift enormous amounts of weight, and he knew how to use a wide variety of weapons. He was the second most popular tribute out of the twenty-four, after Riletta from 4. The other strongest tribute was Ryder from 6. Though it was largely overshadowed by Steer's impressive ten, Ryder earned an eight due to his impressive survival skills and his talents with brute force weapons like maces. The rest of the tributes scored between seven and two in their private sessions. This was another year without an anti-career pack, as there weren't enough tributes strong enough to be willing to paint targets onto their backs with shiny red paint. There was one volunteer outside of the careers: Ree Lilard, the tall and thin girl from District 7. She'd volunteered to save the life of her best friend, and she used her sob story to its fullest potential during her time in the Capitol to attract as many sponsors as possible. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Dazzle Brooks, 16, (10) 5-1 and Splendor Renault, 17, (9) 7-1

District 2: Uranus Talbot, 18, (10) 4-1 and Ofelia Tessard, 16, (10) 5-1

District 3: Padlet Scoop, 12, (2) 47-1 and Cabyl Harden, 13, (4) 28-1

District 4: Sunken Roslin, 18, (9) 6-1 and Riletta Juven, 18, (10) 4-1

District 5: Parker Larren, 14, (3) 35-1 and Kiara Blake, 15, (4) 27-1

District 6: Ryder Townes, 18, (8) 10-1 and Mazda Cornering, 17, (7) 15-1

District 7: Zeller Florian, 17, (5) 24-1 and Ree Lilard, 17, (6) 18-1

District 8: Rylan Landers, 18, (4) 26-1 and Magenta Seam, 18, (5) 23-1

District 9: Quico Setsle, 16, (4) 29-1 and Orsola Patten, 13, (3) 36-1

District 10: Steer Drudgers, 18, (10) 6-1 and Bea Niche, 18, (5) 25-1

District 11: Haymish Kynko, 13, (4) 36-1 and Violet Timble, 16, (3) 34-1

District 12: Celio Artelli, 16, (7) 13-1 and Mae Londor, 12, (3) 39-1

HGBO Bets: 22% on Riletta, 18% on Steer, 16% on Ofelia, 12% on Uranus, 10% on Dazzle, 6% on Sunken, 5% on Splendor, 4% on Ryder, 2% on Ree, 1% or less on Padlet, Cabyl, Parker, Kiara, Mazda, Zeller, Rylan, Magenta, Quico, Orsola, Bea, Haymish, Violet, Celio, and Mae.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The first things the tributes heard were the rustling of leaves and the festive chirping of birds. They were standing in a clearing roughly a quarter mile in diameter. The grass underfoot was a vibrant lime-green color. Puffy white clouds dotted a robin's egg blue sky, and the sun sparkled overhead like a gem. The tributes' pedestals formed a tight circle around the cornucopia, which was fashioned out of the classic gold material and held a wide variety of weapons this year. That was all the tributes could see at first. A ten foot-tall hedge circled the cornucopia field, far too thick to pass through. In order to escape the cornucopia, the outliers would have to physically climb the leafy hedge toward safety. Outside, the arena was split into two sections: a vineyard and an apple orchard. The vineyard occupied the entire east half of the arena beyond the central cornucopia field. Neat rows of thick, rope-like grape vines stretched on for miles. Starvation would not be an issue in these games. Gravel pathways and picturesque fences wound through the vineyard. The apple orchard at the other end of the arena was similarly neat and organized. Getting the apples would pose a problem for a few of the shorter tributes, as the height of the apple trees kept them tantalizingly out of reach. Long, thin channels of water wound through both the vineyard and the orchard, able to keep the tributes well-hydrated for weeks. Tracker Jackers and mockingjays were also abundant, though the wasps' poison wasn't strong enough to kill this time around. The only deadly mutts were the large, living hedge sculptures scattered around the arena. They seemed inanimate and harmless, but they would gradually come to life and torment the tributes as Maddox saw fit. The bloodbath this year would claim ten lives.

Riletta sprinted at the head of the onrush, powering ahead of the others due to her speed. She quickly swept up a bow and began firing. Zeller from 7 was running nearby, and the arrow struck home; he moaned and gurgled in pain as he staggered to the ground, swiftly bleeding out from the arrow buried into his neck.

 _Zeller Florian, District 7 Male: 24th, Killed by Riletta, Bloodbath_

Dazzle took a pair of twin daggers and tackled a small girl from an outlying district. Violet screeched and tried to fight back, but she was overpowered by a wide margin, and there was no escaping for her. Dazzle flung the first of his knives into her chest, and Violet bled out in moments after Dazzle slashed open her neck.

 _Violet Timble, District 11 Female: 23rd, Killed by Dazzle, Bloodbath_

Steer from District 10 had grabbed a crowbar from the mass of supplies, and he grabbed the small girl from District 8, Magenta, whose pedestal had been situated next to his. Steer threw her to the ground like nothing, and tears streamed down her face as Steer brought down his crowbar repeatedly, smacking her in the head until she died from head trauma.

 _Magenta Seam, District 8 Female: 22nd, Killed by Steer, Bloodbath_

Magenta's ally, Cabyl, let out a high-pitched scream of terror and ran for her life. Sunken from 4 had a spear, and he hopped onto the girl's trail with his weapon outstretched. The spear landed in her back with one slight toss, cutting several centimeters into her skin with the sharp point. Sunken ran forward to tear his spear out, then he flipped her over and repeatedly stabbed her in the chest until she stopped breathing.

 _Cabyl Harden, District 3 Female: 21st, Killed by Sunken, Bloodbath_

Ofelia swept up the hatchet placed fifty meters away from her pedestal and swung it in the direction of the nearest tribute. The metal blade went crunch upon impact with his chest, and his lungs started flooding with blood in a matter of moments.

 _Celio Artelli, District 12 Male: 20th, Killed by Ofelia, Bloodbath_

Riletta tackled Celio's district partner, Mae, and hurled her against the exterior wall of the cornucopia. She begged to be released, screaming and flailing her limbs in protest, but Riletta fired an arrow into her gut, subduing her.

 _Mae Londor, District 12 Female: 19th, Killed by Riletta, Bloodbath_

Uranus Talbot grabbed a sword and sprinted in the direction of Quico, the tall, muscular field hand boy from the grain district. His eyes opened wide when he saw the point of Uranus' sword protruding from his front like a horn, and he was gone just like that. Uranus flipped him around and cut open his torso with two heavy chops before sprinting away.

 _Quico Setsle, District 9 Male: 18th, Killed by Uranus, Bloodbath_

Splendor was the last career without a kill, but as she eyed the cornucopia field, a spear in each hand, she spotted her first victim. About ten meters away, a small boy was down on his hands and knees, slowly bleeding out from an arrow wound inflicted by Riletta. Splendor thrust both of her spears into his back in rapid succession. Parker was gone in moments.

 _Parker Larren, District 5 Male: 17th, Killed by Riletta and Splendor, Bloodbath_

Sunken had been somewhat inactive for most of the bloodbath. Instead of charging through the crowds, knocking outliers like flies, he'd been standing in front of the cornucopia, keeping the outliers away from the most valuable supplies. The miniscule boy from 3 tried to work his way past Sunken to reach a packet of wire situated ten meters behind his left shoulder. Sunken turned deftly and flung his spear into his neck, and he bled out swiftly.

 _Padlet Scoop, District 3 Male: 16th, Killed by Sunken, Bloodbath_

Ofelia made the final kill. Toward the beginning of the bloodbath, she'd landed her hatchet in the chest of Bea from District 10. A twitching Bea had dragged herself into the darkness of the cornucopia, tears streaming down her face. Ofelia was hastily rummaging through the horn's supplies when she saw a pair of sad eyes staring at her through the darkness. Ofelia landed the blade of her hatchet in her head without a moment's hesitation. Bea had been moments away from death already, and the rancher girl barely felt it.

 _Bea Niche, District 10 Female: 15th, Killed by Ofelia, Bloodbath_

The career team quickly got to work. This was yet another where their pack was completely intact. Keeping order around the cornucopia was difficult with six members, but the leader, Riletta, ultimately had no trouble keeping the others in line. Dazzle and Splendor, the stunning pair from 1, largely remained out of her sight, sorting rations and weapons in the back of the horn. They found that this year's weapons were more varied than usual, with an even blend of blades, projectiles, and more. Uranus and Ofelia got to work climbing the tall hedge. It took backbreaking effort to tug themselves to the top of the wall; no wonder so many trapped tributes had been killed during the bloodbath. They ended up using each other for added stability as they gained height, and the 2s quickly nailed their technique. Sunken and Riletta had a different plan for getting past the stupid hedge, a plan that said quite a bit about their personalities. Riletta pulled some matches out of the horn and watched as the hedge went up in smoke. The flames put out themselves in a matter of minutes, leaving a large gap filled with smoke. Riletta had the smuggest smirk in Panem on her face as she sprinted out through the hole she and Sunken had created, her fingers locked firmly around her bow.

The eight remaining outliers had to choose whether to go to the apple orchard or the vineyard. Kiara from 5 chose the vineyard; she liked the way the vibrant colors let her blend in more easily. She'd grabbed a belt of throwing knives from the horn, which had been placed there for Sunken, but she had nothing in the ways of food or medical supplies. Kiara ended up settling down after half a day of travel, covering herself with grape vines and smearing herself with dirt to blend in. Ryder and Mazda from 6 had allied prior to the games. They were polar opposites in both personality and appearance, but they had a great dynamic and a unique sense of humor and the Capitol loved them. When night fell, they dragged themselves into the lowest bough of a tall apple tree and tried to sleep. Ree, the volunteer girl from 7, thundered away from the cornucopia carrying a knife and a bag of dinner rolls. She quickly found a stream, one of the widest in the arena, and she followed it for about five hours before arriving at its source; a small, clear-as-glass pond with a small island in the center. Ree trudged onto the island and fell asleep almost instantly. Rylan from 8 was lying just outside of the circular hedge, crying softly. His leg had broken from the fall, and even his slightest movements brought on extreme pain. He hoped he would receive help from the Capitol soon. Orsola sprinted to the very edge of the vineyard, where a second hedge separated the arena from the force field. The gamemakers were a little ticked off by her distance from the other tributes, but they let her be for the time being. She buried herself in a pile of vines like a bush and nervously munched on grapes as the first day reached its conclusion. Steer Drudgers from District 10 was on the prowl; he'd fetched a medical kit and a thermos from the bloodbath, alongside his famous crowbar. He was determined to increase his supply stock even more by attracting the sponsors; his heart was set on a bit of armor to protect himself. He knew the only way to get that was to kill mutts and slaughter tributes. Steer was prepared to do so. Haymish from 11 was the last member of the outlier crew. He was one of the few tributes who'd chosen to avoid the bloodbath, and he had nothing but the clothes on his back. He mostly strolled through the orchard without a real strategy in mind, just to move and hope he'd find something useful.

Steer was just about to stop for the night when he spotted Haymish moving quietly through the trees. Steer ducked into the shadows and watched Haymish step out into a pool of moonlight; both his hands were empty, and he looked like a pretty easy target. Now it was Steer's turn to leap out of hiding, and Haymish didn't see him until it was too late. The muscular boy tackled him from behind, knocking him straight to the ground. A well-placed whack from his crowbar was enough to send Haymish writhing, and Steer polished him off with a few more forceful hits. Steer took a quick moment to check him for supplies before sprinting off.

 _Haymish Kynko, District 11 Male: 14th, Killed by Steer, Day 2_

Day 2 had little action in it. Kiara slithered out from underneath her blanket of grape vines, groaning softly. She'd slept terribly, and she was almost glad that morning had arrived; now she could stretch her legs and move around without the risk of being taken off-guard by a mutt or tribute. Kiara mostly moved in circles around the vineyard, not really tracking her movements or planning ahead as much as she was travelling aimlessly.

The careers disembarked from the apple orchard, where they had been hunting on Day 1. It had so many obstacles and dark spaces that hunting was extremely difficult, and they were all looking forward to hunting in the vineyard anyway. Uranus thought he'd seen Steer moving in the direction of the vineyard during the opening bloodbath, and that was enough to persuade the others to travel there. They didn't have any luck on the second day in terms of hunting, but they did come within a mile of Kiara and Orsola at different points throughout the day.

Speaking of Orsola, she was miserable. A bitter-cold fog had settled over the vineyard early that morning, and she was freezing cold. Her sponsors sent her several sheets of a silvery, cloth-like material, and she figured she was meant to make a shelter. She tried in vain to make a tent by arranging a few of the broader vines in a teepee-like shape, but Orsola's efforts were fruitless. That night, she wrapped herself with the blankets and hoped she'd have better luck with sleep.

Mazda and Ryder were finding it surprisingly difficult to keep themselves suspended in the large apple tree they called home. They both fell out in their sleep on Day 2. Ryder went first, and he had the wind knocked straight out of him. Mazda plummeted less than an hour later, and it quickly became apparent it wasn't safe to keep up their current treetop living strategy. They dropped to the ground and moved ever-so-slightly in the direction of the vineyard. The comfort and height of the orchard trees was tempting, but they had to resist. Ryder and Mazda hunkered down in a ditch veiled by thorny bushes and closed their eyes.

Steer was still hunting, and he heard the soft snores of the career pack a few minutes after midnight on the third day. Riletta was at the far-away cornucopia; Dazzle, Uranus, Ofelia, and Sunken were sleeping, while Splendor was tiredly standing guard. Steer had no doubt he could overpower the small and delicate Splendor, but he didn't want to anger the whole pack.

A branch snapped under Steer's foot, and Splendor pounced. Steer knew he had no choice but to fight back. One of Splendor's two spears was immediately knocked out of her hands with the curved end of Steer's crowbar. By this point, the remainder of the pack was awake. Steer smacked Splendor in the chest, knocking the wind straight out of her, and she fell onto her back, screaming at the top of her lungs. Steer finished her off quickly. He only realized then that the other careers had surrounded him; he was in seriously deep shit.

 _Splendor Renault, District 1 Female: 13th, Killed by Steer, Day 3_

Steer tackled the nearest career, Uranus, and readied his crowbar. He was quickly grabbed from behind by Ofelia, Uranus' district partner, whose eyes were sparkling with rage. At the same moment, Dazzle tried to grab hold of his crowbar, but Steer yanked it back with such powerful force that the lanky boy from 1 was pulled off his feet. Steer ended up escaping when Ofelia tripped on Splendor's corpse, allowing him to pull himself free of her strong grip. Steer staggered backward, and he swung his crowbar with enough force to send both Dazzle and Uranus reeling.

The chase that followed was extremely long and extremely physically demanding for both Steer and the careers. The apple orchard was dark and had lots of places to "disappear". Steer was strong and filled with resolve, but he couldn't run on forever. He ended up turning sharply to the right after cresting a tall hill. His heavy footsteps were drowned out by the frantic sounds of the pack, and he went unnoticed.

"Where the hell did he go?" Sunken shouted. The careers scattered and searched feverishly for Steer, but he'd escaped, almost as though he'd vanished into the night.

The pack knew they couldn't leave, but they weren't stupid enough to restrict their hunting to one small area of the arena where one tribute was hiding, even if it was the strongest tribute in these games besides Riletta. Ofelia and Sunken stayed in the apple orchard to search for Steer, while Dazzle and Uranus returned to the cornucopia to fill in Riletta. The next morning, Dazzle and Uranus explored the vineyard, while Riletta once again stayed at the cornucopia. She was like the hinge that was holding the two halves of the pack together.

Day 4 was deathless. Only half of the tributes were left, and Maddox was predicting a mid-length games this time around. Ofelia and Sunken hunted in the orchard with backbreaking ferocity; they were desperate to corner Steer himself or at least locate him. They wanted some kind of confirmation that they were hunting in the right area, so they looked to the sky and asked the Capitol for information. The note from Ofelia's mentor, Enobaria, was printed on thick white paper.

 _Sure, he's strong, but he isn't worth your undivided time. Stop being so stubborn. –Enobaria_

"We should listen to her," Sunken said. "There are, like, six other outliers still kicking."

"No," Ofelia persisted. "That bastard killed my friend. Our friend. You frolic away if you want, but I'm not leaving."

Sunken gave Ofelia her way after a long verbal argument, and they continued hunting feverishly in the orchard. At the cornucopia, Riletta was also annoying the gamemakers. The burnt hedge had rebuilt itself overnight, and Riletta burned it again, grinning delicately as it went up in smoke. The gamemakers did their own research and didn't find that she was a pyromaniac; the feisty girl just liked the feeling of breaking the rules. She didn't rebel like the men and women who destroyed buildings and poisoned food in the outlying districts, begging for the Capitol to be torn down; she rebelled like the feisty teenage girl she was. She was controversial, but she wasn't a Diamond or a Haymitch or a Struve, so the gamemakers let her be.

Rylan was still lying still, just outside of the central hedge. He wasn't bleeding more than a few minor cuts and scrapes, but he was completely immobile because of his broken leg. He knew he was pretty much doomed, and he could do nothing but cry softly, hoping a miracle would save him or the reaper would put him out of his suffering.

A cannon shot fired on the fifth morning. Rylan's soft sobs had somehow gone unnoticed to Riletta this far. When Riletta did kill him, she didn't even know it. The hedge had once again rebuilt itself overnight, and Riletta set fire to the area of the hedge that Rylan was lying behind. Rylan let out a high-pitched scream when he saw black smoke billowing over the top of the hedge. As more and more of the hedge burned, the air grew thicker with smoke.

Before long, the smoke was pouring into his lungs and his eyes. Rylan coughed and made one last struggle to drag himself to safety. The heat and the smoke slowly killed him over the course of about five minutes. His cannon shot blended in rather well with the crackling and hissing of the flames, and it went unnoticed to the 4 girl.

 _Rylan Landers, District 8 Male: 12th, Killed by Riletta, Day 5_

Ryder and Mazda left the orchard. They filled all of their packs with all of the apples they could carry beforehand. It was enough to keep them well-fed for as long as it took for them to go bad. Unfortunately, they were getting nearer to the duo of Dazzle and Uranus, who were hunting feverishly in the vineyard. The land in their area of the vineyard was hilly and uneven, keeping the duos out of each other's sight. Ryder and Mazda pressed onward, and Ryder literally collapsed with exhaustion around sunset, too exhausted to travel any farther. They were near the force field now, less than two miles away to be exact. The gamemakers were tempted to send a few hedge mutts after them, but decided to wait until they regained their strength.

Orsola continued her timid efforts to build some kind of shelter; the third night had been just as cold as the first two, and she was shivering cold even with her blankets. She finally left the vineyard and moved toward the apple orchard, where it was warmer. In order to do so, she had to get nearer to the cornucopia, which she was deathly afraid of. Orsola managed to slip past without being spotted, but she was terrified nonetheless.

Ree stuck close to the stream she'd been following for several days. She'd eaten all of her dinner rolls, and now she had only her knives. The gamemakers sent the first of the living hedge sculptures after her. It crawled out of the shadows. Ree started to scream, but she slapped her hand over her mouth so that the sound was more like a choked cry. She ran from the mutt for about ten minutes before turning around to face it. It was an easy kill; Ree just had to run across the stream. The mutt followed her, and after that it was too wet and heavy to run. She managed to cut it enough with her knives to keep it from moving again, and then she sprinted farther into the vineyard for distance and safety.

Dazzle and Uranus spotted Ryder and Mazda from about half a mile away. By that point, the moon had risen fully, casting its milky white light over the vineyard. The career boys sprinted forward, turning slightly at the last moment so that they could attack the outliers from behind. Ryder and Mazda were completely oblivious to the proximity of the careers until they were beyond saving. Ryder and Mazda were huddled together at the base of a tall hill, telling ghost stories to lighten the mood. Mazda was just about to reach the climax of her tale when Ryder let out a high-pitched scream. Mazda froze in horror as Ryder fell to one side, two knives buried into his back. Dazzle tore them out, grinning wildly, and now it was Mazda's turn to scream.

 _Ryder Townes, District 6 Male: 11th, Killed by Dazzle, Day 5_

Mazda turned to run, and she was immediately met by the bite of Uranus' sword in her gut. The sixth Talbot sibling was quickly doused in her blood, and Mazda's screaming fizzled to a kind of ugly groan as more and more of her organs stopped working. Mazda laid on the ground for several minutes, twitching slightly, before Uranus thrust his sword into her back. The blade cut into her flesh with surprising force. Dazzle and Uranus each ate an apple out of her pack before leaving.

 _Mazda Cornering, District 6 Female: 10th, Killed by Uranus, Day 5_

The first half of Day 6 was uneventful. After several chilly days, the tributes noticed dark clouds rolling in. They were expecting a freezing-cold rain, but what they got was a warm summer drizzle that warmed them up comfortably. Riletta stayed at the cornucopia. The rain was primarily meant to keep her from burning down the hedge yet again. Her mentor Talisa was practically begging for her to stop, but Riletta wouldn't listen. Ofelia and Sunken continued their frantic searches back and forth through the orchard, on the hunt for Steer. Ofelia was as determined as ever, but Sunken's resolve had, well, sunken. Ofelia wanted to hunt, hunt, hunt, and Sunken wanted to rest, rest, rest. Dazzle and Uranus returned to the cornucopia for a supply restock. Weirdly, Riletta didn't want to hunt; she'd devoted her life to burning down the hedge. She was going loopy from the adrenaline of the games; she wasn't yet fully batshit crazy, but she was getting closer by the day.

Kiara kept stubbornly put in the vineyard out of terror. Her mentor Surge, who was now sixteen years old, kept sending her notes suggesting she should leave, but she didn't listen. Kiara was too scared to leave the landscape she'd become familiar with over the first six days of the games. Ree drew slightly back from the stream, entering the thick of the orchard and taking some time out of her day to explore. She found a place where five trees stood in a circle, hiding a small circle of space. Ree ducked down into this space and tried to sleep. Steer was on the run, crowbar in hand; with Riletta slowly losing her sanity, he was the most dangerous killer in the arena. He jumped between the vineyard and the apple orchard three or four times a day, but whatever he did, he never stopped moving. The closest he came to Ofelia and Sunken was about one and a half miles, around three in the evening.

Orsola was finally driven away from the force field by a few of the living hedges. She was dangerously close to another tribute: Kiara from 5. Neither of the girls were deadly killers per se, but the gamemakers weren't expecting them to readily ally either. Time would tell how the girls would react when they met. Kiara and Orsola were about a hundred feet away when the gamemakers created a small rustling sound between them. Both girls rushed toward the sound, expecting to see their next meal, but all they saw was each other.

"I'm not winning this thing," Kiara said, her voice shaking. "And no offense, but by the looks of things, neither are you. There are still five careers and that huge boy from District 10. What do you say?"

Orsola froze mid-step, stunned. "W… what's your name again?"

A long and surprisingly light-hearted conversation then ensued. Kiara and Orsola gradually got closer and closer until it was safe for everyone in the audience to call them allies. Alexander sent Orsola a small sleeping bag that was only large enough to fit one person; they decided to take turns sleeping inside of it each night. Orsola slept inside of it that night, and Kiara stayed nearby, shivering in the cold, misty night.

The crown jewel of Day 7 occurred around dawn, when the sky was colored with bands of pink and orange like lines of bright paint. Ofelia and Sunken had woken about half an hour prior, and they got hunting after a quick breakfast. They spotted the enormous Steer Drudgers from about half a mile off, and Ofelia started shaking with thrill. She and Sunken sprinted in Steer's direction, crashing through the brush and making quite a bit of noise. Steer heard them coming and turned sharply around, holding his crowbar above his head. He was expecting two weak outliers, and he was more than a little shocked when the careers stumbled out of the orchard thick, cackling.

Ofelia lunged, and Steer barely had time to leap out of the way. He turned sharply on his heel and tried to land a heavy hit on Ofelia's head, but Sunken grabbed him from behind, yanking him backward. For a split second, Steer loosened his grip on his crowbar, motivating a winded Ofelia enough to make another attempt at his life. Unfortunately for her, Ofelia was bound to close range; she didn't want to risk tossing her hatchet and missing, leaving her defenseless against Steer and his deadly crowbar.

About five minutes later, a cannon shot sounded. Steer hit Sunken in the chin with enough force to send him reeling. Sunken literally flew backward, blood spouting from his chin and neck. He was in so much pain he couldn't see clearly, but his wounds weren't fatal. He would recover in time.

Steer knew time was a luxury he didn't have, and he decided to take a huge risk. He grabbed Ofelia by the arm and twisted with all the force he could muster. Ofelia gasped and cried out. She dropped her hatchet, leaving Steer free to beat her senseless with his curved metal weapon. With her last breaths, Ofelia told him on no uncertain terms where he could stick that weapon.

 _Ofelia Tessard, District 2 Female: 9th, Killed by Steer, Day 7_

That left the final eight: Dazzle Brooks from District 1, Uranus Talbot from District 2, Sunken Roslin and Riletta Juven from District 4, Kiara Blake from District 5, Ree Lilard from District 7, Orsola Patten from District 9, and Steer Drudgers from District 10.

Sunken started screaming at the top of his lungs as soon as he found his breath back. All three of the other careers were nearby. Riletta was relaxing inside of the cornucopia when she heard his screams; faint from such a distance, but unmistakable. She raced in their direction. Dazzle and Uranus were less than three-quarters of a mile away, and they arrived at the scene in minutes. By that point, the elusive Steer had escaped west, having punched the screaming 4 boy in the mouth hard enough to make him black out.

Kiara and Orsola heard Riletta crashing through the brush and had to stop themselves from screaming. Kiara dragged a stunned Orsola into hiding, and they watched, quaking, as Riletta rushed past. They'd seen Dazzle and Uranus less than an hour earlier; they knew that the cornucopia was now unguarded for the time being. Kiara was rushing toward the horn ten seconds before her feet had time to catch up, and Orsola had no choice but to follow. Both girls knew deep down that they had no chance of victory, and they figured the only way to give themselves a chance was to make a huge splash.

By the time they reached the cornucopia, Riletta had already turned around. They were shoving supplies into a magenta backpack when Riletta sprinted out of the shadows, her body a tall, thin silhouette against the rising sun. Orsola screamed at the top of her lungs when Riletta's fist connected with her chest; she stumbled backward, knocking down Kiara in her descent, and the girls collapsed in a heap. Riletta knocked them hard enough to send them both unconscious.

When they came to, they were bound to the ground with thick ropes. Riletta was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly a lit match fell onto Orsola's chest, and her clothes were quickly engulfed. The fire quickly spread to Kiara. Riletta staggered into sight, cackling. A crazy glint stayed in her eyes as she watched the girls burn to death over the course of about a minute. Now nobody had any doubt she'd broken completely.

 _Orsola Patten, District 9 Female: 8th, Killed by Riletta, Day 7_

 _Kiara Blake, District 5 Female: 7th, Killed by Riletta, Day 7_

Day 8 was deathless. The four remaining careers all regrouped at the cornucopia, frustrated at how Steer had evaded them yet again. It was truly started to sink in how strong of competition he was. The four careers compromised two thirds of the remaining tributes, and Steer was the only thing keeping them from turning on each other. Riletta was as crazy as ever, repeatedly lighting the hedge on fire even though it built itself overnight. Dazzle and Uranus were pretty great in terms of physical condition, though they were exhausted, and they needed a day to rest. Sunken was bleeding heavily from his chin, a wound courtesy of Steer's crowbar, and opening his mouth brought on extreme pain. Dazzle had to feed him water through a thin tube until he was healed enough to do it himself.

Ree continued her wanderings around the apple orchard. One of the hedge mutts chased her half a mile closer to the cornucopia, which didn't exactly make her comfortable, but she knew the gamemakers would just shove her back if she moved any farther away. Ree turned sideways and returned to the stream she'd been following for much of the games, where she hydrated and washed herself before falling asleep.

Steer finally took a day off. He'd come to a stop in the far reaches of the leafy vineyard, where the vines were especially thick and covered him like a blanket. He never let his crowbar out of his sight. A sponsor sent him a thin cloth to clean it; while this let him wipe off the still-wet blood of Sunken, it did little to remove the deep stains from the blood of Magenta, Haymish, Splendor, and Ofelia, the four tributes he'd killed.

Day 9 was much of the same. Riletta kept burning down the hedge. Even her loyal district partner, Sunken, was beginning to get more than a little creeped out by her weird behavior. All three of the others were starting to suspect that she was actually going crazy, but they didn't want to jump to any conclusions and get themselves killed. Sunken tried his best to dissuade Riletta from repeatedly burning the hedge, but she didn't let up.

Albeit slowly, Ree and Steer were moving toward each other. After a well-deserved rest, Steer began travelling in the direction of the apple orchard. Ree was moving toward the vineyard, and they were expected to cross late Day 10 or early Day 11 if both of them continued at their current paces.

On Day 10, Maddox decided to unleash mutts onto the career pack. Maddox was a man who liked strong career packs, but a group of four was too much at such a late stage of the games. At the time, Uranus, Sunken, and Riletta were asleep in the cornucopia, while Dazzle was tiredly standing guard. About half a mile away, two of the living hedge sculptures stretched to full height. The gamemakers sent them running in the direction of the cornucopia, and they arrived in a matter of minutes.

Dazzle didn't have time to breathe. The mutts burst straight through the hedge that had recently rebuilt itself, tackling him to the ground from two different directions. Dazzle's head slammed into the wall of the cornucopia, sending him unconscious, and the mutts beat him to death with their leaves and branches with astonishing force. By the time his cannon shot fired, the other careers had stretched to full height to see what was going on.

 _Dazzle Brooks, District 1 Male: 6th, Killed by hedge sculpture mutts, Day 10_

The three remaining careers quickly rushed into formation, surrounding the living hedge sculptures. The mutts covered the entrance of the cornucopia; they would have to fight their way past them to reach the advantageous position. For the time being, however, they were trapped inside of the cornucopia. Sunken lunged, cutting into the leg of one of the sculptures with his spear. The point just went straight through the mass of stems and leaves and poked out of the other side. The only weapon that was of use was Uranus' sword. The others started to fall back as Uranus lunged.

Uranus made progress at a remarkable rate. He managed to dispatch one of the mutts in a matter of minutes by chopping into its leg and sawing at it repeatedly. The mutt fell with a crash, and Uranus turned, a look of triumph on his face. His thrill soon turned to dread when he felt his feet lifting off of the ground. The other hedge sculpture was eager to thank him for re-shaping its friend. The sculpture threw Uranus about thirty feet in the air, and he fell with a crunch, breaking his neck immediately on contact with the grassy ground.

 _Uranus Talbot, District 2 Male: 5th, Killed by hedge sculpture mutts, Day 10_

Riletta had been mysteriously absent throughout most of the fight, and there was a reason why. She was digging quickly through the supplies in the cornucopia, gathering as many matches as she could. Setting the whole creature on fire was not an easy task, but Riletta had substantial preparation. Sunken just stepped back and watched her do her thing. Both of the mutts were up in flames in a matter of minutes, and Riletta cackled madly, the fire glinting off of her pupils in a demonic fashion. That was Sunken's first real confirmation that his ally had lost her sanity.

The rest of Day 10 was filled with little but a short clash between Ree and Steer. Around three in the evening, Ree kneeled beside a small lake and started splashing the cool water onto her face. Steer, who was nearby, heard the splashing noise and moved toward it to investigate. Steer spotted her from the opposite end of the lake, and he ran around the lake to attack her, holding his crowbar with two hands. Ree screamed and splashed a handful of water in Steer's face before running for her life.

Steer was a fast runner, but Ree was pumped full of adrenaline, and she eventually managed to escape. She had just crested a tall hill, which gave her the height advantage, and she threw herself to one side, rolling downhill perpendicular to the direction Steer was running. She landed in a copse of bushes at the base of the hill and fell dead silent. It was hours before she dared to move an inch.

On Day 11, Riletta was pissing off the gamemakers more than ever. She was the strongest tribute out of the original twenty-four, and Maddox couldn't bear to kill her off given the bloody finale she was sure to put on if she lasted that far. The public was screaming for her to terminate the insane girl. Maddox had a huge decision to make.

So did Sunken. Now that he didn't feel comfortable around Riletta anymore, he packed up as many things as he could carry and sprinted north, abandoning the cornucopia and his insane district partner. He sprinted onward for about half an hour, about two miles, before he dropped near the center of the vineyard. He was exhausted, but he was too nervous to sleep for more than a few hours at a time.

Ree and Steer clashed again on the eleventh day, late at night. Ree had finally moved from the bush, and she was exploring the orchard in search of a tree with branches low enough for her to reach. Steer was less than a hundred feet away, and he was crouched down in the shadowy area between two trees, staying dead quiet as Ree drew closer and closer.

Steer leapt out of the shadows, and a loud banging sound like buckling metal could be heard from a scary distance around. Steer drew away, and the cameras zoomed in on the misshapen lump of Ree's head, which was bleeding heavily from at least five different spots. Ree's knees buckled, and she tumbled to the ground, landing on her elbows. She tried desperately to crawl to safety, but she was hopeless, and Steer sealed her doom with one more well-placed swing of his metal weapon.

 _Ree Lilard, District 7 Female: 4th, Killed by Steer, Day 11_

Steer left the apple orchard on Day 12. He was easily the most popular tribute left in the games. District 10 hadn't officially had a victor since the sixty-ninth games, but Steer was strong and confident and it was far from impossible that he could pull out the win.

In the vineyard Steer was headed for, Sunken was on the prowl. He'd lost one of his duel spears the day prior, and now he only had one weapon to defend himself against Steer and Riletta. He only hunted for about half the day; he'd had a terrible night's sleep the night prior, and he slept like a rock when he finally let himself rest halfway through Day 12.

By Day 12, it became apparent that Maddox had made a decision regarding Riletta. There was literally no denying she had completely lost her sanity. Insane tributes were never allowed to win the games, as was shown by literally every single crazy tribute that had ever entered the games: Larix from the seventeenth games, Fukaya from the twentieth games, Tiberius from the thirty-fifth games, Elastane from the forty-second games, Titus from the sixty-eighth games, Tarinth from the seventy-fifth games, and Orford from the eighty-third games had all been terminated by the gamemakers before they could win. Riletta would not be an exception.

She awoke on the twelfth morning to the smell of smoke. It was faint, but it was definitely there, and it lingered in the air like the smell of a recently extinguished campfire. Riletta got to her feet and exited the cornucopia. She spotted the fireball coming in her direction too late to be saved. She tried to dive to one direction, but she couldn't dodge it fast enough, and it blew her to smithereens instantly. Her corpse was literally scattered into hundreds of pieces that rained down up to a quarter of a mile away. Not even a ten can save you from Maddox Courval's wrath.

 _Riletta Juven, District 4 Female: 3rd, Killed by fireballs, Day 12_

These games continued a strange pattern of the finalists' names starting with the same letter, started by Taj and Trax of the year prior. Sunken and Steer didn't do much as the twelfth day came to a close. Sunken was snoozing quietly in the vineyard at the time, and Riletta's cannon shot startled him awake. He wasn't sure whether the death had been Riletta's or Steer's. Either way, he would have a dangerous final competitor. However, he had many of the richer districts backing him. They sent him a bowl of warm soup to get him through the cold night among other things.

Steer wasn't doing anything exciting either. He camped out at the edge of the orchard, about an eighth of a mile from the place where the trees stopped and the grape vines began. He spent most of the day practicing with his crowbar and pondering things. He wasn't sure whether he was up against Sunken or Riletta, but the loud crashing of the fireball in the direction of the cornucopia seemed to indicate Riletta had died. He wasn't sure, though, and he had to wait until the death recap if he wanted to know for sure. Steer relaxed slightly when Riletta's face flashed in the sky that night.

On Day 13, Maddox sent the first of the fireballs down onto the arena. The fireballs weren't meant to kill, but they did injure both tributes. Sunken leapt to his feet when the smoky smell roused him from sleep, and he had more than enough time to dodge the fireball. It crashed into the ground roughly thirty meters away, and the ground rumbled as the fireball blasted an enormous crater large enough to fit a small car. Sunken ran for his life, avoiding the dodgeball with impressive agility. He was a talented swimmer, which translated well to running. Ten minutes later, a sharp piece of debris landed in the back of his leg. He cursed in agony and looked down to see a piece of stone the size of his hand embedded an inch deep into his leg. The pain was like fire, but Sunken kept running, nearing his final opponent with each step.

The first fireball crashed roughly fifty yards away from the place where Steer was sleeping, curled up between two large bushes. He jumped to his feet at the loud boom, grabbed his crowbar, and ran without looking back. He was an extremely fast runner for a boy from 10, and he spotted Sunken about five minutes later. The boys were on the tops of two hills, and they raced down into the valley between. The finale commenced.

Sunken's first few blows were powerful. A sponsor had sent him a second spear, and he had a dagger in each of his shoes to back him up in case his weapons were lost, broken, or stolen. He landed his spear in the left side of Steer's gut, where he was already impaled by a piece of smoking fireball debris. Steer keened in pain and swung his crowbar, smacking Sunken in the head hard enough to make him let go. Sunken's hands flew to his face, and he quickly realized how badly he was injured. Steer had literally hit him straight in the eyeball, and ugly white goop was pouring from the socket. Slime flowed down his face, and Sunken yanked the pieces free. The entire eyeball fell free of its socket.

Sunken was in too much pain to do anything but run and knock back Steer; he was playing a defensive game, as opposed to the offensive game that the male from 10 was playing. Torrential rainfall started falling onto the arena, dousing the fires started by the fireballs. The finalists were chilled and soaked to the bone, but they diligently kept fighting with every ounce of their resolve and strength.

A cannon shot fired over fifteen minutes later, after Steer had knocked both of Sunken's spears out of his hands. He reached down to grab one of the daggers out of his shoes, and Steer smacked him in the back of the head with all the force he could muster. Sunken screamed, reaching for his head, but he was unconscious in a matter of moments. Steer pulled back his crowbar and brought it down repeatedly. Bits of gore flew through the air. When Sunken's cannon sounded, Steer staggered backward and hurled up the contents of his stomach. He was the only tribute left in the arena.

 _Sunken Roslin, District 4 Male: 2nd, Killed by Steer, Day 13_

"Steer Drudgers of District 10, you are the victor of the ninety-fourth annual Hunger Games!" Titanius shouted.

Steer fell to his knees, heaving and shaking. He stretched to full height when he spotted the hovercraft descending to retrieve him, holding his bleeding stomach and trying to look presentable.

 _Steer Drudgers, District 10 Male: Victor of the Ninety-Fourth Hunger Games, Day 13_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 10 welcomed their third official victor with open arms. They hadn't had an official victor since Alexander twenty-five years earlier, and the parties were endless in the livestock district. They were no longer the district with the least victors, and Steer was a symbol of hope to the youths of District 10; if he could enter the games and make it home safe and sound, maybe they weren't all doomed if they were reaped for the arena. Steer was one of the more quiet and solitary victors, and his eyes always looked like he was in deep thought; the memories of his games had him traumatized, and they flashed before his eyes in his panic attacks like the changing pictures of a film camera. Steer suffered from PTSD and alcoholism like many of the victors before him, and he quickly turned into a rather poor example of a victor. Stinn Hawke would also go on to enroll him in the sex industry, but he would fall out of style rather quickly with the influx of good-looking victors in the following years.

The payouts on his victory were miniscule, as 18% bet on him.

His victory tour was great and one of the better ones actually, but an attempt was made on his life in District 4.

Steer would live to age seventy, dying from cancer two months after the one-hundred forty-sixth annual Hunger Games. He would marry, but he would never have children.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Steer moves into the Victor's Village of District 10, next door to Alexander.

Sycamora Bromley has her first child, a boy named Booker.

Haymitch Abernathy, the victor of the second Quarter Quell, dies from alcohol poisoning.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)  
89HG: Admired Thompson (#15, District 1)  
90HG: Chipson Harris (#11, District 3)  
91HG: Mars Talbot (#21, District 2)  
92HG: Arnold Scruggs (#3, District 12), Wystella Knapp (#22, District 2), and Robina Caite (#3, District 10)  
93HG: Taj King (#16, District 1)  
94HG: Steer Drudgers (#4, District 10)

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry this took like 57042 years. I had some fun with this one, and I thought Steer was a pretty interesting tribute. Keep in mind that, for Districts 2 and 10, their "number" in the victor list will be one more than the number everyone thinks they are, because of Wystella and Robina being the unofficial victors of the ninety-second. So Steer is actually #4 even though everyone thinks he's #3.**

 **And so the plague arc is finally over. Honestly, it's probably my favorite subplot I've ever done for this story. I've got another really exciting arc coming up in the near future, so stay tuned for that ;)**


	96. The 95th Hunger Games

**The 95th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

The sudden death of Head Gamemaker Maddox Courval took the entire nation of Panem by surprise. Many were quick to peg it as an assassination, but even today there is no evidence to show that it was anything other than a mere accident. Over his impressive nine-year career, he'd wowed Panem with his prairie arena, Arabian town arena, cathedral arena, circus tent arena, tropical island arena, flower field arena, swamp arena, and most recently, the orchard-vineyard hybrid arena. He truly was a symbol of growth and progress, and he was a great loss to the nation of Panem. Multiple different candidates to replace the recently vacated spot stepped into the spotlight, and it was quickly narrowed down to a final two. Orestilla Frondel was a young lady with a wild imagination and a fierce temper, and she was a skilled writer and filmmaker, having created many fan films about the games. She'd worked as paparazzi investigating the lives of the victors, and she was one of the biggest games fans Panem had ever known. The other candidate, Edison Jayasinghe, was much older and more stern, and he had worked as Maddox's personal assistant for almost the entirety of his career. He was streamlined, and he had worked hard to get his name to fame, from poverty (by Capitol standards) to one of the richest non-politicians in the Capitol. The gamemakers decided to bring back the scheme they'd used from the fifty-first to fifty-sixth games; Orestilla and Edison would each serve for two years, and then it would be left up to popular vote. Capitolites quickly took sides, and they waited with anticipation and thrill as Orestilla stepped forward for her first shot at running the games.

This year had one of the most legendary career packs of the first Hunger Games century. They were all strong and extremely-good looking, and then all scored elevens. District 1's tributes were polar opposites in a variety of ways. The boy was a walking stereotype who could rally the crowds with his clever sense of humor, and he was extremely handsome and popular in the Capitol. The girl was the youngest this year at fifteen, and she was of heavy Indian heritage. Her exotic beauty was enough to earn her her fair share of sponsors. District 2 provided the most stereotypical duo: another Talbot sibling and the daughter of District 2's head peacekeeper. Both were mounds of muscle and cold-blooded killers. District 4 had the strongest pair. The boy was almost seven feet tall and strikingly attractive, and he had a cool sense of humor and the surfer accent that made the Capitol swoon. The girl really stole the show this year; the seventeen-year-old pride of District 4, she had a way with words and inborn leadership skills, and her bow and axe smarts were the stuff of legends. In total, the pack earned three elevens and three tens.

The outliers were a relatively solid bunch who would be sure to make these games interesting. Kete, the field hand boy from District 9, was the early standout, having earned an eight with his survival skills and his hand-to-hand combat skills. He banded together with Fender from 6 and Thimble from 8 to form the anti-career group. The three boys weren't the strongest tributes that the Hunger Games had ever seen, but they were relatively confident and level-headed and the Capitol admired them for that. The rest of the tributes scored between six and three in their private sessions. There were no volunteers outside of the careers. Orestilla had everything carefully picked out for her first ever games, and things were already looking good for her. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Robust Sicilian, 18, (11) 4-1 and Silvette Rainja, 15, (10) 7-1

District 2: Neptune Talbot, 17, (10) 5-1 and Calpurnia Spence, 16, (10) 6-1

District 3: Ganlen Milito, 14, (4) 28-1 and Jana Marriott, 15, (4) 27-1

District 4: Phelps Straiden, 18, (11) 4-1 and Fishy Redsum, 17, (11) 3-1

District 5: Diode Cooper, 16, (5) 24-1 and Caylee Gray, 16, (5) 26-1

District 6: Fender Hopkins, 17, (7) 15-1 and Liana Vries, 17, (4) 26-1

District 7: Jack Salvini, 12, (3) 38-1 and Breezy Ruiz, 15, (4) 29-1

District 8: Thimble Tormo, 18, (7) 14-1 and Chiffon Meyers, 18, (6) 19-1

District 9: Kete Vise, 17, (8) 11-1 and Olivea Sills, 18, (5) 22-1

District 10: Condor Guadango, 16, (3) 36-1 and Maja Catlin, 14, (3) 37-1

District 11: Nilis Hector, 13, (3) 41-1 and Delta Martins, 12, (4) 33-1

District 12: Oswin Amory, 16, (5) 24-1 and Kyrie Luvalle, 16, (4) 32-1

HGBO Bets: 25% on Fishy, 20% on Phelps, 18% on Robust, 13% on Neptune, 9% on Calpurnia, 5% on Silvette, 3% on Kete, 2% on Fender and Thimble, 1% or less on Ganlen, Jana, Diode, Caylee, Liana, Jack, Breezy, Chiffon, Olivea, Condor, Maja, Nilis, Delta, Oswin, and Kyrie.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

For her first games, Orestilla decided to take an enormous risk. Whether it would pay off enormously or blow up in her face was for time to tell, but she knew she had to make a splash to earn the favor of the Capitol and she was prepared to do so. The arena was pretty much an exact reconstruction of the seventieth Hunger Games' arena, which were cut short when the arena flooded due to a simple calculation error on the builders' parts. Orestilla decided to remove the entire mountain feature and throw the tributes into the roman city and forest that the Capitol never got to see enough of. The cornucopia, fashioned from boulders, stood at the center of the pedestal ring, and it only housed swords and bows. The extensive Roman statue garden sprawled out for miles in all directions. Each statue was modelled after a character from Panem's past, including tributes, gamemakers, stylists, presidents, celebrities, and more. A statue of the seventieth games' victor, Annie Cresta, stood in the center of the cornucopia field, just in front of the cornucopia, one of the few new additions. Temples to each of the Roman gods were dotted throughout the statue garden, and the temples held resources corresponding with each god or goddess' sphere of power. A thick, leafy forest took up the southern fifth of the arena. It was small, but it would provide adequate shelter for any of the tributes persistent enough to make the long trek there. Orestilla knew that reusing old arenas was almost never a good idea, but she'd made a lot of mysterious new additions and removed the infamous mountain. She thought she could make the ninety-fifth Hunger Games one of the most famous of its day if she played her cards correctly. The bloodbath this year would claim eight lives, which gave Orestilla plenty of tributes to play with after the dust settled.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Oswin and Kyrie from 12, allies, sprinted toward the cornucopia as quickly as their legs could carry them. Oswin suddenly felt strong hands wrap around his torso, and he turned to see the muscular girl from District 2, Calpurnia. Calpurnia threw him to the ground, and one of his arms broke on the landing; Calpurnia grabbed a sword and skewered it through his abdomen, ending him.

 _Oswin Amory, District 12 Male: 24th, Killed by Calpurnia, Bloodbath_

Kyrie had frozen dead in her tracks, dumbfounded with terror and shock as she watched her ally bleed out. Fishy slowly approached, carrying a bow, and she fired a volley of two arrows into her back. She was dead before she knew what had hit her.

 _Kylie Luvalle, District 12 Female: 23rd, Killed by Fishy, Bloodbath_

Phelps grabbed a spear and tackled the copper-skinned boy from District 10, who was trying to escape with a pack containing dried strips of meat. He hurriedly tried to dodge the thrown weapon, but he wasn't fast enough, and the weapon skewered itself through his neck with ease.

 _Condor Guadango, District 10 Male: 22nd, Killed by Phelps, Bloodbath_

Fishy had wrenched both of her arrows out of Kyrie's back, and she heard a slight shuffling sound behind her. She quickly turned to see Ganlen from 3, who was armed with a bow of his own, hoping to eliminate competition early. Fishy had him disarmed in a matter of seconds, and he was dead in a few more, three arrows peppering his torso in different spots.

 _Ganlen Milito, District 3 Male: 21st, Killed by Fishy, Bloodbath_

Silvette chose a bow, and she grinned with satisfaction as her first arrow arced along its path. It landed in the back of the nearest girl, and she made a small sound before she fell to her knees, never to rise again.

 _Olivea Sills, District 9 Female: 20th, Killed by Silvette, Bloodbath_

Calpurnia had been sprinting around the cornucopia field for several seconds now, trying to corner a second victim. She really was more deadly without a weapon than with one, and she was looking forward to making another kill with her bare hands. She eventually bumped into Delta from 11, and she was in a stranglehold before she had time to scream. Her neck snapped the moment she hit the ground.

 _Delta Martins, District 11 Female: 19th, Killed by Calpurnia, Bloodbath_

Robust had been unable to make a kill yet, but as he scouted the cornucopia field, spear in hand, he spotted the perfect first victim. A few meters away, an older girl was down on her knees, taking inventory of the contents of a peach-colored pack. Liana turned to see Robust towering over her. She was gone in moments.

 _Liana Vries, District 6 Female: 18th, Killed by Robust, Bloodbath_

Fishy made the final kill. The female from District 10 let out a shrill screech when she spotted Fishy barreling in her direction, and she grabbed a pack and swung it in her attacker's face. Fishy hadn't been expecting it, and she stumbled backward a step or two, stunned with shock for an instant. The girl hurriedly tried to make her escape, but Fishy recovered quickly and fired two arrows into her torso. In moments, she was as dead as the old Roman civilization.

 _Maja Catlin, District 10 Female: 17th, Killed by Fishy, Bloodbath_

The career pack was once again without a single loss after the bloodbath. They went about their post-bloodbath tributes and then went hunting. Robust from 1 and Fishy from 4 started breaking down the marble statues in the vicinity of the cornucopia to increase visibility. They left the statue of Annie Cresta intact, however; they felt like the gamemakers had placed it there to be sacred in a way, and they didn't want to tempt fate by destroying it and facing Orestilla's wrath. Silvette from 1 and Neptune from 2 sorted the food rations and then the weapons. They found that there were far fewer types of weapons provided this year: only swords, bows, and spears were inside of the cornucopia. Calpurnia from 2 and Phelps from 4 left to briefly hunt the land in the immediate vicinity of the cornucopia. They momentarily rested against a statue of Olinda from the eighteenth annual Hunger Games, and they returned to the cornucopia quickly to commence the first full hunt. The pack left Robust to guard the cornucopia when they sprinted away into the statue garden to search for victims.

The ten remaining outliers swelled across the screens. Jana from 3 jogged north until she came to the temple of Ceres, the patron of the harvest. A loaf of bread and a bowl of grain sat in the center of the ruined temple, and she crouched down into the shadowy wreck, nervously munching on the food. Diode and Caylee from 5 had allied prior to the games. They alternated between walking and jogging for much of the first day, and they eventually came to a clear-as-glass lake with a stone temple in the center: a temple to Neptune, the god of the seas. They trudged to the temple and dragged themselves onto it, and they spent the whole day practicing with the single trident they found on the altar. The anti-careers, Fender, Thimble, and Kete, had their eyes and hearts set on the colosseum-like structure in the far distance. The journey was far too long for the boys to travel in one day; when night fell, they crouched down near a statue of ex-president Lizbeth Dyson and tried to sleep. Jack and Breezy from 7 were another allied pair. They chose to leave the Roman statue garden and head to the thick woods in the southeast sector of the arena. There, they found a temple to the Nymphs, nature spirits from Roman mythology. The wooden temple was coated with moss and leaves, and vines climbed up the elegant front columns. Jack and Breezy ducked inside, stepping carefully through the rubble. Chiffon from 8 sped north and eventually came to the temple of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and battle strategy. She found a spear on the altar, and she practiced with the weapon and flipped through the random roman books that appeared around the temple. Nilis from 11 travelled to the ruins of a crematorium, a circular stone building with a broken oven in the center. He crouched down into a dark corner, keeping as far away from the oven as possible. It looked decrepit and dysfunctional, but Nilis didn't want to take any chances. Things were pretty peaceful as day turned to night in the arena.

The portion of the career pack that was hunting kept up their efforts as Day 2 came around, and their determination paid off. The careers broke camp at dawn and started briskly walking through the grid-like pathways of the statute garden in pursuit of their prey. Less than fifteen minutes later, they spotted Chiffon. She was sitting on the front steps of Minerva's temple, munching on the saltine crackers she'd been sponsored. Chiffon froze mid-bite when Phelps' spear sailed over her shoulder. The wad of half-chewed crackers she was chewing fell straight out of her mouth, and Phelps tackled Chiffon, pummeling her to the marble floor of the temple and shaking her repeatedly. Silvette, Neptune, Calpurnia, and Fishy stepped back and watched as Phelps retrieved his spear, skewering it cleanly through her torso. Chiffon fell still against the decrepit temple to the wisdom goddess, and the career pack left quickly.

 _Chiffon Meyers, District 8 Female: 16th, Killed by Phelps, Day 2_

The first half of Day 2 was pretty uneventful after that. However, Jack and Breezy left the Nymphs' temple and started exploring the forest. There were lots of berry bushes and lush greenery around the broken temple, almost as though it were spreading life. After exploring for about half the day, they returned to the temple. A clay urn filled with clean water had appeared while they were away; they drank the water and ate the berries they'd collected for lunch.

Later that day, the anti-careers reached the circular colosseum-like structure in the far distance. It had taken them almost two days of continuous movement, and the three boys were all exhausted. Fender had sustained a minor injury to his ankle earlier that day, and he had to be helped along by Kete while Thimble walked ahead of them. They were too tired to actually explore the structure, so they dropped down in the highest row of tiered seating and passed out.

Jana stayed put in the temple of Ceres, cool and comfortable. She found that the altar regularly replenished itself with bread and grain; she spent most of her time sleeping, only occasionally getting up to stuff herself with whatever had appeared while she had been resting.

On Day 3, the arena started getting hotter. Temperatures hovered around seventy degrees, driving the careers back toward the cool cornucopia. They spent the entire day resting inside of the horn, fanning themselves and sipping water from their tin thermoses. Fishy was starting to behave in a way very reminiscent of the 4 girl from last year's games. The statues near the cornucopia had all replenished themselves overnight, and Fishy started busting them down again, this time with just a little too much fervor. The others all agreed they couldn't have a repeat Riletta; they'd give her two more days to show them she wasn't one, and then they would kill her. Robust and Silvette from 1 banded together, as well as Neptune and Calpurnia from 2. The pack was so big that they felt much comfortable in smaller divisions. Phelps and Fishy from 4 stayed separate and minded their own business. They were the strongest tributes in these games and they felt comfortable enough by themselves.

On Day 4, temperatures rose even higher. They peaked in the low-nineties, and all of the tributes were sweating profusely by the time the sun had reached the peak of its path through the fake sky. The careers sweltered inside of the cornucopia. Fishy wasn't letting up with her seemingly insane behavior, and even her speech was becoming gargled and unclear; the careers agreed to put her down the next day if she kept this up. Jana stayed put in the temple of Ceres, fanning herself and guzzling down whatever water the sponsors sent her. Diode and Caylee holed up in the temple of Neptune, sweating and messing around with the single trident they'd found there. The anti-careers explored the colosseum; they were the only tributes doing anything exciting, so the cameras focused on them for most of the day. They found three swords hidden in the central sand-pit, and they retreated to the cool seats to practice when the temperatures started rising. Jack and Breezy frequently left the Nymphs temple to explore the forest. They never stayed out for long. Halfway through the day, when the temperatures peaked, they returned to the temple and stayed there, sweating. Nilis kept still in the crematorium. It was cool and quiet, and one of the most structurally sound buildings in the entire arena. He found a jar of grey ash in a corner, and Nilis jumped so suddenly that he smacked his head into the wall. He laid down on the hard ground, using his hands like a pillow, and willed the bleeding knot on his forehead to heal.

On the morning of Day 5, Jana woke to a quiet beeping sound. The silver parachute landed about a meter from her lap. It contained a single piece of paper, and two strange figurines. One of the figurines was a golden lion with wings, and other was an emerald-green serpent with a ruby-colored tongue. The note contained only two words: _choose one_. Jana picked up the pretty serpent figurine, intrigued by its bright color. Something happened then, but not to Jana Marriott. Unbeknownst to her, her choice was wreaking havoc several miles away.

Five of the careers were sleeping inside of the cornucopia, and Calpurnia was standing guard. Suddenly, she felt the sharp teeth of the serpent sink into her ankle. Calpurnia yelped and looked down; the snake had approached so quietly that she hadn't noticed it until it was too late. She pulled out her sword and slashed at the snake's scaly body, but it leapt off of her leg and flew toward her face. The snake wrapped itself around Calpurnia's neck and then slithered in an undulating pattern over her torso, crawling back and forth over her while its poison shut down her body.

 _Calpurnia Spence, District 2 Female: 15th, Killed by snake mutt, Day 5_

The career pack didn't face any further losses, and they managed to slay the snake mutt with relative ease. Robust dealt the ending blow, slammed his spear down into the top of its head with immense force. Silvette's arrows were of little use against the thin creature, so she fell back and watched as the others fought. Nobody else was bitten. Then it was their job to decide who had to carry the thing away. They drew straws, and Neptune ended up with the task of carrying its venom-laced corpse as far away as possible.

Jack and Breeze finally decided to leave the woods. The Capitol was getting bored with their refusal to leave the small area of land. They were so deep into the forest that exiting it would take multiple days. They made it just over halfway through their journey on the fifth day, and they vowed to finish by noon the following day.

Jana was later forced away from the temple of Ceres by a heavy wind spurred on by Maddox. She stumbled through the intense breeze for several minutes, and by the time it died down, she'd completely lost the temple. Fortunately, her pockets were stuffed full of bread she hadn't gotten around to eating, and Jana took shelter in a ruined temple to the messenger god, Mercury, and nervously munched on her food.

Day 6 was deathless. Dark clouds started rolling in around noon, and before long, cold rain was pouring down onto the arena. The careers hunted. They chose not to head to the forest; they figured that any tributes there would have been forced away by the gamemakers by this point. They left Fishy behind to guard the horn, and when they returned, they found she'd demolished all of the statues near the horn, and she was grinning wildly. The others decided they'd give her one more day; they were procrastinating killing her, really. Though they'd trained for this for a good portion of their young lives, it felt wrong to kill their ally. Phelps was especially apprehensive, but he kept his mouth shut.

Jana stayed still at the temple of Mercury. The floor of the temple was caved in, creating a large hole in which water collected. The rainwater filled this area, creating a kind of pool, and Jana rested chest-deep in the water, breathing steadily in and out and relaxing. Diode and Caylee finally left the temple of Neptune and started hunting; they'd been training with the trident for long enough now, and it was time to put their skills to application. They were more confident without the oppressive heat, and they covered a stellar distance in only one day. The anti-careers stayed put in a small room underneath the colosseum, where gladiators would have once hydrated and rested between battles. Fender had healed from his ankle injury, and Thimble and Kete were ready to start hunting as soon as he was; they all had swords "gladiuses" and were more than ready to start searching for victims. Jack and Breezy finally reached the central statue garden, and they wove through the statues for much of the day. The damp ground squished underfoot. They took shelter in the temple of Apollo, god of music and light. Creepy music emanated from the half-collapsed temple, unnerving the allied 7s as they tried to sleep. Nilis almost drowned when a large splash of water came sloshing into the crematorium. Gasping, he dragged himself onto one of the half-collapsed walls and climbed up the slippery stone. He sat on top of the wall and watched with a blank, contemplative gaze as the waters rushed underneath him.

A cannon shot rang on the seventh morning. Jack and Breezy were resting in the temple of Apollo. Throughout the night, they'd gotten used to the hauntingly beautiful tune emanating from the depths of the temple. But the tune was drowned out by Jack's screams in the early morning of Day 7. Diode and Caylee had woken up bright and early to hunt, and they had discovered Apollo's temple in no time. Diode pounced, trident gripped firmly in hand, and Jack woke up screeching when the three prongs connected with his chest. Breezy screamed and leapt to her feet, and she ran for her life as Jack bled out in under a minute.

Diode's face turned red, and guilt settled in his gut like a heavy stone. His eyes were glued to the dead body of Jack, the boy he'd killed. Caylee was about ten meters away, watching with curiosity and terror. Diode suddenly lashed out, slamming his trident into the floor of the temple in angst before storming away. Caylee timidly followed.

 _Jack Salvini, District 7 Male: 14th, Killed by Diode, Day 7_

Breezy couldn't control herself; the sheer terror of watching Jack's death was too much for the young girl, and she ran aimlessly in one direction, screaming at the top of her lungs. When she realized she was heading toward the cornucopia, she swerved sideways and started moving in the direction of the forest. She reached it in no time. Breezy searched feverishly for the Nymph temple, but she couldn't find it, and she collapsed near a thin stream, taking a short sip before falling still.

The anti-careers once again stayed put in the lower level of the colosseum. It was dark and cool in there, sheltering them from the boiling sun that was once again starting to show through the rain clouds. They weren't as much of an "anti-career pack" as they were "three allied outliers", but they needed some kind of name.

Nilis woke to a quiet beeping noise on the morning of Day 8. The water had finally drained from the crematorium, and Nilis was lying on the damp floor. He sat straight up and crawled to the place the parachute had landed. The carriage held two figurines: the gold lion with wings, and an eagle, a new addition. The accompanying note instructed him to choose one. Nilis picked up the winged lion, liking its sparkly fur. That was all the gamemakers needed before they unleashed their wrath on one poor tribute.

Breezy was that poor tribute. The winged lion mutt descended from the tree she was sleeping besides, and it landed mere meters from her face. Breezy screamed and sprinted toward safety, the lion clawing at her back. It managed to drag its claw across her back, running from her left shoulder all the way to her right hip, and Breezy collapsed, consumed by the agony. The mutt drew closer, and she held out her arm in one last desperate attempt to ward off her killer. Her efforts were futile.

 _Breezy Ruiz, District 7 Female: 13th, Killed by winged lion mutt, Day 8_

The remaining tributes either stayed still or kept up with their daily routines. Nilis was the one exception. Maddox sent a strong gust of wind in his direction, and the small boy was practically thrown out of crematorium and tossed down the street. He splashed into the arena's largest lake and rocketed to the surface, gasping. He paddled to the temple of Neptune at the center and wrung out his clothes, shivering.

The careers once again failed to kill Fishy despite their promises to the audience. Silvette suggested the excuse that she was too strong, and they were afraid they'd be risking their own lives to kill her. Besides, she said, Fishy wasn't actually crazy. She was just having her fun demolishing some marble statues. These were just excuses; they were all terrified of confronting the strongest tribute in these games. They let Fishy do her thing, even when she started seriously pissing off the gamemakers by knocking down a few statues of victors and presidents.

By Day 9, the careers had pretty much no choice but to kill Fishy off. For the past few days, the gamemakers had been slowly severing her from her sponsors, and they had been making all preparations possible for her to leave the world. Finally, Robust's mentor sent him a note saying the gamemakers would probably kill him if he didn't kill Fishy within the next few minutes. That was enough to force him out of his comfort zone. He closed his fists tightly around his spears and crept toward the sleeping girl. The others were standing around her in a circle, ready to tackle her if things started getting messy.

Fishy leapt to full height the moment that Robust pounced. One instant, Robust was standing tall and strong. The next, he was on the ground, three knives lodged into his chest. The others pounced onto Fishy, overwhelming her with their weapons in a matter of moments. While they struggled to take down the heavily armed girl, Robust twitched and shook on the ground, slowly dying from the grievous wound he'd sustained.

 _Robust Sicilian, District 1 Male: 12th, Killed by Fishy, Day 9_

Fishy was strong, but she wasn't strong enough to survive for long when three careers were on top of her. Silvette had arrows and a number of daggers, Neptune had his sword, and Phelps had his spear. Neptune tore Fishy's bow out of her hands and threw it sideways to Silvette, who snapped it in half on the wall of the cornucopia. Fishy gasped, realizing how screwed she truly was. Neptune delivered the finishing blow, thrusting his sword through her chest. The trio backed away and watched with grimaced faces as she bled out over the course of two minutes.

 _Fishy Redsum, District 4 Female: 11th, Killed by Neptune, Day 9_

Days 10 and 11 were empty of consequence. Silvette, Neptune, and Phelps knew they were on the Capitol's bad side, and they figured that they had to do a lot of hunting and slaughtering to get to the flip side of the coin. So they destroyed, shattered, and broke all the supplies they didn't need and then abandoned the cornucopia. They were taking a huge risk, but they thought it could pay off in the long run if they played their cards right. Jana continued her aimless wanderings through the city, dropping down in random temples each night. Dehydration was starting to take its toll on her body, and she had to survive off of thin streams thinner than her hand. Diode and Caylee kept up their hunting. They were both in low spirits, and Diode was especially grumpy. They returned to the temple of Apollo, the music god, every night. The anti-careers once again stayed put on the colosseum. They were venturing around the dark space when Thimble found an unexpected stairway. He fell down the stairwell, groaning and screaming, and the others rushed to his aid. They found that a whole network of tunnels and dark rooms sprawled out underneath the colosseum. Fender, Thimble, and Kete explored the various tunnels for most of the two days. Fender's sponsors sent him a ball of yarn to tie to the door handle and unravel as he travelled through the labyrinth, to keep him from getting lost. Nilis stayed still in the temple of Neptune, dipping his toes in the water and watching with immense boredom as the sun rose and set on schedule. He'd smeared some dirt onto himself to help camouflage into the environment, but he was still sure to be an easy target if he was spotted by an armed tribute. For the time being, he refused to actively stir the pot.

Diode and Caylee woke to a quiet beeping noise on the morning of Day 12. Sunlight streamed in through the hole in the ceiling of Apollo's temple; temperatures were once again high, already in the low nineties. Two new figurines sat in the carriage of the sponsor gift: a man sculpted from golden material, and a woman made of cold metal. Both of the figurines held bows and quivers of arrows. They were meant to represent Apollo and Diana, the two Roman archer gods. Diode and Caylee looked at each other. Caylee shrugged, and Diode reached out and swept up the metal lady. She was as cold as ice, and Diode dropped her immediately. He'd made his choice, and a tribute somewhere else in the arena would pay.

Early that morning, Kete had ventured away from the underground chamber where Fender and Thimble were resting. He hadn't eaten in days, and he was desperate to find some kind of food to feed himself and his allies. Kete returned to the colosseum about an hour later, arms piled high with bright-red berries he'd found a few hundred meters away. His look of triumph quickly turned to a look of dread when he realized that Fender and Thimble were screaming his name. Berries spilled onto the floor as he rushed toward their screams. Metal bars had appeared in front of the chamber, trapping Fender and Thimble inside. They shook and hit at the bars, but they didn't budge.

At first, Kete didn't realize why the room was so cold. When he saw why, he knew his allies were doomed. Grey clouds had assembled in the high-roofed room, and it was snowing; there was already a two inch layer on the floor, and Fender and Thimble would suffocate to death when the snow completely flooded the chamber in which they were trapped. Kete handed them some berries through the bars of the cell, trying to think of ways to free them.

Silvette, Neptune, and Phelps were hunting feverishly through the statue garden, sweating and groaning from the intense heat. Suddenly, a strange creature pounced out of the shadows. The creature had the head of a beautiful woman, and the body of a lion. The sphinx crept slowly forward and circled around the trio for several minutes. The careers held their weapons at the ready, prepared to kill the hybrid creature if it decided to hurt them.

"Silvette, dear. What animal stands on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs at night?"

Silvette should have known the answer to the sphinx's famous riddle, but she'd spent much of her life in the jewel cutting factories of District 1 rather than going to school. When she couldn't answer, the sphinx pounced, gashing open her torso with two heavy chops. Silvette collapsed, gasping and shaking. Neptune and Phelps tried to fend off the mutt, but it was too fast. Silvette cried and screamed as the mutt tore her to shreds, and then it sprinted away. If not for the dead body of the girl from 1, both Neptune and Phelps would have thought that the strange creature had been only a dream.

 _Silvette Rainja, District 1 Female: 10th, Killed by sphinx mutt, Day 12_

Day 13, Nilis made the decision to move to the forest. He didn't feel safe out in the open, and he thought the forest would be cooler and safer. The journey was too long for his small body to make in one day. At nightfall, he dropped down in a cluster of statutes of past victors and tried to sleep.

Jana was wandering through the statute garden when she heard a slight cracking noise. She figured it was probably nothing and kept walking, but then she heard it again. Jana froze dead in her tracks and turned her head slowly around, and she let out a high-pitched scream; the nearby statue of Victor Amelia Bankston had cracked at the base, and it was falling sideways. The statue hit Jana at the waist and tore down her leg, gashing open her skin, and it ended up pinning down her foot. Jana struggled against the weight of the statue, but it weighed hundreds of pounds, and she wasn't nearly strong enough to escape. She'd seen enough Hunger Games on television to know how this could end, and she was not looking forward to it.

Neptune and Phelps hunted more feverishly than ever. They hadn't found an outlier victor since Chiffon all the way back on Day 2, and they desperate to do so very soon; the Capitol was starting to forget them, and they couldn't have that. They spotted Diode and Caylee from 5 about halfway through the day; a long chase then ensued. The 5s ended up escaping, ducked into the shadows of a ruined temple and watching with bated breath as the career boys rushed past. Neptune groaned in frustration and smashed the blade of his sword into the ground. The outliers were being particularly elusive this year.

Day 13 was not deathless, however. Fender and Thimble pounded against the bars of their chamber with all the force they could muster, but they were hopeless. Kete abandoned them when the level of the snow reached chest height. The two trapped boys tried to shove the snow away from them, but it piled up at a seemingly impossible speed. Sooner than later, they needed to press their mouths to the stone ceiling in order to breathe. If only Diode had chosen the Apollo figurine, and made the arena a little bit warmer…

 _Fender Hopkins, District 6 Male: 9th, Killed by suffocation, Day 13_

 _Thimble Tormo, District 8 Male: 8th, Killed by suffocation, Day 13_

There was a final seven this year, instead of a final eight: Neptune Talbot from District 2, Jana Marriott from District 3, Phelps Straiden from District 4, Diode Cooper and Caylee Gray from District 5, Kete Vise from District 9, and Nilis Hector from District 11.

Day 14 came, and Diode and Caylee were hunting wildly still. Hairline fractures were appearing in their alliance, which had been relatively stable up to this point, and they were getting more and more distant as their personalities grated against each other. Diode was grumpy, moody, and brimming with angst, while Caylee was keeping her cool with much more success. She figured the boy could turn dangerous as the number of tributes thinned even more, and she was considering breaking away from him in the near future.

Jana was not doing well. Her foot was completely crushed under the fallen statue, and she was bleeding heavily. All her attempts to escape brought on extreme pain or further injury. Her throat felt like sandpaper from lack of water, and she was considering the unthinkable, just to end her own suffering.

Diode and Caylee spotted her about halfway through the fourteenth day. Diode froze dead in his tracks, turning his trident nervously over in his grasp. Jana was literally defenseless and immobile, the easiest kill imaginable. Holding his breath, he stepped forward. Jana was lying on the ground at the time, crying softly to herself. When the prongs of Diode's trident connected with her side, she sat bolt upright, screaming at the top of her lungs. Jana bled out with a few more pokes from Diode's weapon. Unfortunately, the career duo was nearby. They'd heard Jana's screams; they were on their way and would arrive in minutes.

 _Jana Marriott, District 3 Female: 7th, Killed by Diode, Day 14_

Diode turned sideways and literally screamed out loud when he saw the point of the spear poking out of Caylee's chest. Phelps yanked it out with one heavy tug, and Caylee collapsed in a heap, shaking and twitching. Diode's eyes and mouth were agape with horror as his eyes darted frantically between the dead body of his ally and the nearing duo of Neptune and Phelps.

 _Caylee Gray, District 5 Female: 6th, Killed by Phelps, Day 14_

Diode quickly made the decision to run for his life. Both of the boys were heavily armed, and he was "outmuscled and outgunned" by a significant margin. The 5 boy manage to run for about a quarter mile before he was too tired to go any farther. He had no choice to fight. The second he turned around, he was assaulted by both of Phelps' spears, the left of which grazed him in the shoulder. Diode winced and pounced to one side, narrowly dodging the point of Neptune's sword. He'd landed on his bottom, and he jumped back to his feet. Diode raced toward the thickest area of the statue garden, hoping to eliminate the possibility of ranged combat in the crowded space.

The foot chase lasted well into the night. Both parties were exhausted beyond belief. Suddenly, Neptune stumbled over part of a broken marble statue, and Phelps kept running. When Neptune caught back up, he thought the boy looming out of the darkness was Diode, when in reality, it was his ally Phelps. Phelps roared as the razor-sharp edge of Neptune's sword cut into his side, and he turned around hissing in agony. Neptune realized his mistake too late. Phelps grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him downward; his head made hard contact with the fallen statue, and he went unconscious. The med kit he had with him did little to stop the profuse bleeding, and Phelps bled out swiftly.

 _Phelps Straiden, District 4 Male: 5th, Killed by Neptune, Day 15_

The rest of Day 15 was deathless, as well as all of Days 16 and 17. Progress slowed to a crawl in the arena. Even Orestilla, who liked long games, was considering doing something crazy, like lighting the whole arena on fire or sending vicious mutts through the arena to slaughter half of them. Neptune came to about halfway through Day 15, confused and tired. He slept away the rest of the day and then explored the arena, alone for the first time. He eventually came to the temple of Neptune, the god that Mr. and Mrs. Talbot had named him after, and he rested inside, toying with his sword. Diode was exhausted, bloodied, and bruised from the long chase. One of his shoes had fallen off during the run, and now his foot was paying the price; blood squished between his toes, and the agony of impalement was so bad he was weeping. His sponsors sent him some bandages to help heal him up, and he rested in the temple to Bacchus, the wine god, munching on sponsor foods and the grapes that randomly appeared on the altar.

Kete and Nilis clashed on Day 17. Kete had since left the colosseum, and the dead bodies of his two allies, behind, and he was now exploring the statue garden, on the prowl for tributes. Nilis was sitting just outside of the crematorium, standing blankly into the distance. He froze in shock for a moment when he spotted Kete from about fifty meters away. A long chase then ensued, and Nilis ended up escaping, ducking into a thick cluster of statues. Kete sighed with frustration and walked about half a mile away. He spent the night in the ruined temple of Minerva, which was still splattered with Chiffon's dried blood.

When Kete woke up on the morning of Day 18, he saw two figurines in front of them. One was a hydra, a serpentine creature with nine snake heads, and the other was a gorgon, a scaled lady with claws and snakes for hair. Kete stared at the figurines for several minutes before grabbing the hydra. A tribute somewhere else in the arena met their end because of his choice.

Neptune was resting inside of his own temple, snoring softly. He woke when the hydra poked the first of its many heads through the door. Neptune yelped and grabbed his sword. The blade went through the mutt's scaly neck like butter, and the head fell with a splash. He instantly wished he hadn't; the hydra grew two heads in place of every head that was cut off. Really, the hydra was from Greek mythology, but the gamemakers didn't mind making up history a little bit if it meant adding more excitement to their games. In Greek myth, the hero Heracles killed the hydra with the help of his nephew, by lighting the stumps on fire whenever he severed its heads.

Unlike Heracles, Neptune didn't have any fire at his disposal. His heart hammered in his chest as he looked over the beast. He had no idea where even to start in killing the creature: he was cornered, trapped, and pretty much doomed. In moments, one of the heads had closed its teeth around his abdomen, and the poison steamed and frothed upon contact with his flesh. Neptune was dead in under a minute, and the reptilian creature sank back under the waves.

 _Neptune Talbot, District 2 Male: 4th, Killed by hydra mutt, Day 18_

The rest of Day 18 was pretty uneventful. These games were shaping up to end around Day 19 or 20. If they lasted past Day 20, they would be the second longest games in history. Long games seemed to be a trend in recent years, as opposed to the early years of the games, where virtually every games ended within a week or two.

Diode sporadically rested and moved on the nineteenth day. He was pretty sporadic and unpredictable, but he kept the Capitol on their toes, so the gamemakers kept him around. He was eager to end these games, but he wasn't looking forward to doing any more killing after taking the lives of both Jack and Jana. Kete hunted through the statue garden. He was making an effort to stay relevant, even though he was unlucky enough to either pass by the other tributes or have them escape before he could kill them. Diode and Kete were pretty comfortable for the time being.

Nilis had since fled back to the forest. Late at night on Day 19, very heavy rains poured down onto the arena. The rain fell in sheets, and Nilis had to cup his hands over his mouth so that he could breathe without water slipping into his throat. The low-leveled forest quickly started flooding; by morning, the entire forest was a wet land of water and marshy, uneven land. Nilis returned to the statue garden and ducked into one of the temples whose roof was almost entirely intact. He was dangerously near the ravenous Kete, but he somehow managed to remain unnoticed.

His luck didn't last forever, however. Kete got up relatively early on Day 20, eager to make at least one kill before the finale. The only weapon he had on him was the sword he'd taken from the colosseum. Diode had a trident, and he had no idea what weapon Nilis had. He had a single throwing knife, but nothing else. Kete quickly came across the temple where Nilis was sleeping, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw the shadowed form of the sleeping boy. Kete stepped through the doorway and thrust the point of his sword into Nilis' chest. He woke up with his eyes wide open, and he let a single quiet gasp escape his lips before he fell still.

 _Nilis Hector, District 11 Male: 3rd, Killed by Kete, Day 20_

On Day 21, Orestilla let the world blaze. She'd been looking forward to using fire for quite some time now, but she didn't want to risk things getting out of hand. The fires drove the two finalists toward each other: Diode and Kete spotted each other about two miles from the cornucopia. They were half a mile away from each other. Kete raced in Diode's direction, and Diode slowly drilled forward, taking deep breaths. Kete seemed to have the advantage, but Diode was still a strong tribute who had killed before. It was anyone's guess which of the outlying males would walk home with the victor's crown.

The heavy rains and freezing cold wind didn't lessen for one second as the boys dueled for their lives. Diode poked and prodded with his trident, and Kete with his sword. They were both defying district stereotypes: virtually nobody outside of District 4 used tridents, and virtually nobody from District 9 used swords.

They were ankle-deep in water when the victor was crowned. Over the course of the night, Kete had managed to make only one deathly blow, slamming his sword into Diode's side with more sheer force than technique. On the flip side of the coin, Diode had Kete pretty much under his thumb. Holes littered his chest and gut, and Kete was minutes from death from blood loss. With one more heavy thrusting motion of Diode's trident, Kete collapsed. He bobbed to the surface of the floodwater, and Diode watched with a grimace as his thrashing limbs gradually stilled.

 _Kete Vise, District 9 Male: 2nd, Killed by Diode, Day 21_

"Diode Cooper of District 5, you are the victor of the ninety-fifth annual Hunger Games!" Titanus shouted into the arena.

Diode finally let the tears come, and he didn't even try to hide them.

 _Diode Cooper, District 5 Male: Victor of the Ninety-Fifth Hunger Games, Day 21_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Diode was happy to bring an eighth victory to District 5. Their last victor had been Surge back in the seventy-eighth games, and their last "true" victor had been Sally all the way back in the fifty-sixth games. They were dangerously low on hope, and Diode's victory refreshed the kids in the electricity district. Next year, the reaping would not hold quite the sense of terror it normally did. He'd spent more time in the arena than any other victor except Cordin. Diode was absolutely traumatized by the events of his games, and he would take up the vice of alcohol to dissuade his demons. He quickly developed into a rather poor example of a victor, and he joined the circle of alcoholics that stretched from Alexander to Chipson to Steer. President Stinn Hawke would enroll him in the sex industry against his will, and Diode hated every second of it, but he was just too exhausted to protest.

The payouts on his victor were pretty great, as 0.4% bet on him.

His victory tour was one of the better ones, and he was seen as a symbol of hope in many of the outlying districts.

Diode would live to age seventy-four, dying from cancer around the time of the one-hundred fifty-third annual Hunger Games. He would marry and have one child.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Diode moves into the Victor's Village of District 5, next door to Surge's home.

Sycamora Bromley has her second child, a boy named Hatchet.

Thor Rosner, the victor of the twenty-sixth Hunger Games, is found dead in his Victor's Village home, poisoned. The killer is never caught.

Lyme Mabbett, the victor of the fifty-first Hunger Games, dies from a stroke.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)  
89HG: Admired Thompson (#15, District 1)  
90HG: Chipson Harris (#11, District 3)  
91HG: Mars Talbot (#21, District 2)  
92HG: Arnold Scruggs (#3, District 12), Wystella Knapp (#22, District 2), and Robina Caite (#3, District 10)  
93HG: Taj King (#16, District 1)  
94HG: Steer Drudgers (#4, District 10)  
95HG: Diode Cooper (#8, District 5)

* * *

A/N: **I've got some bad news for y'all. (Why do I say y'all? I've literally never heard anybody say it unironically in my life. I guess it's just fun to type.)**

 **I started this story two years ago. When I was a new writer who didn't know anything. The format kinda inhibits character development by itself. I'd really like to start a new victor story, one in a better-developed universe where I can explore every victor to their fullest potential. I'll definitely finish the first century of this story, because I have some REALLY great ideas for the fourth quell. Then it's time for this story to start gathering dust, I'm sorry if this disappoints you. Besides, and I hate to say this, the repetitive format is kind of starting to bore me. I've stuck with this story for so long but all great things must come to an end, sadly ;(**

 **Okay, I'm not sad anymore. How was the chapter? How'd Orestilla pull off re-using an old arena? Please consider reviewing on your way out, your thoughts mean everything to me as a writer :D**


	97. The 96th Hunger Games

**The 96th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Edison Jayasinghe knew he had a lot to beat as the Capitol applauded Orestilla's masterpiece heartily. The ninety-fifth games had been thrilling and multilayered without being confusing or overdone, even if they were a little slow toward the end. It was now Edison's turn to steer the games ship, and there were no doubts Panem was in for a very different experience this year. Edison was everything Orestilla was not—he liked fast-paced, quick games with bloody fights and daring climaxes. His favorite games to date were the ninetieth games and the seventy-fifth games, which had lasted one day and four days respectively. Despite his many differences, Edison adopted many of Orestilla's elements in his first shot at impressing the Capitol into voting for him. Orestilla had brought back an old games' arena; Edison didn't plan on doing that, but he did plan on bringing back a prime element of the third Quell. In these games, only half of the tributes would start around the cornucopia, while the other half would begin scattered around the arena. Many doubted he would be able to mash the smash hit of the third Quell, but that didn't mean he couldn't try. The Capitol was wrapped in full-on games fever, with past games airing round the clock on Capitol TV, and memorabilia of victors was at an all-time high in both productions and sales. President Stinn Hawke remained atop the throne of the presidency. In February, many of the Capitol's long-range wireless communication devices started picking up strange messages coming from the east, far beyond Panem's borders. The Capitol was so wrapped up in the Orestilla-Edison competition that little attention was paid to this. It would take several years before anyone started paying attention to the previously-unknown country established in Eastern Europe.

The career pack was another strong group this year. Starting next year, however, the strength of the career packs would begin to drop off; kids that would have normally competed to earn their spot in the pack were starting to wait until the fourth Quell, leaving only the weaker, less motivated candidates for the spots. District 1 provided yet another stereotypical pair. Both could fight well with a broad range of weaponry. The ball was tall and thin, and he came from a musical family, while the girl was shorter and interested in ballet. District 2 provided the strongest pair, as usual. The boy, Pluto, was the last of the Talbot siblings, and he was tiny, measuring just under five feet tall. The girl was a cold-blooded killer directly descended from a Dark Days war hero. District 4 put on a varied showing. The boy was weaker and not very impressive with both looks and skills. The girl was the star of the show this year; she was spirited, speedy, and fiercely determined, and she wowed the gamemakers with her weaponry talents and her beauty. The pack earned two elevens, two tens, and two nines.

The outliers weren't very impressive this year. Hollis from 7 was the only early standout; raised by two lumberjack parents, he was handsome and comical and quickly became a Capitol favorite. He formed an anti-career pack with Clermont from 9, Rummy and Alice from 10, and Raina from 11; however, because of their varied starting locations, the full group would never come into contact during the games. There was only one volunteer outside of the careers: Itsuki Tanner from District 7, who volunteered for her younger sister. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Glockenspiel Meyers, 18, (9) 8-1 and Vanilla Tethers, 16, (10) 5-1

District 2: Pluto Talbot, 17, (11) 3-1 and Karma Venn, 18, (10) 4-1

District 3: Credo Frankel, 15, (4) 29-1 and Mystere Sekler, 15, (3) 35-1

District 4: Shrimp Buratta, 17, (9) 8-1 and Carrera Munoz, 16, (11) 3-1

District 5: Rexter Dolan, 16, (5) 24-1 and Jaindo Love, 15, (4) 31-1

District 6: Orliss Reigns, 18, (4) 30-1 and Jeanine Ries, 17, (3) 34-1

District 7: Hollis Ostensible, 18, (8) 10-1 and Itsuki Tanner, 18, (7) 13-1

District 8: Foulard Hoaglin, 12, (3) 38-1 and Ribbon Dupioni, 13, (4) 35-1

District 9: Clermont Lackney, 14, (7) 16-1 and Tindra Line, 16, (5) 25-1

District 10: Rummy Peterson, 18, (7) 14-1 and Alice Jargun, 18, (6) 27-1

District 11: Fern Ascuro, 16, (4) 34-1 and Raina Davis, 18, (4) 30-1

District 12: Abel Cindy, 12, (3) 41-1 and Mae Lesser, 13, (3) 36-1

HGBO Bets: 23% on Pluto, 20% on Carrera, 15% on Karma, 12% on Vanilla, 8% on Glockenspiel, 7% on Shrimp, 3% on Hollis and Itsuki, 1% or less on Credo, Mystere, Rexter, Jaindo, Orliss, Jeanine, Foulard, Ribbon, Clermont, Tindra, Rummy, Alice, Fern, Raina, Abel, and Mae.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Before the tributes could enter the arena, they were brought together in the harshly-lit white room that meant some devious twist was coming their way. Edison sat cross-legged on a stool at the far end of the room. Twenty-four doors lined the room's perimeter: the doors to the launch rooms. Edison held a black cloth bag that was stuffed with small figurines.

"Gather round." The tributes did as they were told. The careers rushed to the front and the terrified outliers stayed several steps back. "When I call your name, you are to come forward and draw a figurine from this bag. I'm sure you've all seen the third Quarter Quell on your televisions many times. I don't have to explain how this will work."

Edison called Glockenspiel from 1. The tall, thin boy from the luxury district slithered a hand into the dark bag and drew a cold metal figurine shaped like a pillow. Edison pointed to one of the doors, and Glockenspiel entered it.

Twelve of the figurines were modeled after the golden cornucopia, and the other twelve figurines were unique: a pillow, an eye, a cell phone, a pizza, a water drop, a staircase, a dollar bill, a bridge, a puppy, an apple, a banana, and a fountain.

The twelve tributes that had chosen the figurines modeled after the cornucopia rose into an entirely indoor arena. They were standing in the center of an enormous airport with three floors, and the huge central room rose up through all three of the floors. Around them, the tributes could see restaurants, rest areas, souvenir shops, luggage conveyer belts, and much more. There were no actual planes in the arena; that would have been asking for a Struve-like gambit to get Edison killed. The airport smelled like soap and thick carpet, and there were lots of clocks. This was so that the tributes could always tell the time, with it being so hard to tell day from night in the always-lit arena. Food was plentiful via the various food courts around the airport, and water could be obtained through any of the sinks and drinking fountains. Most of the shops were on the second floor, and they were small and didn't offer much shelter. The first floor was dominated by long hallways, moving sidewalks, and food courts. The third floor was the smallest, and it was made up by seating and rest areas, as well as meditation rooms and rooms meant for prayer. The windows were heavily tempered so that the glass couldn't be broken, and all of the doors were locked, so the tributes were essentially trapped inside of the enormous airport.

The twelve tributes that started at the bloodbath were Vanilla, Pluto, Karma, Credo, Mystere, Jeanine, Hollis, Foulard, Ribbon, Fern, Raina, and Mae. Glockenspiel was in a seating area (pillow), Shrimp was in a meditation room (eye), Carrera was in a telephone station (cell phone), Rexter was in a food court (pizza), Jaindo was in a bathroom (water drop), Orliss was on an escalator (staircase), Itsuki was at a money transfer station (dollar bill), Clermont was on a bridge (bridge), Tindra was at a pet housing station (puppy), Rummy was in another food court (apple), Alice was several hundred feet away, at the other end of the same food court (banana), and Abel was near a fountain (fountain).

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Vanilla from 1 and the pair from 2, Pluto and Karma, sprinted at the head of the onrush. There weren't many weapons at the miniature cornucopia, and they wanted to snatch up everything they needed before it could fall into the hands of the outliers. Pluto grabbed a sword and tackled the nearby boy from 11. Fern was pinned to the ground before he could even think about fighting back, and Karma finished him off, bashing in his skull with her deadly nunchucks.

 _Fern Ascuro, District 11 Male: 24th, Killed by Pluto and Karma, Bloodbath_

Fern's district partner and ally, Raina, froze dead in her tracks. Her mouth stood agape with horror as she watched Karma's nunchucks connect with Fern's head. Karma suddenly leapt in her direction, and Raina was shaken from her terrified daze. She tried to run, but she turned to feel the bite of Vanilla's dagger in her gut. Raina fell with a loud noise, and Karma and Vanilla shared a wink before sprinting in their opposite directions.

 _Raina Davis, District 11 Female: 23rd, Killed by Vanilla, Bloodbath_

Vanilla quickly spotted another victim; the underfed boy from 8, who had ducked under a table to cry as kids were being slaughtered all around him. Vanilla came out of nowhere, and Foulard let out a single scream before he was impaled. He bled out swiftly with two knives in his chest.

 _Foulard Hoaglin, District 8 Male: 22nd, Killed by Vanilla, Blodbath_

The boy from District 7, Hollis, had grabbed a hatchet with the intent of eliminating competition early. Vanilla turned away from Foulard's dead body and immediately felt the bite of the blade in her chest. She fell onto her front, gasping, and Hollis swallowed down the small amount of bile that had built up in his throat before running for his life.

 _Vanilla Tethers, District 1 Female: 21st, Killed by Hollis, Bloodbath_

Hollis' mad sprint was intercepted by Karma, who was determined to give him his after he killed Vanilla. Hollis swerved sideways and found his path blocked by Pluto, who was leisurely wiping Fern's blood off of his blade. Pluto let the blade fly somewhat loose and swung it into his side, shocking Hollis enough to make him drop his hatchet. The weapon landed with a clatter, and Karma pulled it away as Pluto continued to beat him senseless with the razor-sharp edge of the sword.

 _Hollis Ostensible, District 7 Male: 20th, Killed by Pluto, Bloodbath_

Those were the only deaths to occur on the first day. Pluto and Karma camped out at the cornucopia; they got along well, and they armed themselves to the teeth, planning to go hunting the following morning. Glockenspiel from 1 left the seating area where he'd started the games and searched for a weapon. He raided twin daggers from a small restaurant and began feverishly searching the second floor for tributes. Credo and Mystere from 3 had managed to escape the bloodbath unscathed. They quickly spotted a conveyer belt carrying bags of luggage; they'd never been to an airport before, and it fascinated them. The duo climbed onto the belt and giggled childishly as they were carried over the obstacle course-like conveyer belt. Shrimp from 4 stayed in the meditation room, momentarily forgetting about his status as a career tribute. He sprayed a few different scents around the room and turned the lights off, breathing steadily in and out. Carrera from 4, the deadliest tribute, was hunting wildly on the third floor. Her sponsors sent her a whip, the single most expensive sponsor gift ever sent in Hunger Games history, and they were confident Carrera would put it to good use. Rexter from 5 explored the food court where his pedestal was located, stuffing himself with various salads, fruits, and other foods. When he started to get sleepy, he ducked down into a small pizza place and ate a slice before passing out. Jaindo from 5 locked herself in the restroom and pulled herself into one of the stalls. She was absolutely terrified, and she climbed onto the closed toilet seat, crying softly to herself. She was much worse off than her district partner Rexter. Orliss from 6 rode the escalators up and down a few times before falling asleep underneath one. It was surprisingly dark and cool under there, and the whirring sound of the moving escalator put him to sleep in no time. Jeanine from 6 and Itsuki from 7 bumped into each other around noon, and they decided to ally instead of killing each other. They returned to the money exchange center where Itsuki had begun the games, and they spent the day toying with the various foreign money that lined the cash registers. Ribbon from 8 sifted through the various bags of luggage and found a flute, the instrument she played back home in District 8. She locked herself into a small room and began playing a complicated classical piece that charmed the audience, earning her a lemon-flavored cookie. Clermont from 9 stayed still on the bridge on the second floor. He was deathly terrified of heights, and he was too scared to move an inch; all he could do was stay on the bridge, shaking like a child after reading a scary story. The gamemakers would surely move him soon if he refused to do so on his own accord. Tindra from 9 was intrigued by the room where she'd started the games; various cute puppies and kittens were held in cages or on leashes, tied to the walls. Tindra opened one of the puppy cages and screamed as the three puppies inside rushed out, baring their razor-sharp fangs. The puppy mutts (which were borrowed from the fifty-first games) quickly lost her, and they started their prowl through the airport, on the hunt for human blood. Rummy and Alice from 10 had landed in the same food court, and they worked together to gather as much food together in one place before gobbling it down. They were both extremely poor, and they were making up for the first eighteen years of their lives, really. Abel from 12 guzzled a large amount of water from the fountain and then washed himself, to the delight of many of his female sponsors in the Capitol. Later that day, he laid down behind a nearby vending machine and tried to sleep. Mae from 12 moved to a women's restroom after escaping the bloodbath. One of the toilets had overflowed, and the water rushed down the bathroom stairs like a rapids. Disgusted, she climbed the stairs and curled up in a small area of unflooded tile, staring blankly at the tiled wall. Things were pretty peaceful in the arena as Panem went to sleep for the night.

In the morning, the first mutts, the unleashed puppies, split apart to search for victims. Despite the sharpness of their teeth and claws, their sense of smell wasn't as keen as normal dogs, so they had difficulty tracking the tributes. Finally, the first of the puppy mutts spotted a boy's slowly rising and falling chest. After hours of tossing and turning, Clermont had fallen asleep on the bridge he was too terrified to leave.

Clermont woke with a start when the sharp chorus of teeth wrapped around his ankle. He let out a shrill scream. His screams were heard by the nearest tributes, Rummy and Alice, who shared a terrified look behind the counter of the small restaurant where they were hiding. Clermont had nothing but his fists to fend off the mutt, and the weaker boy was pretty much hopeless. His flailing fists landed only one heavy blow on the mutt's head, and the puppy whimpered once before pouncing with more ferocity than ever. Clermont fell flat to the tile, terrified, and the puppy sank its teeth into his chest, splattering blood across its pristine white fur.

 _Clermont Lackney, District 9 Male: 19th, Killed by puppy mutt, Day 2_

The second puppy mutt, after several hours of searching, stepped into a pool of cold, smelly water. It whimpered in confusion and turned its head upward, and it saw the rapids of water cascading down the stairs leading up to the bathroom where Mae was hiding. When the puppy mutt grew near, the gamemakers caused the door to slip silently open, and the little canine sprinted inside, eager to feast on the sleeping girl's blood.

The third and final puppy cocked its head when it saw Jaindo moving quietly through the long hallways of the airport. She'd left the bathroom early that morning and was now wandering somewhat aimlessly through the entirely indoor arena, antsy beyond belief. When she sat down in one of the seating areas, the puppy mutt leapt out of nowhere, tackling Jaindo just before she could sit down.

Only one cannon shot fired, however. So which tribute had died, Mae or Jaindo? Mae woke to the splashing of the puppy mutt and leapt into action. Despite her low training score, she was a surprisingly quick thinker. With a grunt, she tore the metal faucet off of the nearest sink and held it out in front of her, trembling. She lashed out when the puppy charged, smashing it in the skull. The mutt whimpered, hiding its razor sharp teeth, and Mae shoved it down the stairs with as much force as she could muster. It drowned and bled out over the course of several hours, and Mae curled up in the corner of the bathroom, spooked.

The cameras then showed Jaindo's dead body, torn in half and gnawed at in multiple places. The puppy had absolutely gone to town on her corpse; with nothing but the clothes on her back, she'd been completely defenseless. At least Mae had had the metal faucets to help defend herself against the vicious mutt.

 _Jaindo Love, District 5 Female: 18th, Killed by puppy mutt, Day 2_

Around then, what could be considered early evening arrived, though it was hard to define day and night in the entirely-indoor arena. All five of the remaining careers were hunting: Shrimp on the third floor, Carrera and Glockenspiel on the second, and Pluto and Karma on the first. Credo and Mystere kept riding the conveyer belts back and forth around the arena; they were laughing hysterically and having the times of their lives. Rexter was still in the original food court, and he was stuffing his mouth full of orange rice and fried eggs. Orliss rode the escalator up one floor and then explored the arena; he was curious to see what the airport arena actually held. He was an adventurer at heart, and he couldn't resist digging into the secrets of his deadly prison. Jeanine and Itsuki continued searching the cash registers in the currency transfer station where they were housed. Itsuki opened a closet in a shadowy corner and found a dart gun with six darts inside. She and Jeanine practiced with the weapon for a few hours before going hunting, determined to thin the crowd of remaining tributes. Ribbon kept playing her flute, rushing through the trilling high notes and beautiful, vibrato-y low notes with an almost unhuman ease. Glockenspiel was nearby, and he heard Ribbon's flute music multiple times, but he couldn't seem to find the source of the noises no matter how much he searched. Tindra hid inside of an elevator after narrowly escaping death by puppies and closed the door. She was a very religious girl, and she knelt inside of the elevator, praying. Rummy and Alice continued gorging themselves on everything the food court offered; by that point, they had started holding hands and sharing glasses of fruit juice. Abel found a hidden space under the fountain filled with pipes and the noise of dripping water hitting metal. It was warm and terrible smelly, but it hid Abel well. Mae cowered in the women's restroom. When she couldn't bear to look at the dead puppy mutt any longer, she shoved it out of the bathroom and slammed the door closed. The gamemakers were more than happy to collect the unsightly remains.

Late that evening, Glockenspiel finally pinpointed the source of the flute music. Just as Ribbon finished a luscious baroque piece filled with rapid note changes, she heard the noise of a heavy fist pounding on the door. Ribbon was trapped. The chairs she'd piled in front of the door did little to keep out the boy from District 1. The door flew open, the tower of chairs collapsing, and Ribbon screamed, rushing into the back corner of the room and holding her flute outward like a weapon. In a squeaky voice, she warned him not to come any closer.

Jeanine and Itsuki were still hunting, and they heard the noise of the Glockenspiel-Ribbon commotion from a safe distance away. Itsuki hushed Jeanine, and they crept closer to Ribbon's screams, hardly daring to breathe. They watched with grimaced faces as Glockenspiel buried his twin kitchen knives into Ribbon's chest. The flute hit the floor with a clatter and broke down its length, dying with the girl who had made it her own.

 _Ribbon Dupioni, District 8 Female: 17th, Killed by Glockenspiel, Day 2_

Jeanine and Itsuki were debating whether they should kill Glockenspiel or run for their lives, but then he turned around and they had no choice. Itsuki hurriedly raised the weapon and launched one of the darts in his direction. Glockenspiel hadn't seen the deadly weapon in her hand, and he had no idea how she had managed to hit him from so far away. He pulled the dart out of his neck and wobbled back and forth several times before collapsing in a heap. Itsuki rushed forward and hurriedly retrieved her dart before sprinting away, a frowning Jeanine at her side.

 _Glockenspiel Meyers, District 1 Male: 16th, Killed by Itsuki, Day 2_

The rest of Day 2 featured only one exciting moment. Mae finally built up the courage to leave the restroom. She splashed her way down the stairs and explored the nearest hallway, a wide concourse with clear windows through which the fading sunlight streamed. Pluto and Karma from 2 were nearby, and they spotted her moving quietly through the spacious concourse about half an hour before sunset. Pluto leapt out of the shadows, chuckling, and Mae let out a loud scream when the sword grazed her shoulder. She ran for the hills, with the 2s trailing close behind her. Karma's nunchucks touched her multiple times, and they just made her run faster.

Tindra was praying inside of her elevator when she heard Mae's screams. She popped open the elevator door and frantically motioned for Mae to come inside. The 12 girl rushed into the elevator, and Tindra hurriedly sent them to the third floor before Pluto and Karma could board. They didn't want to risk leaving the elevator; the two girls locked the elevator doors and collapsed in a far corner, chatting quietly.

The first half of Day 3 was pretty uneventful. Pluto and Karma rattled at the locked doors of the elevator where Tindra and Mae were hiding, but the doors wouldn't budge an inch. Finally, on the morning of Day 3, they sprinted away to search for tributes that were better worth their time. Shrimp, who was on the second floor, was on the prowl, knives in both of his hands that he'd raided from a fruit stand near the meditation room where he'd started the games. Carrera was hunting wildly still; her fingers locked tightly around her whip, she was as bloodthirsty as ever, and she left the first floor, moving all the way down to ground level to hunt for the outliers that were poorly hiding into the expansive airport arena. Credo and Mystere kept riding the luggage conveyer belts in loops around the airport. Credo found a jug of water in one of the luggage cases, and he shared it with Mystere. Rexter kept stuffing himself full of all the food he could find at the food court. Alice and Rummy were doing the same thing at the other food court, ravenously filling their stomachs with everything they could find. Orliss continued exploring the arena, his adventurous mind tingling. Jeanine and Itsuki were hunting wildly still. Now, Jeanine was holding the dart gun and the darts; Itsuki was slightly traumatized after her killing of Glockenspiel, and she needed some time to just walk and think. Abel stayed put in the empty space underneath the fountain, leaving at sporadic intervals to sip water from the fountain and gather food from the various restaurants and food courts. Tindra and Mae cowered inside of the elevator, shivering. It turned out that both girls were religious, and they spent the first half of the day discussing their largely parallel faiths.

Orliss' explorations brought him to the front doors of the airport. The expansive lobby smelled like soap, and it had a thickly carpeted floor. The front wall had no windows in it, so Orliss had no idea what was going on outside. And something was. Thousands of bird mutts, every color of the rainbow represented, were crowded behind the door, ready to fly inside the airport and terrorize the tributes at Edison's command.

Orliss didn't have time to breathe. The front doors flew open and the thousands upon thousands of avian monsters flew into the arena. Their chirps and crows blended together into a dissonant howl that could be heard throughout the entire arena. Orliss hadn't taken one step away from the swarm before he was engulfed. They landed all over his body, clawing at his flesh and roosting in rows on his arms and face. Orliss tried to swat them away, and he sent one of them out of combat with a well-placed fist blow, but he was ultimately helpless as they tore him to shreds.

 _Orliss Reigns, District 6 Male: 15th, Killed by bird mutts, Day 3_

Pluto and Karma had returned to the cornucopia a few minutes prior; no tributes dared to come near their well-guarded cornucopia fortress, with the strongest district partnership in these games standing guard in front of its gaping mouth. Karma curled up for a short nap, but Pluto shook her awake when he heard the faint rumble of the mutts. The birds were drawing nearer, tearing down one of the airplane's broad concourses in their path toward the cornucopia. Pluto peeked out into the hallway, saw the oncoming swarm, and ran for his life. Karma followed, sprinting at top speed.

Shrimp was hunting at the time, and his face dropped when he saw the swarm of mutts flying in his direction, screeching like a demented symphony. He could only run for a few minutes before the mutts caught up to him, and he turned around to face his avian attackers with uncertainty. He sent two of them to the floor with two heavy chops of his uneven knives, and the next wave of oncoming birds was easy for Shrimp to take down. However, each wave seemed to me larger than the last, and Shrimp was swiftly overwhelmed.

Abel was resting in the empty space underneath the fountain. He heard the birds and checked the door to make sure it was locked before hiding in one of the dark corners. He wasn't sure what kinds of mutts were outside of the compartment, but the noises they were making didn't sound good. Abel was safe for the time being.

Shrimp yelped as one of them landed on his shoulder, digging its talons deep into his flesh. He reached up to swat it away, and five of the birds landed on his raised left arm. Tweeting profusely, eight more landed on his chest in the next ten seconds, and Shrimp realized with a sinking stomach that he was actually dying. He swatted and ran and flailed his limbs like there was no tomorrow (which there wasn't), but the bird mutts tore away his life force and shredded him to pieces in due time.

 _Shrimp Buratta, District 4 Male: 14th, Killed by bird mutts, Day 3_

Rexter was napping the afternoon away in the food court, and he realized what was going on almost too late to be saved. He hurriedly grabbed a frying pan from the nearest kitchen and brandished it at arm's length. With one heavy swing of the frying pan, he knocked five birds out of the air. It was a surprisingly efficient weapon, and nearly thirty of the birds were writhing on the ground before Rexter had no choice but to run. Several of them were roosting on his back at the time, three to be exact, and he hoped he could knock them off by running fast enough. He was coming nearer and nearer to the elevator where Tindra and Mae were hiding, and they let him in when they heard his screams. There was only one bird mutt on Rexter's back, and Tindra slapped it off of him, crushing it to death on the ground. Rexter, Tindra, and Mae did not speak. They only rocked lightly back and forth, shaking with terror as the birds batted against the locked doors of the elevator.

When Credo and Mystere saw the enormous flock of birds coming, they quickly zipped themselves into two different luggage containers. They could actually feel the batting wings of the bird mutts through the thick material of the luggage containers. But the birds couldn't break through, and they were safe as long as they didn't spread out their arms or legs and unzip the containers.

Rummy and Alice knew that they were doomed as soon as they heard the deafening squawk of the oncoming birds. Knowing their moments were numbered, they hurriedly split off and ran to their favorite restaurants. Rummy ran to an Asian place and started stuffing his mouth full of peas, carrots, and orange rice, and Alice started shoving slices of pizza into her mouth. They were enjoying their last moments as well as they could, even though that was difficult with the sound of the birds growing steadily louder. They were both chewing and burping when the food court flooded with bird mutts, and they were literally shredded by the birds' sharp talons.

 _Rummy Peterson, District 10 Male: 13th, Killed by bird mutts, Day 3_

 _Alice Jargun, District 10 Female: 12th, Killed by bird mutts, Day 3_

Carrera had the most success fighting off the mutts. She was beyond eager to put her whip to use, and she grinned wildly as the cluster of birds grew nearer. With the first deafening crack of her whip, she killed three and sent four flying in the opposite direction. One landed on her shoulder, and she twisted sideways, pushing it off with the side of her head while she used her whip to knock five more bird mutts out of the air. She was taking them down at a remarkable rate, and Carrera grinned wider and wider as the black blood of the thousand odd corpses crept over the carpeted floor. She had to kill a third of the birds before the remaining members took the hint and flew away.

Jeanine and Itsuki didn't want to risk using any of their darts. Their only other option was to run as fast as their legs could carry them. Jeanine was weighed down slightly by the dart gun, but she was still a fast runner, and Itsuki slowed down slightly to match her pace so that they didn't lose each other. About five minutes later, they arrived at a small day care center near the edge of the airport. The girls sprinted inside, leaping over toy blocks and trucks in their mad scramble toward safety. Itsuki stepped into an open storage closet, and she slammed the door closed as soon as Jeanine was safely inside. They hoped the door would hold against the force of so many flapping wings.

Around that point, "nighttime" arrived. Pluto and Karma were still on the run. They turned around once and a while to knock away a few of the stray bird mutts, but they were still mostly playing a defensive game rather than an offensive one. Credo and Mystere were zipped tightly inside of their luggage containers. Credo had a jug of clean water, so he was fine as far as dehydration was concerned, but Mystere was miserable. If the birds didn't leave soon, Mystere might have been in trouble. Carrera rested, exhausted after her triumph. She just found a random women's restroom with a good view of the surrounding hallways and shut her eyes, breathing steadily in and out. Rexter, Tindra, and Mae huddled together inside of the elevator, praying. It was terribly hot in there, and it was getting more difficult for them to breathe with each hour. They pried the doors open for about a minute to let in some more oxygen, but they quickly closed them when a lime-green bird tried to fly through. Jeanine and Itsuki stayed still in the supply closet of the daycare, trying to conserve the little oxygen in the small space as the birds batted their wings against the door.

Pluto and Karma were strong, but they couldn't run forever. At eight o'clock that evening, they arrived at a burbling, crystal-clear fountain, and an idea formed in Pluto's head. He whispered his plan to the nearest camera, and his sponsors sent him a pair of hammers. He handed one to Karma, and they spent the next ten minutes busting away the bricks that laid out the boundaries of the fountain. Soon, cold water was splashing out of the fountain, crawling across the floor. Water sprayed through the air in all directions, and the collective birdsong grew much thinner as more and more of them started falling out of the air. With their feathers sopping wet, they were too heavy to fly. It was somewhat comedic to watch them knocked down by the various stray streams of water. Pluto and Karma thundered back toward the cornucopia, fairly confident that their feathery fiends wouldn't pose them any more trouble.

This was bad news for one tribute, however. Abel was in the small room underneath the fountain, and he noticed water spraying in through the corners of the room. He tried the door, but it was trapped shut under the weight of so much water. In moments, Abel was ankle-deep. He screamed and beat at the walls, having a full-out panic attack as the water passed his knees and then his waist. Before long, he had to press his face to the ceiling in order to breathe. His efforts to break out grew more and more timid as his body lost oxygen. He was dead in minutes after the small compartment flooded entirely.

 _Abel Cindy, District 12 Male: 11th, Killed by Pluto, Day 3_

These games were now slowing down for one second: Edison was a man who truly loved short, burst-of-action games; he was planning to end these games within their first week, and his goal was to kill off two to three more tributes each day to keep the level of action consistent throughout.

The bird mutts were removed from the arena late on the third night, and by Day 4 the sounds of squawking and chirping were gone. Itsuki and Jeanine hesitantly left the closet in the daycare center, brushing the dust and spiders off of themselves. Now it was Itsuki's turn to hold the dart gun, and they spent the next several hours generally exploring the airport. Before they left the daycare center, they searched around for supplies. Jeanine found a tub filled with play sand. She reached out to touch the sand and hissed with agony, her skin tingling on contact with the poisonous sand. She put on some plastic gloves from a nearby closet, and Itsuki watched from afar as Jeanine poured the sand into a small plastic baggie. Now each of them had a deadly weapon.

Carrera was hunting feverishly on the first and second floors, and she spotted Jeanine and Itsuki from about two-hundred yards off in the late morning of Day 4. Carrera grinned and wiped the old blood off of her whip before quietly sprinting forward. If she crept around Jeanine and Itsuki, she figured she could sneak up on them and take down one of the girls before she even knew what had hit her. Carrera smiled delicately and crept forward at a slow, quiet pace.

Itsuki and Jeanine settled down about a minute later at a small Italian restaurant. Itsuki grabbed a bowl of pasta with marinara sauce, and Jeanine grabbed a bowl of salad with sweet pink dressing. They sat on the countertop, feet dangling over the edge. Itsuki told a joke, and Jeanine laughed. Jeanine suddenly froze mid-laugh, and Itsuki's mouth fell agape with horror when the saw the end of the whip wrapped tightly around Jeanine's arm. With a heavy tug, Carrera tore the limb off of her body, and Jeanine fell off of the countertop, swiftly bleeding out from the gaping hole in her upper side.

 _Jeanine Ries, District 6 Female: 10th, Killed by Carrera, Day 4_

Itsuki, panicking slightly, pulled out her dart gun and the four darts she had left. She leapt off of the countertop and held the weapon at arm's length, heart hammering as Carrera crept nearer. Carrera knew that Itsuki was doomed, and she was just taking her sweet time putting on a show with her. Itsuki didn't want to risk using her last few darts and missing, leaving her defenseless against the power of Carrera's whip.

Itsuki began creeping toward Jeanine's dead body. When she was finally close enough, she acted so quickly that Carrera didn't have time to react. Itsuki reached down and snatched the corner of the plastic bag that was hanging out of Jeanine's pocket. She opened the bag and threw it in Carrera's face, and Carrera let out a bloodcurdling scream and stumbled backward, gasping and shaking. A large amount of the sand had made its way into her nose, throat, and eyes. Carrera collapsed, the highly acidic material eating away at her face and throat. The strongest tribute in these game perished over the course of six or seven hellish hours. Itsuki was too terrified to stick around for very long.

 _Carrera Munoz, District 4 Female: 9th, Killed by Itsuki, Day 4_

That left the final eight: Pluto Talbot and Karma Venn from District 2, Credo Frankel and Mystere Sekler from District 3, Rexter Dolan from District 5, Itsuki Tanner from District 7, Tindra Line from District 9, and Mae Lesser from District 12.

Pluto and Karma made a huge discovery later that day. A good portion of the first floor was flooded with water from the destroyed fountain, and Pluto and Karma were splashing ankle-high in some places. They eventually made the decision to move to the second floor; they were making so much sound that any outliers they came near would have more than enough time to escape before they were even spotted. That night, they camped out on the second floor, which was home to most of the shops and stores, including the daycare center recently abandoned by Itsuki and the late Jeanine. It also held the elevator where Rexter, Tindra, and Mae were hiding.

Pluto and Karma stopped in a souvenir shop that sold various pins, hats, and other memorabilia. Pluto absentmindedly popped open the cash register. It was full of old American dollars, and a small metal object: a grenade. The gamemakers had planted several of them into various parts of the arena, not expecting anybody to find them. Pluto hurriedly stuffed the explosive into his pocket when Karma came back from her bathroom break. He didn't think it was a good idea to let anyone else know he was in possession of the most deadly weapon in the entire arena.

Karma woke up screaming the next morning, a sword planted into her chest. Pluto's family was waiting expectantly back home, and he knew that. He didn't see a reason to keep his ally around any longer; the only outlier who was actually a threat was Itsuki, and even she was a relatively easy target, only having scored a seven in her private session.

Karma gurgled and moaned, flipping off the boy she'd thought to be her friend and telling him on no uncertain terms where he could stick that sword. Pluto sprinted away from the memorabilia store, the grenade in his pocket and the sword in his hand, ready to extinguish these games as quickly as possible.

 _Karma Venn, District 2 Female: 8th, Killed by Pluto, Day 5_

Credo and Mystere were being far too inactive for the gamemakers' liking. They had done literally nothing but move in circles around the bumpy conveyer belt's path for the entire five days of the games. The gamemakers caused them to take a different turn this time, leading them toward a dead end where they would fall dozens of feet into a pit of spikes. They had no idea about this, and they kept on having the times of their lives going up and down and around on the conveyer belt. Rexter, Tindra, and Mae refused to kill each other or split apart, even though it was late in the games. The three had developed an extremely close friendship, and their sponsors had sent them a holy book to leaf through and read from to fill the long hours inside the hot elevator.

Itsuki continued hunting. She was the second most popular tribute in the games after Pluto, and she was fairly confident she could make it to the finale and maybe even victory if she played her cards right. Her bag of sand was gone, and now she only had her gun and four darts. Pluto moved extremely quickly for a boy as small as he was: he was the smallest of the Talbot siblings, and he was also the family's last chance at gaining another victory. His older brother and mentor Mars sent him a cloth with which to clean his sword. Around noon on Day 5, he arrived at a closed elevator and banged on the door. The three tributes inside simultaneously started screaming.

Pluto flipped his sword around and banged on the locked doors with the hard butt. The doors just rattled slightly, and the trio whimpered, hurriedly crowding around the exit so that they could run for their lives as soon as Pluto broke the lock. About two minutes later, the locking mechanism shattered, and the doors spread apart. The tributes raced out of the small elevator, and Mae looked down to see the point of Pluto's sword protruding from her gut. She fell against the partly-closed elevator doors and slowly slid to the ground, wheezing and clutching her side. Rexter and Tindra glanced backward and knew with one glance that the girl from 12 was beyond saving.

 _Mae Lesser, District 12 Female: 7th, Killed by Pluto, Day 5_

Surprisingly, Rexter and Tindra both escaped unscathed. Rexter ran to the left, and Tindra ran to the right, and there was a slight moment of indecision where Pluto couldn't decide which one to chase after. By the time he decided to run after Rexter, the boy was already a significant distance away, and he escaped into the depths of the airport without so much as a small scrape from Pluto's deadly weapon. Tindra ran the opposite direction and made as many sudden turns as she could to keep from being found again. Pluto groaned with frustration and slammed the blade of his sword onto the carpeted floor before returning to the horn.

Late that night, the tributes from District 3 met their ends mere seconds apart. Credo and Mystere had finally left the luggage containers, and they sat cross-legged on the conveyer belt, conversing quietly and sipping from Credo's water jug. The end of the conveyer belt came out of nowhere. Credo let out a scream and tried to jump before he could fall off of the edge, but he wasn't fast enough, and he tumbled down into the dark abyss. Mystere fell shortly after and howled with agony when she landed in the spike pit. They tried to climb out, but every slight movement seemed to drive more and more of the metal spikes into every area of their skin. Their torturous deaths lasted well into Day 6, by which time they were too weak from blood loss to lift a finger.

 _Credo Frankel, District 3 Male: 6th, Killed by spike pit, Day 6_

 _Mystere Sekler, District 3 Female: 5th, Killed by spike pit, Day 6_

Most of Day 6 was deathless. It seemed like Edison had had a change of plan; he was now toning down the action ever-so-slightly. This would not be a mega-short games like the third Quarter Quell or the ninetieth games, but it wouldn't be very long either. Pluto continued hunting as ravenously as ever. He jumped between all three floors, searching primarily for Itsuki, and, to a lesser extent, Tindra and Rexter. Pluto's hand grenade thumped in his pocket; he hadn't used it yet, and he wanted to save it for the finale or some other time when it was absolutely necessary.

Itsuki herself was on the second floor, staying rather inactive. Her dart gun only had a few darts left, and she was extremely reluctant to go hunting; she wanted to preserve her few remaining darts for the finale. For shelter, she returned to the daycare center that she and the late Jeanine had once inhabited, and she buried herself under the blankets of one of the cots and tried to sleep.

Tindra and Rexter weren't up to very much. Tindra ran wildly through the arena, terrified out of her mind; now she had nothing but the clothes on her back, not even an ally, and Pluto was still hunting ravenously. Tindra retreated to the safety of a small souvenir shop and crawled inside one of the circular clothing racks. Rexter jogged around the airport for about halfway the day before coming to a stop in one of the food courts. He holed up in a fast food restaurant and munched on French fries and burgers.

Pluto was hunting on the second floor in the late evening of Day 6 when he heard loud chewing noises. Manners had never been a big deal in District 5, where Rexter was from, and this ultimately spelled his doom. Pluto burst over the countertop, brandishing his sword, and Rexter let out a loud scream, spitting out the bunch of French fries he was eating. He made a mad dash for the exit, and the elusive boy managed to escape the confinements of the small restaurant without much trouble.

A long chase then ensued. Both tributes were somewhat equal in speed and size, so it was ultimately a battle of who grew exhausted the fastest. Pluto had striking endurance despite his small size, whereas Rexter grew too tired to run in a matter of minutes. He slowed to a jog, sucking in huge gulps of air, and he fell onto his knees and then his elbows when he felt the sharp point of Pluto's sword in his back. Pluto kicked him over and sliced open the groaning boy's torso with two heavy chops.

 _Rexter Dolan, District 5 Male: 4th, Killed by Pluto, Day 6_

Tindra woke up screaming on the morning of Day 7. Her body was abuzz with a powerful electric current, courtesy of the gamemakers. Screaming with agony, she tried to drag herself away from the pain. She was dragging herself toward the cornucopia, a cruel trick of the gamemakers. Pluto and Itsuki were both in the same boat. Tindra was the first tribute to arrive at the cornucopia, and she dragged herself into the horn of plenty, tears streaming down her face as her body shook and twitched from the current that wasn't quite powerful enough to kill her.

Itsuki arrived at the cornucopia next. Her dart gun was tucked into her pocket, and she was hissing with agony and flailing her limbs like a madman as she pulled and dragged herself slowly toward the cornucopia. Pluto arrived moments afterward, and he hid behind the cornucopia, trying to remain as quiet as possible as his body quaked from the electric shock.

With all three of the remaining tributes in such close quarters, the gamemakers stopped shocking the tributes. Tindra, who was hiding inside of the horn, gasped with relief, and Itsuki heard her. She set all three of her remaining darts into her dart gun, and Itsuki burst into the cornucopia, ready to eliminate the underfed field hand girl.

Just as Itsuki was about to fire her gun, Pluto burst around the side of the cornucopia, shouting, "Surprise!" He closed one eye, pulled the pin of the hand grenade, and tossed it with all the force he could muster. The following explosion shook the entire arena and engulfed the cornucopia in hellish fire and a plume of black dust. Tindra and Itsuki were blown to smithereens in a matter of moments.

 _Tindra Line, District 9 Female: 3rd, Killed by Pluto, Day 7_

 _Itsuki Tanner, District 7 Female: 2nd, Killed by Pluto, Day 7_

"Pluto Talbot of District 2, you are the victor of the ninety-sixth annual Hunger Games!" Titanius and Dexter shouted, Titanius sounding happy and Dexter disappointed—Titanius had liked Pluto, whereas Dexter had favored Itsuki.

Pluto held up his sword for all to see, smiling and trying to ignore the loud ringing in his ears.

 _Pluto Talbot, District 2 Male: Victor of the Ninety-Sixth Hunger Games, Day 7_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

All of District 2, and especially the Talbot family, welcomed the twenty-third addition to their growing lineup of victors with raucous applause. Out of the eight Talbot siblings, only two had managed to escape the arena with their lives, but District 2 wasn't complaining; they'd garnered two more awesome victors and two more awesome mentors, and celebrations were endless in the masonry district. Pluto loved the glory and attention, and he soaked in his newfound fame for as long as it took for him to fall out of style. The fourth Quarter Quell was just on the horizon, and it was difficult for victors who won right before Quarter Quells to remain relevant for very long. Pluto was one of the few who managed this without difficulty. His popularity made him an ideal candidate for the sex industry, but he didn't really mind.

The payouts on his victory were pretty small, as 23% bet on him.

His victory tour refreshed the career districts and placated rebellion in the outlying districts, and it was pretty ordinary.

Pluto would live to age eighty, succumbing to pneumonia around the time of the one-hundred fifty-ninth Hunger Games. He would marry and have four children.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Pluto moves into the Victor's Village of District 2, next door to Tarquinius' home.

Sycamora Bromley has her third child, a girl named Tarine.

Admired Thompson marries his girlfriend of seven years, Glitza Spangel.

Arnold Scruggs has his first child, a boy named Pick.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)  
89HG: Admired Thompson (#15, District 1)  
90HG: Chipson Harris (#11, District 3)  
91HG: Mars Talbot (#21, District 2)  
92HG: Arnold Scruggs (#3, District 12), Wystella Knapp (#22, District 2), and Robina Caite (#3, District 10)  
93HG: Taj King (#16, District 1)  
94HG: Steer Drudgers (#4, District 10)  
95HG: Diode Cooper (#8, District 5)  
96HG: Pluto Talbot (#23, District 2)

* * *

 **A/N: I had so much fun with this one! I had a pretty specific view of how this chapter would go and I hope I pulled everything off well. I especially liked Itsuki, but then Pluto found that hand grenade and I knew I had to let another Talbot sibling go :D**

 **How'd Edison do as head gamemaker? Better or worse than Orestilla?**

 **I love moving sidewalks WAY too much. Like, they're probably my favorite part of visiting the airport. I'm so childish.**

 **Stay tuned for the next chapter, where Orestilla will get her second and final chance to prove her meddle to the Capitol. See you then :D**


	98. The 97th Hunger Games

**The 97th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

As the year of the ninety-seventh Hunger Games rolled around, it became impossible to ignore the strange signals coming from the east. Given their strength, scientists estimated the source of the signals to be around five thousand miles away, across the Atlantic Ocean. What also became apparent was that the people, whoever they were, weren't just trying to let Panem know they existed; they were actually trying to communicate. There weren't exactly any cell phone towers in the flooded wasteland that constituted most of the planet, and it was the best method of communication these people had. The Capitol sent a fleet of two dozen hovercrafts out to investigate, and they landed in a place once known as Paris, France. The city was in remarkably good condition, with many of its buildings having been repaired, and it was bustling with people, at least twenty thousand of them. The new settlement was called Starlight. In fact, Starlight wasn't a new settlement at all; it'd been established a century ago, around the time when the Hunger Games were instituted. Starlight was surprisingly similar to Panem; it consisted of five small sectors, which all supplied something different to the central Capitol. Sector 1 was the security district, and it defended the city's outer walls from coming predators and other threats. Sector 2 was the legal system, providing lawyers, judges, jail keepers, and more. Sector 3 was the police force, and children born there were trained from an early age on self-defense and even how to kill. Sector 4 farmed the land for food, and it was filled with trees and plants, the greenest of the five sectors. Sector 5 provided scientists, engineers, and inventors, and it had a rigorous schooling system for its youths. Their system of government was much more democratic than Panem; every five years, the citizens of each sector elected five people to represent them in the government. These twenty-five representatives made most of the decisions in Starlight. For the time being, President Stinn Hawke decided to leave Starlight alone, and the knowledge of its existence was kept strictly confidential. If district residents learned that there was anywhere better to live then Panem, they would leave in the swarms, and the Capitol couldn't have that. Orestilla Frondel was back again for her second and final shot to wow Panem into voting for her. The ninety-fifth Hunger Games were considered a masterpiece by many, and the pressure was on to match and even outdo her own splendor this time around. The idealistic Orestilla was ready to do so.

The career team was a pretty average lot, and they all scored well. They were both the same age, and their personalities were strikingly similar; they were sure to get along well in the games. The boy was the son of an academy trainer, and the girl was a perfume factory worker. District 2 provided the strongest lot: the boy was older and leaner and liked swords, while the girl, his junior by one year, was similarly feisty and spirited. District 4's boy was the oldest, and the only eighteen year-old in the pack, and he was funny and witty and never took anything seriously. The girl was the youngest this year at only fifteen, but she had definitely earned her promotion into the games via her skills with projectile weapons. The scores of the pack were pretty ordinary: two elevens, two tens, and two nines.

Four tributes banded together to form this year's anti-career alliance: Piston from 6, Poppy from 7, Cyndra from 8, and Mattin from 9. Piston was the highest-scoring tribute outside of the career pack, with an impressive eight, and he wowed the gamemakers with his swordplay skills and his survival tactics. Poppy was much more focused on the survival skills, and she was also adept enough with a hatchet. Cyndra was just a seamstress girl, and Mattin was just a baker boy, but they both managed admirable sixes with their knife skills. Psyella from 3, who scored a seven, was on the only other real outlier standout. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Magnus Duviver, 16, (11) 3-1 and Incense Crothers, 16, (9) 8-1

District 2: Glaive Russak, 17, (11) 3-1 and Rena Lenard, 17, (10) 5-1

District 3: Pacman Clauss, 12, (3) 36-1 and Telestra Graham, 14, (4) 29-1

District 4: Water Cosmides, 18, (10) 4-1 and Cascade Berra, 15, (9) 9-1

District 5: Grindon Ibes, 16, (5) 24-1 and Psyella Gunder, 18, (7) 15-1

District 6: Piston Wyshak, 17, (8) 13-1 and Aiya Skane, 16, (4) 26-1

District 7: Vincent Buckley, 13, (3) 33-1 and Poppy Valentine, 18, (7) 14-1

District 8: Malcolm Jost, 12, (4) 35-1 and Cyndra Stockton, 14, (6) 18-1

District 9: Mattin Ryde, 17, (6) 17-1 and Errota Chen, 15, (4) 27-1

District 10: Prongs Raskino, 18, (4) 25-1 and Colie Tethers, 18, (3) 29-1

District 11: Vine Lilard, 14, (4) 30-1 and Orchid Richards, 12, (3) 35-1

District 12: Darryl Witzel, 18, (5) 23-1 and Mitzi Tone, 16, (5) 26-1

HGBO Bets: 20% on Glaive, 19% on Magnus, 10% on Water, 8% on Rena, 5% on Incense and Cascade, 4% on Piston, 3% on Psyella and Poppy, 2% on Cyndra and Mattin, 1% or less on Pacman, Telestra, Grindon, Aiya, Vincent, Malcolm, Errota, Prongs, Colie, Vine, Orchid, Darryl, and Mitzi.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The delectable sugary scent of this year's arena could be smelled even from down in the launch rooms. When the tributes could see, they quickly learned where the smell was coming from. They were standing in a sugary candy wonderland, reminiscent of the twenty-third games' arena. The cornucopia was fashioned entirely of gingerbread, and housed a wide variety of weapons this year. A candy cane forest sprawled out to the east, and it was inhabited by fluffy unicorns and birds made of cotton candy. A large river of honey sliced through the arena, flowing in the slow fashion that only honey can. The honey river marked the boundary between the candy cane forest and the sugary field that made up the rest of the arena. The bright-green grass was edible and tasted just like sugar. The field was dotted with trees bearing gummy bears, bushes of gummy berries that squirted out flavored juice, entire lakes of sweet-smelling chocolate, and life-sized gingerbread houses. A mountain made entirely of chocolate loomed in the distance, and it housed a large yeti mutt inspired by the one from the eighty-third games, a new addition. The seemingly passive unicorn mutts could become extremely violent when provoked, and they were more than ready to gobble up any unsuspecting tributes at the gamemakers' command. The smell of so much delicious candy morphed together into the most tantalizing, mouth-watering aroma imaginable, even more delectable than the arena of the second Quarter Quell. The smell, and the taste, of everything in the candy wonderland made the tributes feel as though they'd been ascended. This paradise would not remain so perfect for very long, however. As the games progressed, the candy would begin to rot and melt, eventually turning into a mushy brown land of mold and spoilage that stank to high heaven. For the time being, however, the tributes were left standing on their pedestals, sniffing like there was no tomorrow. Orestilla's re-use of the seventieth games' arena had stolen the hearts of the Capitol citizens two years prior; now, she was hoping to strike up even more nostalgia by re-using the arena in which Ashlyn Breston's legendary victory for District 6 had taken place.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Glaive from District 2 powered ahead of the others due to his sheer speed, and he was the first to find a weapon. Like the Talbot siblings, he favored swords. He grabbed one and tackled nearby Grindon from 5, who was zigzagging to avoid attacks as he thundered toward the cornucopia. The blade connected with his gut, and he fell to his knees, gasping while Glaive cut open his torso with two heavy chops.

 _Grindon Ibes, District 5 Male: 24th, Killed by Glaive, Bloodbath_

Vincent from 7 and Errota from 9 had allied prior to the games, and they were down on their hands and knees, shoving supplies into a butter-yellow pack. Glaive's district partner, Rena, spotted them from about fifty meters off and grabbed a sword of her own, ready to kill one or both of them. Errota froze dead in her tracks as the sword landed in her back and protruded from her stomach, and Vincent gasped with horror as she fell flat on the ground, never to rise again.

 _Errota Chen, District 9 Female: 23rd, Killed by Rena, Bloodbath_

Vincent leapt to his feet, screaming. As soon as he turned, he felt the bite of Magnus' sickle in his gut. Vincent's dead body landed on top of Errota's, and then Rena and Magnus sprinted their opposite directions.

 _Vincent Buckley, District 7 Male: 22nd, Killed by Magnus, Bloodbath_

Glaive had wrenched his sword out of Grindon's abdomen, and he fluidly attacked his next victim, the factory girl from District 3. With one heavy thrusting motion, Glaive had her impaled to a lethal degree. Bits of blood flew through the air as he yanked the blade's sharp point out of her neck, and she bled out swiftly.

 _Telestra Graham, District 3 Female: 21st, Killed by Glaive, Bloodbath_

Incense spotted the boy from 12, Darryl, darting frantically back and forth across the horn's mouth, trying to figure out a way to escape without being noticed. Incense hurriedly grabbed two daggers and sprinted in Darryl's direction. The first of the daggers dug into his chest with surprising ease. He fell to the ground, flopping like a dying fish, and Incense sedated him with the other knife before sprinting away.

 _Darryl Witzel, District 12 Male: 20th, Killed by Incense, Bloodbath_

Water and Cascade from District 4 were extremely close friends and neighbors, and they ganged up to make the bloodbath's last kill. Cascade had a bow, and Water had a sword. As they stalked through the cornucopia field, they spotted a pair of eyes staring at them from underneath a red crate. Water kicked the crate away, and the small girl underneath leapt to her feet, screaming. Water's sword found a home in her upper abdomen, and she fell into the paths of two of Cascade's arrows. The district partners shared a high five as Psyella fell to the ground with a loud noise, dead.

 _Psyella Gunder, District 5 Female: 19th, Killed by Water and Cascade, Bloodbath_

Those were the only deaths to take place on the first day. Eighteen tributes were left in the arena, and it was hard to cover them all. The cameras mostly focused on the careers as they went about their post-bloodbath rituals. Glaive from 2 and Magnus from 1 sifted through the weapons, trying not to get distracted by the sugary smell of, well, everything natural in the arena. Incense from 1 got six packs ready, stuffing them halfway full with supplies and the other half full with every kind of candy she could find. Water and Cascade from 4 sorted the food rations, talking. They had a great friendship and a great dynamic, and the Capitol gobbled it all up. Rena from 2 just rested in the back of the cornucopia, toying with her sword. She felt pretty useless, as there weren't any more jobs that needed to be done. When the careers left to go hunting, they left Rena to guard the horn.

The outliers went their separate ways, sprinting, crunching, or sliding over the grass made entirely of sugar. Pacman from 3 had narrowly escaped death from Incense's knives during the bloodbath. Terrified out of his mind, he sprinted downhill, and he settled near the sweet-smelling lake, guzzling greedily from the water before passing out. The anti-careers (Piston from 6, Poppy from 7, Cyndra from 8, and Mattin from 9) ran away from the cornucopia, each of them carrying a pack stocked with useful supplies. Their mad sprint slowed to a walk when they reached the candy cane forest. By that point, night had fallen, and the candy birds trilled terrifying. Aiya from 6 was too weak to reach the candy cane forest or the chocolate mountain. She ventured through the field, munching on candy, and she came to a stop in a green bush bearing sugary red blossoms. She crunched on the blossoms until she fell asleep. Malcolm from 8 made himself at home in the gingerbread village. He closed himself inside one of the square houses and raided the cupboards of peppermint and hot chocolate. He'd never seen the twenty-third games on television before, and he didn't know about the deadly gingerbread man mutts that had inhabited the village of those games. Nobody was sure if Orestilla had decided to include these mutts in her modern take on the arena, but time would tell. Prongs and Colie were from District 10, and the district partners had readily allied for company and safety. They spent the entire day jogging and walking toward the large chocolate mountain at the north end of the arena. They settled at the base of the mountain, near the rolling foothills. Vine from 11 ate a lollipop as he strolled along. All he'd gotten from the bloodbath was a belt containing three throwing knives. His young body was too weak to make it all the way to the foothills in one day, so he rested in a cluster of trees bearing cotton candy and went to sleep. Orchid from 11 had a run-in with a duo of unicorn mutts about halfway through the day. She ran from the mutts for about fifteen minutes before they were removed by the gamemakers. Orchid had reached the wide honey river, and she settled near the bank, scrubbing the sticky sugar off of herself. Mitzi from 12 traveled about two miles away from the cornucopia before night fell. By that point, she was about three quarters of the way to the candy cane forest. For now, she sat down under a tree bearing gummy bears and tried to sleep. Things were pretty peaceful in the candy wonderland as day turned into night.

The next death occurred in the early morning of Day 2. The two unicorn mutts that Orchid evaded were still as bloodthirsty as ever, and they were eager to gore and feast. The nearest tributes, the anti-careers, were in for a nasty shock when the unicorn mutts smelled their blood. The four tributes woke up in a frenzy when the unicorns tromped toward them through the wide open meadow, crunching candy grass and colorful blossoms under their hooves. They were all well-armed: Piston with a sword, Poppy with a hatchet, Cyndra with two knives, and Mattin with a spear. Their turnout from the bloodbath was grand, but whether it would be enough to fend off the unicorn mutts was for time to tell.

Piston made the first move, lashing out and slashing his sword at the nearest unicorn mutt. It stood on its back hooves, and Mattin took a step back as it brought down its hooves near his feet. The two boys and Cyndra were so occupied trying to take down the mutt that they didn't notice the other mutt run for Poppy. With a heavy thrusting motion of its front hooves, the angry mutt knocked Poppy's hatchet out of her hand. The weapon went flying, and Poppy was hopelessly grasping for the furthering handle when the unicorn drilled its razor sharp horn through her chest. She was gone in moments.

 _Poppy Valentine, District 7 Female: 18th, Killed by unicorn mutts, Day 2_

With only three members left, the stakes were rising for real. Piston was ultimately dealing the most damage, as his sword was the most efficient weapon. Mattin's spear also proved of decent use, while Cyndra's knives weren't very effective. It was about five minutes before the anti-careers accepted that they had no choice but to run. Cyndra's shoulder was severely injured, and Mattin had a bloodied arm. Even Piston, who was physically unscathed apart from a few minor cuts and scrapes, was too exhausted to fight any longer.

The unicorn mutts chased them downhill for several miles, to the sweet-smelling lake where all the arena's streams collected. What they also saw was a small boy curled up on the shore of the lake, dreaming about candy and smiling softly. Always the good anti-career, Piston reached down and thrust his sword into the sleeping boy's chest. Pacman woke with a start, screaming at the top of his lungs. He had woken from a dream into a nightmare. Piston, Cyndra, and Mattin ran for their lives, leaving the unicorn mutts to tear him to shreds and feast on his bloodied remains.

 _Pacman Clauss, District 3 Male: 17th, Killed by Piston and unicorn mutt, Day 2_

The rest of Day 2 was pretty uneventful. The cannons shots of Poppy and Pacman spooked most of the tributes into staying still. However, Prongs and Colie continued their casual adventure around the enormous chocolate mountain, mostly unfazed by the loud, booming cannons. At nightfall, they retreated to the top of the mountain for safety, and they settled down in a small cave that sloped down to a lake of fizzy soda pop. They feasted on chocolate and soda pop and then fell asleep for the night, burping and giggling.

Aiya continued her travels through the central, meadow-like field. She was heading toward the candy cane forest, but she was making rather slow progress. Instead of the mad sprint most of the other tributes were using, she was taking it at a brisk walk, leaning down to sample the various blossoms and ornamental butterfly charms. Aiya wasn't a show stopper, but she wasn't staying completely inactive, so the gamemakers let her be.

On Day 3, the cameras mostly focused on the career pack. Rena was still guarding the horn, absentmindedly sifting through the supplies. The other five members of the group had moved from the candy cane forest to the large chocolate mountain. They knew more tributes were likely to be hiding in the loftier areas for safety. Water and Cascade, who weren't particularly fond of heights, stayed in the low levels of the mountain, while Magnus, Incense, and Glaive scoped out the top end of the large feature in their mad hunt for victims. Prongs and Colie from District 10 remained well-hidden, and they went unnoticed to the feverishly hunting trio.

Water and Cascade, having hunted for about half of the day, settled down in a cluster of trees bearing multicolored, sweet-smelling sprinkles. They sat cross-legged underneath the trees expansive branches and fanned themselves to cool down. Temperatures in the arena were rising, and while nothing had yet begun to rot, mold would begin to take root in the arena's foundations sooner than later. Water jokingly shook the tree, and he was surprised when the sprinkles started falling like rain. He and Cascade munched on the colored pieces of sugar. Unbeknownst to him, two of the famous cotton candy pink birds from the second Quarter Quell were roosting in the tree, hidden well by the overlapping branches. Water let out a scream as the first of the birds swooped down, and Cascade grabbed his hand, hurriedly trying to tug him away as the birds stabbed at him with their razor sharp beaks. Cascade gasped with grief as the birds peppered a multitude of holes into Water's chest, and tears started rolling down her face as she fled from her dying friend.

 _Water Cosmides, District 4 Male: 16th, Killed by bird mutts, Day 3_

Vine was only fourteen years old, and he wasn't out of the ordinary for a young boy from District 11. It took him until the afternoon of Day 3 to reach the base of the chocolate mountain. His travels up and down the foothills at the base of the mountain had been rough, and they'd taken a toll on his mental and physical health. Vine soon reached the broad chocolate river that ran down the mountain, and he guzzled the hot sugary drink for several minutes before curling up for a short nap. He hoped to reach the halfway point of the mountain's altitude within the next few days. Mitzi had literally never eaten anything sugary in her life, and she was absolutely entranced by the gummy bear tree. She loved the unique flavor of each multicolored gummy bear, and she started playing a game where she closed her eyes and tried to guess the flavor of each bear by taste alone. Mitzi stayed put at the base of the whimsically curved trunk, shaking it whenever she got hungry and picking certain colors off of the low-hanging branches whenever her sweet tooth got picky.

Day 4 was deathless. The careers were getting pretty impatient with their inability to track down victims. They were hoping that prey would be abound on the mountain, but the only other tributes there were Prongs and Colie, and they were hiding well. Magnus, Incense, and Glaive trekked down the mountainside and met up with a grieving Cascade, who was traumatized after the death of her close friend. The pack made the risky decision to sprint toward the forest; this decision would ultimately pay off, as most of the tributes were hiding in the forest, and they would pass through the field on their way there, where a good number of tributes also lived.

The outliers moved a lot, but there wasn't a whole lot of interaction between them. The anti-careers were perpetually on the run. The gamemakers sent mutts after them in the torrents, from unicorns to the famous pink birds to bunny rabbits and puppies with deadly sharp teeth. They were a bit nervous about staying in the same place for very long, so when they settled down near the edge of the candy cane forest they vowed to leave early the next day. Aiya continued moving through the field, and she traveled in a diagonal direction. She would arrive near the border of the mountain and the forest when the time came. Malcolm was mostly inactive in the gingerbread village. He passed between the houses, raiding their cupboards and munching on the walls. Colie got a note from her mentor Alexander that the careers had left the mountain; the coast was clear. She and Prongs left the cave and moved in a circle pattern around the large mountain. They were nearing the huge yeti mutt, and a clash was expected within the next few days. Vine moved slowly up the mountain face. He was moving carefully and therefore inefficiently, and he stopped frequently for drinks from the chocolate river. He had put on about two pounds since the beginning of the games, and his feces was a multicolored rainbow mess from all the candy he had eaten.

Vine's district partner, Orchid, left the side of the honey river where she had been stubbornly staying put for several days. The gamemakers sent a single unicorn mutt after her to chase her about half a mile from the bank, and they let her do the rest of the movement by herself. The unicorn had been like a warning, letting her know the gamemakers were still watching her. She was travelling alone through the open meadow when she spotted a tall, curved tree bearing gummy bears. She was attracted by Mitzi's soft burps, and she crept forward. Mitzi leapt to full height in terror, and Orchid backed away, scared at the concept of Mitzi turning violent.

"Don't kill me!" Mitzi shouted, voice quivering, knees knocking. "Just let me go. I won't give you any trouble, I promise."

"I won't give you any of my own," Orchid said. "There are fifteen tributes left. We'd best band together." And then they were allies. They hurriedly swapped and shared supplies, and Mitzi was able to heal most of Orchid's minor wounds with a jar of wound sealer she'd snatched from the bloodbath.

On Day 5, Prongs and Colie's alliance garnered another member. Prongs and Colie had traveled about halfway around the mountain, and they stopped around noon near a large, jagged section of the mountain that looked like a piece of rough metal. They sat cross-legged on the chocolate surface, and the weakening chocolate cracked under their weight, opening up the huge reserve of mold underneath. Noses wrinkling, they stood back up and moved about a quarter of a mile away. They crested the jagged rock and saw the enormous yeti mutt bathing in a fizzy pool of pale purple soda, its white fur gleaming in the sunlight. A rock slipped under Colie's foot, and the yeti mutt woke, roaring. The 10s ran for their lives, abandoning all forms of caution and barreling down the mountain as fast as their legs could carry them. As they barreled downward, they neared the small crevice where Vine was hiding. Prongs and Colie desperately dropped down into the crevice, and Vine yelped, the wind knocked out of him. The yeti clawed and roared at the small crevice, but it couldn't fit its hands or its jaws through. The three tributes cowered together inside of the deep fissure, shivering with fear.

Orchid and Mitzi left the gummy bear tree, frightened by the distant roaring of the yeti, and they quickly arrived at the honey river. Mold was growing on the shore of the river, and the slow-moving honey was starting to crystalize, giving off a smell reminiscent of stale milk. Aiya reached the border of the woods and the mountain and decided on travelling to the wounds, too intimidated by the mountain's rough slopes and too terrified by the loud roars. Rena was getting extremely bored at the horn, sifting through the supplies for the umpteenth time, and the other careers were scoping out the candy cane forest. They moved through the tall candy canes with surprising speed, especially Magnus and Glaive, who had both scored elevens. Incense was getting exhausted, and Cascade was going mad with grief; time would tell if she would break and split from the pack like a repeat Annie Cresta.

On Day 6, the careers and the anti-careers were closer than ever. The careers were hunting wildly in the forest, and the anti-careers were sprinting aimlessly around the place, terrified out of their minds. Their weapons were slowing them down, particularly Piston's sword. He, Mattin, and Cyndra took turns carrying the large weapon, and the person carrying it was always sweating profusely.

When the careers settled down that night, it became clear that Cascade had made her decision. She was going to split from the pack. She hadn't volunteered for the first shift, but when Magnus shook her awake around midnight, she knew it was her time. She grabbed her pack and her sleeping bag and silently ran for her life. Water's death was driving her mad, and she was truly realizing for the first time how unprepared she was for these games. Prongs, Colie, and Vine refused to the leave the deep crevice until they were sure that the yeti mutt was dead. The gamemakers removed its corpse from the arena with a hovercraft just to make a point, and the three tributes hesitantly tugged themselves out of the fissure, shaking. They engaged in surprisingly light-hearted conversation as they traveled down the slope of the mountain, sticking to the chocolate river to eliminate the threat of dehydration. They learned about each other's lives: Prongs' sister and her job as a rancher, Colie's pet dog, and the pile of rocks in Vine's backyard. They stopped about halfway down the mountain and curled up between two boulders that cast dark shadows over their sleeping bodies.

By Day 7, things were really starting to rot. Most of the candy canes in the forest had fallen over, and they were all melting and covered with ugly green growths. Most of the colored blossoms of the field were discoloring, and the sweet-smelling pool at the lowest point of the arena gave off an awful stench. The honey river was curdling and crystallizing, and the chocolate mountain was starting to sink downward into the ground. The stench was growing more and more repulsive, and things would only get worse as the games progressed.

The most famous fight of the ninety-seventh Hunger Games occurred in the early morning of Day 7. A stellar four tributes were killed in a matter of ten minutes, leaving a good portion of the Capitol grasping for the rewind buttons on their remotes. The anti-careers woke up early that morning. They broke camp and sped around the forest for about an hour. They crested a tall hill and spotted the career pack about half a mile away. The anti-careers turned to run and saw a trio of unicorn mutts charging toward them. Terrified, the anti-careers rushed away from the bloodthirsty unicorn mutts, toward the careers. Blood was certain to come, and lots of it.

When they ran down the hill, they lost sight of the careers. Mattin was the first to spot the pack, and he hissed for his allies to hide. The three of them leapt behind a cluster of standing candy canes and held their breaths anxiously as the careers grew nearer. Suddenly, Mattin leapt out of the shadows, brandishing his spear. Incense screamed as Mattin skewered the weapon through her torso in a matter of moments. She was too shocked to sidestep or even fight back at all. She slowly closed her eyes and slid off of the weapon, and her allies charged, ready to take down the anti-careers.

 _Incense Crothers, District 1 Female: 15th, Killed by Mattin, Day 7_

Magnus and Glaive tackled Mattin at once. Magnus was particularly furious, bolstered on by the death of his district partner. Mattin let out a loud scream as Glaive swung his sword, nearly knocking his spear out of his hand. Piston and Cyndra leapt out of hiding, and they grabbed Glaive by either shoulder, tugging him away from the brawl. Glaive hurriedly swung his sword out of instinct, and Piston gasped when he saw the blade lodged into his gut. Cyndra scuttled out of the way so she wouldn't be knocked down by his falling body.

 _Piston Wyshak, District 6 Male: 14th, Killed by Glaive, Day 7_

With two tributes dead, things were starting to escalate even more in the deadly brawl. It was Magnus and Glaive against Cyndra and Mattin, and both sides were prepared to win or die trying. Glaive swung his sword rather aimlessly through the fray. He hit himself and Magnus a few times, but he did manage to inflict a deep gash in Cyndra's side. Magnus was being much more tactical with his sickle, carefully lashing out to inflict the deepest wounds possible. Cyndra and Mattin fought back extremely well. Mattin had his spear and Cyndra had her knives. The gamemakers caused the career boys to grow somewhat sluggish and weak so that the anti-careers would have a chance at victory. This evened both sides out rather fairly, and the brawl went on for nearly forty minutes, their groans and screams carrying over the slowly rotting candy arena for hundreds of meters.

Prongs, Colie, and Vine were nearby, in the midst of their daily relocation, and they perked up at the commotion. Prongs instinctively ran for his life, but Colie grabbed him by the shirt. They weren't stupid enough to rush straight into the battle, but they were dead curious to know what was going on. They slowly crept toward a tall hill, and when they crested the top, they saw Mattin and Cyndra fighting for their lives. The 10s and Vine had become friends with the anti-careers at the training center, and they knew what they had to do. Colie was at the head of the trio, with Vine hesitantly following behind and Prongs reluctantly at the back of the group, weeping softly.

Things were not looking good for Cyndra and Mattin. Magnus had managed to hit Cyndra hard enough with the butt of his sickle to send her flying. She was sprawled out on the ground several yards away, completely unconscious. Now it was Mattin's job alone to hold off the boys from 1 and 2 while Cyndra regained consciousness. Glaive's sword connected with his hand, and Mattin dropped his spear, cursing. In an instant, Mattin was on the ground, pinned there by Glaive. Magnus tossed Glaive his sickle, and Glaive slowly drove the weapon into a screaming Mattin's neck.

Suddenly, Glaive went completely limp. Mattin rolled out from underneath him and saw two of Vine's knives buried into Glaive's back. He looked up and saw Vine, Prongs, and Colie standing just beyond a nearby cluster of large candy canes, and Vine was lowering his arm, looking utterly mortified as Glaive spasmed and bled out.

 _Glaive Russak, District 2 Male: 13th, Killed by Vine, Day 7_

By that point, Cyndra had regained consciousness. She was on her feet, watching in disbelief as Magnus clashed with Mattin and the three mysterious tributes from 10 and 11. Magnus was screaming for reinforcements at the top of his lungs. Rena was within earshot, and she sprang to her feet inside of the cornucopia, eager to help him out. Rena would arrive in minutes, and the outliers didn't want to be around when that happened.

Unfortunately, their escape plan claimed another life. Cyndra ran toward the others to help them, and the outliers had already started moving. They were trying to form a barrier around Magnus so that they could dive in and overwhelm him all at once, putting him out for long enough to escape. When the circle was complete, Magnus dived at the nearest tribute, Colie. She let out a scream as Magnus' sickle slashed across her chest, and Prongs watched with horror as his friend bled out. Now that Magnus was distracted, Cyndra, Mattin, Prongs, and Vine ran for their lives without looking back.

 _Colie Tethers, District 10 Female: 12th, Killed by Magnus, Day 7_

The rest of Day 7, and the entirety of Day 8, was empty of conflict. The tributes were utterly frightened by the four cannon shots in such rapid succession, and the mutts of the arena were sedated by the gamemakers so they wouldn't cause any trouble until things cooled down a little. Rena was more than a little confused when she arrived at the scene, and Magnus explained everything as they trekked back to the horn together. Rena was furious, not only at the deaths of her allies but also at Cascade's abandoning of the pack. Magnus was more than happy to guard the horn and nurse his bloody wounds while Rena went hunting that day.

The new alliance of four was all the rage in the Capitol, and the cameras largely focused on them as they travelled through the arena. Cyndra from District 8, Mattin from District 9, Prongs from District 10, and Vine from District 11 were an extremely diverse bunch, and they all got along well. They arrived at the crumbling beach of the honey river and followed it toward the melting, rotting mountain, covering their noses to keep out the sheer foul stench of the arena. Orchid and Mitzi were in relatively light spirits; they'd always thought of themselves as hopeless, but with other tributes knocking down the careers it seemed like they might not have been doomed after all. They were perfectly content with milling around the arena, not actively hunting for fellow kids, and they talked about their lives back in 11 and 12 as the day trickled past.

Aiya was doing the same thing. She was terrified into the depths of the candy cane forest by two unicorn mutts. By Day 8, it was hardly what you could call a forest. Virtually all of the candy canes had toppled, and huge mounds of rotting sugar dotted the place. With the sun beating down over everything, the ground was mushy and uneven, greenish-brown in some places, and the stink was virtually unbearable. Aiya strolled aimlessly around the place, covering her nose. For the time being, she refused to actively stir the pot.

Day 9 was also deathless. Magnus and Rena were hunting wildly still, swapping out their roles several times a day so that one of them was always guarding the horn. They were starting to consider destroying the supplies somehow just so they could both leave the cornucopia without worrying about anything getting stolen. Frustratingly, they were unable to find any victims on the ninth day. Rena was getting especially antsy since her last kill during the bloodbath. Cascade meandered through the foothills at the base of the chocolate mountain. She hopped to and away from the forest twice throughout the day; the stench of the forest made it virtually uninhabitable, and she swore to never go there again as she curled up and wept softly from the memories. Aiya disembarked from the woods at last, driven out by the stench and the lack of cover now that most of the candy canes had fallen. She wandered through the field in search of a home, staying far away from the honey river where she thought most of the deadly tributes were hiding. Malcolm finally left the gingerbread village. Most of the homes had collapsed from rot; not like the rest of the arena was any better, of course. He returned to the village that night, however, fighting through a unicorn mutt to reach it. He was starting to seriously piss off the game makers. Cyndra, Mattin, Prongs, and Vine retreated from the mountain. They arrived at the base halfway through Day 9, and they were preparing to climb it when Vine spotted Rena hunting on the slope. They rushed back to the central field and the honey river, which flowed much more slowly now that it was starting to crystallize and spoil. Orchid and Mitzi stayed put in the field, too disgusted by the rotting mountains and forest. By this point, fuzzy growths had begun to take root in the sugar grass, and they settled on a hillock that had yet to rot, hoping the food supply around them wouldn't spoil completely before the games were resolved.

By Day 10, the arena was reaching an almost uninhabitable condition. The mountain was collapsing, the ground was squishy and unstable, the forest was in ruins, the rivers and lakes were spoiling, and the sugary green grass was like a carpet of black-green mold that squished repulsively underfoot. Even the mutts of the arena were starting to go bad. The unicorn mutts that had once looked so pristine and perfect were starting to turn grey, and their fur tumbled off in clumps. Some of their eyes were starting to pop out of their sockets, and their teeth were growing sharper and their eyes redder. With their sedatives having worn off, the unicorns were once on a mad rampage through the rotten field, eager to gore and feast.

The night before, Cyndra, Mattin, Prongs, and Vine had settled down in the shadowy area between two large hills. The unicorns were attracted by the smell of their blood, and Cyndra was the first to wake up screaming when the razor-sharp horn of a large unicorn mutt pierced her chest. The gash oozed blood in the torrents, and Cyndra's screams woke her district partner Mattin, who roused Prongs and Vine awake. Cyndra ran for her life, blood streaming down her abdomen at a dangerous speed. Mattin was close at her heels, clutching his spear for dear life, and he tugged Vine along. Prongs froze dead in his tracks as the unicorn mutts bore down on him. He was paralyzed with shock, and he'd woken from one nightmare right into another. He was quickly surrounded. Vine tried to turn around and help him, but Mattin kept tugging him along; Prongs was beyond saving, and it would have been suicide to do anything but keep running. Back at camp, a small unicorn mutt tackled Prongs, and it skewered its horn through his neck with one deft thrusting motion. He gurgled and moaned, and blood pooled up in his mouth. His cannon shot terrified the unicorns, sending them reeling.

 _Prongs Raskino, District 10 Male: 11th, Killed by unicorn mutts, Day 10_

Aiya was only a short distance away, and she instinctively took a step backward when she heard Prongs' screams and the frantic footsteps of the others. When everything was quiet, Aiya took several steps forward, morbid curiosity controlling her every move. The gamemakers terminated the unicorn after it killed Prongs, and the ugly horned horse was lying in a mangled position beside the dead body of the boy from 10. She turned around to leave, but then she caught a glimpse of the poison dripping from the dead unicorn's horn. A few sponsors caught onto her plan, and they sent her a pair of rubber gloves and a thermos. Aiya slowly crept forward and stretched the gloves over her hands, then held the thermos under the dripping horn until it was half full. She screwed on the lid and stared at her new deadly weapon for almost a minute before she remembered her feet could move.

The remainder of Day 10 was relatively tame and relaxed. The cameras mostly studied the three remaining careers and their whereabouts. Magnus and Rena were hunting more wildly than ever. When Magnus returned to the cornucopia in the late morning of Day 10, they knew they couldn't afford to swap turns any longer. They had to destroy the horn. Their sponsors sent them a small gun identical to the one Ashlyn Breston had fashioned in her own arena many years prior. Rena took careful aim and pulled the trigger, and the cornucopia suddenly exploded in a mass of hellish flame. Magnus and Rena thundered away excitedly, eager to resume hunting now that they had no permanent home.

Cascade was utterly frightened by the explosion of the cornucopia. She turned toward the mountain, thinking the noise signaled some kind of eruption, but then she saw the plume of smoke rising from the central horn. She was still too unnerved to stay in the chocolate foothills, so she sprinted downhill until she reached the bank of the honey river. Cascade hated honey, but she didn't have a lot of choice. She scooped up several handfuls of the old, crystallized honey and swallowed it down. Her hands were sticky for hours.

Aiya was combing through the arena the next day, Day 11, and she saw Orchid and Mitzi moving quietly through the wide open field. Like Aiya, they had recently abandoned the woods because of the rotting smell and the lack of cover. Aiya sprinted down a nearby hill and crouched down, waiting and watching. Orchid and Mitzi laid out a blanket for breakfast and started eating the berries and the sleeve of crackers their sponsors had sent them. Mitzi's mentor Arnold sent her a nope cryptically warning her that Aiya was near, but she just discarded the note and ate the strawberry flavored cookie that it had come with.

Aiya quietly got to her feet when the two girls fell asleep. Orchid and Mitzi had fallen asleep at opposite ends of the blanket, leaving the path to their thermos of water wide open. Aiya carefully unscrewed her own thermos and poured the entire contents into theirs, then shook it heavily several times. Aiya hesitated for a brief moment, then splashed the poisoned drink onto both of the sleeping tributes. Orchid and Mitzi woke up screaming as the highly acidic solution ate away at their faces, throats, and lungs, and they violently convulsed randomly, gasping and shaking. Aiya's face crinkled with disgust, and she stormed away, a torrent of emotions attacking her after making her first kills of the games. Fuming with angst, she hurled the thermos onto the ground. It bounced around and then rolled away, carrying the last few drops of poisoned water.

 _Orchid Richards, District 11 Female: 10th, Killed by Aiya, Day 11_

 _Mitzi Tone, District 12 Female: 9th, Killed by Aiya, Day 11_

That left the final eight: Magnus Duviver from District 1, Rena Lenard from District 2, Cascade Berra from District 4, Aiya Skane from District 6, Malcolm Jost and Cyndra Stockton from District 8, Mattin Ryde from District 9, and Vine Lilard from District 11.

The rest of Day 11 was deathless as the arena continued to rot and mold at a faster and faster rate. Cyndra, Mattin, and Vine were terrified by the two cannon shots, and they stayed near the honey river, moving short distances along the bank every few hours to keep the gamemakers from getting annoyed. The honey didn't exactly mold, but it started to stink, thicken, and crust up in an almost curdling manner. The three of them were staying extremely loyal to each other, and they learned a huge amount about each other's' lives and personalities through their conversations. Vine took a little while before he felt comfortable around Cyndra and Mattin, but they were all close friends before he knew it.

Malcolm hung out in the gingerbread village, keeping just as inactive and boring as ever. He was seriously starting to annoy the gamemakers. They knocked down several of the houses with the rabid unicorn mutts, and Malcolm moved a stellar ten feet. Orestilla liked taking her games slowly, and she didn't want to kill Malcolm just yet because of the two deaths that had already occurred on the eleventh day. She was planning to do so in the near future, however. Cascade was getting seriously sick; she was considered a coward or just plain stupid by many. Her decision to break from the pack was starting to take its toll; without sponsor food, she was forced to eat the rotting candy that made up the arena. Filth spewed from both ends of her digestive system, and Cascade curled up near the bank of the honey river, hoping for a miracle.

Cyndra, Mattin, and Vine were discovered on Day 12. Magnus and Rena had been scoping out the shores of the honey river for several days, but the three outliers had somehow managed to remain unnoticed. The careers were hunting ravenously on the twelfth morning, and their mouths both twisted into sick grins when they saw the three sleeping tributes. Magnus and Rena crept slowly forward. Magnus had his sickle and Rena had her sword; Cyndra and Vine had their knives, Mattin had his spear, and the three of them shared the sword that had once belonged to the dead Piston. The three calmly sleeping tributes were completely oblivious the entire time the careers neared, and they didn't realize what was happening until Mattin started screaming. Cyndra and Vine leapt to their feet, eyes agape with terror as Magnus repeatedly gashed open Mattin's abdomen with the razor sharp point of his weapon. Mattin thrashed his limbs and tried to fight back, but he was losing huge amounts of blood, and it wasn't long before his body gave up fighting.

 _Mattin Ryde, District 9 Male: 8th, Killed by Magnus, Day 12_

Cyndra and Vine leapt into the river, and their feet hit the bottom with an ugly slurping sound. The honey had hardened into an odd texture reminiscent of putty, and the crystallized areas crunched under the tributes' panicked footsteps. The two of them had a fair amount of experience moving through the thick honey, whereas the careers had none. Magnus and Rena had no choice but to follow them into the river, and they were more than willing to do so.

The careers caught up in no time, and Vine roared as the jagged edge of Rena's sword scraped across his upper back. The blood quickly starting coming. At first, Cyndra and Vine tried to fight back in a more defensive manner. It was a matter of seconds before they accepted they would never be able to win if they were so careful. Cyndra counted down from three, and then she and Vine tackled Rena with all the force they could muster. She stumbled backward, arms flailing, and she landed with a splash in the honey. It instantly started flooding down her throat, and Rena writhed underneath the surface, choking and shaking. District 2 would not be bringing home another victor this year.

 _Rena Lenard, District 2 Female: 7th, Killed by Cyndra and Vine, Day 12_

Magnus was now outnumbered, but he was far from being outgunned, and he was fuming with adrenaline and pure fury. Taking him down would not be an easy task. Cyndra and Vine staggered backward as Magnus roared, brandishing his sword. Vine stumbled mid-step, and Cyndra grabbed him to keep him falling; the honey was so thick that anyone who went below the surface would never be able to fight their way out.

Magnus slashed his sword, and Cyndra barely avoided the blade, stumbling at the last moment so that it merely singed off a few of her stray curls. She hurriedly drew her knives, doing so for the first time in several days, and Vine did the same, holding his weapons at arm's length. Magnus just doubled over with laughter at the sight of their puny weapons. With his sword, he knew he could easily kill both of them. It was only a matter of time.

When the tears cleared from his eyes, Magnus saw only Vine standing in front of him; where Cyndra had once stood, there was nothing but lazily flowing honey. Magnus slowly turned his head around, and then Cyndra was on top of him, grimacing and gagging as she drove her knives repeatedly into the back of his neck. Magnus sputtered out flecks of saliva as he fell still, and Cyndra screamed at Vine to run. He was more than happy to do so, and the triumphant outliers trudged out of the river as Magnus bled out, coughing up blood the entire time.

 _Magnus Duviver, District 1 Male: 6th, Killed by Cyndra, Day 12_

Little of consequence filled the remainder of Day 12 and the entirety of Day 13. By Day 13, almost the entire arena was a swath of blacks and dark browns and greens, the chocolate mountain had melted, crumbled, and spread out so that it covered a fifth of the arena, and the candy cane forest was an unstable mass of fallen sugar sticks that softened and broke on the slightest touch. Staying healthy was getting increasingly more difficult, and food was being sponsored at high levels to keep the tributes alive.

Cascade could not stop throwing up; she was seriously sick, infected, and overall miserable. She threw up at least five times over the course of the morning as she ventured toward the cornucopia, and she circled around the ruined horn several times before stopping on a small hillock. She was the second least popular tribute after Malcolm at the time. Speaking of Malcolm, he slept the day away in the melted, rotten gingerbread village. It was almost like he'd given up trying to survive, and he was just waiting for death to come to him. Orestilla cut off his flow of sponsor goods and made the preparations for the 8 boy to leave the world.

Aiya was relatively inactive, somewhat traumatized after killing Orchid and Mitzi. She was too exhausted to move very much, and her day of rest was well-deserved. She curled up on the bank of the sweet-smelling purple pool where all the arena's small streams collected. By this point, the lake was a soup of filth, and Aiya had to rely on sponsor foods for sustenance.

On Day 13, Cyndra and Vine made the decision to split up. They knew the gamemakers wouldn't tolerate an alliance, like theirs, for very much longer. They were both extremely nervous but knew it was the best plan. Cyndra headed in the direction of the forest and stopped about a mile from the first line of fallen candy canes. She was too nervous to sleep due to the possibility of rampant mutts, so she stared at the fake sky until a dark wave of sleep crashed over her. Vine alternated between jogging and walking for the first half of the day. Exhausted after his trans-arena trek, he laid down on a sponsored blanket about a quarter mile from the gingerbread village. He was so tired that he fell asleep almost immediately.

He woke up a few hours into the fourteenth day to the sound of Malcolm's screams. Orestilla had caused a kind of sinkhole to open up underneath the spot where he was sleeping, and Malcolm shook with panic, desperately clawing and scratching at the rotten sugar grass as the earth sank down into itself. Vine saw the sinkhole opening and ran for his life. The sinkhole quickly grew to encompass about a pizza slice size of the circular arena. There was no more land, no more gingerbread village, and most important, no Malcolm Jost.

 _Malcolm Jost, District 8 Male: 5th, Killed by sinkhole, Day 14_

Vine kept up his sprinting for the remaining first half of Day 14. His training score was a four, and it was starting to become seriously obvious that he had not been displaying his full potential in his private session. He was remaining surprisingly calm and composed despite the rising stakes, and silver parachutes practically rained down on him as he made his second long sprint in the last two days. Vine came to a stop about half a mile from the ruined cornucopia. He didn't see any real problems with nearing the horn; Cascade was the only career left, and Vine knew that she was unlikely to be chillaxing at the cornucopia.

Vine was right. Cascade was indeed hunting, and she found a victim in the late morning of Day 14. Earlier that morning, Cyndra had managed to track down Aiya. Aiya had been lying down on the ground, absentmindedly staring off into the distance, and she leapt to full height when Cyndra pounced into her field of vision. Aiya ran as fast as her legs could carry her, and she fell into a deep ditch that appeared out of nowhere. Aiya stumbled down into the ravine, grunting and groaning as sharp rocks tore against her. She fell to the bottom a few seconds later, and Cyndra ran away from the ravine, unwilling to risk following Aiya inside. As far as Aiya was concerned, she was trapped inside of the ravine.

Cascade was exploring nearby, and she perked up at the noise of Aiya's panicked screams for help. She peered down into the ravine and saw her jumping up and down, waving her arms. Gulping, Cascade tore a sharp piece of stone from the side of the ravine and hurled it downward. Aiya screamed as it sailed toward her, and she dove to left. By the time the stone had made hard contact with the bottom of the ditch and broken in half, Cascade had thrown two more. Aiya was soon overwhelmed by the barrage of stones, and she curled up on the ground, holding her hands over her face and crying loudly. Cascade threw down a rock so heavy she needed two hands to lift it, and it killed Aiya immediately, bashing in the side of her head with unnerving force. Cascade left the ravine quickly, unwilling to risk staying and falling in herself.

 _Aiya Skane, District 6 Female: 4th, Killed by Cascade, Day 14_

Cascade hadn't made a kill with her bow since the bloodbath, but she did so in the late evening of Day 14. Cyndra had only gone a very short distance away from the ravine before settling down for the night; Cascade continued exploring well after nightfall, and she spotted the silhouette of Cyndra's still body, her chest rising and falling with her even breaths. Cascade crept forward, trying to remain as quiet as possible with the cushy, uneven ground squished and crunched underfoot. The place Cyndra had chosen to sleep was one of the worst-smelling spots in the whole arena, and that was really saying something; she was hoping it would keep the other tributes away, and it would have, if Cascade hadn't seen her silhouette.

Cyndra woke up when Cascade was about twenty meters away, and she hurriedly jumped to her feet, whipping her head back and forth in search of the sound. She saw Cascade just as two of her arrows entered her chest, and Cyndra collapsed, gasping and shaking. Cascade rushed forward and kicked Cyndra once in the upper chest, and the outlier girl curled up into a ball, rocking slowly back and forth and weeping softly. She swiftly bled out from the arrow implanted into her side, and Cascade was more than happy to raid her camp of all the things she had been carrying at the time of her death. Before they split, Vine and Cyndra had chosen to bury Piston's sword, unable to decide which of them should take it and not wanting it to fall into the hands of the already well-stocked Cascade. Cascade was disappointed that Cyndra wasn't carrying the sword, but she was excited that she had reached the finale.

 _Cyndra Stockton, District 8 Female: 3rd, Killed by Cascade, Day 14_

Vine and Cascade met up in the early morning of Day 15. Orestilla had allowed each of them a full night to rest and recover their strength, and then she sent the tributes dashing toward each other with a couple of well-placed unicorn mutts.

The unicorns weren't meant to kill, but they did injure both tributes. Cascade was several precious strides ahead of the two mutts, and one of them poked her back with its greying, crumbling silver horn. She stumbled momentarily, allowing the other mutt to hit her in the back, and she fell onto her front, groaning with pain and panic. She jumped back to her feet and almost screamed from the pain in her back, but she kept running, and she started to speed up when she saw her final opponent, Vine, kneeling next to the horny river.

Vine himself was not uninjured. His unicorn mutts had gashed open his left arm, and blood poured plentifully from the wound. He leapt to his feet when Cascade came into sight, and he pulled out his knives, shaking, standing his ground as the 4 girl charged. Cascade had District 4 wildly cheering her on; even though she wasn't the ideal career, she was from their district, and the fishing district was ravenously thirsting for their next victor. Vine, however, was the real underdog—he had all of the outlying districts rooting for him, and it didn't seem impossible that he could pull out the win.

Vine took a huge risk that ultimately spelled his victory. As Cascade charged, Vine pretended not to notice her, curled up on the beach with his chest rising and falling. Suddenly, he jumped to his full height, and Cascade was too shocked to sidestep before the knife landed in her neck. She staggered backward, coughing up blood, and Vine sat cross-legged on the riverbank, praying that her screams would end soon.

They carried on for several minutes, and Vine couldn't bear to listen any longer. He grabbed Cascade's thrashing body and shoved her into the river. She quickly sank below the water and suffocated, and the trumpets sounded the second her cannon shot faded away fully.

 _Cascade Berra, District 4 Female: 2nd, Killed by Vine, Day 15_

"Vine Lilard of District 11, you are the victor of the ninety-seventh annual Hunger Games!" Titanius and Dexter screamed. Dexter didn't know it, but in less than two weeks, he would be dead from illness.

Vine just put on a weak smile. Through more than his fair share of luck, he'd won the Hunger Games. The fourteen-year-old boy was nervous about the difficult life of mentoring ahead, but then he remembered the family and friends he was going home to, and it was enough to power him forward into an uncertain new world without fear.

 _Vine Lilard, District 11 Male: Victor of the Ninety-Seventh Hunger Games, Day 15_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 11 welcomed their fourth victor with open arms. An 11 tribute hadn't won since Lily back in the fifty-third games, and the agriculture district was relieved to see another one of their tributes come home. Vine came out of the games as a very changed boy, but he was ultimately one of the victors who would use his life toward good. He donated lots of the payouts of his victory to the poor of District 11, as he had been among them before he had become victor. He also paid for libraries and schools to be built in some of the poorer districts. He was well-spoken, influential, and overall liked. He tried his best to steer clear of alcohol and succeeded.

The payouts on his victory were stellar, as 0.3% bet on him.

His victory tour was one of the best yet; he turned out to be a great public speaker despite his nerves, and he was a symbol of hope for many of the higher-numbered districts.

Vine would live to age seventy-eight, dying from cancer four months before the one-hundred sixty-first Hunger Games. He would marry and have two children.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Vine moves into the Victor's Village of District 11, occupying the first house.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)  
89HG: Admired Thompson (#15, District 1)  
90HG: Chipson Harris (#11, District 3)  
91HG: Mars Talbot (#21, District 2)  
92HG: Arnold Scruggs (#3, District 12), Wystella Knapp (#22, District 2), and Robina Caite (#3, District 10)  
93HG: Taj King (#16, District 1)  
94HG: Steer Drudgers (#4, District 10)  
95HG: Diode Cooper (#8, District 5)  
96HG: Pluto Talbot (#23, District 2)  
97HG: Vine Lilard (#4, District 11)

* * *

 **A/N: Writer's block is a bitch, isn't it? I just wasn't feeling this chapter for some reason, I hope you all still enjoy it though.**

 **It's been a long time coming, hasn't it? I've been meaning to fit in a District 11 victor for a while now, and I just guess this was the year!**

 **How was this arena? How'd Orestilla do?**

 **Not much to say about this one, other than I hope you enjoyed and I hope you come back for the last few chapters :D**


	99. The 98th Hunger Games

**The 98th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Panem had a lot going on in the third-to-last year of the first Hunger Games century. Excitement for the fourth Quarter Quell had games fever on overdrive, with sales of victor memorabilia at an all-time high. Organdy Karat's main social networking account officially broke the world record for the most widely followed social media account in Panem's history, and she featured make-up tutorials and pictures of herself and her friends around Panem virtually every day. By this point, she also had her own line of make-up packages that were being dished out to her fans in the Capitol and District 1. Mars and Pluto also had their names in fame, even by victor standards. They were both dabbling in the acting industry by this point, as were some of the other popular victors like Taj and even Sycamora. Meredith, Sickle, and Kasey were a tight-knit group of die-hard BFFs, and Pixel and Surge were as close as ever before, the experiences of being the two youngest tributes to survive the games binding them like oath. Wystella and Robina kept in the shadows, Wystella hiding under extensive plastic surgery in the academy of District 2 and Robina doing her maid's duty in the Victor's Village of District 10. This was when Robina's depression was at its peak, and suicidal thoughts ran rampant through her head. She and Wystella almost never interacted in person, only on devices created in District 3, and even then they were forbidden to discuss anything that wasn't public knowledge. This burst of victor-obsession of course put victor prostitution on overdrive, and the more desirable victors like Dock, Organdy, and Mars were spending practically every night in a different hotel room with the highest bidder. Stinn Hawke continued to rule the roost in Panem, keeping his twelve districts in a stranglehold with his theocratic and totalitarian rule. By this point, he'd started to relax ever-so-slightly with the whole religion ordeal; he was growing somewhat tired of being worshipped as a god, if that was possible. Stinn was steadily growing older and wrinklier; another president would likely be on its way sooner than later if his term wasn't cut short before then. The recently-discovered settlement across the ocean, Starlight, remained uncontacted by those in Panem, and its existence was still a secret kept by only the highest-ranking government officials. Amidst this victor and games mania, Edison Jayasinghe released small quips of his second arena; he'd captivated the Capitol's hearts with the airport arena of the ninety-sixth games, and he swore that this year would not disappoint. However, his reputation was starting to take a tumble when he was found to be sharing a bed with the president's niece. Sex scandals were not new in Panem, but the Capitol was surprised nonetheless, and Edison knew he could put the odds right back in his favor by making the ninety-eighth Hunger Games the grandest yet. He was willing to give it his very best shot, and the Capitol citizens gripped the sides of their sofa and movie theater seats, preparing to be wowed by the newest Hunger Games.

The career pack was satisfactory, but not ridiculously overpowered; after a career victory, Edison was hoping for an outlier victory, or at least a strong outlier group to make one possible. District 1 provided one of their more lacking duos. The boy was one of Panem's richest citizens, and he was somewhat lacking as far as weaponry was concerned due to his easy-going life. The girl was much more satisfactory, and she had the stereotypical blonde hair and flirty wink. District 2 provided the strongest pair overall, and both of them were quite popular in the Capitol. The boy was District 2's mainstay, the super muscular sword fighter, while the girl was short and feisty and spirited. They both earned tens. District 4 put on a varied showing. The boy was the weakest, and the youngest this year at only fifteen, but he had definitely earned his promotion into the pack via his spear skills and his looks. The girl was the overall strong this year. She was dangerously beautiful and extremely feisty, and she was a very fast runner. She was the early favorite. The pack earned one eleven, two tens, a nine, and two eights.

The outliers weren't a stellar batch, but there were a few standouts. Ratchet from 5 was a track star back in District 5, and he had some smarts on his head as well. He didn't have a rich family or an enormous fan base, but he was sure to go far, if he survived the bloodbath. Tuva from 7 was the classic blonde-haired, hatchet-wielding 7 girl. She was much smaller than the towering Ratchet, and her small size let her hide and relocate extremely quickly. This would prove to be an advantage in this particular arena. There weren't any other tributes to score any higher than a seven, and there were no volunteers outside of the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Luscious Goldclaw, 18, (8) 10-1 and Beauty Esteban, 18, (9) 5-1

District 2: Hyperion Raffod, 17, (10) 4-1 and Pandora Shale, 17, (10) 4-1

District 3: Silicon Hanley, 12, (4) 29-1 and Cordette Novoa, 16, (4) 30-1

District 4: Galleon Bolzan, 15, (8) 13-1 and Thama Seawell, 16, (11) 3-1

District 5: Ratchet Fearn, 18, (8) 14-1 and Kea Borah, 13, (3) 36-1

District 6: Tariro Sammogia, 16, (6) 20-1 and Nyasha Gullota, 17, (7) 15-1

District 7: Joud Zevin, 18, (4) 29-1 and Tuva Fanger, 17, (8) 14-1

District 8: Yarn Stossel, 13, (3) 36-1 and Annalace Witherell, 15, (4) 32-1

District 9: Briley Monaci, 18, (5) 22-1 and Emelyn Lane, 18, (5) 24-1

District 10: Bear Theodos, 17, (7) 15-1 and Larke Jean, 16, (6) 18-1

District 11: August Clod, 14, (3) 34-1 and Fiberra Witten, 15, (5) 25-1

District 12: Antonio Scotts, 17, (4) 27-1 and Sia Torandra, 12, (3) 37-1

HGBO Bets: 28% on Thama, 17% on Hyperion and Pandora, 15% on Beauty, 9% on Luscious, 5% on Galleon, 3% on Ratchet, 2% on Tuva, 1% or less on Silicon, Cordette, Kea, Tariro, Nyasha, Joud, Yarn, Annalace, Briley, Emelyn, Bear, Larke, August, Fiberra, Antonio, and Sia.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Deep in the catacombs under the arena, the tributes could hear the murmuring of a large crowd. The sound was muffled as though it were far away or underwater. The noises of laughter and stomping feet blended together into a creepy rumble that made the tributes shiver. When their pedestals clicked into place, they saw where the noise was coming from. They were standing in the center of an enormous dance floor made of panes of a sparkling, glowing material. They changed color unevenly and sporadically. The dance floor was a circle-shaped clearing in the center of the enormous, moving maze that constituted the entire arena. The maze was loaded with traps, dangers, mutts, and more: Silicon and Cordette from 3 would probably have an advantage this time around. The dance floor was crowded with thousands upon thousands of human mutts, holding glasses of sparkling wine and laughing and dancing their mechanical lives away. The only weapons the horn contained were machetes, throwing knives, and sickles. The other supplies were fancy clothes and sugary fruit and drink, as well as tall pink party glasses. Several of Edison's closest friends were mixed into the crushing crowd, surrounded by miniature force field bubbles so that the tributes wouldn't hurt them. A thin mist floated through the air, designed to disorient the tributes and distract them from their task of reaching the maze.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

It was mayhem as the tributes rushed to and fro. The six tributes who would usually have formed the career pack were so far apart from each other. The moment the gong rang, the tributes disappeared into the crowd, and the careers couldn't even find the outliers, let alone each other. The tributes had all made friends and enemies across the board; if one thing was for certain, this would not be your normal Hunger Games.

Two girls turned around and fled for their lives as soon as the gong rang: these tributes were Kea from 5 and Fiberra from 11. As the two of them disappeared into the depths of the arena, the others rushed forward, struggling through the elbows and hips of the dancers to reach the cornucopia. The horn spun in circles on the dazzling platform where it was affixed. One girl grabbed onto the turn table and pulled herself up. Thama Seawell grinned deviously and cackled slightly as she stretched to her full height, peering over the heads of the dancers. She could only barely make out the far-away wall of the shifting maze.

Suddenly, Thama heard a shuffling noise behind her, and she turned sharply on her heel. Silicon from 3 had managed to reach the horn surprisingly quickly, and the twelve-year-old boy had grabbed a sickle, ready to eliminate competition early or die trying. Silicon was foolish to think that he could take down Thama, but there was no turning back down, and he realized his fatal mistake too late to be saved. Thama lunged, knocking the wind out of the smaller boy, and Silicon collapsed. He instinctively wet his pants and curled up into a ball, and Thama hurriedly grabbed a sickle of her own, slashing open the 3 boy's chest and spilling the first blood of the ninety-eighth Hunger Games.

 _Silicon Hanley, District 3 Male; 24th, Killed by Thama, Bloodbath_

Now the tributes were starting to make progress. Bear, the bullish boy from District 10, shoved aside a dancing couple and pulled himself onto the elevated turn table that held the cornucopia. He dashed into the horn and started searching for weapons, trying his best to stay out of sight of Thama from 4 and Luscious from 1, the only two careers to have reached the horn. Bear's district partner, Larke, was the next tribute to reach the cornucopia, and she perked up when she heard Bear's screams. She turned her head to the left, and her heart sank when she saw Bear struggling and thrashing in Luscious' hand, his strong fingers forming a death grip around his throat. Bear was a strong boy, but Luscious was stronger, and Bear closed his eyes, waiting for death to take him.

It did not. Just as Bear's face began to turn purple, Luscious' grip on his neck suddenly loosened. Luscious fell in a heap, and Bear saw Larke's machete lodged firmly into his back. Larke stood behind him, jaw set and lips forming a solid line. The 10s silently teamed up, staying close together as they sprinted past Luscious' corpse to raid more supplies from the dazzling cornucopia.

 _Luscious Goldclaw, District 1 Male; 23rd, Killed by Larke, Bloodbath_

While the 10s went about their business, the two bloodbath deserters elbowed their way through the crowd, hurriedly trying to reach the maze as the screams of the bloodbath victims were gradually overpowered by the deafening roar of the dancers. At age thirteen, Kea Borah was the faster mover of the two. She shoved past two teenage girls and an old man wearing too much cologne and nearly screamed as a new swell of the crowd moved in to crush her. Kea yelped in shock as the artificial men and women closed in on her. Fighting back with only her fists was difficult work, and Kea quickly started to tire, even with adrenaline powering her movements and her resolve.

Fiberra was a different story. She had at least some kind of weapon, a broken glass that had once held sticky pink vomiting tonic. When she was tackled by two of the mutts, Fiberra reacted quickly, swiping the glass with all the force she could muster. The shorter mutt's knees buckled instantly as the sharp glass tore over his neck, and blood stained his fancy clothes after he landed. Both Kea and Fiberra were putting up a mad struggle to keep from being trampled, both with relative success. Time would tell if they could hold the fierce mutts off for very much longer.

Things were moving quickly at the cornucopia. Beauty from 1 and Pandora from 2 had tentatively teamed up; they were not only on the hunt for outliers, but for the three other careers: Hyperion, Galleon, and Thama. Beauty had a belt of throwing knives, and Pandora was armed with two twin sickles. She was disappointed that this year's arena lacked swords of any kind. Hyperion was hunting wildly on his own; he'd armed himself with twin machetes, and he slipped through the crowd, taking breathers in the emptier pockets before they closed. The heat and noise was stifling, and Hyperion almost missed the glint of the 9 boy's golden blond hair. Hyperion immediately broke into a run, shoving through the crowd to reach the boy. Briley saw the dancers toppling and opened his mouth to cry out, and before he knew it, Hyperion was on top of him, carving his machetes in straight lines across his throat. Briley tried to scream, but he was already choking on his own blood. Hyperion landed him a well-placed death blow before vanishing back into the undulating crowd of dancers.

 _Briley Monaci, District 9 Male; 22nd, Killed by Hyperion, Bloodbath_

Ratchet from 5, Tariro from 6, and Tuva from 7 had made rather good friends in the training center. Ratchet and Tuva were both more than happy to help Tariro out when they first heard his gruff screams. Moments earlier, he'd been tackled by the ravenous Thama, and she had him pinned against the side of the horn. Thama's sickle was inches from his throat, and Tariro squealed, praying that either help or death would come quickly.

Ratchet and Tuva burst out of the crowd at the same moment, and Tariro breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing the look on his face, Thama flinched, jerking her head to the right, and Tariro leapt out from underneath her, bursting toward his two allies as Thama roared with rage. The three of them stepped backward, and Tariro saw for the first time that they were both armed: Ratchet had a machete and Tuva had two throwing knives. Tariro backed slowly away to look for a weapon of his own, leaving Ratchet and Tuva alone to deal with the bloodthirsty girl from District 4.

Thama's first few blows were powerful, the first of which carved a deep gash in Ratchet's chest. Tuva let out a high-pitched sound like a battle cry as she put in her all, hurling herself toward Thama and abandoning literally all forms of caution. All Thama had to do was reach her sickle back. When Tuva landed, she was too disoriented to move for a split second, and the next instant Thama had pierced a deep hole in her back. Ratchet ran for his life as Thama peppered dozens of small to medium holes in Tuva's chest and back while she struggled for freedom, flopping like a dying fish.

 _Tuva Fanger, District 7 Female; 21st, Killed by Thama, Bloodbath_

Fiberra was making impressive progress through the crowd. With her broken glass, she was the lone bloodbath deserter with a weapon, even if it wasn't a very good one. She reached the front stone wall of the maze roughly an hour after it had all begun. She felt her way along the wall until she felt a faint groove in the stone. Fiberra tugged, and the door opened up like magic. A grown man stood behind the door, and Fiberra almost lunged, but then she recognized his face: it was Edison.

"Congratulations, Ms. Witten. You are the tribute to reach the maze. As a reward, here is a map to help you on your way. May the odds be ever in your favor." Fiberra nodded and sprinted into the maze, her footsteps echoing over the stone wall like thunder. The starry sky overhead cast leaping shadows and flecks of light over the cold ground. Fiberra sprinted onward for as long as it took her legs to give way.

By that point, a number of tributes had left the horn, with a much smaller number of stragglers still gathering supplies. Beauty and Pandora were hunting wildly still, as were Hyperion, Galleon, and Thama, who were extremely ununified, in all different parts of the dance floor. Galleon was the farthest from the horn, and Thama was the nearest besides Beauty and Pandora, who were still on the cornucopia platform, gazing over the crowd for outliers. Tariro met back up with Ratchet about an eighth of a mile away from the cornucopia. He was quick to notice the absence of Tuva, and the look in Ratchet's eye told him everything. Tariro's district partner, Nyasha, dashed off into the crowds, moving slowly and inefficiently through the heavy group of manufactured people. Yarn from 8 and Antonio from 12, whose pedestals had been situated next to each other, had teamed up a few moments after the gong. They were stumbling through the crowd with no supplies except for a single knife in Yarn's left hand. Antonio ran straight into a tall, thin boy from the lumber district—he'd thought him to be just another mutt. Joud Zevin was surprisingly gentle despite his intimidating appearance, and he joined into their little group. Cordette from 3, Annalace from 8, Emelyn from 9, August from 11, and Sia from 12 were the only tributes not doing anything exciting. The four of them were still at the cornucopia, gathering supplies and trying not to be crushed under the feet of the excited partyers. Annalace was the first to abandon, then August, Sia, Cordette, and finally Emelyn.

Bear and Larke dashed through the crowds, the mutts falling like rag dolls under their machetes as they went. They left an extremely obvious path behind them, but there wasn't really any way to diminish the trail of blood; it was all they could do to keep on keeping on and hope nobody would see them. In a few minutes, however, they caught onto another tribute's trail. Larke spotted the glint of Emelyn's tribute token, a silver bangle, through the crowd of mutts. Bear quickly caught on, and the 10s followed Emelyn silently. When she entered the maze, they slipped in behind her, moving especially quietly to keep their wildly echoing footsteps from being heard.

August was having the worst luck of all the tributes. He'd taken the risk of heading into the bloodbath, but he'd been too nervous to recover any of the most valuable supplies because he was too terrified to run past the careers. He squeezed his way through the crowd with nothing but his bare hands. It was less than an hour before his lack of weaponry spelled his doom. August let out a scream as a mutt elbowed him sharply in the side, and he stumbled to the left, only to be hit in the chest by another. He was thrown around like a ball in a pinball machine being piloted by a maniac, and he quickly fell, bleeding and gasping for air. It was a matter of moments before they were onto him.

 _August Clod, District 11 Male; 20th, Killed by dancer mutts, Bloodbath_

The careers finally abandoned the cornucopia, gradually breaking away from the horn and sprinting in the direction of the looming maze. Galleon left the cornucopia first, holding a machete in each hand, and he abandoned his search for his allies in favor of reaching the maze where the gamemakers wanted him to be. The only other careers without kills, Beauty and Pandora, were already a significant distance away from the horn, and they were getting closer and closer to the maze by the minute, cutting their way through the mob with surprising speed. Hyperion and Thama left separately, moving in completely opposite directions. It was hard to keep track of directions in the sheer mayhem of the dance floor.

Fiberra was moving the quickest; with her map, she managed to avoid most of the maze's threats, and she moved with incredible speed through the winding hallways. Fiberra turned a corner and saw a large computer monitor blocking her path; beyond it, the hallway disappeared into darkness. Fiberra tapped the monitor, and it starting glowing with blue light, displaying a complicated block puzzle she had to complete. Fiberra pushed the hair out of her face and began.

Ratchet and Tariro reached the maze next. The moment they stepped through the door, it slammed closed behind them, and they heard a loud growling noise. Tariro turned around and banged on the door; it wouldn't budge. The large shape that turned around the corner was a ferocious beast: the eight-legged spider mutt of the eighty-eighth games. It was the size of a car, and it slowly approached them, pincers clicking and mouth foaming. Ratchet charged, and the mutt lashed out. Its sharp leg scraped his bicep, and Ratchet hissed as blood starting leaking from the wound. Tariro was frozen dead in his tracks, dumbfounded with terror. By the time he found the energy to move, the spider had pounced, and it was too late for Ratchet to save him. It dug its teeth into Tariro's chest and cracked several of its bones, injecting its poison deep into his body. Tariro twitched and moaned, and Ratchet ran, turning corners aimlessly in his mad sprint toward safety.

 _Tariro Sammogia, District 6 Male; 19th, Killed by spider mutt, Day 1_

The hours ticked by as the tributes fought their way through the maze. Beauty and Pandora leapt and bounded through the maze, and they quickly heard the footsteps of the three allied outliers: Joud, Yarn, and Antonio. The girls slowed to a walk and stayed a safe distance behind the three boys, slowly following them on their path through the maze. When the hallways got thinner, Beauty and Pandora had to walk single file; they were waiting to reach a more open area before going in for the kill, just so they could put on more of a show. Hyperion was stalking through the maze when he heard the creepy noise of echoing laughter. The clown mutts from the ninetieth games appeared from around every corner, and Hyperion seized up slightly. The first slash of his machetes sent one of them toppling, and the others hissed with fury. Hyperion fended the clown mutts off for a long time without killing them, unable to target a single one without the others taking his back. Cordette from District 3 had an intense fear of water. When she came to a large pool of water that she was meant to cross via a set of precarious stepping stones, Cordette turned straight around, avoiding it like the plague. She kept running into water-themed challenges and puzzles, like the gamemakers were trying to torture her, and she shook like a leaf in a heavy wind as she shuffled through the maze. Galleon and Thama bumped into each other near the outskirts of the maze. For a moment, they stood with their weapons pointed at each other's chests, then they lowered them, recognizing each other. The 4s were of course attacked in ten seconds, and they got into their battle positions as soon as they heard the scuttling of the huge crab mutts from the eighty-third games. The crabs' crusty flesh went crunch as Galleon and Thama attacked, cutting them down and squishing out their lifeblood with admirable speed.

Ratchet ran as quickly as his feet could carry him, shaken from the deaths of both Tariro and Tuva. He quickly came to his first puzzle, a sandbox from which he was meant to recover a list of items. A timer popped out of the ground, and Ratchet hurriedly started digging, not wanting to know what happened if time ran out. Kea, one of the two initial bloodbath deserters, was the very last tribute to reach the maze. As soon as she stepped through the doors, they all closed, sectioning off the dance floor for good. Kea from 5 was slowly winding her way through the maze, and she heard the absentminded murmurs of another tribute. Kea ducked into the shadows, and Annalace from 8 slowly came into sight. Kea stretched to full height, and Annalace jumped ten feet into the air. Instinct told her to run, but then she realized it was just the girl who had scored a three in training, not a deadly career like Beauty, Hyperion, Pandora, Galleon, or Thama. Kea and Annalace started moving through the maze together. Nyasha had reached the maze after an extremely long and physically exhausting sprint, and she was prompted to complete a parkour puzzle involving lots of long jumps. Nyasha turned to avoid the puzzle, but a wall popped out of the ground, trapping her near the parkour. She curled up and closed her eyes for just a few minutes to regain her energy before attempting the puzzle. Bear and Larke followed Emelyn through the maze, keeping a safe distance between her so they wouldn't be spotted. Emelyn eventually came to a large silver pedestal bearing a thousand scattered puzzle pieces. A timer popped out of the crowd giving Emelyn five hours to complete the puzzle. She instantly dropped and began sorting through the pieces, and Larke and Bear waited for her to finish it and clear the way for them. Fiberra labored away at the block puzzle, trying her best to keep from getting frustrated whenever she couldn't assemble the various shapes she was prompted to construct. She'd been making stellar progress up until then, but this puzzle was really holding her back; tensions grew higher and higher as she had four hours, three hours, two hours left to finish the task. Sia crept hesitantly through the maze, crying. She was only twelve years old, and she was from the least prestigious district in all of Panem; she felt hopeless, and she just cried out louder as the hippogriff mutt from the seventy-ninth games turned its corner, flapping its beautiful wings. Sia's instinct forced her to run, even though she didn't want to; she just wanted to die and have this ugly death game over with. In a matter of moments, she felt the claws of the mutts on her back, and she fell screaming, blood pouring in torrents from her torso. She bled out in under a minute, and the hippogriff turned away, sniffling with pride.

 _Sia Torandra, District 12 Female; 18th, Killed by hippogriff mutt, Day 1_

Emelyn assembled the pieces of her puzzle with extreme speed. As the scene came together, she saw the scene from finale of the thirtieth games, where Barley Chisolm shoved a bloodied, young Sparrow into the depths of the yarn-maze that constituted that year's arena. The last metal piece clicked satisfyingly into place, and the walls lowered, revealing a continuation of the hallway. Emelyn smiled with satisfaction and raced through the new gap. She was too excited to see the shadows Bear and Larke dancing over the stone.

Cordette from 3 was living her worst nightmare; every corner she turned, there seemed to be some kind of water-related trap or puzzle, and Cordette turned back, retracing her footsteps and ultimately running in circles. Finally, the gamemakers caused sturdy stone walls to rise out of the ground, trapping Cordette in a very small space with a pool of freezing-cold water she needed to cross. The water was only chest-depth, but it terrified her, and Cordette just curled up beside the pool, crying softly to herself as the countdown ticked closer and closer to zero.

Just as Emelyn stepped through the doorway, she let out a loud scream. Larke had a firm grip and a strong hand, and she managed to lodge her machete into Emelyn's back with astounding force. Emelyn fell to her knees, screaming, and Bear and Larke brushed right past her, not even bothering to say sorry as they passed her. Larke glanced backward once, grimacing at the sight of the flopping girl. Then she blinked heavily once, and she and Bear continued on the path that Emelyn had cleared for them.

 _Emelyn Lane, District 9 Female; 17th, Killed by Bear and Larke, Day 1_

Joud, Yarn, and Antonio continued their odyssey through the grand maze, with no idea that Beauty and Pandora were following close behind. The gamemakers sent a swarm of bat mutts from the eighty-eighth games in their direction to steer them toward the more open areas of the maze, where the career girls would finally be able to attack them and give the Captiol the bloodshed they were hoping for. Kea and Annalace covered a huge distance on the first day, managed to scope out a solid fifth of the maze before night came. Around "nightfall", their first challenge appeared. A glass monitor vaguely prompted them to strike the falling objects in the right direction. Red and blue foam cubes starting falling from the ceiling, and Kea and Annalace started hitting them left and right, sending them tumbling into the proper-colored chutes. It seemed like a silly game, but the stakes quickly rose as the cubes dropped faster and faster and turned different shades of red and blue. By the time it all stopped, they were too mentally and physically exhausted to go on any farther, so they just curled up and went to sleep.

Galleon and Thama got along well, and they made decent progress through the maze. They were actively hunting rather than blindly running, which kept them from moving as ridiculously fast as Kea and Annalace. They were still extremely popular however; the cameras mostly focused on them, the gang of five moving through the north end of the maze, and the Bear-Larke duo, who were sprinting down the new seat of hallways that the late Emelyn had opened up for them.

Joud, Yarn, and Antonio spent most of the first night searching for a place to sleep. Beauty and Pandora followed close behind; their time was ticking closer and closer, and they knew they would have three more kills under their belts in a matter of moments. Skin crawling with anticipation, the careers watched and waited while the three boys crowded together in a wide open room made of dark, blackish-blue stone. They charged the moment that all three of them were snoring.

Antonio woke up screaming as two of Beauty's throwing knives landed in his neck. He tried to scream, but no sound came out. He clawed at his throat, trying hurriedly to dislodge the weapon while he trembled with agony and panic. His lungs had already begun to flood with blood, and he was conclusively doomed; while Antonio bled out, Joud and Yarn scrambled, the vision of the dying miner boy engraved into their memories.

 _Antonio Scotts, District 12 Male; 16th, Killed by Beauty, Day 1_

Pandora tackled the strongest of the two boys, Joud from 7. Yarn ran down an obscure side path in an attempt to escape, and Beauty followed him, desperate not to lose him after stalking him and his allies for so long. Joud tried and succeeded in fighting back, bravely holding Pandora off for five entire minutes. His strategy was a combination of backing away and glancing back to deal small blows with his fists. It was only a matter of time before he fell prey to Pandora's deadly sickles, however. Joud's screams carried for hundreds of meters, bouncing up and down in pitch as Pandora scraped open his chest with two heavy chops. Before long, he had to clutch his chest to keep his organs from tumbling straight out of his body. He was gone in moments.

 _Joud Zevin, District 7 Male; 15th, Killed by Pandora, Day 1_

Yarn was a fast runner, an extremely fast runner with adrenaline powering him onward like electricity. Once Joud was dead, Pandora turned away and ran the opposite direction that Beauty had gone, hoping that the two girls could close in on Yarn and leave him with nowhere to run. That was exactly what happened. Beauty chased him about a hundred feet down the thin side corridor before Pandora stepped out of nowhere, blocking his path. Yarn started scratching at the walls and trying to pull himself up, trying literally everything he could to escape. He was in ribbons by the time they were finished.

 _Yarn Stossel, District 8 Male; 14th, Killed by Beauty and Pandora, Day 1_

The first few hours of Day 2 were pretty quiet and timid. Beauty and Pandora were drunk off their killing of the three outlying boys, and they hunted wildly all throughout the second day. They were the most popular tributes left in these games after Thama, and their sponsors kept them flush with water and whatever other supplies they needed. In the first half of the day, they encountered the throwback camel mutts from the eighty-seventh games, the ghoul mutts from the eighty-fifth games, and the living hedge sculpture mutts from the ninety-fourth games. Them, and the other careers, were weathering the arena's threats and challenges quite well. Hyperion was all on his own. After his escape from the clown mutts, he'd come to a room with a checkered floor. He was prompted to cross it without triggering the flames, which spurted in jets from the ceiling whenever a bad tile was stepped on. Hyperion had to carefully toss small stones onto each of the plates to test them, and he ruled out about half of the tiles for sure before noon. Galleon and Thama were hunting just as wildly as Beauty and Pandora. However, Galleon was starting to get exhausted—Thama wanted to hunt, hunt, hunt, and Galleon wanted to rest, rest, rest. As they burst through puzzles and mini-mazes and mutts, Galleon was starting to consider breaking away from his much stronger district partner.

The outliers weren't up to very much either. Cordette stayed completely still next to the pool of water she was meant to cross. The timer had less than an hour left. She took a small step into the water around the thirty minute mark and was instantly swarmed by five eel-like creatures that lived in the depths of the water—Cordette's fears weren't without justification after all. Ratchet had finished the sandbox puzzle just in time, and he was now resting in a large, open chamber nearby. He was just too shaken from the deaths of his allies to do any moving, and the gamemakers didn't force him, as the cameras needed a little down time without the strongest outlier in these games on the prowl. Nyasha was still resting beside the parkour challenge. What she had meant to be a short power nap had stretched on for hours, and the gamemakers were considering terminating her with some throwback mutt just to reduce the tribute count. Kea and Annalace arrived at the outer reaches of the maze even faster than Fiberra, the girl with the map. The outer wall of the maze was made of a smooth, silvery material, and there was no way to climb or avert it; it trapped them inside the arena. With the threat of mutts off the table for a few hours, they settled down and fed themselves on sponsor foods. Bear and Larke continued exploring the newly-opened section of the maze. Their only trouble was with a pair of lunar rover mutts from the eighty-fourth Hunger Games. Despite the rising stakes, Bear and Larke got along extremely well, and they had a simultaneously snappy and comedic dynamic that the Capitol gobbled up. Once again, Fiberra was moving the fastest. With the huge advantage of her map, she could mark the locations of the deadly mutts and traps. Her sponsor group worked together to send her a throwing knife, which she tucked into her pocket. Fiberra made the decision to start hunting now that the tribute count was dwindling so low, and the gamemakers were more than happy to provide her with a victim to kick off the second day.

A glowing pathway on the ground led Fiberra to the sound of splashing water. She was careful to mark the path on her map before turning the corner to investigate. She was expecting some lethal mutt or dangerous career, but all she saw was the small girl from District 3 resting at the water's side, crying softly. Fiberra slowly approached, a drooping weight in her step. Cordette turned her head slowly upward and opened her mouth wide to scream, but there were already a throwing knife in her neck. Fiberra grimaced as she retrieved her weapon before staggering away. Now only half of the tributes were left.

 _Cordette Novoa, District 3 Female; 13th, Killed by Fiberra, Day 2_

In no time at all, Day 2 was in full swing. Bear and Larke got up bright and early to resume their hunting. The shifting maze had opened up a path to a new section they'd yet to explore. Bear and Larke were willing to do so. They were tempted to split up to cover ground faster, but Larke was adamantly against it. Her fear of separation stemmed from fear of the arena itself, as she felt more comfortable with her ally at her side. They moved in an awkward manner for the next few hours, winding and turning without much of a pattern. They quickly left the section of the maze Edison had actually intended for them to explore, and they had to be steered back with a few mutts.

Nyasha finally mustered the courage to finish the parkour challenge. One of the gamemakers' deluxe timers had appeared out of nowhere, counting down to her doom. She trudged to the back of the room, giving her as much running space as possible, and made the first jump. Nyasha completed the first half of the course with relative success. She finished with less than five minutes on the timer, and the back wall of the chamber opened wide, revealing a new deadly section for the terrified girl to explore.

Beauty and Pandora were still hunting, their resolve strong and their legs refusing to give way to the long hours of running that this year's arena demanded. Pandora hadn't talked to her friend Hyperion since the training center, and she felt oddly lonely without him, but she didn't let that distract her from everything at hand. After fighting off a hedge mutt and finishing a jigsaw puzzle depicting the moment of Amelia Bankston's victory, Beauty and Pandora heard the noise of claws striking the cold stone floor.

"Don't fear, children. I'm quite fond of you." The creature that appeared from around the corner was the sphinx mutt from the ninety-fifth games. "Answer my riddle, and I'll let you free. Don't, and I'll have to… how shall I say this?"

Both girls knew exactly what would happen if they failed to answer the riddle. The sphinx turned toward Beauty. "I give you a group of three. One is sitting down, and will never get up. The second takes as much as is given to him, yet is always hungry. The third goes away and never returns."

Beauty had heard the riddle before. "Stove, fire, and smoke."

The sphinx smiled and turned toward Pandora. "What always runs, but never walks? Often murmurs, never talks? Has a bed, but never sleeps? Has a mouth, but never eats?"

Pandora couldn't answer, and both of the girls screamed as the sphinx mutt tackled her, pummeling her into the stone ground with its claws and tearing open her torso like a dog tearing open a chew toy. Pandora was dead in a matter of moments, and Beauty just watched, wide-eyed, as the mutt flapped its wings and rose up out of the maze. She tore her eyes away from Pandora and sprinted half a mile away from her, something feeling like it was biting at her gut.

 _Pandora Shale, District 2 Female; 12th, Killed by sphinx mutt, Day 2_

The tributes quickly got to work on the new puzzles in the maze. Beauty stopped dead in her tracks when a puzzle loomed out of the darkness: a 3D puzzle. The pieces were scattered on the floor, and the puzzle's metal frame was suspended in the air. The timer was already ticking, and Beauty got to work, sweating as she struggled to assemble the crumbling pieces. Galleon and Thama were still hunting ravenously, with Thama several steps ahead and Galleon taking the rear. Galleon had yet to make a kill, and he knew he would be the first tribute Thama would pick off at the final eight. However, he was nervous about breaking away from his strong district partner. Hyperion continued throwing small stones onto the tiles, noting as the flames did or did not fire down from the ceiling, scorching the walls of the room. He was pretty sure he'd cleared a defined path to the opposite end of the room, but he was still apprehensive about moving; everything here relied on his memory, which wasn't extremely good. Bear and Larke were also hunting. Their relocating and hunting schedule suited both of them, and neither of them complained when they grew tired. Halfway through the day, they came to a thick metal gate with a single lock. A ring of a hundred different keys sat on the floor, and they started fitting in the keys, eager to get past the obstacle and find a quiet place to sleep.

Galleon and Thama were hunting roughly one hour after noon when they heard the footsteps of a small girl. Nyasha had been turning back and forth through the maze since she completed the parkour challenge, her fingers drumming incessantly against her thigh. Every corner she turned, she expected to see a career or a deadly mutt, but most of the time it was just another puzzle or challenge. Thama ducked into the shadows, tugging a stunned Galleon down with her, and they watched with bated breath as Nyasha strolled closer. Nyasha was dead before she even knew what had hit her. Thama leapt out of nowhere, her sickle glittering in the sporadically-placed lighting of the maze. The sickle landed in her back, slicing through like butter.

 _Nyasha Gullota, District 6 Female; 11th, Killed by Thama, Day 2_

The nearest tribute, Ratchet, perked up at the commotion. His first instinct was to run, but he found himself walking toward the sounds of the footsteps. It was just some dying outlier he would have to finish off, he told himself. Big mistake.

As Nyasha died, Thama heard Ratchet's shuffling behind her. She turned on her heel and lashed out with striking force. Ratchet hadn't been expecting a burst of energy so sudden, and the wind was knocked out of him when the blade of the sickle connected with his chest, just below his heart. He fell with a crunch, and Galleon bit his lip as he watched Thama torture and murder the boy over the course of the next half hour. His cannon finally fired, and Thama gestured for Galleon to follow her away from the boy and the enormous bloodstain that painted the floor around him.

 _Ratchet Fearn, District 5 Male; 10th, Killed by Thama, Day 2_

Bear and Larke's hunting endeavors finally found them another tribute around sunset on Day 2. They'd finally made their way past the gate puzzle, unlocking a somewhat large stretch of the maze that was empty of mutts and challenges. Several hours passed, and the 10s started growing suspicious of the sheer inactivity of it all; they were expecting mutts or jets of fire to assault them the instant they passed the gate. The reason the gamemakers weren't attacking them was because there were two other tributes nearby, and the duos would meet if they kept in the small space for long enough.

Kea and Annalace were still tracing the edge of the arena, and they entered the newly-unlocked sector through a narrow gap that had opened up when the 10s had unlocked the gate. Kea and Annalace's sponsors had been pooling together their money for several hours to send them something. A silver parachute finally drifted down around noon, containing a spool of thin, almost invisible thread. Kea tied one end of the thread to her finger, and Annalace tied the other end to hers. Then they went their opposite directions and started exploring. They didn't think there were any other tributes in the immediate vicinity, so they were not worried about the string being cut or noticed. They couldn't have been more wrong.

Less than fifteen minutes later, Kea noticed that she could no longer pull the thread taut; it merely dragged along the ground, following the finger where it was anchored. The only explanation was that it had been cut somehow. Seconds later, Annalace's high-pitched, girlish screams shattered the silence of the cold, stone maze. Bear and Larke attacked had Annalace from opposite directions. At first she only saw Larke, and she turned around, only to be met with the bite of Bear's fist in her gut. Annalace stumbled backward, the wind knocked out of her, and it took all of her control to keep from tumbling to the ground. She was effectively trapped between the 10s, however. While Larke poked lots of small holes in Annalace's chest, feeling for her heart, Bear fell several steps back, waiting to join in if things got messy. They did not, and Larke managed to off the girl from District 8 easily. After her killers left, the walls shifted to seal off the space containing Annalace's corpse, so the gamemakers could collect it.

 _Annalace Witherell, District 8 Female; 9th, Killed by Larke, Day 2_

That left the final eight: Beauty Esteban from District 1, Hyperion Raffod from District 2, Galleon Bolzan and Thama Seawell from District 4, Kea Borah from District 5, Bear Theodos and Larke Jean from District 10, and Fiberra Witten from District 11.

Beauty was having extreme difficulty with the complex 3D puzzle she was meant to complete before the day was over. Three hours had already passed since the challenge had begun, and she'd fit less than two dozen pieces into the frame. She was starting to seriously panic now, and she breathed heavily in and out, heart thumping a million miles an hour while she tirelessly sifted through the pile of disjointed steel pieces. Looks and a flirty, ditzy attitude weren't everything in the games after all.

Fiberra Witten was still on the prowl. The next puzzle that popped up, she marked on her map, and then investigated. A low-lying table held hundreds of stones of three different colors; Fiberra was prompted to sort them by color and size within the time limit. She quickly figured out that there were five different sizes of stones, and as she started making piles, the timer ticked down to her doom with a menacing, regular click.

Hyperion Raffod was still stuck in the explosives room. He'd been testing the waters for roughly four hours now; sooner than later, he would be forced to take a risk and make his way across the dangerous floor where one wrong step could kill him. He stepped onto the first tile, which shifted slightly under his weight, but ultimately held firm. It was jarring to see the massive boy stepping so carefully and delicately over the floor. Hyperion made his way about halfway across before taking a break; he wiped the sweat off his forehead and ate his lunch, trying not to pay attention to how much distance he had left to go.

Beauty was not doing well. She burst into tears when the timer said she had only a single hour left, then thirty minutes, then twenty minutes, then ten minutes. Several hundred pieces still laid on the floor, while less than eighty were fixed properly into the frame. When she only had two minutes left, Beauty collapsed on the floor, rocking back and forth and holding her pretty self as tears streamed down her face. The explosives lit off the instant that the countdown ran out. By the time the smoke cleared, the entire area of the maze had been demolished. The walls shifted to section off the ruins, where there was now no room, no puzzle, and no Beauty Esteban.

 _Beauty Esteban, District 1 Female; 8th, Killed by explosives, Day 2_

Galleon and Thama continued fighting their way through the maze, cutting down mutts and breaking through puzzles with extreme speed. The sheer enormous amount of work to do helped distract Galleon from all the unwanted thoughts rushing through his head. All the while, Thama burned with fervor. She seemed perpetually eager to make progress through the maze, even though there didn't seem to be any kind of end goal or location to reach.

The fire of Day 2 started to cool down after that, when what could be considered late evening arrived. Hyperion made his way precariously across the room. The timer was ticking down and down. He was too terrified to make more than a few meters' progress every hour, and the knowledge that one wrong step or kicked pebble could spell his doom kept him from taking any risks. Galleon and Thama hunted, fending off the old mutts that came their way. They found their path blocked by a complicated jungle gym above a pool of toxic purple liquid. The fumes from the liquid were enough to make them feel like vomiting. They were intimidated by the difficult puzzle but managed to cross it with little difficulty. They settled at the other end and curled up to sleep. Kea was scared and flustered, and she avoided every puzzle she found. Without her ally and protector, Annalace, she felt extremely exposed, and the spooky maze was making her mind wander to very scary places. Bear and Larke had enough sponsor backing to get away with a few hours of inactivity at the end of the second day. They were both tired after almost two days of continuous exercise. There weren't romantic feelings between them, no matter how much the Capitol tried to make them fall in love. They were each sent a pair of clothes, and their sponsors hoped they would change in front of each other, but they just stuffed them into their bags for later. Fiberra's next puzzle was extremely daunting: hundreds of colored ropes hung from the ceiling, each of which would grab onto a tile on the floor when it was pulled. Each floor tile was mounted on an axle, and it would flip over when stepped on unless it was stabilized by the corresponding rope. Fiberra tugged on one rope and felt with her foot for the one tile that wasn't moving. Over the course of nearly two hours, she made her way across the maze, continuing onward even as night fell and a small metal device zipped down to show her the faces of the dead.

A cannon shot fired in the early morning of Day 3. Hyperion was less than two meters away from the far end of the tiled room when he met his doom. He was extremely tired and groggy from the sleepless night, and his senses were far from mint condition. All he had to do was accidentally kick a pebble in the wrong direction. It landed on a bad tile, and Hyperion let out a roar of agony as the jets of fire shot down from the ceiling. In seconds, he was reduced to a black crisp. The nearest tribute, Kea, saw the light from the flames and turned the opposite direction, utterly frightened.

 _Hyperion Raffod, District 2 Male; 7th, Killed by fire trap, Day 3_

The second Hyperion's cannon shot faded away fully, Edison's voice spoke into the arena, waking up the six remaining tributes. "Congratulations to all of you for making it this far. You are weathering the riddles and secrets of the maze extremely well. It is time for all of you to return to the dance floor on which these games began. Any tribute who succeeds in reaching the cornucopia will find the things waiting for them to be well worth the trouble. As such sacrifice is a patriotic duty, attendance is mandatory. May the odds be ever in your favor."

Galleon and Thama were the nearest tributes to the cornucopia. The ground at their feet immediately began glowing with a fiery yellow kind of light, and they followed the path, sprinting out of the maze. Kea, Fiberra, and the Bear-Larke duo followed their own paths. Bear and Larke travelled quickly, Fiberra most quickly of all with her map. Kea stumbled slightly along the way, and she fell to her knees, weeping ingloriously. She'd sprained her ankle. Walking was torture, and the gamemakers set off a loud banging sound behind her to make her hobble along faster.

Fiberra was the first tribute to reach the dance floor. She stepped out of the maze, and she was immediately overwhelmed by the thin purple mist and the warmth of the dazzling dance floor. The never-ending mob surged out to devour her, and Fiberra yelped, instinct momentarily leaving her due to panic. Two of the mutts fell under her throwing knife, and Fiberra continued her journey to the horn, elbowing through the crowd. The mutts either fell soundlessly under her blade or cleared the way for her.

Galleon and Thama staggered into the crowd, grinning. They were able to see the cornucopia several thousand feet away, suspended on its spinning platform at the heart of the arena. The dancers immediately closed in on them, and Galleon groaned as he was thrown straight off of the ground. He surfed the crowd for several seconds, separated from Thama just like that. He bounced up and down in an odd cadence to the roaring music. Thama just scowled and continued cutting through the crowd, ignoring Galleon's screams as he was thrown up and down and crushed flat. With his windpipe squashed, he was left helpless as they trampled him, taking no notice as they continue dancing away their mechanical lives.

 _Galleon Bolzan, District 4 Male; 6th, Killed by dancer mutts, Day 3_

Now only Kea, Bear, and Larke were left to exit the maze. Bear and Larke paid little attention to the glowing path laid out for them; they assumed it was some trick of the gamemakers that lead toward an extremely painful death. Not wanting that, they took an awkward sound route, which took them extremely close to Kea. The small girl was racing along as fast as her small feet could carry her; she was moving quickly and therefore clumsily, and she was making a lot of noise.

Enough noise for the nearest mutt to hear her.

Kea turned a corner, anxiously drumming her fingers against her thigh. A hissing dog mutt slunk out of the shadows, its yellowing fangs bared. This was one of the dog mutts from the seventy-fourth games, fashioned from the dead body of Carvis Olive, the wealthy male from District 7. Kea's hands shook so much that she dropped her only weapon, a small can opener she'd managed to snatch from the horn back on Day 1. Her mind went blank of everything, even her instincts, and the rabid mutt leapt onto her and tore her chest open with its vicious fangs. The dog mutt disappeared through a new slot in the wall.

Bear and Larke hadn't heard the barking of the ferocious canine, but they had heard Kea's screams. They stumbled into the room and saw her writhing in agony, slowly dying from the less-than-lethal wound the mutt had inflicted. Larke handed her machete to Bear, and the 10 boy hesitantly thrust the sharp point of the blade into her neck. Larke took her knife back and flicked the blood off the blade, gagging as she tucked it back into her pocket.

 _Kea Borah, District 5 Female; 5th, Killed by dog mutt and Bear, Day 3_

Thama and Fiberra were both making fast progress. Thama neared the cornucopia with extreme speed. She was leaving an obvious trail of dead bodies behind her, but she wasn't concerned; she wasn't scared of the three other tributes, having the highest training score and actually being the strongest out of the original twenty-four. Fiberra had a pounding headache; the flashing dance floor kept throwing her off balance, confusing her eyes and brain. She was overall intimidated by the never-ending crowd, but she kept fighting her way through the mob. One of the mutts elbowed her in the side, and Fiberra threw up, hurling up the entire contents of her stomach in a matter of seconds. Coughing, she stumbled farther toward the cornucopia, the sight of the spinning turntable the only thing keeping her motivated.

Bear and Larke rushed straight into the first line of oblivious dancers, and they were both winded by a passing pack of young men in fancy clothes. Bear let out a scream as two identically-dressed ladies grabbed him by either arm, trying to pull him into their dance. Larke cut into one woman's shoulder, and she disappeared, whimpering. The other woman put up more of a fight, and Bear had to literally break her jaw with his fist before she would leave him alone. The stampede of dancers was so thick they could hardly move, but their resolve was strong, and they fought their valiant way toward the horn with nothing more than a few minor bruises and scrapes.

Thama Seawell dragged herself onto the cornucopia platform, and she grinned wildly as she gazed over the sea of dancers, stretching to full height with a satisfying breath of fresh air. She thought she was the first tribute to reach the cornucopia. She was wrong. Thama turned around just as Fiberra's throwing knife entered her shoulder. She was shocked straight off of her feet, and Thama's knees buckled. She grasped for her sickles, and Fiberra kicked her hard in the chest, leaving her gasping and shaking. Her weapons, fixed loosely in her belt, clattered on the glowing material of the platform as Fiberra dealt her death blow, ending the life of the last career tribute in the ninety-eighth Hunger Games.

 _Thama Seawell, District 4 Female; 4th, Killed by Fiberra, Day 3_

Bear and Larke grasped each other's hands tightly to keep from being separated as the mob tugged at them from all directions. They were roughly halfway between the maze and the cornucopia. Bored of seeing them pitifully fight their way through the mob, Edison "cleared" a small path for them. An explosion went off roughly an eighth of a mile away. Twenty of the mutts were killed instantly, and the flames spread quickly, sizzling over the bodies of the dancers. They fell like stones, landing in piles like dead fish. Edison wasn't planning to burn down the whole crowd, only to clear a path for the two tributes. Fiberra watched from the cornucopia with a vacant expression, secretly hoping as the smoke trailed away into the always-dark sky that at least one of her final competitors would fall under the flames.

Larke rushed away from the fire, tightly weaving through the dancers, and her sweaty hand slipped away from Bear's. She waved out her hand, running it through the thin air spaces between the tightly-packed bodies, but she felt nothing. Larke continued fighting a path away from the fire, and when the flames died down, she raced down the path of scorched bodies that they had cleared. It took her too long to realize that nobody was following.

 _Bear Theodos, District 10 Male; 3rd, Killed by fire, Day 3_

Fiberra stood her ground just in front of the horn's gaping mouth, knees knocking together as Larke leapt up to join her. Larke actually outscored her by one point, but Fiberra had taken down some of the toughest opponents in these games, and it didn't seem impossible that she could bring District 11 its second consecutive victory. Larke had her entire district cheering for her. She was far from an underdog; in fact, she was a rich girl and fashionista back in District 10. But she had persisted through the toughest of obstacles alongside her late ally Bear, and whether she could bring 10 its first female victor since Margaret was for time to tell.

When they first clashed, there was no clear cut winner. While the girls weren't strictly opposed to killing, they weren't careers, so their duel was somewhat drawn-out. Fiberra's throwing knife and Larke's machete both inflicted severe damage in the first few moments. Fiberra managed to land her throwing knife in Larke's shoulder, where it drew a short torrent of blood. However, the bleeding stemmed quickly, letting Larke dive and carve out a portion of Fiberra's chest with her machete. As the minutes trickled past, the girls grew increasingly injured, but neither grew close to death.

It was almost an hour before the battle was resolved. The girls started to get dizzy and light-headed from the flashing lights and from sheer physical exhaustion, Fiberra more so than Larke. When Larke lunged for the thirtieth time, Fiberra's reaction time wasn't fast enough to let her sidestep in time to swerve around the blade. Larke's machete landed in the base of her neck, and Fiberra let out a short cry. The noise quickly turned to a kind of ugly gurgle, and Larke knew it was too late to turn back. She tugged the blade of the machete out of her neck with one heavy yank and then brought it down into her chest. Fiberra did very little, if anything, to fight back. Her cannon shot was almost barely audible over the cheering of the crowd.

 _Fiberra Witten, District 11 Female; 2nd, Killed by Larke, Day 3_

"Larke Jean of District 10, you are the victor of the ninety-eighth annual Hunger Games!" Titanus shouted, alone after Dexter's death.

Larke just fell to her knees and buried her face in her hands, trying to staunch the flow of tears now that she could finally let them come.

 _Larke Jean, District 10 Female; Victor of the Ninety-Eighth Hunger Games, Day 3_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Larke was celebrated in District 10. Nobody knew about Robina until several years later, so it was assumed that she was District 10's fourth victor and second female victor. Larke was one of the more quiet and reserved victors, and she rarely left her house except for public events. The hobbies she took up were dancing and gardening. She taught dance classes around the district and learned to play five different instruments. She and the now-elderly Wiress, who had mastered the violin, got along well in this regard. Her garden was reminiscent of Seeder Kaiser's. She grew an extremely wide variety of flowers and fruits that fed herself, her family, and the small group of men and women who also inhabited the Victor's Village. Larke had a quaint and uneventful life, but she enjoyed it. For several decades, Larke's sexuality was an extremely hot topic of debate. The only openly gay victors at the time were Tiger and the Remus-Victor pair, and Larke never disclosed her homosexuality, fearing persecution from the people of the deep south, including her own District 10. However, she developed an extremely close friendship with a childhood friend, with whom she may have shared a bed. While there is still some debate today, historians almost universally agree that she was lesbian.

The payouts on her victory were decent, as about 0.9% bet on her.

Her victory tour was quiet and conservative, and she wore black clothes in the districts of the tributes she'd killed.

Larke would live to age eighty-one, dying from cancer around the time of the one-hundred sixty-second Hunger Games. She would adopt two children.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Larke moves into the Victor's Village of District 10, across the street from Steer's home.

Arnold Scruggs has his second child, a boy named Etienne.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)  
89HG: Admired Thompson (#15, District 1)  
90HG: Chipson Harris (#11, District 3)  
91HG: Mars Talbot (#21, District 2)  
92HG: Arnold Scruggs (#3, District 12), Wystella Knapp (#22, District 2), and Robina Caite (#3, District 10)  
93HG: Taj King (#16, District 1)  
94HG: Steer Drudgers (#4, District 10)  
95HG: Diode Cooper (#8, District 5)  
96HG: Pluto Talbot (#23, District 2)  
97HG: Vine Lilard (#4, District 11)  
98HG: Larke Jean (#5, District 10)

* * *

 **A/N: Why is it that the shortest games time-wise almost always wind up with the longest chapters? Like seriously, these games only lasted three days yet this chapter is over 11k words long. A bit of a hint about the upcoming fourth Quell—it IS going to be the longest chapter ever. Even longer than the 41** **st** **, the 50** **th** **, and the 75** **th** **. I have some seriously ridiculous, complex, and deranged shit planned for then. You'll see in due time. Isn't it fun to keep readers on the edge?**

 **How was Larke? This arena was a personal favorite of mine, and yes, I just finished the Maze Runner series. Page 250 hit me hard. If you're a fan, you know what I'm talking about ;)**

 **Okay, I need to go full-on fanboy mode for a moment. I just went on vacation to Chicago WHILE reading the Divergent series, and I pretty much compulsively pointed out every single landmark I recognized from the series. Particularly the big Ferris wheel that they climb during capture the flag. So I'm wondering, would any of you read a Divergent/Hunger Games crossover? Like, with four kids from each faction in the games? Just a thought.**

 **I should go now. My sister is over with her adorable puppy dog named Olive. We're about to take her for a walk. Stay tuned for the 99** **th** **:D**


	100. The 99th Hunger Games

**The 99th Hunger Games:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

With Edison Jayasinghe acting as head gamemaker for the first time not competing for the job with Orestilla, he did not relent at all. He was not nearly as flamboyant and excitable as Orestilla, but he was extremely creative and passionate and idealistic. Orestilla retreated to the "bleachers" of the games, watching with hatred as her sworn enemy lead the games team for the first full year. So far, both of Edison's arenas had been highly artificial, the polar opposite of the nature-loving Orestilla. Edison was tempted to craft another manmade arena like the airport or the dance floor-maze combo, but he was scared of falling into too regular a rhythm with his arenas; he couldn't stick to the same style for very long, and he knew that. It was safe to assume that the Capitol could expect a part-human, part-natural arena this time around. With the fourth Quarter Quell just around the corner, the Capitol was wrapped up in their standard-issue bout of games fever. Parties were endless, bottles of wine were downed as far late as midnight, and district rebels were shot like Organdy Karat shot silly photos of herself and her friends. President Stinn Hawke was pleased by the silence of the districts this year; apart from a few minor riots in District 5 and District 8, the ninety-ninth year post Dark Days was pretty tame and relaxed. Everyone had their own speculations about the no doubt devious twist of the upcoming fourth Quarter Quell, but nobody could be sure until the card was read the following May. Parents held their children close, district citizens worked like slaves, and the three career districts trained their teenage children with more fervor than ever before: pretty standard fare for Panem.

The career pack was another group of stellar and talented kids. District 1 provided their stereotypical dazzling pair, and they both came from rich backgrounds. The boy was thin and fast and liked bows, while the girl was more stocky and preferred close-range combat. District 2 came out with another strong duo, and they were both dark-haired and icy cold. The boy, whose first name was a doozy, came from a peacekeeper family, while the girl had built up impressive strength throughout long hours in the stone quarries of District 2. District 4 came out with the strongest pair, however. The male was the real show stopper of the year: the only child of Annie Cresta and Finnick Odair, he had the speed of his father, the charisma of his mother, and looks of both of his parents. His trident skills ensured he would go far. The girl was largely overshadowed by her flashier district partner, but she was still pretty impressive, scoring a ten with her charm and her spear skills. The pack earned two elevens, two tens, a nine, and an eight.

The outlier crop was extremely bland and forgettable. None of them scored above a seven, and the tributes that scored sevens, Tomer from 7 and Pollen from 11, ganged up prior to the games with hopes of beating down the toughest opponents and making it home alive. The boy from 8, Gingham, was another standout. He was extremely religious, bringing a cross necklace as his tribute token, and he spent his week in the Capitol pretty much praying nonstop. Time would tell whether he would put aside his beliefs and kill the other tributes to make it out of the games with his life. There were no volunteers besides the careers. Here are the tributes:

District 1: Pizzazz Thalanson, 18, (9) 8-1 and Glitter Nave, 18, (8) 10-1

District 2: Vercingetorix Spunt, 18, (11) 5-1 and Latita Xi, 18, (10) 6-1

District 3: Mario Urquhart, 16, (4) 30-1 and Ayesha Barton, 13, (3) 36-1

District 4: Poseidon Odair, 16, (11) 3-1 and Helini Shelley, 17, (10) 7-1

District 5: Sooty Shacklebolt, 18, (5) 23-1 and Ujomo Perois, 17, (4) 29-1

District 6: Bichael Warran, 18, (4) 28-1 and Nissan Heim, 16, (3) 32-1

District 7: Tomer Mishina, 18, (7) 15-1 and Wilda Guelph, 15, (5) 26-1

District 8: Gingham Drains, 13, (5) 28-1 and Patternia Lance, 14, (6) 20-1

District 9: Dawson Solow, 14, (3) 35-1 and Crow Kempton, 12, (3) 39-1

District 10: Barb Rochon, 16, (4) 30-1 and Tule Rasmus, 18, (4) 27-1

District 11: Marvin Fleiszig, 12, (3) 33-1 and Pollen Debold, 14, (7) 16-1

District 12: Rhys Tolling, 12, (2) 45-1 and Emlee Regis, 13, (2) 42-1

HGBO Bets: 28% on Poseidon, 22% on Vercingetorix, 15% on Helini, 11% on Latita, 9% on Pizzazz, 6% on Glitter, 1% or less on Mario, Ayesha, Sooty, Ujomo, Bichael, Nissan, Tomer, Wilda, Gingham, Patternia, Dawson, Crow, Barb, Tule, Sow, Pollen, Rhys, and Emlee.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

The newest batch of twenty-four tributes felt the ground lightly swaying back and forth underneath them. They were standing on the crumbling wooden deck of a decrepit ship, and a creepy abandoned shipyard sprawled out for miles in all directions. The water was cloudy with oil and other pollutants, but some of the larger shipwrecks could still be seen under the water like the huge skeletons of fallen beasts. Each tribute had a small flotation device affixed to their chest that would keep only their head above the water, but it would still help enormously to know how to swim: Poseidon and Helini from District 4 would definitely be walking in with the advantage. The cornucopia held spears, bows, and a single trident, placed there specifically for Poseidon. Most of the ships in the arena were half-sunk and mostly flooded with muddy sea water, but they did hold stale food and small stores of clean water. Lots of little docks peppered the arena, but they all came from nowhere, almost like the land they'd once been anchored to had floated off some time long ago. Dangerous piranha mutts lurked in the water, willing to bite into any unsuspecting tributes. Each fish was only the size of a human hand, but they attacked in swarms of hundreds, making escape nearly impossible for anybody who couldn't swim fast. The other mutts of the arena including swarms of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, blue crabs, eels, jellyfish, and more.

BOOM! The seasick girl from District 6 had been struggling to keep from throwing up during the countdown: she'd stuffed an extremely unhealthy amount of food into her stomach that morning in preparation for the games. With eight seconds left on the timer, she vomited, and the explosions went off the second that her bile hit the mines. Shrapnel sizzled and burnt when it hit the miniature force field bubbles surrounding the other pedestals. Nissan's ally, Tule from 10, wasn't going into these games with a friend like she'd thought.

 _Nissan Heim, District 6 Female; 24th, Killed by land mines, Pre-Bloodbath_

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Poseidon Odair sprinted at the head of the onrush, bolstered onward by the sight of the trident that was waiting for him just inside of the cornucopia. With a single heavy thrusting motion, he pushed the prongs of the weapon into the nearest boy's neck. He fell onto his elbows, coughing up blood, and he died swiftly.

 _Marvin Fleiszig, District 11 Male; 23rd, Killed by Poseidon, Bloodbath_

Latita, another fast runner, eyed the ship's deck with a spear in each hand. Wilda from District 7 sprinted into sight, trying to worm her way past the girl from 2 and reach a pack of beef strips that sat behind her. Wilda fell as Latita thrust her right spear into her chest, and the outlier contorted violently as Latita peppered a dozen large holes in her abdomen.

 _Wilda Guelph, District 7 Female; 22nd, Killed by Latita, Bloodbath_

In distress, Wilda's ally, Ayesha from 3, ran for her life. She turned around just as Vercingetorix's spear entered her neck. Ayesha collapsed, gagging as blood poured down her throat. By the time she hit the deck with a loud noise, she was dead.

 _Ayesha Barton, District 3 Female; 21st, Killed by Vercingetorix, Bloodbath_

Having wrenched his trident out of Marvin's neck, Poseidon fluidly attacked his next victim. A few meters to his left, Dawson from 9 was lying on the ground, screaming while he bled out from an arrow wound inflicted by Pizzazz. Poseidon rammed his trident into his chest, and Dawson bled out quickly.

 _Dawson Solow, District 9 Male; 20th, Killed by Pizzazz and Poseidon, Bloodbath_

Poseidon's district partner, Helini, grabbed a spear and tackled the slim boy from 7, who was trying to escape with his ally without being noticed. The boy's knees instantly buckled under Helini's weight, and he kicked his legs in her direction in a desperate attempt to disarm her as she brought down her spear. As he bled out, his ally, Pollen from 11, tackled Helini from behind, eager to avenge her friend's death.

 _Tomer Mishina, District 7 Male; 19th, Killed by Helini, Bloodbath_

Helini gasped as her spear was knocked out of her hand; Pollen was fuming with anger, and she was on a rampage. Pollen brought down the point of her spear, and she was about to thrust it into Helini's neck when she suddenly went limp. Pollen collapsed, and Poseidon tugged his trident out of her back, smiling. Poseidon helped Helini to her feet, and they sprinted opposite directions.

 _Pollen Debold, District 11 Female; 18th, Killed by Poseidon, Bloodbath_

Vercingetorix had flicked the blood off of his spear, and he jumped at Barb from 10, who was trying to escape off the starboard side of the ship with a pack containing medical supplies and a thermos of water. Barb took a tumble off the side of the ship, and he landed in the murky water with a splash. Vercingetorix had popped his flotation device, and Barb quickly sunk below the surface of the water. Vercingetorix and his district partner Latita rushed to the side of the ship to watch him gradually disappear from sight.

 _Barb Rochon, District 10 Male; 17th, Killed by Vercingetorix, Bloodbath_

Poseidon made the final kill. He, Helini, and Glitter had cornered Mario from 3 against the side of the cruise ship. Mario couldn't swim very well, but he had no choice but to jump. He took a deep breath and leapt off the side of the ship. Poseidon jumped after him and had him as good as dead in ten seconds. Mario fell under the surface as Poseidon's trident entered his chest. Glitter and Helini threw him a rope, and Poseidon dragged himself out of the water as Mario thrashed and bled out, his cloud of blood barely visible through the murky water.

 _Mario Urquhart, District 3 Male; 16th, Killed by Poseidon, Bloodbath_

The careers paraded around the cornucopia, going through their usual post-bloodbath rituals before heading on the prowl. This arena was practically designed for the District 4 tributes to go far, and Poseidon and Helini were extremely eager to get out and thin the crowds of outliers. Vercingetorix and Latita from 2 weren't completely thrilled with the water arena, but they could both swim at least somewhat well; they weren't completely doomed now that they knew they would have to get their feet a little wet this year. The four of them went hunting while Glitter and Pizzazz from District 1 stayed at the cornucopia. They wanted to practice swimming with each other before heading out for the real deal, as neither of them were as fast in water as this arena called for.

The outliers didn't do anything groundbreaking as the first day slowly ticked past. Sooty from 5 could swim surprisingly well, and he paddled north carrying a waterproof sleeve of crackers and two knives he'd snatched from the cornucopia. At nightfall, he came to a large ship that was relatively intact, and he dragged himself into the musty area below the deck. Ujomo from 5 was one of the tributes who had chosen to avoid the bloodbath; she had nothing but the clothes on her back and the flotation device she'd been supplied in her launch room. For safety, she tugged herself onto one of the small, decrepit docks and tried to sleep. Nobody knew it at the time, but both of Ujomo's parents were still rebellious. This would lead to problems later on. Bichael from 6 swam quickly at first, and he started to slow down when he realized how quickly his energy was being drained. He fell asleep mid-swim and floated back and forth on the water's murky surface as night fell. Gingham from 8 had an electronic handbook on edible insects. With the handbook tucked into his pocket, he floated away from the cornucopia on his back, quietly praying and hoping that nobody would find him. Patternia from 8 and Tule from 10 spotted each other from about fifty yards off halfway through the first day, and they decided to team up instead of killing each other. They found a small ship that was relatively stable and knocked a few rungs into the side of the vessel so that they could climb it and reach safety. Crow from 9 was surprisingly calm and composed despite being only twelve years old, reminiscent of Robina from the ninety-second Hunger Games. She discovered one of the arena's few pieces of land: a tiny, unstable island that housed a single crumbling bush. Crow curled up under the bush and tried to sleep. Rhys and Emlee from 12 had allied prior to the games, and they floated on their backs, allowing the natural water currents to carry them away from the horn. They were from the weakest district of Panem, and they had both scored twos with the gamemakers; there was no use pretending that they weren't doomed. They just hoped their deaths would be fast.

On Day 2, the cameras mostly focused on the career pack. They would have been utterly lost without Poseidon's lead, but he had a good eyesight and sense of direction and kept them from getting lost. He was charismatic and a natural leader without being bossy or brash, and the others liked him, even if he made them feel a little intimidated. Latita hit her ankle on a hard rock about halfway through the day. Her district partner Vercingetorix stayed back to help her wrap the wound up, but he could do little to prevent infection in the injury.

Pizzazz and Glitter went about their rounds at the cornucopia without much trouble. They found a small, buoy-like object in the back of the horn and threw it away from the ship. They took turns swimming to it and back, and they managed to pick up a few new strokes and greatly increase their speed. When they were done practicing, they pulled the buoy in and curled up inside of the cornucopia for a short nap. The mutts of the arena weren't posing any trouble. However, the waters would grow increasingly more dangerous as the games progressed. They would see in due time.

The intriguing Ujomo from 5 left her small dock early in the morning and started rummaging through the supply stocks on the ships as well as the various flotsam that drifted around the shipyard, almost as though she were searching for something. She was definitely searching for something, a specific item she needed to execute a certain task: a rebel task, the Capitol would soon find out.

Bichael and Gingham were both sleeping in the early morning of Day 3 when they knocked into each other. Bichael was aggressive at first, but Gingham was peaceful and weirdly hospitable, and the two boys spent the rest of the day floating together and talking about their parallel faiths and their lives back home. Bichael felt a little uneasy (Gingham was being a bit too nice for him not to be), but he was still glad for an ally for company and safety.

The career team was getting along surprisingly well; one would have expected their personalities to start grating against each other due to the lack of funny, calming 1s. They hunted efficiently, and they were attracted in the early hours of Day 3 to the soft snores of two outliers. Patternia and Tule had yet to leave the small ship they'd landed in at the tail end of the first day, and their reluctance to keep up to date about the location of the pack spelled their downfall. The wooden blockade they'd fashioned over the sole entrance did little to keep out the pack for long, however. Tule withdrew to the shadows while Patternia grabbed her spear and crept toward the entrance, ready to kill her invaders or die trying.

She did both, in a way. The blockade gave way in a matter of moments, and the pack burst through, their four members rapidly falling into ranks and readying their weapons. Latita from 2 had attempted to kill Patternia during the bloodbath, and she was eager to finish the job she'd started two days prior. Patternia was a surprisingly good fighter, and she'd managed to disarm Latita of one of her spears within a few moments. Panic flickered across her face for a quick moment, and a real scream escaped her lips when Patternia's spear entered her chest. The other careers rushed forward to help her out, but Latita was mortally injured beyond the point of saving. Patternia backed up, trailed closely by three angry careers, and death seemed imminent.

 _Latita Xi, District 2 Female; 15th, Killed by Patternia, Day 3_

Tule was crammed into one of the back corners of the ship, struggling to fit through a small hole in the planks while the careers closed in on her ally Patternia. Latita's district partner Vercingetorix did the honors, penetrating the middle of Patternia's neck with his spear. Her wails of agony quickly faded, and her cannon fired just as Tule slipped out of the ship. She was plunged down into the murky water and swam away quickly.

 _Patternia Lance, District 8 Female; 14th, Killed by Vercingetorix, Day 3_

Little of consequence transpired as Days 4 through 5 passed. The careers returned to the cornucopia and regrouped with the 1s. Their ranks were slightly different with the loss of Latita. Poseidon was the leader, Helini was his right hand man (or woman, rather), Vercingetorix was a co-leader of sorts, and Glitter and Pizzazz were the cabooses of the group. Vercingetorix was mad over the death of Latita, his training partner and sweetheart back home in District 2. Sooty was driven out of his ship by a swarm of hungry piranha mutts; they drove him onward for five minutes, and he found his way to a much larger and sturdier ship. Much of the ship's interior was still intact, including a bed and sink. Sooty turned on the sink, expecting water to come out, but all that came out was green gunk. Disgusted, he lied down on the bed and tried to sleep. Ujomo was raiding her umpteenth ship when she finally found the "thing" she was looking for: a megaphone. She stuffed it into her pack and settled down for the night. The gamemakers were confused as to why Ujomo was happy to find something that served literally no purpose other than to alert the others of her position. Bichael and Gingham floated around, feeding themselves on sponsor foods and water from the thermos that Bichael had taken from the cornucopia. Their sponsors sent them a holy book inside of a waterproof cover, and they read and recited from it to pass the long hours of the day. Crow was reluctant to leave the small island that she'd made her home, but she did so in the latter half of Day 5, relocating about a mile east to an island that provided slightly more room. She spent the rest of the day meditating. Tule swam for her life, having no goal in mind but to place more and more distance between herself and the careers. She wasn't bothering to be quiet; Rhys and Emlee heard her splashing multiple times but left her alone. Speaking of Rhys and Emlee, they faced a minor obstacle near the end of Day 5. Emlee felt the first arm of seaweed wrap around her ankle. In a matter of moments, she and Rhys were tangled tightly. Cutting themselves free was not an easy task. Tule heard their splashing and assumed the noises were created by the career pack, inciting her to swim even faster and farther in the opposite direction.

On the sixth morning, the careers experienced a rude awakening, literally. The night before, they'd crashed inside of the cornucopia; the weather was balmy with only a slight breeze, and nothing warranted sleeping inside of the ship for added safety. However, on Day 6, the waves grew taller and more intense, rocking the ships back and forth and knocking a few of them over. Rain also began falling; it was only a light sprinkle, but was sure to escalate dramatically in due time.

Glitter was an extremely heavy sleeper, and she had literally no warning before she was thrown off her balance and hurled off the left side of the ship. She bolted awake, going from one nightmare right into another. Pizzazz rushed over to help her, and he probably would have fallen off too if Poseidon hadn't tugged him back. Glitter landed with a splash in the water, and all the things Pizzazz had taught her in the last few days left her. A swarm of piranha mutts quickly gathered, and they were nipping at her ankles and wrists before she knew what was happening. She tried to swat them away, contorting and panicking as bubbles streamed from her mouth. Her death was imminent, and Pizzazz jumped slightly, shocked, if not devastated, by the death of his district partner.

 _Glitter Nave, District 1 Female; 13th, Killed by drowning and piranha mutts, Day 6_

Pizzazz, Vercingetorix, Poseidon, and Helini rushed below decks. The only room still intact was a little cabin housing one bed, a desk, and a scattered pile of yellowed paper. There was barely space for the four of them to stand inside, and they all ended up sitting on the edge of the bed, hoping the violent weather would subside as the boat rocked back and forth. It was threatening to snap in half. When Poseidon suggested they abandon ship entirely, the others didn't complain.

The waves subsided surprisingly quickly. The tall waves had knocked over a boat near Bichael and Gingham, and they woke just as an enormous wall of displaced water engulfed them. They were thrown under and rocketed back to the surface holding hands, struggling to keep afloat and together as the water threw them up and down. When the waves died down, they clambered onto the capsized ship, coughing up water. Tule was also displaced, nearly drowned when a ship capsized and created waves almost her height. She took a deep breath and tried to remain calm despite her terror. She crawled onto a small piece of floating wood when the rain started to die down, and she let the whims of the gamemaker gods carry her away. Sooty, Ujomo, Crow, Rhys, and Emlee were weirdly unaffected by the storm, and none of them sustained bodily harm except for a few minor cuts and scrapes on Rhys' ankle. Rhys and Emlee had recently found a home on a sturdy ship with only a few areas of the hull missing, and it kept them safe as the ocean waves threw them up and down.

The careers merely swam for most of the day, cold and downtrodden. They were worried the cornucopia ship would capsize completely while they were away, but it did not. They spotted Crow from 9 around three in the evening, but she managed to escape by disappearing under the water for long periods of time and resurfacing where the waves were tall enough to hide her. Flustered after Crow's escape, the pack dragged themselves onto a floating piece of wood for dinner. Poseidon's sponsors sent him a whole basket of sugar cubes that he and his allies were eagerly cramming into their mouths within moments, a callback to his father's games.

Day 7 trickled past with only a singular peak of excitement. The careers were exhausted from an entire day of swimming, even Poseidon, so they floated on their piece of wood and relaxed. They weren't in any rush to return to the cornucopia, but they did want to do so at some point within the next few days to restock on supplies; Poseidon's sugar cubes couldn't last them forever. Fortunately, Helini had thought to snatch a compass from the horn before abandoning ship, so they had at least some sense of direction beyond their own instincts.

The pack was talking quietly amongst themselves when they spotted two objects floating in the water only a few meters away. Gingham and Bichael were both asleep, drifting peacefully over the sea, and they were blissfully unaware of what was about to happen. Pizzazz and Vercingetorix dropped the makeshift anchor off of their wooden vessel. Meanwhile, Poseidon and Helini, the best swimmers, slipped into the water and approached the sleeping boys. They were both dead before they knew what had hit him. Poseidon yanked his trident out of Gingham's chest, and Helini tore the point of her spear out of Bichael's abdomen. Their cannon shots fired in rapid succession; the 4s clambered back onto their makeshift raft and lifted the anchor to return to the cornucopia.

 _Gingham Drains, District 8 Male; 12th, Killed by Poseidon, Day 7_

 _Bichael Warran, District 6 Male; 11th, Killed by Helini, Day 7_

The rain did not subside for very long. By Day 8, the hurricane-like storm was back in full force; ships rocked and toppled, waved crashed, and tributes screamed as they were nearly drowned. The careers had returned to the cornucopia boat and were pretty much trapped there; the waters were too rough for even Poseidon and Helini to risk abandoning ship again. The small room inside of the ship sheltered them from the wind and rain, and the four of them did their best to sleep inside as the rocking ship threw them back and forth. There was hardly standing room for the four of them, so sleeping was not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination.

Sooty had built up a reputation in the Capitol as a kind of boat-hopper, travelling between various ships every few hours and raiding them of their supplies before settling down for short rests. His travelling stopped when the storm got intense. There was a spacious area under decks that kept the rain out well enough, but a few drops still splashed in through a hole in the ceiling. Ujomo had a dirty little secret, and everyone knew it. The Capitol had her under constant surveillance, and they were chagrined to see that she wasn't stepping out of line at all; she was just carrying a megaphone with her. She clung to that megaphone like her life depended on it, keeping it in her grasp as the waves rocked her ship up and down and doused her with freezing-cold sea water. Crow was terrified after her narrow escape from the career pack. She was a good quarter mile away from the nearest ship when the rain began, and Crow panicked, swimming so quickly toward the nearest ship that she almost immediately lost her energy. Staying afloat on the foaming demon of the water was nearly exhausting, and she gasped with relief when she dragged herself onto a sopping-wet ship's deck, gasping and shaking. Rhys and Emlee tried their best to relax inside of the ship with the dilapidated hull, all while raindrops pummeled the surface outside like artillery. Tule was bobbing up and down like a cork in the sea, using every ounce of her energy to keep from drowning, and Rhys and Emlee welcomed her into their little group when she came near. They weren't an anti-career pack; "loser pack" would have been a more appropriate name, but they all felt more comfortable and confident in a group of three. The tributes were hard-pressed to relax as the rains pummeled down, but they all managed to survive through Day 8.

Day 9 was a different story. The intense storm was trying the very foundations of the cornucopia ship; it rocked back and forth with extreme ferocity, and its creaking and groaning was like that of a dying beast. It was around one in the morning when the wooden ship gave way and literally split in half. The pack bolted awake to the noise of cracking wood and raced above decks. The ship was both splitting and sinking, and Vercingetorix escaped the sleeping chamber just as water covered the lowest rung of the ladder.

Vercingetorix panicked for a moment, even instinct leaving him as the wood splintered and creaked underfoot. He'd lost Pizzazz and the others through the darkness, fog, and rain, and he was freezing cold and practically blind. He found a wooden pole meant for carrying life jackets and held on for dear life. Pizzazz was nervous about putting his swimming skills to the real test; he knew about the suction effect created when a large object sank, and the fear of drowning was like a knife in his gut as he prepared to swim for his life. Poseidon and Helini stretched and sprinted back and forth, warming up for the difficult swim. The ship was sinking faster and faster; the tip of the stern was already covered with foaming water, and the roaring sea gradually consumed the ship. The cornucopia's supplies rattled and flew, and a stray cart of weapons hit Helini in the gut hard enough to knock the wind out of her for a few moments.

With water rushing into the bowels of the ship and weighing the vessel down, the wood from which it was fashioned was put under extreme force. The ancient, weak wood snapped clean in half, and water roared as it rushed into the depths of the ship. In a deafening roar of flying shrapnel and splashing water, the ship was tugged underneath the water's surface. Vercingetorix's refusal to abandon the ship was what spelled his doom. The moment the ship sank, he lost his grip on the wooden rack. The fierce water currents carried him away. Vercingetorix involuntarily took in a huge gulp of water, and he was beyond saving. He drowned while his three allies swam for their lives.

 _Vercingetorix Spunt, District 2 Male; 10th, Killed by drowning, Day 9_

Pizzazz, Poseidon, and Helini struggled to stay afloat. Poseidon and Helini were amazing swimmers, but keeping from drowning was extremely difficult even for them. Poseidon had an extremely close call when a piece of heavy wood hit him in the head, and Helini grabbed him by the arm, tugging him back to the surface before he could sink. With their combined body power, they could stay on the surface much more easily. Swimming away was out of the question; their only option was to keep floating until the currents created by the sinking ship died down slightly.

They forgot about Pizzazz in their desperate struggle to survive. He made an admirable effort to swim to safety, but he just wasn't strong enough to counteract the sheer force with which he was thrown back and forth. The suction effect was what eventually claimed him, and he was pulled underwater amidst a cloud of debris from the sunken vessel.

 _Pizzazz Thalanson, District 1 Male; 9th, Killed by drowning, Day 9_

That left the final eight: Poseidon Odair and Helini Shelley from District 4, Sooty Shacklebolt and Ujomo Perois from District 5, Crow Kempton from District 9, Tule Rasmus from District 10, and Rhys Tolling and Emlee Regis from District 12.

The rest of Day 9 was deathless. The tributes stayed stationary, utterly shaken and terrified by the sheer force of the storm. The harsh weather showed no signs of stopping, and it was all they could do to hope things would calm down so they could search for food. Poseidon and Helini treaded water until the currents died down and they were able to swim away. They paddled slowly onward for about ten minutes and then dragged themselves onto a floating wooden door, balancing carefully to keep it from sinking as the gale threw drops of cold rain onto their backs. The water currents threw Crow around the water, and she screamed, bobbing down and then resurfacing every few seconds. At one point, she was caught in a tangle of seaweed and came extremely close to drowning, but she miraculously managed to tug herself free. Boats toppled, nearly drowning both Sooty and the Tule-Rhys-Emlee group. The three of them had lasted much longer than they'd thought, and they were starting to believe they weren't quite as doomed as they had thought.

Ujomo was just as mysterious as ever. Megaphone in hand, she stayed still, peering out the damaged porthole window of the dilapidated ship as it was battered with raindrops. She intended to execute her plan as soon as the storm let up. It did so on the tenth morning, and Ujomo smiled as she climbed out into the open. She was doomed and didn't care about survival. She took a few moments to test the megaphone and then started talking, or singing, rather. She started singing something that had not been played publically in ninety-nine years.

 _Are you, are you,  
Coming to the tree?_

 _They strung up a man,  
They say who murdered three._

 _Strange things did happen here,  
No stranger would it be,  
If we met at midnight,  
In the hanging tree._

The gamemakers froze at their controls. As they realized what was going on, they scrambled to do anything they could to end her. But Ujomo did not relent, and she kept singing even as the gamemaker-created waves threw the ship back and forth, gradually sucking it down into the water's depths.

"Fellow citizens," she said after she'd finished the song. She swept her arm around her, gesturing toward the entire arena. "This is what the Capitol does to us. Throws twenty-four innocent children into a death match every year. You can hide in your districts out of fear, or you can rebel out of the sheer sense to do what is right. The Capitol are the most unjust rulers the human race has ever seen, and as a history teacher's daughter, that's really saying something." She probably shouldn't have mentioned her mother. Her students got a new teacher the very next day. "Rebel. We are strong, whether or not you believe it. Together, we can take the Capitol down."

Edison was carried out of the gamemakers center screaming. The news came out the next week that he had "resigned due to sudden illness and a family emergency". Ujomo died, of course, sucked down into the water as the ship sank. She was no Struve; her rebel plan was not an elaborate one. But those who were still rebellious cheered her on until her dying breath. Ujomo Perois was one of those tributes that would just never be forgotten.

 _Ujomo Perois, District 5 Female; 8th, Killed by drowning, Day 10_

Sooty was getting desperate; he was starting to fade into the background despite his constant attempts to stay relevant. He was starting to feel the effects of dehydration on this body, as the salty water that made up the arena was not fit for drinking by any stretch of the imagination. He was desperate enough to start hunting for fellow tributes. He could swim through the water with surprising speed. He planned on scoping out the north end of the arena, but he saw Poseidon and Helini hunting and turned around, wanting to avoid the 4s at any cost.

Poseidon and Helini were indeed still hunting. The "loser" trio was still as elusive ever. The careers were having difficulty finding victims; with such an open arena, they were hoping finding prey would be easy. The blanket of dark clouds drew back, revealing a pretty, spotless blue sky. This weather was more adept for pedestrian purposes, and Crow took the day to explore. She was a little shaken after her narrow escape from the tangling seaweed, and the general violence of the storm had shaken the young girl like a leaf. She was worried about the other tributes, especially Poseidon and Helini, so she stayed low whenever possible, exploring in the areas where the careers were less likely to hunt. Tule, Rhys, and Emlee drifted on their backs. Throughout the sinking of the cornucopia ship and the entire Ujomo ordeal, they'd been completely forgotten by most of the audience and by Titanius. They were drifting near the careers and Sooty, and an eventful clash was expected late Day 11 or early Day 12.

Three cannon shots fired in the early morning of Day 11. Sooty had momentarily stopped hunting around sunset the night prior, and now he was merely drifting on his back, hoping to stay out of the sight of the other tributes until he could regain the energy to hunt again. He woke up slowly and paddled weakly throughout the first few hours of the day; the waters were the calmest they'd been since the beginning of the games. He was treading water around ten in the morning when he spotted the Tule-Rhys-Emlee trio drifting silently a short distance away. He'd grabbed a quiver of arrows from the bloodbath, but no bow. He pulled two arrows out of his pack and duel-wielded them like spears, creeping quietly closer to the obliviously sleeping trio.

Emlee and Tule woke up screaming as Sooty simultaneously drilled his arrows through their abdomens. Emlee lashed out and kicked him in the stomach, and Sooty reeled, bumped into Rhys and waking him up. Emlee continued to put up quite a fight, kicking and screaming as blood came in torrents from her wound. Tule was subdued much more easily; Sooty had pierced one of her critical arteries. She died moments before Emlee. As Emlee and Tule took their last breaths, Rhys swam for his life, Sooty started searching them for supplies, and the nearby careers swam toward them, attracted by the dying screams of the girls.

 _Tule Rasmus, District 10 Female; 7th, Killed by Sooty, Day 11_

 _Emlee Regis, District 12 Male; 6th, Killed by Sooty, Day 11_

Sooty realized that Rhys was escaping far too late to actually catch up to him; he had an enormous head start. Even though he wasn't an experienced swimmer, adrenaline was powering him onward like electricity. Sooty quickly lost him, and the 5 boy took a deep breath, lowering his arrows and staring at the sky.

He looked down just as Poseidon's trident entered his chest. Sooty only had time to let out a single scream before a black box enclosed his shattered form. Poseidon and Helini had approached silently enough to keep from being noticed, and Sooty was so distracted by the torrent of emotions that he hardly noticed the small ripples their paddling limbs created. Poseidon wiped the blood off of his trident as Helini swam forward and tore his arrows out of his hands. Now only four tributes were left.

 _Sooty Shackebolt, District 5 Male; 5th, Killed by Poseidon, Day 11_

The next day was pretty uneventful. Poseidon and Helini moved in the direction of the cornucopia as quickly as they could. While this arena was laden with deadly mutts, they had yet to kill or even injure a single tribute other than Glitter. The 4s were not looking forward to seeing what deadly creatures the gamemakers planned to unleash if they didn't move quickly enough on their own. They soon arrived at the place where the cornucopia boat had once stood; their feet even felt parts of the wreck as they swam. Poseidon hit his foot hard and injured it moderately; cursing, he and Helini paddled to the nearest piece of floating debris and relaxed.

This year featured a rather mismatched final four; the pair from District 4, who had wowed the Capitol in pretty much every regard imaginable, and two twelve-year-olds who had never touched weapons prior to entering the arena. Crow remained hidden in the less desirable areas of the arena, stubbornly staying everywhere the gamemakers didn't want her to. The Capitol was impressed with her for making it so far in the games, so they sent her lots of gifts she really didn't deserve, including a knife and a case of steaming-hot mashed potatoes.

As Crow floated aimlessly on her back, Rhys swam for his life. He didn't bother to keep quiet as he flailed his arms like a madman. He swam a stellar three miles on the twelfth day, and came dangerously close to the edge of the arena. The gamemakers sent a number of powerful wind and water currents to shove him back to the center of the arena, where he was under threat by the careers, and Crow to a lesser extent.

Crow was paddling through the arena on the morning of Day 13 when she saw a small piece of plastic debris floating through the water; her own discarded case of mashed potatoes. However, it was shredded in a very uniform pattern, like it'd been absentmindedly torn apart by a bored tribute. Both curiosity and paranoia plagued Crow as she continued to explore the area, and she spotted a sleeping Rhys less than ten minutes later.

Crow was swimming toward him before her brain had time to catch up. The Capitol zoomed in their cameras as the last two twelve-year-olds in these games grew nearer. Crow lashed out with her knife, but only managed to awkwardly dent his skin by a small amount. Rhys woke up and instinctively threw out his fist. Crow swerved so she was smacked in the neck rather than the mouth, and Rhys rolled upright, holding out his fists in warning as Crow hesitantly went in with her knife.

Their fight was painfully boring and lasted for about forty minutes. The Capitol was almost relieved when Rhys finally fell. Crow had managed to pepper a multitude of small holes into his chest and neck over the course of the fight, while all Rhys had managed to inflict were a few bruises. A cannon fired as Rhys sank to the bottom of the sea. Gagging, Crow swam away so the gamemakers could collect his corpse.

 _Rhys Tolling, District 12 Male; 4th, Killed by Crow, Day 13_

Shaking from the nerves and adrenaline, Crow continued her journey to the cornucopia. After Rhys' death, her popularity had skyrocketed in the Capitol, but she was still up against two extremely well-trained tributes in an arena that was fashioned in their favor. Crow swam faster as dark clouds began to roll in. On the way, she discovered a small patch of edible seaweed, and Crow munched on the bitter vegetation out of nerves.

Poseidon and Helini were now using the floating piece of wood like a raft, and smaller pieces of wood as oars. They took a few minutes to coordinate their movements, but once they'd broken in the raft, they found they could travel extremely quickly. The gamemakers sent intense water currents their way. At first, they tried to fight them, but they were sent a note instructing them to the let the currents carry them toward Crow.

Several hours passed deathlessly, and anticipation built in the Capitol. Finally, Poseidon and Helini spotted Crow from about a hundred meters away. There was no such thing as high and low ground in the all-water arena; aside from the minimal shelter provided by the abandoned ships, there were almost no natural advantages a tribute could have. Crow started to panic as the careers grew closer, and she held out her knives, biting her lip with worry.

At least her end came quickly. She was well-stocked, but Crow was rather scrawny and weak regardless. Poseidon and Helini had her disarmed in a matter of moments. Helini's blow sent the first of Crow's knives flying out of her grasp, and she panicked as her second knife was knocked away by Poseidon. Crow turned around and was grabbed by the back of the neck, pulled inward. Her screams rang over the open ocean for miles as Poseidon squished away her lifeblood with his special trident, and Crow went limp as her cannon sounded. Spinning in circles on the current, her body drifted slowly away, and the 4s faced each other. Now they had no choice but to turn on one another.

 _Crow Kempton, District 9 Female; 3rd, Killed by Poseidon, Day 13_

"It's the finale," Poseidon said, a note of sadness in his voice.

Helini nodded. "Just know that I've been lucky to fight alongside someone who could make this moment so hard."

Spear clashed on trident. In a matter of moments, the finale was in full swing, with the finalists stabbing and splashing. By the time a minute had elapsed, they were both thoroughly exhausted; this fight required not only the energy to fight, but the energy to stay afloat in the constantly rippling, bouncing water of the arena. They both faltered regularly, often loosening their grips on their weapons or nearly dropping them due to the sheer physical exhaustion of staying afloat with only their feet.

It was only one more minute before the victor was crowned. The battle came down to which tribute had sustained the most minor wounds. Helini had nearly two dozen dotted around her body, while Poseidon had a mere two, inflicted weakly by Helini's spear. Helini's energy quickly sapped away, and as Poseidon thrust his trident into her chest, she dropped her spear. It sank into the water and quickly disappeared.

 _Helini Shelley, District 4 Female; 2nd, Killed by Poseidon, Day 13_

"Poseidon Odair of District 4, you are the victor of the ninety-ninth annual Hunger Games!" Titanius shouted.

Poseidon took a sailor's salute. "Farewell, friend. You will not be forgotten."

 _Poseidon Odair, District 4 Male; Victor of the Ninety-Ninth Hunger Games, Day 13_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

Poseidon was received with wild applause in the fishing district, and most wildly of all by Finnick Odair and Annie Cresta. Poseidon was the second child of a victor to make it home, the last one being Rye from the forty-fourth games. Helini's aunt, the head peacekeeper of District 4, wept with grief during his victory tour: the only recorded moment where she was seen crying. Poseidon donated a large sum of his victory's payouts to her and the other members of Helini's family. For nearly three decades after his victory, he was prostituted up the wazoo, and he was especially popular with older women who had spent nights with Finnick during his youth. Poseidon would go down in history as a somewhat stereotypical career victor, simultaneously ready to party and always able to crack a smooth joke. He was also an avid lover sugar cubes. He always packed a few of them with his children's lunches.

The payouts on his victory were very low, as 28% bet on him.

His victory tour was pretty average, except in District 4, where he showered the crowd with sugar cubes.

Poseidon would live to age eighty-nine, dying from cancer six months before the one-hundred seventy-second annual Hunger Games. He would marry and have two children.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Sycamora Bromley marries her fiancé of three years, a man named Jack Wilds.

Chaff Korsmun, the victor of the forty-fifth Hunger Games, dies from an alcohol overdose after Marvin Fleiszig's death.

Freya Digard, the victor of the twenty-first Hunger Games, dies in a car accident.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)  
89HG: Admired Thompson (#15, District 1)  
90HG: Chipson Harris (#11, District 3)  
91HG: Mars Talbot (#21, District 2)  
92HG: Arnold Scruggs (#3, District 12), Wystella Knapp (#22, District 2), and Robina Caite (#3, District 10)  
93HG: Taj King (#16, District 1)  
94HG: Steer Drudgers (#4, District 10)  
95HG: Diode Cooper (#8, District 5)  
96HG: Pluto Talbot (#23, District 2)  
97HG: Vine Lilard (#4, District 11)  
98HG: Larke Jean (#5, District 10)  
99HG: Poseidon Odair (#14, District 4)

* * *

 **A/N: Bichael lol XD**

 **How was the victor, the arena, everything? I know I say this pretty much every chapter, but I had some serious fun with this one. You be the judge, jury, and executioner, cause I wanna hear what you think, so SPILL!**

 **And so we come to the final chapter of this *ridiculously long* story. I have a TON of stuff planned for the fourth Quarter Quell, and like I said, it IS going to be the longest chapter of all time. Take a look at my Quarter Quell Cards story if you want to know what the twist will be, but don't mention it in the reviews please, in case some people want to be a surprise. But it's going to be a good one, I promise! Also keep in mind it'll probably take me a lot longer, even on proportion. It's the final chapter; I don't want to do it averagely.**

 **Until then, stay awesome :D**


	101. The 100th Hunger Games

**A/N: It's finally here! This chapter is quite a roller coaster, it was a huge effort to write and string together and I really hope you enjoy! I also hope you're seated comfortably, as this 22k (!) word chapter isn't going to be a quick read :D**

 **The 100th Hunger Games: The 4th Quarter Quell:**

* * *

 _ **INTRODUCTION**_

Orestilla Frondel gladly stepped up to the head gamemaker position after Edison Jayasinghe's "mysterious disappearance" several months prior. Orestilla was younger, livelier, and much feistier than Edison, and President Stinn Hawke was confident he could entrust her to craft a dastardly games to please the screaming crowds and placate the rebelling ones. After an entire year on the sidelines of the games, watching her sworn enemy steer the games ship, Orestilla's mind was bursting at the seams with ideas. All that was needed was a pack of colored pencils for the riddles and secrets of her imagination to be transferred onto paper, and a team of strong builders for them to be willed into solid reality and into the nightmares of little district children. She was more than ready to try out the head gamemaker post, torturing the tributes and playing God with the arena. The Capitol was wild with games fever; speculations about the upcoming quell twist ran rampant. Nobody had any doubt that Coriolanus Snow had planned a particularly dastardly twist for the finale of the first century. Though Snow's ashes had been windswept across District 1 for over two decades now, the fear and terror of his reign could still be felt. Rebellion popped up in all twelve districts, spurred on by Ujomo Perois' impertinent spiel from atop the wooden deck of a broken ship in the ninety-ninth Hunger Games. Websites and newspapers across the Capitol exploded with fake details of "leaked" information about the arena, twist, and mutts, supposedly taken from "reliable" sources. This sudden surge of popularity was bad news for the victors. The more desirable victors like Poseidon and Mars were being auctioned off like the finest candy in the candy store of the Capitol, and they were spending virtually every night in a different hotel room with the highest bidder. At long last, the mandatory announcement was declared. Parties were scheduled, bottles of wine were cracked open, district parents held their children close, and the whole of Panem tuned into their televisions. They heard with either excited or terrified ears that, "On the 100th anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that the Capitol is forgiving and believes in second chances, twenty-four dead tributes from recent Hunger Games will be revived for a second chance at victory." With twenty-four "veterans" in addition to the normal batch of twenty-four "newcomers", this was another forty-eight tribute games. Adjustments ranged from buying more chariots and horses to splitting the interviews into two days, just as had been done fifty years prior for Haymitch Abernathy's explosive second Quell. Orestilla Frondel carefully selected twenty-four tributes that had fought between the third and fourth Quarter Quells, choosing each veteran because he or she inspired her in some way.

Before the names of the veterans were announced, the twenty-four newcomers were reaped as usual, with one boy and one girl being chosen from every district. District 1 provided their typical dazzling pair, and they were both tall and blond and extremely seductive. The male was the most popular of the twenty-four newcomers: the son of District 1's head peacekeeper, Zealand Cruxe wowed the gamemakers with his looks and his mastery of weaponry, particularly with bows and axes. Glitterdust, his junior by one year, was shier than most but had definitely earned her promotion into the games via her hatchet skills. The tributes from 2 were second cousins, and they were training partners and close family friends. Both Laureate and Nadia were skilled tricksters and talented swordfighters, and they were sure to go far. District 4's tributes were strong and healthy, but were ultimately overshadowed by their flashier peers. The boy, Urchin, was openly transgender, and he was fully transitioned from female to male. The second transgender tribute to ever enter the games, he hoped the pack would embrace him. He was younger and liked whips. The girl, Undine, was older, and she had an exotic beauty to her and an aura of mystery plaguing her. She was a fan of tridents. The newcoming careers earned two elevens, two tens, a nine, and an eight.

Admittedly, there were not many strong tributes or memorable personalities among the outliers, but there were a few. Strapson from District 8 was a rebel's child, rigged into the games after his parents lead a riot that burned down several textile mills. He was playing several beads short of a full bracelet; he was a registered psychopath and was extremely bipolar, and he would likely be this year's crazy. Fumer from 5, Flannelette from 8, and Ranger from 10 earned sevens for a variety of reasons. Fumer was the younger brother of the District 5 male from the year prior, Sooty, who had killed several tributes before his demise. The boy had some rather large shoes to fill, as he was going into the games with high expectations. Flannelette and Ranger allied prior to the games, as they were both rather similar in demeanor, personality, and even in appearance. They both had sufficient natural skills, and Ranger was particularly popular in the Capitol for his aptitude for weaponry. The rest of the newcomers scored between six and three in their private sessions. There were no volunteers outside of the careers.

On June 24th, the day after the newcomers were reaped, another mandatory viewing was aired to all Panem. Orestilla appeared on a stage in a dazzling silver dress, carrying a list of names written in her own handwriting. She listed each of the veterans one by one. When their names were called, the veterans appeared onstage, dressed to the nines, and sat on a purple couch. Hoping their favorite fallen tributes would be chosen to compete again, the Capitol leaned into their televisions and listened as Orestilla began the list.

"As the District 1 Male, I have selected Fifer Golden of the ninetieth games. Mr. Golden inspired me with his charisma and his idealistic attitude, and with the way he saw killing not only as a duty, but as an art form."

"As the District 1 Female, I have selected Nouvelle Harris of the eighty-ninth games. Ms. Harris inspired me by displaying all the finer things a young woman can be: devoted and well-mannered, while also being strong and smart."

"As the District 2 Male, I have selected Saturn Talbot of the ninety-third games. Mr. Talbot inspired me as one of the historic Talbot siblings; I respect the strength, grit, and honor of his family, and I want to give one of their tributes another chance here, especially one unlucky enough to have placed so low."

"As the District 2 Female, I have selected Ofelia Tessard of the ninety-fourth games. Ms. Tessard inspired me with her determination, with the way she refused to stop hunting until she'd avenged her friend's death. Her dedication to her cause and to her friends inspired me also."

"As the District 3 Male, I have selected Rimno Kiely of the eighty-eighth games. Mr. Kiely inspired me with his sheer intellectual power, assembling a fully-functional murder device out of only a bucket and a few spare parts, reminiscent of the electrifying Beetee Latier. He also inspired me with his sense of dignity: the way he took his own life to deprive his career attacker the delight of taking it from him."

"As the District 3 Female, I have selected Calculata Barns of the eighty-seventh games. Ms. Barns inspired me with her loyalty and her devotion; with the way she remained at the side of her district partner and love interest Hector until the very end."

"As the District 4 Male, I have selected Swell Hager of the ninety-third games. Mr. Hager inspired me with his strength and his charisma, even in the difficulties of that year's deadly swamp arena. I feel he can give us all many more laughs in his second shot at victory now."

"As the District 4 Female, I have selected Dory Krillgood of the eighty-third games. Ms. Krillgood inspired me with her blind spiritual mettle. She wore her emotions and morals on her sleeve and projected them out for all the world to see. Her constant search for her Mr. Right ended with a demonic conclusion, and I want to continue her story here."

"As the District 5 Male, I have selected Theo Upsdell of the seventy-eighth games. Mr. Upsdell inspired me with his dedication to his wife Cynthia, who entered the games nine months pregnant. Theo never complained under the hot sun of that arena, not even throughout the difficult birthing process and the fatherly duties of the following days. He defended his wife and son until his final breath, all the way up until his tragic demise."

"As the District 5 Female, I have selected Cynthia Upsdell of the seventy-eighth games. Mrs. Upsdell inspired me with her selflessness and motherly love, which she showed through every lullaby she sang to her newborn baby. She also inspired me when she committed suicide so that her baby could leave the arena as the sole victor. Now twenty-two years old, Surge sits in the Victor's Village of District 5 as I speak."

"As the District 6 Male, I have selected Cylinder Gauntlet of the eighty-fourth games. Mr. Gauntlet inspired me when I learned he had faced harsh conditions as a child, going from the seedy backstreets of 6 all the way to fame through his talent with brute force weapons. His "zero to hero" story is another one I am very eager to see continued."

"As the District 6 Female, I have selected Sentra Bootshoe of the ninety-third games. Ms. Bootshoe inspired me by being one of the strongest young women I have ever seen on screen: if not in a physical sense, then in a psychological sense. She laughed, fought, and did her anti-career duties even as malaria slowly killed her."

"As the District 7 Male, I have selected Mikey Jonah of the eighty-fifth games. Mr. Jonah inspired me with his witty sense of humor, but also with his strength. He and Sycamora fought valiantly in that year's bloodbath, fending off the careers for the first time in history and even managing to fell a few."

"As the District 7 Female, I have selected Itsuki Tanner of the ninety-sixth games. Ms. Tanner inspired me with all of the stereotypes she defied. After years of stocky, red- and brown-haired District 7 tributes, Itsuki graced the screen with her unique Asian heritage and her curvy form. She defied many stereotypes and flourished in the arena until she met her end."

"As the District 8 Male, I have selected Gingham Drains of the ninety-ninth games. Mr. Drains inspired me with his dedication to his faith even in the clutches of the shipyard arena. His respect and peacefulness toward every tribute he encountered proved his gentleness to me in particular."

"As the District 8 Female, I have selected Lacey Stitch of the ninety-second games. Ms. Stitch inspired me with the way she kept her cool throughout her games, remaining quiet and solitary as tributes were felled around her. I hope we can all learn from her strength as she rises to compete again."

"As the District 9 Male, I have selected Wheaton Naysmith of the eighty-eighth games. Mr. Naysmith inspired me with his willingness to break the norm: allying with the eventual victor Sickle despite their differences, fighting against the career pack at multiple occasions, and fighting with a spear, which I have never seen a 9 tribute use at any other occasion."

"As the District 9 Female, I have selected Elizabeth Becker of the seventy-ninth games. Ms. Becker inspired me with her curiosity and her love of learning, as well as her bubbly attitude and her childlike innocence. Unfortunately, she was made to grow up far too soon, cursed by the boy from 12 before she could raise her own wand in defense."

"As the District 10 Male, I have selected Bear Theodos of the ninety-eighth games. Mr. Theodos inspired me with the way he kept fighting and kept his head up, despite the odds against him and his origin story, a stinky ranch in District 10."

"As the District 10 Female, I have selected Honey Sadler of the eighty-fourth games. Ms. Sadler inspired me the way she always looked for peace and friendship, and her refusal to fight back against her older brother Milk despite his constant torments."

"As the District 11 Male, I have selected Bechi Ulson of the eighty-fifth games. Mr. Ulson inspired me when I learned he was an open member of the LGBT community. His simultaneously cocky and funny relationship with his ally and romantic partner Hye brought a little light to my day. To this day, their dynamic is one of my favorite to have appeared in the games."

"As the District 11 Female, I have selected Hydrangea Tinsel of the ninetieth games. Ms. Tinsel inspired me with her fiery personality, with her grit and willingness to fight despite entering the games at the age of twelve."

"As the District 12 Male, I have selected Coalson Fires of the ninety-third games. Mr. Fires inspired me with his aptitude and confidence, and how he fought against the oppressive mutts and careers of the arena until the very end."

"As the District 12 Female, I have selected Julia Frost of the ninety-first games. Ms. Frost inspired me with her grace and her poise, as well as her humility, as she did not like displaying her half-naked body to the cameras as she bathed in the hidden cove of the island arena. Despite coming from a victor's family, she was not cocky or brash, fighting with self-respect and dignity until she met her end."

District 1 Veterans: Fifer Golden, 17, (9) 15-1 and Nouvelle Harris, 18, (11) 6-1

District 1 Newcomers: Zealand Cruxe, 16, (11) 5-1 and Glitterdust Keane, 17, (8) 21-1

District 2 Veterans: Saturn Talbot, 16, (9) 16-1 and Ofelia Tessard, 16, (10) 10-1

District 2 Newcomers: Laureate Matthews, 18, (10) 11-1 and Nadia Brutt, 18, (10) 12-1

District 3 Veterans: Rimno Kiely, 16, (4) 54-1 and Calculata Barns, 16, (4) 57-1

District 3 Newcomers: Socket Martien, 16, (5) 48-1 and Tessa Corner, 12, (3) 68-1

District 4 Veterans: Swell Hager, 18, (11) 6-1 and Dory Krillgood, 13, (6) 45-1

District 4 Newcomers: Urchin Wrangel, 18, (9) 13-1 and Undine Kimble, 18, (11) 6-1

District 5 Veterans: Theo Upsdell, 18, (5) 47-1 and Cynthia Upsdell, 18, (2) 98-1

District 5 Newcomers: Fumer Shacklebolt, 15, (7) 30-1 and Bex Kavanaugh, 13, (4) 63-1

District 6 Veterans: Cylinder Gauntlet, 16, (10) 10-1 and Sentra Bootshoe, 18 (7) 32-1

District 6 Newcomers: Rivet Hurst, 12, (3) 85-1 and Odessa Permutt, 14, (5) 52-1

District 7 Veterans: Mikey Jonah, 18, (8) 23-1 and Itsuki Tanner, 18, (7) 26-1

District 7 Newcomers: Dylan Stocklin, 13, (4) 62-1 and Listra Harington, 16, (6) 32-1

District 8 Veterans: Gingham Drains, 13, (5) 56-1 and Lacey Stitch, 17, (4) 57-1

District 8 Newcomers: Strapson Irving, 18, (8) 18-1 and Flannelette Richards, 16, (7) 29-1

District 9 Veterans: Wheaton Naysmith, 14, (4) 60-1 and Elizabeth Becker, 12, (4) 69-1

District 9 Newcomers: Tunis Marbie, 15, (5) 44-1 and Indre Cubbard, 12, (3) 74-1

District 10 Veterans: Bear Theodos, 17, (7) 29-1 and Honey Sadler, 12, (2) 100-1

District 10 Newcomers: Ranger Hambert, 18, (7) 28-1 and Dorothy Jordan, 14, (3) 66-1

District 11 Veterans: Bechi Olsen, 16, (7) 24-1 and Hydrangea Tinsel, 12, (8) 26-1

District 11 Newcomers: Gourd Humphries, 18, (4) 56-1 and Zinnia Davis, 18, (5) 47-1

District 12 Veterans: Coalson Fires, 18, (7) 26-1 and Julia Frost, 18, (4) 50-1

District 12 Newcomers: Jacobi Clarke, 14, (5) 48-1 and Abia Clarke, 14, (5) 51-1

HGBO Bets: 16% on Zealand, 15% on Nouvelle, 8% on Swell and Undine, 6% on Ofelia, Laureate, and Nadia, 5% on Fifer, Saturn, and Urchin, 4% on Glitterdust, 3% on Cylinder and Strapson, 2% on Mikey and Hydrangea, 1% or less on Rimno, Calculata, Socket, Tessa, Dory, Theo, Cynthia, Fumer, Bex, Sentra, Rivet, Odessa, Itsuki, Dylan, Listra, Gingham, Lacey, Flannelette, Wheaton, Elizabeth, Tunis, Indre, Bear, Honey, Ranger, Dorothy, Bechi, Gourd, Zinnia, Coalson, Julia, Jacobi, and Abia.

* * *

 _ **THE GAMES**_

Orestilla really outdid herself for the quell: she did not relent one bit with the dastardly arena of the one-hundredth Hunger Games, and the results were certain to be spectacular. The forty-eight tributes found themselves standing in a desolate wasteland that was deteriorating and crumbling. It was the largest arena in Hunger Games history; it was the only way to fit double the number of tributes and provide enough space to keep them accommodated. The center of the arena was taken up by a carnival that might once have been colorful and festive, but was now abandoned, spooky, and dead silent. The cornucopia held more supplies than usual, even on proportion, and it was practically overflowing with water and medicine and everything else that would bring life in the arena. A soft wind blew, but it was silent and faint. The amusement park was made up of collapsed, twisted roller-coaster tracks, swimming pools and water games that were muddy and dried up, shattered mirror mazes, tunnels and buildings filled with mold, candy shops that were caved in and deteriorating, and much, much more. Most noticeably, an enormous Ferris wheel towered over the arena, creaking and groaning like a dying beast as though it might collapse any moment. It was actually set to topple later in the games. To the east and west of the amusement parks, the arena broke into two different landscapes. If the tributes travelled east, they could find a small swamp of thick, soupy murk and drooping mangrove trees. Deadly alligator mutts roamed the water, and mosquitoes flew in swarms, inflicting their disease-ridden bites onto any unsuspecting tributes. The swamp took up roughly a sixth of the arena, but it was jam-packed with dangers, and it was boiling hot. The largest region of the arena was to the west: it was a forest, if you could even call it that. The trees were dead and thin, like the hands of undead skeletons. Most of the mutts that lived in the forest were rotten and zombie-like: between the bony vulture mutts that roosted in the flimsy branches and the skeleton deer and squirrels that roamed through the trees, practically nothing was healthy enough to eat. The little water the arena provided was too muddy to be drunk without straining it through some kind of filter first. The arena was vast and deadly, but for now, the cameras focused on the cornucopia and the four-dozen terrified tributes. Their pedestals formed a tight circle around the horn of plenty: so tight that they probably could have held hands if they outstretched their arms. The record-breaking bloodbath would claim nineteen lives, just barely breaking the record set by the second Quarter Quell. This left plenty of tributes for Orestilla to play with after the dust settled.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Zealand and Glitterdust, the fastest runners, sprinted at the head of the onrush. Zealand paused about halfway between his pedestal and the cornucopia. The gamemakers had placed a hatchet there specifically for him, and Zealand scooped up the weapon. He took a quick moment to wipe the dust off of the blade before leaping into action. A nearby boy was zigzagging to avoid attacks, screaming as he thundered toward the cornucopia. The axe landed in his head with a crunch, and he fell to his knees, gasping as his lifeblood was squished away.

 _Tunis Marbie, District 9 Male (Newcomer); 48th, Killed by Zealand, Bloodbath_

Glitterdust was quick to find a hatchet of her own, nestled between two small packs near the mouth of the cornucopia. She turned sharply on her heel and saw a girl trying to off her with a hatchet of her own, hoping to eliminate competition early. Glitterdust had her disarmed in seconds, and the pitiful girl could do nothing but scream helplessly as Glitterdust cleaved her skull cleanly in half.

 _Zinnia Davis, District 11 Female (Newcomer); 47th, Killed by Glitterdust, Bloodbath_

Nouvelle was pleased to find a sword near her pedestal: she'd proved her worth with swordplay back in the eighty-ninth games, and she was eager to make the most of Orestilla's generosity and force her way out of the arena. A nearby boy was the first veteran to fall, helpless as Nouvelle's sword connected with his front. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto his elbows, winded. Nouvelle flipped him over and cut open his chest with two heavy chops.

 _Coalson Fires, District 12 Male (Veteran); 46th, Killed by Nouvelle, Bloodbath_

Swell turned his lethal weapon, the cornucopia's sole trident, over in his hands, waiting for a victim. After several seconds, he let the trident fly. A grin seated itself deep on his face as the weapon flew across its path, hitting its target with perfect accuracy. A girl's screams started up, but they quickly faded to silence as she stopped breathing.

 _Lacey Stitch, District 8 Female (Veteran); 45th, Killed by Swell, Bloodbath_

The insane Strapson from 8 tackled a willowy girl, Odessa from 6, whose pedestal had been situated next to his. Odessa tried to fight back, but one of Strapson's flailing fists hit her in the jaw, and she fell still, dazed and subdued. Strapson grabbed her by either side of the head and slammed it against the steel pedestal with astounding force. Bits of gore flew through the air, and Strapson grinned wildly as Odessa's parts stopped twitching.

 _Odessa Permutt, District 6 Female (Newcomer); 44th, Killed by Strapson, Bloodbath_

Having wrenched his hatchet out of Tunis' skull, Zealand fluidly attacked his next victims. About ten feet away, two boys were on the ground, tussling over a pack containing loaves of bread. Zealand tackled the taller of the two boys, bringing down his axe and splitting his head in half with one fell swoop. He moaned and gurgled as he died, and the other boy froze in terror, awaiting death.

 _Gourd Humphries, District 11 Male (Newcomer); 43rd, Killed by Zealand, Bloodbath_

At the other end of the cornucopia field, Laureate and Nadia ganged up on a tall girl with dark hair. Both of the careers were armed with swords, and Julia had nothing but a knife and a fold-up spear. Laureate swung his sword, and Julia danced out of the way, stumbling straight into the path of Nadia's blade. The sword cut an inch into her side, and the friends from District 2 continued to chop her to ribbons as she collapsed in a heap.

 _Julia Frost, District 12 Female (Veteran); 42nd, Killed by Laureate and Nadia, Bloodbath_

With seven tributes already dead, things were starting to organize in the career pack. Zealand and Glitterdust raced wildly through the cornucopia field, abandoning all forms of coherent strategy in favor of slaughtering as many tributes as possible. Fifer, Saturn, and Urchin proceeded similarly, but they stayed relatively close to the cornucopia, trying to guard its supplies from the outliers. Nouvelle, Ofelia, Swell, and Undine stuck close to the golden horn, standing their ground as they fended away the droves of oncoming outliers. Ofelia made her first kill as a tiny girl attempted to worm her way past her. The outlier girl fell under Ofelia's twin daggers. She tried to drag herself to safety, but she was losing blood at an alarming rate. She bled out in due time.

 _Indre Cubbard, District 9 Female (Newcomer); 41st, Killed by Ofelia, Bloodbath_

Zealand bore down on the second of the two boys. Adrenaline replaced his blood, but his mind went blank of everything, even his instincts. One swing of Zealand's hatchet was all it took for his life to leave him. He didn't even flinch.

 _Rivet Hurst, District 6 Male (Newcomer); 40th, Killed by Zealand, Bloodbath_

The careers guarding the cornucopia, Nouvelle, Ofelia, Swell, and Undine, decided to attack the four tributes inside of the horn: Theo and Cynthia, Flannelette, and Bechi. Theo and Cynthia ran together the instant they realized they were under attack. They narrowly dodged Undine's spear, and Theo let out a short groan as Nouvelle's sword hit him in the side. Theo stumbled, and Cynthia slowed slightly. That was all it took for Nouvelle to catch up to her. They both screamed as the point of Nouvelle's sword protruded from her chest. Cynthia fell still in a matter of moments, and Theo ran for his life, pushing past a rejuvenated Nouvelle and out of the horn.

 _Cynthia Upsdell, District 5 Female (Veteran); 39th, Killed by Nouvelle, Bloodbath_

Flannelette had snatched up a two knives; she was not completely defenseless as Ofelia and Undine ganged up on her. However, she was both "outmuscled" and "outgunned" and she met her end relatively quickly. She managed to land a small hit in Ofelia's shoulder, and a fuming Undine charged, barreling into her and knocking her straight off of her feet. Flannelette knocked into Bechi from 11, topping him in her descent, and Bechi fell straight into the path of Swell's trident. Both Flannelette and Bechi were gone in moments.

 _Flannelette Richards, District 8 Female (Newcomer); 38th, Killed by Undine, Bloodbath_

 _Bechi Olsen, District 11 Male (Veteran); 37th, Killed by Swell, Bloodbath_

Out in the cornucopia field, Urchin made his first kill. He'd been stalking the siblings from 12, Abia and Jacobi, around the cornucopia for several minutes. When the siblings kneeled to pick up a pair of black backpacks, Urchin leapt out of the darkness, the leather strap of his whip flying overhead. Abia screamed as the leather strap of the whip wrapped around her arm, the teeth digging deep into her flesh. A heavy tug was all it took for the limb to be torn off. Jacobi staggered away, and he stumbled into Dory from 4, who was trying to escape west with a thermos of water and a bag of dinner rolls. Jacobi and Dory sprinted away together while Abia bled out, the teeth of the weapon tearing her flesh into strips before it severed each of her limbs.

 _Abia Clarke, District 12 Female (Newcomer); 36th, Killed by Urchin, Bloodbath_

Cylinder from District 6 was back from the dead and just as ferocious as ever. He'd grabbed a sword near the start of the bloodbath, and he was now looking for the perfect opportunity to target a career tribute. Fifer was occupied helping his ally Saturn kill a small boy from the textile district. Fifer opened his mouth wide in shock as the blade of Cylinder's sword hit him in the jaw. He roared in agony and turned away from the 8 boy, who was trying to run for his life now that one of his killers was distracted. Fifer fell noisily under the blade of Cylinder's sword, bleeding out as the several gashes in his abdomen leaked torrents of dark blood.

 _Fifer Golden, District 1 Male (Veteran); 35th, Killed by Cylinder, Bloodbath_

The 8 boy ran as fast as he could, but he was quickly outrun by a sword-wielding Saturn, who was fixated on taking him down before he could escape into the amusement park. The boy collapsed as Saturn hooked him by the neck with his sword blade, and he vomited on the ground. Saturn quickly subdued him with a bit of expert swordplay, and he fell into the puddle of his own bile.

 _Gingham Drains, District 8 Male (Veteran); 34th, Killed by Saturn, Bloodbath_

Glitterdust leapt at the stocky boy from District 3, who was trying to escape west with a pack containing various mechanical parts. His body seized up as the hatchet landed in his side, and the boy fell to the ground with a loud noise. Glitterdust reclaimed her hatchet and continued to hack away at his body, slicing deep into his chest and neck relentlessly with her weapon.

 _Socket Martien, District 3 Male (Newcomer); 33rd, Killed by Glitterdust, Bloodbath_

Undine was digging through the horn's supplies, searching for a wrist strap for her spear. She saw two eyes glaring at her out of the darkness like cats': a small girl had climbed inside of the cornucopia. She was hoping to wait out of the bloodbath and leave the cornucopia once it was all over. She had no such luck. Undine leapt at her, skewering her spear through her neck, and she was dead before she knew what had hit her.

 _Bex Kavanaugh, District 5 Female (Newcomer); 32nd, Killed by Undine, Bloodbath_

Laureate and Nadia from District 2 were still good hunting buddies, and their alliance was still unshaken at the tail-end of the bloodbath. However, Laureate was not nearly as friendly as he was making himself out to be. The two of them had momentarily left the bloodbath, and they were searching the nearby streets and locations for fleeing outliers. They turned around to go back to the cornucopia, and suddenly Nadia was on the ground, screaming as Laureate cut into her abdomen. She was too stunned to do anything but stare into the eyes of the boy she'd thought to be her friend. Laureate didn't even say sorry as he sprinted back to the bloodbath, leaving her dead body in the dust.

 _Nadia Brutt, District 2 Female (Newcomer); 31st, Killed by Laureate, Bloodbath_

He arrived just as the last bloodbath kill was made. Mere seconds after the gong, Urchin had attacked a tiny girl with his weapon, tearing several long gashes in her front with the teeth of his bladed whip. The girl had climbed under a small crate, and she was still there at the very end of the bloodbath, softly crying to herself as she bled out. Urchin saw her softly shaking and kicked the crate off of her, finishing the job he'd begun almost five minutes prior. She was mere moments away from death already, and she barely felt it.

 _Tessa Corner, District 3 Female (Newcomer); 30th, Killed by Urchin, Bloodbath_

With the largest bloodbath in history at its conclusion, the twenty-nine remaining tributes scattered in all directions. It was difficult to cover them all; at first, the cameras focused on the career pack. There was no way to keep order in a pack so large, so they split into three different groups coinciding with the sects they had formed during the bloodbath. Nouvelle, Ofelia, Swell, and Undine formed the main pack (nicknamed the standards), and they stayed at the cornucopia for the remainder of the first day. Saturn, Urchin, and the conniving Laureate formed the second group, and they headed in the direction of the fog-laden swamp, eager to unearth the tributes hiding in the dense landscape. The smallest group consisted of Zealand and Glitterdust. The duo from District 1 was able to move the fastest due to the small size of their group, and they headed for the barren forest, ravenous to thin the crowds of outliers. The only careers to have died in the initial bloodbath were Fifer and Nadia. Nadia's body was absent, and Laureate managed to keep his cool when the careers started questioning each other about her disappearance. He would be killed if his secret was discovered, but he was confident it would not be.

The outliers this year had three choices: stay in the amusement park, head to the forest, or head to the swamp. Those that stayed in the park were testing their luck, but there were a few of them. Most of the large buildings and attractions were collapsed and downtrodden; it was too flat for anyone to feel safe without some form of cover. Dory from 4 and Jacobi from 12 found themselves together, and they were too tired to travel very far on the first day. They hunkered down in a small building near the Ferris wheel and munched on the crackers Jacobi had grabbed from the cornucopia. Elizabeth from 9 and Honey from 10 had allied prior to the games. They were terrified of the careers; they were kept back from reaching the woods not by weakness of spirit, but by weakness of body. They chose the large mirror maze as their hiding spot. It was pitch-black inside, and Elizabeth and Honey had to be careful to keep from cutting their faces and hands whenever they touched one of the shattered walls. Sentra from 6 was headed toward the swamp, but she turned back when she saw the first line of mangrove trees; she'd died from a combination of malaria and dysentery in her original games, and she was not eager to suffer the same fate once more. She curled up in the queue area of a destroyed roller coaster and tried to sleep. Hydrangea from 11 was small, but she was fast and very clever. She spent the first few hours leaping between various gift shops in search of valuable supplies. She eventually opened a cash register and unearthed two wicked-looking hunting knives. She closed herself in a storage closet nearby, vowing to begin hunting the next morning.

The most tributes ultimately headed to the forest. There, they had the most cover, but they also faced the most threats, from mutts to proximity to other tributes. Rimno from 3 was peeved by a throbbing pain in his shoulder as he walked. He'd grabbed nothing but a small tool kit and a single strip of dried beef from the cornucopia. When night fell, he took a few small bites and settled down in the shadow of a large oak tree. Calculata from 3 and Theo from 5 spotted each other about halfway through the day, and they walked toward each other, effectively allying. They'd both lost romantic partners to the Hunger Games, so they made friends rather quickly. The duo conversed quietly as they travelled through the barren trees. Cylinder from 6 was on the hunt. He'd taken a sword from the bloodbath, and he was eager to cement his place as a strong tribute early on in the games. Around noon, he spotted Dorothy from 10 sleeping at the bottom of a steep slope. Cylinder began to walk down the slope, but tripped. A rock the size of a basketball, dislodged by his sliding weight, ran down the hill and woke the sleeping Dorothy. She ran for her life, terrified, and climbed up into a tree before she could be seen again. Wheaton from 9 discovered a great hiding spot: three or four trees had fallen around a small hole, creating a hidden space within. He crawled inside with his supplies, feeling secure in his fortress with wooden walls.

Dylan and Listra were from District 7, and the district partners readily allied for company and safety. Their mad sprint slowed to a walk when they reached the forest. Night had already fallen, and the skeletal birds trilled terrifyingly. Strapson from 8 was the last member of the forest crew. He'd taken a crowbar and a pair of night-vision goggles from the bloodbath. Goggles strapped to his head, he was exploring the forest only a few minutes into the second day when he spotted the allied 7s moving quietly through the trees. Strapson pounced, and Dylan let out a shrill shriek as the crowbar hit him in the chest, winding him. Listra ran for her life, bounding over the earth as fast as her legs could carry her while Strapson continued beating him with all of the force he could muster. Bits of gore flew left and right, and Strapson grinned as he fell still, a crazy glint in his eye. Already someone had broken. Many more were to come in this terrifying quell.

 _Dylan Stocklin, District 7 Male (Newcomer); 29th, Killed by Strapson, Day 2_

The third region, the swamp, was rather inhospitable. There was virtually no clean water, and almost no shelter, but the tributes didn't know that; they only travelled there hoping the thick fog would shield them from the wandering eyes of the careers. Fumer from 5 waded through the thick, soup-like water for most of the day. He saw a strange shape, likely an alligator mutt, spinning through the water in the evening, and he climbed up into the nearest mangrove tree, scared and tired. Mikey and Itsuki from 7, another pair of allies, waded through the chin-high swamp until they came across a floating collection of logs. They found the logs could hold their weight, and the allies floated on their makeshift raft while the sun set. Bear from 10 had an encounter with an alligator mutt, which nibbled slightly at his shoulder before deciding he wasn't tasty enough to be worth its time. Bear had to struggle to keep from screaming as blood flowed from his shoulder. His mentor, Steer, sent him a thick bandage to bind the wound, but this did little to prevent the infection that was sure to take root before long. The last tribute, Ranger from 10, was the best off. He'd grabbed a thick net from the horn, so he was the only tribute safe from the swarms of mosquitoes that filled the smelly swamp air. They landed on the net in swarms, but couldn't reach him. Thanking himself for having the whim to grab the net, he drifted through the water, well-disguised and well-protected in his moving safe haven.

Hydrangea had promised to begin hunting in the early morning of the second day. She woke up several hours before sunrise, eager to catch at least one sleeping tribute off-guard. She momentarily disembarked from the forest, unable to see well through the trees in that dark hour of morning. It was easier to hunt in the wide-open field of cement, where she knew the weaker tributes were likely to be hiding anyway. Hydrangea had hunted for roughly forty minutes when she discovered her victim. Sentra had fallen asleep rather quickly the night prior, and she was snoozing still. Hydrangea probably would have passed her over if her small light hadn't glanced off of Sentra's tribute token, a thin silver bangle passed down through eight generations of her family.

Sentra woke up screaming as the first of Hydrangea's knives sank into her chest. Sentra let out a loud scream, and Hydrangea bit her lip, knowing it was far too late to turn back now; she had to make her stop screaming before the loud noises attracted any of the nearby careers. Hydrangea slashed the second knife into Sentra's neck and tore both of the weapons back in unison. It had been a wise move to go for the neck: her screams were already choked and quieted by the sound of blood. Hydrangea bounded away as quickly as her feet could carry her, returning to the forest just as Sentra's cannon sounded.

 _Sentra Bootshoe, District 6 Female (Veteran); 28th, Killed by Hydrangea, Day 2_

The remainder of the second morning was relatively empty of conflict. The standards quickly ate breakfast and then left the cornucopia, wanting to thoroughly explore the amusement park before too many of the arena's mutts and tributes would be awake. It was hard to get lost with so many notable landmarks, so they didn't bother to keep track of their movements while exploring. Nouvelle, Ofelia, Swell, and Undine made fast progress through the park, but they found no tributes.

The career trio (Saturn, Urchin, and Laureate) reached the swamp around dawn. Saturn was slightly nervous: his original games had taken place in a swamp, and he had many bad experiences with that type of landscape. However, his protests were overruled, and he submitted to scope out of the thick bog alongside his allies, Laureate and Urchin.

Zealand and Glitterdust crashed through the forest, ultimately covering the most ground. They were fast and extremely agile: on the second day alone, they managed to cover nearly a third of the woods. Being so fast, they passed multiple tributes by. For now, their sole goal was to take down the tributes who were poorly hiding out in the open. Later, they could hunt more finely for the better hiders, who would also likely have better combat skills.

Saturn, Urchin, and Laureate remained in the swamp as afternoon arrived. Saturn's gut was telling him to leave the swamp, but he knew Urchin and Laureate would never listen, and he didn't want to come off as a scaredy-cat by admitting he was afraid. His yells shattered the silence of the bog as he felt a chorus of sharp teeth close around his ankle. The thickly-armored alligator mutt managed to chomp off his entire lower leg in one bite, and Saturn was tugged down under the water in a matter of seconds. Laureate and Urchin quickly paddled away, leaving Saturn behind in hopes of reaching safety. Laureate peered over his shoulder and saw a few bubbles float the surface: then a cannon sounded, and all traces of Saturn Talbot were gone.

 _Saturn Talbot, District 2 Male (Veteran); 27th, Killed by alligator mutt, Day 2_

The other tributes in the swamp reacted differently to the loud cannon. Fumer was spooked by the cannon shot and remained still in the crook of his mangrove tree. For now, he was surviving completely off of sponsored water and food. He knew he would have to leave soon and search for such things himself. He thought of ways to travel safely through the water as the day passed. Mikey and Itsuki decided to keep moving on their makeshift raft, but to keep their eyes peeled in case the danger that had affected the careers came in their direction. By then, infection had begun to take root in Bear's wound. He knew what was likely coming: a long, agonizing death drawn out over the course of days or weeks. Ranger was rather unfazed by Saturn's cannon, and he continued floating on his back, the net keeping the arena's various flying insects and other pests at bay.

Early on Day 3, Zealand and Glitterdust disembarked from the forest. Exploring the entire thing was too large a task to tackle this early in the games, so they decided to scope out of the amusement park while the standards were likely to be hunting in the forest. Zealand and Glitterdust ate breakfast in a small gift shop, eating stale pretzels and drinking warm bottled water with a plasticky taste.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Honey were out and about. They'd left the mirror maze because they were thirsty for a drink, and they were now moving quietly through the abandoned streets. Wind howled against the various metal structures scattered around the park, masking the sounds of their footsteps. Honey was glad to have an ally other than her older brother. Wanting to thank Elizabeth for her company and safety, Honey suggested she wander away by herself to explore the park and be a brave little hero. Elizabeth was apprehensive, but Honey could not be shaken, and she sauntered away all by herself. Big mistake.

She'd wandered less than half a mile when she felt the bite of Zealand's hatchet near her shoulder blade. She turned her head quickly around and saw both Zealand and Glitterdust creeping out of the shadows. The careers were both fast runners, but Honey was pumped up with adrenaline. She raced in Elizabeth's direction to warn her of the threat. She thought she'd lost of the careers, but they were still following her close behind. When Elizabeth came into sight, Zealand took a big risk and threw his hatchet. It landed in the back of Honey's neck, killing her instantly. Zealand retrieved his hatchet, and the careers ducked down into the shadows.

 _Honey Sadler, District 10 Female (Veteran); 26th, Killed by Zealand, Day 3_

Elizabeth heard Honey's screams and rushed to her side, checking her vitals even though her cannon shot had already sounded. Blood quickly stained Elizabeth's fingers, and the realization set in that there was nothing she could do to help her. Elizabeth turned her head slowly around and let out a loud scream: Zealand was standing there, his hatchet lofted overhead. Zealand brought down the hatchet before Elizabeth had time to run, and the weapon landed squarely in her face, nearly cleaving her head completely in half down the center. Glitterdust fell back; her heart hurt terribly for the poor girl. Elizabeth died, and Zealand ordered Glitterdust to follow him away. She followed slowly behind, realizing for the first time how terribly unprepared she was for these games.

 _Elizabeth Becker, District 9 Female (Veteran); 25th, Killed by Zealand, Day 3_

True to the duo's prediction, the standards were headed toward the forest. With four members, they were still the largest sect of the career pack. The four of them had different skill sets and personalities that fit together well and only grated slightly. Each of them was also well-liked in the Capitol. In the woods the standards were headed for, much was abound. Rimno had proved his worth with survival skills over the past few days, and he completed his shelter about halfway through the third day. It was very smartly assembled, with a thick roof that kept in the rising warm air given off by his body. Now, the audience was eager to see his mechanical talents exhibited again; he'd assembled quite a clever electrical contraption back in the eighty-eighth games, and the Capitol was eager to see once again what Rimno Kiely's brain could do. Calculata and Theo split up to search for food. Unbeknownst to them, they were in the center of a large ring of berry bushes. They filled their pockets and fists with berries and began moving back toward each other. They were mere feet away when the two cannons sounded. Terrified and shaken, they met up and sat cross-legged on the ground to munch on their berries. Cylinder had been hunting ravenously for several days, so nobody could blame him for taking a short break. He was the strongest outlier in the forest and shouldn't have been nervous about tribute attacks, but he couldn't help but be slightly paranoid as night fell and he curled up in a ditch to sleep. Listra was still running for her life, traumatized after the death of her ally. She was terrified by the thought of Dylan's bloodied corpse, and even more terrified by the thought of such a terrible fate coming for her. Wheaton decided to explore the outer stretches of the forest, hoping for some reward or treasure hidden there. It was a stellar distance to the outer edge of the arena; he knew it would take several days of walking to accomplish his goal. As Wheaton walked, he took short breaks for naps. That way, he didn't have to lie down for one long sleep at night.

Strapson was as crazy as ever, and he was now attempting to "kill" dead twigs and branches as he shuffled awkwardly through the forest, weighed down on one side by his weapon. It had been nearly two days since fresh blood had stained his crowbar, and he smiled as a small girl's silhouette came into focus. The fourteen-year-old Dorothy from District 10 had managed to narrowly avoid Strapson several times throughout the first two days, and the insane boy was determined that he would not let her escape this time.

Strapson leaped out of seemingly nowhere. For several seconds, Dorothy thought his movements were the sounds of a moving animal, like a deer or wolf. In the darkness, she thought she could remain safe by staying still to keep from being spotted. However, Strapson's night-vision goggles gave him clear vision in an environment so dark. The moonlight glinted off of the crowbar, and Dorothy ran for her life. She could hardly take three steps before she was overtaken, whacked unconscious with a single swing of the inefficient weapon. At least it was a fast and painless death, her mentor would later tell the press.

 _Dorothy Jordan, District 10 Female (Newcomer); 24th, Killed by Strapson, Day 3_

During the morning of Day 4, the tributes in the amusement park began to notice a strange creaking sound coming from the large Ferris wheel. For the entirety of the games, it had been slowly sliding and falling off of its axle: sooner than later, it was expected to fall off and roll for several miles, flattening anything and anyone in its path. The gamemakers had originally planned for the event to take place later in the games, but there was no stopping it. Alarms sounded in the gamemakers center, and the gamemakers rushed to their positions, preparing for a show.

It was almost exactly noon with the enormous metal wheel rolled off of its axle. For years, games fans thought that it had slid off of the bent axle, but after careful examination of unearthed footage, it was shown that the axle itself was actually torn off of its supports. It rolled slowly at first, but it began travelling at an incredible speed as soon as it hit the first downward incline. It travelled extremely quietly over the cement, flattening nearly three buildings before it reached the cornucopia. Nouvelle, Swell, and Undine were sleeping in the back of the cornucopia, while Ofelia was sleepily standing guard.

Ofelia didn't see the enormous wheel coming until it was too late. Numerous trees toppled at once, and Ofelia snapped awake. The Ferris wheel loomed out of the darkness like death itself, and she had no time to do anything at all before she was flattened. The wheel crashed into the cornucopia, and the three tributes inside prayed that the horn would remain intact under so much weight. The cornucopia stood strong and only rerouted the Ferris wheel: now, it was rolling toward the forest and the tributes hiding within. It was only after the wheel rolled away that they realized the terrible fate that had befallen Ofelia.

 _Ofelia Tessard, District 2 Female (Veteran); 23rd, Killed by Ferris wheel, Day 4_

By Day 4, Dory and Jacobi's relationship had progressed far past the point of mere friendship. There weren't any kisses yet, but they were definitely stealing glances at each other. Dory was a heavy sleeper, but Jacobi was quickly woken by the faint noise of the rolling wheel. Jacobi called Dory's name and tugged her to her feet. They didn't have enough time to get out of the wheel's path: it was all they could do to find shelter and hope it would protect them. The nearest building was the mirror maze, and the allies sprinted inside. The wheel merely grazed the edge of the maze, crushing about a fifth of the structure under its weight. The noise of grating metal was deafening in their ears, but Dory and Jacobi were ultimately unharmed.

The other inhabitant of the amusement park, Hydrangea, was nearly half a mile out of the wheel's path. The night before, she'd sat down on the cleanest bench she could find and nodded off to the sound of crickets. When she woke, she couldn't do anything but watch in earnest as the wheel bowled over the park. She jumped slightly when it hit the cornucopia, but Hydrangea stayed pretty stoic as the wheel crashed toward the forest.

Two more deaths were caused by the wheel. It had an incredible amount of momentum, but the many branches and trunks of the forest worked to slow it down slightly. Calculata and Theo woke up to the faint rumbling noise of the wheel and knew it couldn't be anything good. They hurriedly shoved their handfuls of berries into their mouths, preferring to fight any potential threat on full stomachs rather than empty ones. The wheel was getting closer and closer, but they couldn't see exactly what it was through the thick net of bare branches. The gigantic metal structure flattened both of them instantly, like a rolling pin, and neither of them had any idea what had hit them. The gamemakers had to make their cannon shots especially loud, just so that they could be heard over the noises of so many snapping branches.

 _Calculata Barns, District 3 Female (Veteran); 22nd, Killed by Ferris wheel, Day 4_

 _Theo Upsdell, District 5 Male (Veteran); 21st, Killed by Ferris wheel, Day 4_

The wheel reached its stop a short distance after that. After a long downward slope, the forest terrain broke into a steep upward incline. The wheel slowed gradually until it came to its stop, then, tugged down by a slight downward slope to the left, toppled over like a domino. It creaked, groaned, and wobbled slightly, then fell dead still as though it had sat in that forest for a hundred years.

Strapson took the opportunity to start hunting immediately after the Ferris wheel stopped moving. He knew most of the forest's inhabitants were likely to be shocked and off of their guard after the event, in which state they would be easier to kill and put on a show with. The forest crew was weirdly unfazed by the event; there were no more movements, or lack thereof, than usual throughout the remainder of the fourth day. Rimno remained pretty unshaken, and he whiled the day away by slowly assembling the parts he was gradually being sponsored. He started by assembling a small motor, then adding a trigger mechanism, and working off of that. He was strong enough to climb a tree but small enough to remain well-hidden through the branches, so Rimno felt pretty secure as he slowly assembled his masterpiece. Wheaton was exploring the outer reaches of the arena when the gamemakers sent a terrifying mutt after him: a skeletal deer creature with only a few strips of flesh hanging from its bones. Wheaton ran for his life, and he stumbled down a deep slope, rolling and thumping nearly a hundred feet to the bottom. Down there, he was too battered and tired to do anything but wait for his body to heal on its own.

Two inter-tribute clashes occurred in the forest, but neither of them let to deaths. Sword-wielding Cylinder and crowbar-wielding Strapson spotted each other from about a quarter mile off in the late morning. The boys both charged, and they clashed in an open clearing with no branches overhead. The bright sun was veiled by a thin layer of fog, giving both the tributes and the cameras clear vision of the fight. Strapson struck first, lashing out with his crowbar, and Cylinder quickly retaliated with a swing of his sword. It hit Strapson's shoulder hard enough to send him reeling. Their battle continued for roughly half an hour before Cylinder forced Strapson to the top of a steep slope. He stumbled backward and instantly fell down, rolling down the hill. Cylinder was covered with dried blood and had no wishes to continue the fight; by the time Strapson regained his footing and sprinted up the hill, Cylinder was gone.

Urchin and Laureate were now hunting alone after Saturn's death, and they had relocated to the forest. It had taken them several hours to trudge out of the swamp, and they were instantly attacked by a trio of skeletal bird mutts sent after them by the gamemakers. Laureate and Urchin fought the birds off over the course of about ten minutes. By the end of the fight, they were both covered with mud and blood, and they were hoping to come across somewhere they could clean themselves. They quickly came to one of the arena's few rivers, and they were about to step into the cool water when they spotted Listra standing on the muddy shore. The careers charged, and Listra quickly made the decision to ride the river to safety. Keeping afloat was not easy, but she was a good swimmer, and she quickly managed to lose her career pursuers. She floated the river for about thirty more minutes before she washed ashore.

Days 5 and 6 were both deathless. The gamemakers had a devious plan in place, which they would enact as soon as the tribute count dwindled to eighteen. For now, however, there were twenty tributes still kicking, and the gamemakers wanted to coax them all toward the forest, where there would be more opportunities for fighting and bloodshed. Nouvelle, Swell, and Undine had effectively abandoned the cornucopia, and they were now hunting in the forest. Zealand and Glitterdust were still wildly hunting in the amusement park. Other than the two of them, Hydrangea and the Dory-Jacobi duo were the park's only inhabitants. Hydrangea was moving regularly, and Dory and Jacobi were hidden well inside of the mirror maze.

Glitterdust was more and more reluctant to do work, and she was slowly losing her will to fight while Zealand was only growing more ravenous by the day. Hydrangea made the decision to travel to the forest, and Glitterdust caught a glimpse of her around noon but didn't pursue her or tell Zealand. Jacobi and Dory were starting up a heated love affair in the center of the mirror maze, and they started hugging for more reasons than just to keep warm. Jacobi was glad to have a partner again after the death of his sister Abia, and Dory was happy to have found her Mr. Right in her second life, after the non-successes of her first one.

Everything going on in the forest around that time was pretty tame and relaxed. Urchin and Laureate talked quietly to each other as they wandered through the trees, and they were so focused on each other that passed multiple tributes past, including Rimno and Listra at different points throughout the day. When night fell, the duo rested on a small hillock and set up shifts before passing out. Rimno continued assembling his sponsored parts, peeved by the pain in his shoulder. He was developing a headache as well, and he had to stop halfway through the day to sleep off his pains. The Cylinder-Strapson conflict continued. The boys met and retreated five times over the course of the two days, inflicting small cuts and scrapes but nothing major. Strapson was fully insane, but Cylinder was merely eager to eliminate the other tributes and make it home as quickly as possible. Neither of them had permanent shelters, like most of the tributes inhabiting the forest. Listra holed up in a tree after her narrow escape from Laureate and Urchin. She was one of the least popular of the remaining tributes; if she refused to do anything but run for much longer, she was likely to receive nasty threats from the gamemakers. Wheaton had travelled onward for nearly a week, and he finally reached the chasm signifying the arena's end. He wasn't stupid enough to use the force field: the last time a tribute had done that, he'd returned home to find his mother and girlfriend dead. He wandered along the edge of the arena, stopping at berry bushes and small streams to hydrate himself from time to time.

Only five tributes were still in the swamp region of the arena. Fumer was as inactive as ever, floating on his back and climbing into trees whenever alligator mutts came near. He was not living up to the expectations set by his older brother. Mikey and Itsuki still used their do-it-yourself raft made out of logs to get around. They hadn't found any victims since the very start of the games, and they were ready to leave the swamp altogether in favor of the amusement park or the forest. The boys from 10, Ranger and Bear, met around sunset. Ranger saw Bear quietly floating on the rippling water surface and swam in his direction. Bear's infection was incurable now: puss oozed from his skin whenever he moved too suddenly, and sinister streaks of green and black had begun to form around the wound inflicted by the alligator mutt back on Day 1. Ranger felt bad for him and floated next to him for the remainder of the night, mosquito net draped over both of them. Bear never woke up, and one of Ranger's sponsors sent him a note suggesting he end Ranger's misery. He squinted and shoved his body underneath the water. He drowned in a matter of seconds, signifying the first death in over two days.

 _Bear Theodos, District 10 Male (Veteran); 20th, Killed by infection and Ranger, Day 7_

The first half of Day 7 was filled with little but Hydrangea's arrival in the forest. She finished her trek through the amusement park to find herself at the first line of bare, skeletal trees. Her knives had been completely clean for a long time: while she was no longer actively searching for conflict, she was more than prepared in case it arrived.

Jacobi and Dory kissed for the first time later that morning. Magnet Lisagor's miniature drone mechanism had to be used to deliver their sponsor gifts to them, including several warm blankets and copious amounts of food and water. They were also sent several changes of clothes; the Capitol wanted them to change in front of each other. However, Dory pointed out how inappropriate that would be due to the three-month difference in their ages. Neither of them knew that one of the most terrifying deaths in Hunger Games history was about to befall them.

Nouvelle, Swell, and Undine arrived back in the park after several days spent in the forest. The three of them were exhausted, and they were eager to return to the cornucopia, where they could catch up on their sleep. They quickly realized that reaching the horn before midnight would not be an attainable goal, and so they settled on the mirror maze to sleep the night away. They stuck together as they wandered through the maze. They reached the center, and Nouvelle's light shone on the sleeping tributes.

"Cover the exits!" Swell shouted, and thus began the hour-long game of cat and mouse. Dory and Jacobi scattered, screaming and running in separate directions. Dory had only been running for ten seconds when she saw the faint silhouette of Undine charging toward her out of the darkness. The outliers ran back and forth, turning left and right, slamming into walls and turning whenever they saw the silhouette or shadow of a strong career. The maze was only faintly illuminated; Dory and Jacobi were both helpless in the darkness. Nouvelle had one of the arena's two pairs of night vision goggles (the other belonged to Strapson) and she figuratively ran into Jacobi after nearly fifty minutes. The point of Nouvelle's sword came out of nowhere, and Jacobi only had time to let out a single loud scream before his life force slipped away. Nouvelle kicked him away and continued running, trying to hear out the noise of Dory's screams over the thundering symphony of eight pounding feet.

 _Jacobi Clarke, District 12 Male (Newcomer); 19th, Killed by Nouvelle, Day 7_

Dory tried to run, but with three careers chasing after her, she could only survive for so long. Later investigations of her body showed that every inch of her flesh was covered with thousands of tiny mirror shards. She ran face-first into a wall mere moments after Jacobi's cannon shot. Consequently, Swell and Undine quickly closed in on her. Dory fell almost immediately under Swell's trident and Undine's daggers. She tried to wiggle her way past Undine's left elbow and reach safety, but she found her wrists pinned against the wall by Nouvelle. Her screams faded quickly.

 _Dory Krillgood, District 4 Female (Veteran); 18th, Killed by Swell and Undine, Day 7_

The gamemakers had been planning to reveal their strange twist when the tribute count dwindled to eighteen; however, due to the rapid nature of Jacobi's and Dory's deaths, this number was changed to seventeen.

The next morning, the seventeen tributes suddenly found themselves together. They were standing in a plain white room, wearing plain white clothes. Head Gamemaker Orestilla Chandler stood in front of them, wearing a spring-green suit and a smile. "Welcome, tributes, and congratulations on making it this far," she said. "I'm sure you all need an explanation. First, I think I should explain how you've come to be here. You aren't you. Your original body is down there, in the arena."

Orestilla pointed through a glass hole in the floor. From their height thousands of feet up, they could see the entire arena: the central cement wasteland, the swamp, and the forest. They could even see the fallen Ferris wheel, the size of a coin from that height. "What we've done is taken each of you and built you a second body. Your thoughts, personalities, and even memories are linked. It's like there are two copies of you now, and each one is updated whenever a change is made to the other. Weird, huh?"

The tributes murmured in agreement, and a few of them seemed surprised that they could talk.

"At different points during the games, we'll have you engage in three intermissions. Every intermission will have a different task for you to complete. A certain number of tributes who fail to complete said task will be eliminated from the games. Now, I present you with your first intermission. Your first goal is simple: run a single mile down this track. I'll meet you on the other side."

"What track?" one of the tributes asked, but an open cement track suddenly appeared before them. They realized they could move at various moments. The thought of being inside of a copy of their body was a thought many of them found extremely disturbing.

Undine was the first tribute to finish the mile, with Zealand pulling in a matter of seconds later. Swell finished next, then Urchin, Laureate, Glitterdust, Cylinder, Wheaton, Mikey, Strapson, Itsuki, Rimno, Hydrangea, Ranger, and Fumer. Listra was the last tribute to finish the mile. The tributes now stood in an identical white room, where Orestilla stood, wearing a yellow suit this time.

Orestilla spoke again. "Undine: as you were the first tribute to finish the mile, you are completely exempt from this task." She snapped her fingers, and a peacekeeper appeared, carrying Undine away from the strange room.

"As for the sixteen of you: the last eight of you to finish the mile, please enter the tanks."

Mikey, Strapson, Itsuki, Rimno, Hydrangea, Ranger, Fumer, and Listra did as they were told.

"The eight of you who finished the mile first, please sit on one of the stools."

They did as they were told.

"At my command, the eight tanks will begin to fill with water. The rules are simple: the first tribute to drown is out! The tribute sitting in front of the tribute that drowns will receive a reward when he or she re-enters the arena. Good luck."

Orestilla snapped, and the eight tanks started filling with water. The water came seemingly out of nowhere: weird things like that could happen in this strange, distant place. Strapson remained completely still as the water passed his ankles, taking small breaths to preserve the oxygen within the small tank. Hydrangea tried to stay calm, but involuntarily took large gulps of air. Mikey, Ranger, and Rimno proceeded similarly. Itsuki began to panic as the water passed her waist, but not nearly as much as Fumer and Listra. Both of them were freaking out, smashing their fists against the locked doors of the tanks as the water rose higher and higher.

Listra managed to calm down, but Fumer kept thrashing in terror, smashing the walls of the tank and going completely nutzo. Soon enough, the tanks were completely full, and bubbles began streaming from Fumer's mouth. He promptly drowned, and the water in the other tanks suddenly disappeared. The tributes gasped with relief as fresh air flowed in from nowhere. Orestilla unlocked the tanks individually and helped the seven survivors out.

 _Fumer Shacklebolt, District 5 Male (Newcomer); 17th, Killed by drowning, Day 8 (Intermission 1)_

Orestilla smiled and patted Nouvelle on the back. "Ms. Harris, as you seated yourself in front of Fumer, you will receive a unique perk upon re-entering the arena." She turned toward the other tributes. "That's it for now. I'll meet you back here when there are twelve of you. May the odds be ever in your favor." Orestilla snapped, and the tributes jerked awake in the arena down below, in the exact same places they had fallen asleep the night prior.

The tributes got back into their day-to-day routines pretty quickly. They all had memories of the first intermission, but they were faint, like memories of a dream. Nouvelle woke up to find a large silver package in front of her. Remembering the perk she was promised, she eagerly tore up the packaging, with the other standards huddling around to get a good look at whatever was inside. There was a double-edged sword, an entire belt of throwing knives, a jug of cold water, and a plastic bag of juicy beef strips, not the dried ones that were supplied in the horn, meant to dehydrate the tributes. Nouvelle insisted on keeping the weapons for herself, but she shared the food and water with the others in small amounts. The standards, three of which (Nouvelle, Swell, and Undine) were still alive, left the park, thinking it was clear of tributes (they didn't know about Hydrangea, who had evaded them well for the entire games). It took them about half a day to reach the forest. Now, all of the remaining careers were in the forest. Laureate and Urchin were about a mile away, with Zealand and Glitterdust resting about three quarters of a mile in the opposite direction. The groups were far enough apart to keep them from meeting, but they were likely to clash at some point before the quell ended.

Rimno's treetop home was less than fifty meters from the small clearing the standards chose as their resting place for the night, but he was quiet enough to remain unheard. His small light, which allowed him to work through the night, was far too weak to penetrate the blanket of leaves that shielded him from the standards' sight. His creation was beginning to take on a taser-like form. After several hours of work, it began sparking. Rimno was too exhausted to fix the backfired mechanism, so he wrapped it up and crossed his hands over his chest, hoping a good night's rest would give him the energy he needed to continue.

Glitterdust was growing more and more stubborn. Completely questioning her position as a career, she was refusing to do the work Zealand assigned to her. Zealand wanted to hunt, hunt, hunt, and Glitterdust wanted to rest, rest, rest. Zealand didn't want to soil his reputation by killing her or abandoning her when she wandered away to gather berries, so he decided to keep her hanging on for a few more days. Unless she turned around, however, she was likely to meet a grim fate.

Urchin and Laureate were the most active of the three career groups. Because of the small naps they took throughout the day, they never needed to sleep in one big period at night, meaning they could hunt with the valuable cover of darkness.

Cylinder, exhausted by the constant conflict with Strapson, had travelled far out of the insane boy's range earlier on Day 9. By doing so, he inadvertently moved into the path of the ravenously hunting Urchin and Laureate. The day of travel had taken Cylinder up and down many hills, and he had been scraped by so much dead forest brush that small cuts and scrapes littered his body. When evening began to darken, he settled down at the base of a small tree, sword in his grip.

Urchin and Laureate were hunting around eleven at night when they saw Cylinder, silhouetted against the bright moonlight shining through a gap in the trees. Cylinder hadn't fallen asleep yet, but was slowly drifting off, and he snapped to full attention when he picked up on the light footsteps of the travelling duo. He tightened his grip around his sword, but waited until they drew closer to leap to his feet.

Laureate didn't have time to breathe before he was tackled by the strong boy from District 6. Urchin gasped and whirled around and grabbed Cylinder by the shoulders, desperately attempting to tug him off of Laureate. However, his damage had already been done: the point of Cylinder's sword was lodged deep into Laureate's gut, and Urchin knew at one glance that his ally was beyond saving. Now, it was all he could do to kill Cylinder in revenge.

 _Laureate Matthews, District 2 Male (Newcomer); 16th, Killed by Cylinder, Day 9_

Cylinder turned quickly around, facing the spot where Urchin had stood moments before. However, Urchin was nowhere to be seen, as though he'd been lifted straight off of the ground. Cylinder slowly turned his head around, and he only caught a flash of movement before Urchin was on top of him. Having torn his sword out of his hand and tossed it to the forest, Urchin had Cylinder defenseless. A kick was all it took to wind him, and Urchin prepared to go in with his whip.

The first deafening crack of his whip sent the nearby forest life scattering, and Cylinder tried to wriggle to safety, or at least to a position where he could properly defend himself. He had no such luck, and his back was quickly peppered with splotches of blood and dozens of tiny holes. Cylinder's cannon fired, and Urchin sprinted away, taking on the dark cover of the forest to hide him from any mutts that may have been woken up by the cannon.

 _Cylinder Gauntlet, District 6 Male (Veteran); 15th, Killed by Urchin, Day 9_

Days 10 through 12 were all deathless. The Capitol was enthralled by the first intermission, as well as the deaths of Laureate and Cylinder, and Orestilla wanted to let things cool down a little before she unleased further threats onto the tributes. Zealand and Glitterdust wove rapidly through the woods and the park, able to move so quickly due to the small size of their group. Nouvelle, Swell, and Undine took a break from hunting to practice with their weapons. Nouvelle had her sword and knives, Swell had his trident, and Undine had her spear. They didn't bother to keep quiet while they practiced, tearing up the sides of the trees and scoring the dirt ground with long gashes. They knew they could easily fight away or kill any tribute who picked up on the noises and approached. Urchin was now alone. He had never found out about Laureate's secret: the real cause of Nadia's death had died along with her killer. Urchin hunted and rested on his own watch; however, his schedule largely remained the same, with lots of naps and a long hunting session while it was pitch-dark. None of the careers found victims as the days trickled past, despite the many outliers inhabiting the forest.

Rimno continued holing up in the treetops, assembling his taser-like contraption. The pain in his shoulder was only soothed by the aspirin his sponsors sent him. It was possible he was taking on a serious infection, but none of the sponsors though it was anything more serious than a minor injury from a fall he'd taken earlier in the games. Mikey and Itsuki spent almost two straight days assembling a shelter out of branches. They spent the majority of that time on the roof, which they reinforced repeatedly in hopes of keeping out the cold rain that fell regularly. About halfway through Day 12, they heard the footsteps of Zealand and Glitterdust and abandoned the bulky shelter. By the time the careers were gone, Mikey and Itsuki couldn't find their way back to the shelter. They resolved to continue searching the next morning. Listra had been wandering down a thin, dirty stream for nearly a week. The dirty, soup-like water wasn't working wonders for her digestive system, and dehydration was starting to become a serious concern. She had several small homes assembled along the river, and she made a new one on the twelfth night for lack of anything else to distract her from her cramps. Strapson was as batshit crazy as ever, and the gamemakers were beginning to seriously consider terminating him. Some famous Capitol journalists were calling for the 8 boy to be put down. However, Orestilla wanted to keep him around a little longer. He was putting on quite a bit of entertainment with his mad ravings, and he wasn't particularly breaking any rules (namely cannibalism), so the gamemakers let him be. Wheaton left the chasm at the edge of the arena, having come to the conclusion there was nothing there worth his time. He gathered various berries in a basket he'd woven with his mother's technique while he wandered. He spotted Listra resting at the streamside about halfway through the day but decided to leave her alone. Later, when he'd settled down for the night, he wondered if that had been the right choice.

Only two tributes were not in the forest: Hydrangea, who was in the theme park, and Ranger, who was floating quietly through the swamp. The few sponsors that hadn't abandoned Ranger sent him notes frantically urging him to leave the swamp, but he ignored the notes. He couldn't have followed the instructions if he had wanted to: he was completely lost, and his visibility was terribly reduced through so much thick fog. Hydrangea was the complete opposite: she began sprinting toward the forest as soon as she was urged to do so. Despite her strength, she was too small to complete the journey in one day. With only a mile left to the first line of trees, Hydrangea crouched down in a cluster of old garbage cans and tried to sleep.

By Day 13, Rimno was officially on the hunt. He'd completed his device, and he was willing, if not eager, to find a victim. Besides Zealand and Glitterdust, who he could never take down, there were no tributes nearby. Having abandoned the treetops in favor of the more versatile ground, he was more of a nomad than anything, and he rested in a thick bed of crumbling black flowers at night.

Wheaton could think about nothing except the little girl he'd passed by the day before, and he made the decision to return to the place he had last seen her and see what he could do about her. He was definitely planning on killing Listra, but didn't want to make any promises to the audience in case Listra was more powerful than she appeared. The sun had just begun to dip below the horizon when Listra's screams shattered the silence of the forest.

Moments earlier, Listra had stood up and wandered away from the edge of the stream. She hoped she could find some sort of juicy berries to satisfy her thirst: even though such berries weren't likely to be found in the dead forest, she was in a desperate place and couldn't afford to drink the dirty water anymore. Mikey and Itsuki, who were still searching for their lost shelter, crossed her path almost instantly. Listra mistook the tributes as two harmless deer, unable to see them clearly through a web of whimsically curved branches. When she saw her district partners heading toward her, Listra screamed at the top of her lungs and dashed away. A third of a mile away, Zealand heard Listra's loud scream and urged Glitterdust to follow him toward it.

Listra had been running for less than two minutes when Zealand and Glitterdust barreled out of the forest. She turned around to run the opposite direction, but quickly found herself trapped between the careers, who had their hatchets drawn. Zealand charged, shattering four of her ribs in a matter of moments, and Glitterdust was thankful she never had to lay a finger on the small girl as she sprinted back to their camp in Zealand's wake.

 _Listra Harington, District 7 Female (Newcomer); 14th, Killed by Zealand, Day 13_

Hydrangea was on the move with her two hunting knives and her various other supplies. She spotted Strapson multiple times throughout the day and was tempted to run for the hills, but knew that there would likely be more tributes nearby where he came from. The second intermission was meant to take place when the tribute count reached twelve: with thirteen tributes left, only one more death had to occur before they were taken to that strange, distant place again. Ranger continued floating through the swamp, stubbornly refusing to even try and escape the clutches of the bog. The Capitol had completely given up on helping Ranger: he would not budge, and he would most certainly pay the price.

The first alligator mutt lifted itself out of the water slowly. Its eyes poked out of the water first, and Ranger exhaled heavily, trying to control his breathing but struggling due to panic. In a matter of moments, he was surrounded by two more of the thickly-armored reptiles. They had not eaten in several days, and they were eager to gore and feast.

One of the mutts approached, and a panicked Ranger punched it between the eyes. The alligator reeled, but its place was quickly filled by two of its comrades: one of the original three, and a new, light-green alligator that had spun out of the murky depths mere moments earlier. Despite his best attempts to fight off the mutts, Ranger was quickly overwhelmed. It was one of the most gruesome murder scenes in games history as a total of eight alligator mutts dove in in unison, tearing off strips of his bloody flesh and mutilating the various chunks of his body that floated away from one another. Now only a quarter of the tributes were left.

 _Ranger Hambert, District 10 Male (Newcomer); 13th, Killed by alligator mutts, Day 14_

In the blink of an eye, the twelve remaining tributes found themselves standing in the strange place where Fumer had drowned six days before. The walls, ceiling, and floor were as white as the tributes remembered: in fact, the room's lighting seemed to coming from nowhere. Each of them had much more space in the small room than last time: their numbers were much fewer. Orestilla stood at the far end of the room, wearing a pastel pink gown. It was several moments before she spoke.

"Welcome, tributes. Congratulations on making it this far. You've survived longer than seventy-five percent of your fellow tributes. I hope you understand how special you are."

Orestilla continued without introducing herself. "Now, let's get down to business." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a plain white pill bottle. She unscrewed the lid and emptied the twelve pink pills into her hand. Orestilla handed one pill to each tribute and ordered them to swallow.

"The pill I have just administered to you contains a deadly poison that takes exactly two hours to kill you." A number of the tributes shuddered as one of the room's four walls disappeared, revealing a room that contained hundreds of shelves. "But don't worry. There are ten bottles of antidote in this room. You heard me correctly. There are ten bottles of antidote and there are twelve of you."

Orestilla smiled again. "You may begin searching. And remember, you have two hours."

The twelve tributes rushed into the room and frantically began glancing over the thousands of empty bottles, desperately looking for the bottles containing the antidote. It was forty minutes before Hydrangea's eyes landed on a bottle containing an inch of thick black liquid. She quickly downed the antidote and stood in the corner with Orestilla, who congratulated her for being the first tribute to find the antidote.

It was five more minutes before Mikey found a bottle of the elixir and drank the entire thing in a single gulp. Rimno found the next bottle, shoving aside a rabid Strapson, who tried to steal it from him. Zealand and Glitterdust were searching together, and they found two bottles of the cure sitting close together near the back edge of a shelf. Strapson was the next tribute to find the cure, retrieving a slim bottle of the liquid from a remote back corner of the room.

Six tributes were still searching, with only four bottles of the antidote remaining. Fifty-five minutes had passed when Undine took a drink of the black liquid. Seconds later, Wheaton found his own bottle of the cure, tucked into the center of a cluster of empty bottles. Nouvelle was next, snatching a hit of the antidote from one of the lowest shelves in the room.

Three tributes were still searching: Urchin, Swell, and Itsuki. They were now searching more feverishly than ever for the single bottle of antidote remaining. The minutes ticked past rapidly, but the last bottle of antidote continued to evade the searchers. Finally, with only three minutes left until the poison activated, Itsuki saw a bottle of the inky-black liquid sitting high on a narrow shelf. Too short to reach the bottle, she used the lower shelves as footholds to reach the bottle. The moment Itsuki had wrapped her fingers around the bottle, she felt Urchin's strong fingers wrap around her waist and pull her down. Itsuki's feet slipped off of the shelf: thousands of empty bottles flew and crashed in all directions. Urchin fought to grab the bottle out of Itsuki's fingers and succeeded. He swallowed the elixir and stood in the corner of the room with the nine others who were cured. In a matter of seconds, both Swell and Itsuki were on the ground, screaming and spasming rapidly as the poison began to do its deadly work on their exhausted bodies. They were dead within seconds.

 _Swell Hager, District 4 Male (Veteran); 12th, Killed by poison, Day 14 (Intermission 2)_

 _Itsuki Tanner, District 7 Female (Veteran); 11th, Killed by poison, Day 14 (Intermission 2)_

Orestilla smiled like two humans hadn't just died right in front of her eyes. "Now that you ten are very much cured, I think you deserve a rest day. I mean, you're all probably exhausted."

The tributes murmured in agreement, eyes horribly transfixed on the fields of shattered glass bottles and the two dead tributes.

Orestilla lead the tributes through a side door into another strange room. The room had eleven doors: the one they had entered through, and ten others. Each of the ten doors was marked with a number. A small black bag sat in the center of the room. The bag was bulging in some spots, as though stuffed with many objects.

The head gamemaker scooped up the bag. "When I call your name, you will reach into this bag and draw a number. You will draw in alphabetical order of your first names. First, Glitterdust."

The girl from 1 reached into the bag and drew a large foam cube labeled with the number seven. Orestilla pointed to door number seven, which Glitterdust entered hesitantly. Each of the tributes had their turn to draw a cube, and soon enough, every tribute had entered a door.

The doors led to ten different arenas used in past Hunger Games. Nouvelle found herself in the shopping mall arena of the ninety-sixth Hunger Games, along with that year's victor, Pluto. Nouvelle and Pluto spent the entire day talking and window shopping before settling down for an extravagant dinner in the food court. Zealand ended up in the sixty-third games' underwater arena with a famous Capitol scuba diver. Zealand took a day-long tour, observing the various colorful ocean life. Finally, they visited a hidden underwater cave filled with air, where they feasted on calamari and fried fish. Glitterdust was on the dinosaur-infested island of the eighteenth games. She washed herself off in the warm ocean water, and two avoxes applied various shampoos and cleansers onto her skin to scrub off the dirt that had built up on her body. Rimno found himself in the town arena of the sixty-first games. He and two victors, Vine and Larke, went on a scenic drive through the town. At noon, they ate a picnic in the park and then attended a barbecue with hot dogs and several exotic fried meats. Urchin entered the sandy lagoon arena used for the seventy-sixth Hunger Games. He rested in an earthen hut for several hours, attended to by avoxes dressed stereotypically like indigenous tribespeople, then went canoeing in the lagoon with friendly dolphins trailing behind.

Undine stepped through the door and saw the abandoned city arena of the second Hunger Games. A number of famous actors dressed like zombies put on a play for her. Next, a pilot gave her a helicopter tour of the city. He even let Undine put her hands on the steering wheel for a brief moment. Mikey visited the circus tent arena of the ninetieth Hunger Games. An extravagant show containing elephants, monkeys, magicians, and tightrope-walkers was put on for him while he watched with a big bucket of buttery popcorn. Strapson was taken to the Japanese garden arena of the fifty-fifth arena, where the air smelled like cherry blossoms and the water was clear like glass. A victor, Sickle, gave Strapson a gardening class, where he learned how to plant seeds and transfer various flowers between different pots. Strapson found himself interested, and even managed to form a few complete sentences when talking to Sickle. Wheaton was in the midnight palace of the forty-third games. The castle was made of thick black stone, but it was warm and cozy now, as opposed to the freezing-cold temperature it had had during its games many years before. He was allowed to sit on the throne like a king before being treated to an elaborate banquet and a warm bath with sweet-smelling water. Hydrangea was in the psychiatric hospital arena of the eighty-second Hunger Games. However, the building had taken on a serious makeover: it was now brightly and warmly lit, it had clean walls, and there were merry doctors waiting at every corner to treat the small injuries the games had given her. Later, she was allowed to rest on a bed with candy, warm blankets, and a friendly-looking brown teddy bear.

The tributes stayed in their various paradises for roughly one and a half days. They were transferred back to the arena in the early morning of Day 16. They were all clean, relaxed, healed, and reenergized. The skies cleared; the first half of Day 16 was sunny and warm. However, the temperature dropped rapidly around noon, as though the gamemakers were slowly adjusting the tributes to the cruel environment they were in. They couldn't stay in paradise forever.

The first half of Day 16 was relatively uneventful. The standards' trio was down to two after the poisonous death of Swell Hager, but Nouvelle and Undine were slightly relieved, glad for the larger shares of food and water now that they had only two members. Every tribute was now in the woods, but the terrain there was very uneven, which kept Nouvelle and Undine from finding victims easily. Zealand and Glitterdust faced similar issues, unable to find victims ever since their last kill back on Day 13. Urchin decided to move ever-so-slightly in the direction of the theme park, hoping more tributes would be hiding there. The terrain was slightly flatter in that region, but the only tribute there was Hydrangea, who was hidden well in a small cave half-filled with clean water.

The latter portion of Day 16 was much more action-packed, with three deaths. Rimno was hunting wildly still. His taser was wrapped in cloth, but it was only bound shut lightly, so that he could draw the weapon at a moment's notice if a tribute or dangerous mutt crossed his path. This quell did not have many mutts: the gamemakers had chosen to focus more on the action between the tributes. Rimno hunted about halfway between the chasm and the start of the forest: the thickest region of the wood and the place where the most tributes were hiding.

Rimno's breath caught in his throat when he heard deep, soft snores. The forest was quiet enough for him to follow the sound, and Rimno pushed aside a spiny branch to get a full view of the sleeping Mikey. He'd taken most of the day to relax and was nearing the end of his sleep cycle, so he was quickly woken by Rimno's footsteps. Mikey jumped to his feet and tried to run, and Rimno panicked, momentarily forgetting how to active his handmade device and Mikey ran. Rimno flicked the weapon on, and electricity arced from its tip. As he caught up to Mikey and pressed the point of the weapon against his neck, the victim collapsed, stunned and knocked unconscious by the strong electrical current. A moment later, Mikey began to stir, and Rimno hurriedly scooped up some dirt and stuffed it into his mouth before dashing away.

 _Mikey Jonah, District 7 Male (Veteran); 10th, Killed by Rimno, Day 16_

A second cannon shot fired less than an hour later. Strapson's crowbar had not been put to use for several weeks, and he was itching to make more kills and satisfy his thirst for blood. Nouvelle and Undine, continuing their hunting program, broke from a brisk walk into a jogging pace when Mikey's cannon shouted. Moments later, Strapson came into sight.

The career girls charged and found their opponent to be much stronger than he appeared. Strapson even managed to slam Nouvelle in the head with astonishing force, knocking her out. Undine ended up fending Strapson away with a mixture of fist and spear blows. After nearly half an hour, Strapson finally retreated, and Undine dragged Nouvelle to the nearest river, where she drizzled water down her throat and waited for her to come to.

Nouvelle regained consciousness in a matter of minutes, but night was falling quickly, and soon it was time to go back to sleep. They were both nervous about sleeping with Strapson nearby. What neither of them knew was that Strapson had followed them from a safe distance, and was now waiting in the shadows for the moment it was dark enough to draw near without being seen.

Nouvelle went to sleep first, with Undine sleepily standing guard. Strapson hunched over his crowbar in the distance, waiting patiently as the sun disappeared. The girls had lost their night-vision goggles nearly a week earlier; Strapson had the only other pair, and therefore the overwhelming advantage. Undine barely had time to open her mouth before the crowbar hit her in the head, cracking her skull down the back and making a noise like a deep ringing bell. Undine was killed instantly, and Strapson continued to beat her up and down while Nouvelle ran for her life, knowing victory was hopeless when her opponent had the cover of darkness.

 _Undine Kimble, District 4 Female (Newcomer); 9th, Killed by Strapson, Day 16_

That left the final eight: Nouvelle Harris, Zealand Cruxe, and Glitterdust Keane from District 1, Rimno Kiely from District 3, Urchin Wrangel from District 4, Strapson Irving from District 8, Wheaton Naysmith from District 9, and Hydrangea Tinsel from District 11.

Glitterdust was in better spirits following her day of relaxation on the island beach, but the stress of the games was beginning to close in on her again. Now that she had reached the final eight, she knew she had no choice but to either turn on Zealand or abandon him. Regardless of what she did, she knew she would likely have to commit murder multiple times if she ever wanted to see her family again. Completely regretting her choice to enter these games, Glitterdust decided to split apart from Zealand as quickly and gently as possible.

At midnight, the faces of Mikey and Undine were displayed in the sky for all to see. About an hour earlier, the 1s had stopped on a small hillock to relax and unwind.

"It's midnight," Zealand barked. "Time to start hunting again."

Glitterdust got to her feet and shakily said no. "I'd like to strike off on my own. Anyway, it's too late in…"

The last part of her sentence was never heard as Zealand whipped out his hatchet and buried it into her head, nearly cleaving her skull completely in half. Glitterdust died instantly, and Zealand yanked the blade back to watch his worthless district partner collapse like a rag doll. He'd promised his parents that he would turn on his fellow careers at the final eight, and that was a promise he intended to keep. Zealand quickly wiped off his hatchet and then marched away. Now he was one of three remaining careers, and he was confident he could take down Nouvelle and Urchin.

 _Glitterdust Keane, District 1 Female (Newcomer); 8th, Killed by Zealand, Day 17_

Days 18 through 20 were deathless and empty of conflict. Nouvelle, Zealand, and Urchin were now hunting separately. Nouvelle was closest to the amusement park, Zealand was toward the thick center region, and Urchin was closest to the force field. The four outliers were distributed evenly throughout the forest. Rimno and Hydrangea were hunting much like the fractured career trio. Rimno moved quickly with such a light weapon, and Hydrangea's small size served as both a hiding advantage and a survival advantage: she didn't need nearly as much food and water to make it through each day. Strapson was also hunting, but his movements were much more spontaneous: he bounced around the forest like a pinball in a pinball machine being piloted by a maniac. The blood on his crowbar slowly dried as he was unable to find new victims, and he turned to beating up the harmless mutts of the forest to satisfying his manic urges.

Wheaton was the only tribute to refrain from hunting. He had come to a stop in a field of mud and fallen sticks, as well as plenty of dry leaves. When he smeared his skin with the mud, he blended well into the landscape, and the leaves and sticks only served as additional camouflage. For now, Wheaton was playing a defensive game, as opposed to the offensive game that the others were playing.

Rimno was the first tribute to wake on Day 21. After taking a sip from a small stream and washing off his knees and face, he got on the move in an attempt to track down more victims. A basket containing a thick napkin and three dinner rolls drifted down to him, and Rimno sat cross-legged in an area of thick brush to eat breakfast. Ten minutes later, he licked off his buttery fingers and started away. Just in time, too. Moments later, Strapson passed by, growling slightly with his crowbar swinging at his side. That fight had been avoided: however, two other fights occurred at various points throughout the day.

Hydrangea woke up just as the sun rose. She blinked hard and wiped the sleep from her eyes, then sneezed from the dirt and dust that had built up on her face over the course of the warm night. She had travelled nearly five miles the previous day and would have liked to have slept longer, but she heard soft footsteps and snapped to attention. Wheaton's sickle made quite a lot of noise as it scraped along through the forest, and Hydrangea stood up, hunting knives in her grip. Wheaton had passed by Listra, but he'd made up his mind about killing, and he wasn't about to pass by the girl from 11. Their fight lasted roughly eight minutes, with the tributes taking turns lunging. They both had their own strengths, and their various wounds and injuries evened them out even more fairly. Hydrangea retreated after sustaining a deep gash to the lower portion of her chest, and Wheaton sprinted in the opposite direction to take care of his own injuries.

The biggest fight of the day transpired in an open field in the forest, about half a mile from the location of the fallen Ferris wheel. Zealand and Nouvelle had been travelling near each other for several days, but they came nearer than ever just as the sun began to set. Orestilla set off a loud banging sound between the two of them. One of the nearby tributes, Rimno, travelled a short distance toward the noise to see what the ruckus was all about, but turned around to return to his evening cat nap moments later.

At the same time, Zealand and Nouvelle rushed toward the noise. They spotted each other from twenty meters off and drew their weapons immediately, preparing for a long fight. Nouvelle's sword and Zealand's hatchet were very different weapons, but they were both incredibly skilled. In fact, they were the two strongest tributes out of the original forty-eight, and viewers all over the Capitol leaned back in their seats with their favorite snacks in hand, preparing for a show.

Nouvelle made the first blow, confidence bolstered because she had the longer weapon. Zealand quickly retaliated with a heavy swing of his hatchet, nearly grazing Nouvelle's shoulder until she leapt out of the way. Nouvelle's next blow came even closer to Zealand's chest, but he swerved to one side so that the blade meant for his torso only scraped his side.

Their fight continued for hours, long after the sun had set. Two hours later, they were both caked in a thin layer of sticky blood and were both still fighting as ferociously as ever. Zealand was apprehensive about tossing his hatchet: he didn't want to risk missing, leaving him defenseless against the onslaught of blows from his opponent's sword. However, Nouvelle made a devious move, attempting to disorient him by showing left then swinging to the right, and Zealand decided to take a big risk. He threw the weapon, leaning into the toss to garner additional force, and Nouvelle was too shocked by this sudden burst of energy to sidestep. The blade of the weapon landed in her chest, and Nouvelle collapsed, moaning and gurgling as blood drizzled down her chin. Her cannon promptly fired, and Zealand sauntered away, eager for a river or stream in which to wash himself.

 _Nouvelle Harris, District 1 Female (Veteran); 7th, Killed by Zealand, Day 21_

The next morning, Day 22, the tributes awoke in the now-familiar place where their intermissions were held. With only six of them left, they had been gathered for their third and final intermission, and Orestilla had a day of most certain terror planned for them.

"Welcome, once more. I don't think I need to introduce myself," Orestilla said, having appeared seemingly out of nowhere. She was wearing a white sun dress, and a necklace with six unique beads sat around her neck. Each bead represented one of the tributes: a dazzling diamond for Zealand, a silver microchip for Rimno, a beautiful blue gemstone for Urchin, a thimble for Strapson, a golden bead the color of wheat for Wheaton, and a pristine white flower for Hydrangea.

"This intermission has two phases, both of which will test your mental strength to the most serious degree. These tasks are not for the faint of heart, but I'm confident you'll be able to handle them. You're all my favorites." She snapped, and the room's far wall disappeared, revealing six hallways that stretched on seemingly forever. After a few meters, the hallways were lost in inky darkness. "Each of these hallways is exactly one mile long. Your first task is to cross them. Simple enough, right?"

It did seem simple. The tributes stepped into the hallways. "Good luck crossing your halls of horror, tributes. I'll see you on the other side." The wall reappeared behind them, sealing them inside. Now there was only silence, and an entire mile of darkness.

Zealand took the first bold, uncertain step forward. Immediately, the darkness began to warp and bend around him, like the landscape of a dream. In a matter of seconds, the dirty and moist smell of the underground surrounded him, lit with harsh electric lights. He quickly realized where he was, and he was helpless as he watched his younger brother crushed to death under a toppled pile of rocks. It had happened five years earlier, but Zealand was presented with a vision as clear as if it were happening for the first time. Each of the tributes would be forced to relive the worst experiences of their lives, but no matter what, they had to keep moving down their hallway.

Rimno saw visions of an innocent childhood: a tinkling butterfly wind chime, moss springing under curled toes. Then he was shown the moment school bullies had drowned his pet cat in a bucket of water: the moment he realized the world was a cruel, cruel place. Then he saw visions of peacekeepers beating innocent civilians, family after family starving to death in his neighborhood; the slow but sure loss of his childhood innocence. Urchin saw fleeting images of his miserable life before his gender transition: hating sparkles and bows as a child, being teased for only playing with boys, crying for two days straight when he bled for the first time, cutting the first line down his arm when he noticed breasts developing. Urchin was sixteen when he told his parents he wanted to be a boy, and they took it just as badly as he'd imagined. When he asked if they'd rather he be addicted to drugs, his mother sneered that at least drugs could be fixed. Strapson was taken back to his school days, where he was treated like a complete social outcast due to his various mental illnesses. He had wanted more than anything to be treated like a normal kid, but had been rejected, bullied and beaten to the point he lost all emotion and felt nothing but hatred. Wheaton had almost suffocated in a grain silo when he was twelve, and he was made to relive the feeling of helplessness as the grain rose higher and higher around him, from his waist to his chest to his neck to his chin. He was seconds away from certain death when his father heard his screams and lowered a rope to help him out. Hydrangea was taken back to her early childhood, when she'd been home alone with her abusive father and all of his strange friends. They started off merely touching her in weird ways, then making her do things she was way too young to understand.

The noises of screaming, crying, and flailing arms crashing against narrow walls reverberated and echoed like a scene in a horror movie. Closing their eyes was no use, as the sounds told just as much of the terrible story as the sights: _You couldn't save him. This isn't your body. Survival is hopeless. Nobody will ever love you._

It was nearly two hours before the last tribute, Wheaton, reached the end of his hallway. The other five had been waiting at the ends of their own hallways for varying amounts of time, and they all blinked hard as the walls dividing the hallways sank down. The room flooded with light. All six of the tributes were crying, and even Zealand was shaking like a leaf in a heavy wind.

"You all did very well." Orestilla appeared once again. "But that was only the first part of this intermission." She snapped, and the room's back wall disappeared, unveiling six doors labeled with the tributes' names. "There is a small room behind each door. Inside is a person I think you'll recognize. I think you'll also recognize these."

Orestilla reached into her handbag and pulled out six small guns. "These have one bullet. Upon entering the room, you have one minute to shoot the person inside."

The tributes took the guns with shaking hands, then stepped into the rooms. Zealand stepped through the door and saw his girlfriend strapped to a chair with thick rope. Her wrists and ankles were bloody from fighting against her constraints. "I hear you've come to kill me," her voice warbled, and Zealand raised the gun. He couldn't pull the trigger without closing his eyes. His girlfriend screamed, gore flew, and Orestilla pulled Zealand out of the room. He'd completed the task easily. The others would have much more trouble.

Urchin was presented with his aunt, who'd welcomed him into her household after he'd been kicked out by his parents. Urchin raised the gun and started crying: he'd killed multiple strangers in the games, but the thought of harming someone who had done him so much good was out of the question. However, as the seconds ticked down and the urgency rose, he found himself pulling the trigger. Strapson's room contained one of his classmates, an autistic boy named Yarn. Yarn was Strapson's only friend and the only student who had talked to him. By this point, Strapson had no morals left in him, and he had no problem firing the gun. He even laughed a little.

Rimno entered his room and saw a thin woman with black hair bound to a chair: his mother. Rimno raised the gun and closed his eyes; he knew how realistic the Capitol's simulations were, and he knew the woman sitting before him was not his mother: it was nothing more than a holograph, a simulation, a fake lady. Rimno pulled the trigger. The moment she began screaming, Rimno realized this was not a simulation; his mother was very much real. He let out a scream of his own and raced toward the dying woman, but Orestilla grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him out of the room. He kicked and tried to escape her grip, but he was momentarily sedated with a needle and blacked out. Hydrangea saw a close friend strapped to the chair: a girl whose name she didn't know. She had provided Hydrangea with food and water during the time she had lived on the streets, and shown her the best places to find shelter and stay out of the peacekeepers' watch. Hydrangea found herself unable to fire the gun; she could not kill her friend. When there were only three seconds left, a loud beeping noise began, and fit of panic took her over. Hydrangea fired. Her friend died in seconds. Orestilla pulled Hydrangea out of her room. There were only seven tributes there: one tribute had failed the task.

Wheaton stepped through the door and saw his brother. They were twins, but his brother had aged by several decades, while Wheaton had stayed at age fourteen during his time on the "other side". His brother had been his companion through good times and bad times, his sole protector and the home's main breadwinner. Wheaton involuntarily dropped the gun, then dropped to his knees, screaming, "I can't do it! I can't do it!" One moment, there was Wheaton and his brother: the next moment, there was pure hellish fire. When the dust settled, there was rubble, no chair, and no Wheaton Naysmith.

 _Wheaton Naysmith, District 9 Male (Veteran); 6th, Killed by explosives, Day 22 (Intermission 3)_

"That's all I have for you five," Orestilla said cheerily. "When you wake up down there in the arena, you're there to stay. Your pasts are all filled with pain, but I hope you remember that you must keep fighting hard even when the road looks rough. May the odds be ever in your favor."

The sun was rising when the tributes re-entered the arena. While the first two intermissions were foggy in their heads, they had vivid memories of the most recent one; it would have been impossible to forget such horrific things. Zealand and Urchin were at opposite ends of the forest, but Urchin began to move in Zealand's direction as the sun rose. A rabid deer mutt chased Zealand to a thin stream that looked clear, and he took a large sip of the water, exhausted from the long run. The water was laced with deadly poison, and the stomach cramps began almost immediately. Zealand hadn't consumed enough to kill him, but it was definitely enough to put him through a world of hurt. He curled up in a copse of bushes and shook lightly. The other career, Urchin, was much more active, traversing several miles of the forest as the sun rose and set for the twenty-third time. After spending several days in one of the flatter forested areas, he decided to head west, where the terrain was much more hilly and uneven; he hoped more tributes would hide there for cover and shelter.

Rimno was almost completely consumed and empty, but now he was filled with something else: anger. The Capitol had made him kill his own mother, and a look of hatred was seated deep in his face as he sulked around the arena. If anything, he was motivated to end these games as quickly as possible, and was now hunting more ferociously than ever. Hydrangea was shaken like a leaf by all of the terrible things she had seen and done, and nobody could blame her for taking a break. She'd found a new treetop home; nestled into the crook of a broad-branched tree, the expanses of sharp, bare branches hid her from the others' view.

The Capitol public urged the gamemakers to put down Strapson more strongly than ever; he was demonstrating more and more insane behavior by the day. Having fallen deeper and deeper into the pit of insanity, and now spent most of the time on the ground babbling nonsense, occasionally stopping to kill a roaming forest mutt or two. His insane behavior had transitioned from entertaining to off-putting. Orestilla still kept him alive: the only way to kill him naturally would be to send one of the careers in his direction, and each the careers were several miles away. Strapson's death would have to wait for the time being.

Speaking of the careers, Zealand was on the prowl. He'd spent most of the day practicing throwing his hatchet, and as the sun rose on Day 24, he spotted his tiny victim scampering quietly through the trees. Hydrangea had left her cave shelter moments earlier to collect the outputs of her various traps and snares. A trap snapped under Zealand's foot, and Hydrangea whipped her head around, sparing only an instant to identify her hunter before bolting for her life.

Hydrangea was an extremely fast runner, but she quickly grew exhausted, and she could not evade Zealand for long. Even if they had broken out into a duel, Zealand's trusty hatchet would have easily overpowered Hydrangea's two hunting daggers. Hydrangea's vision grew blurry and splotchy with panic, and her fate was sealed as soon as she ran face-first into a dead oak tree. She slid to the ground, and Zealand was on top of her in seconds, ruthlessly hacking away at her back and neck with the lethal blade of his weapon. Hydrangea's cannon fired, and Zealand took a quick moment to pilfer her of her supplies before dashing away.

 _Hydrangea Tinsel, District 11 Female (Veteran); 5th, Killed by Zealand, Day 24_

The next three days (Days 25, 26, and 27) were the most uneventful days the fourth Quarter Quell had seen yet. Progress slowed to a crawl. With the four tributes staying still or moving slowly, the Capitol was beginning to thirst for a bloody finale. Zealand, healed from the poison water and rejuvenated by his killing of Hydrangea, was the only one actively hunting. Once, he came within thirty meters of Rimno, but the 3 boy was drawn away by the noise of a scampering animal. Rimno hadn't made a kill in an extremely long time, and was beginning to get bored of the constant and fruitless hunting efforts. Urchin was jogging on the morning of Day 25 when a sudden downward slope appeared. Urchin was too shocked to stop himself before he ran over the edge, rolling and tumbling down the rocky slope. It tore up his skin and drew copious amounts of blood. His sponsors hurriedly supplied him with bandages and disinfectant, but Urchin could do little for himself but wait patiently for his wounds to heal. Strapson got into another conflict on Day 27, reminiscent of his past duels with Cylinder. Rimno was eating lunch near a small, grassy hillock, when Strapson burst out of the shadows, salivating with his crowbar lofted overhead. Rimno managed to stun him long enough for him to escape; Rimno was tempted to kill him, but didn't want to get any closer until his taser had time to recharge.

Day 28 contained little besides the continuation of the Rimno-Strapson conflict. They clashed three times between sunset and sundown, but neither boy could land a lethal wound on the other. Once, Rimno managed to stun Strapson for nearly an hour, giving him more than enough time to escape. He wanted to place several miles between himself and the insane boy, but found his path blocked by deadly bird and wolf mutts spurred on by Orestilla. These games had fallen into a stupor that was slow even for Orestilla's tastes. She was contemplating doing something crazy, like lighting the forest on fire or sending deadly mutts on a rampage through the forest to slaughter the remaining tributes. However, Zealand and Urchin were wandering toward each other, and Orestilla would not let them evade one another again.

Patience paid off, and the audience was treated to another thrilling fight as Zealand spotted a lightly snoozing Urchin in the late morning of Day 29. The night before, Urchin had fallen asleep on the shore of the arena's largest lake, which was crystal clear and sparkled like polished glass in the morning sun. Zealand emerged from the forest on the other side of the lake; he had travelled there for a drink and a quick wash, but was more than happy to tack on another kill to his growing count.

Zealand raced around the edge of the lake. By the time Urchin realized what was happening, it was too late. He hurriedly reached for his whip, but Zealand leapt up behind him, bringing down his hatchet with incredible force. He tried to crawl away, involuntarily flipping onto his back, and Zealand brought down the hatchet into a stomach. His guts began spilling immediately, and Urchin could do nothing but flail like a dying fish as his body slowly failed him. Zealand now had an impressive ten kills, the most of any Quarter Quell tribute in history.

 _Urchin Wrangel, District 4 Male (Newcomer); 4th, Killed by Zealand, Day 29_

By Day 30, it was apparent that the gamemakers had made a decision regarding Strapson. Orestilla had her fun keeping him around and watching him rave, but it was far too late for such petty motives; insane tributes were not allowed to win the games. Orestilla couldn't let him live any longer, but she could certainly make his death amusing.

Orestilla collected half of the mutts in the forest, from birds to deer to wolves to golden squirrels borrowed from the second Quell. There were at least two-hundred of them, and they were gathered in a large circle around Strapson, who was murmuring quietly to himself in his sleep. He woke from one nightmare right into another as the surrounding forest creatures were sicced on him at once. One of the cat-sized squirrels leapt onto his arm, and Strapson tore it off, hissing slightly as its claws tore deep gashes in his forearm.

Strapson slowly looked up and saw the wide line of mutts closing in on him. If he was to go down, he wanted to go down fighting. Strapson pulled out his crowbar and swung it with full force, sending a skeletal deer mutt reeling. A bird dug its claws into his scalp, and he smacked it with his raised fist while he fended off a crowd of sinister bird mutts with his crowbar. He fought violently and relentlessly, but he was quickly overwhelmed. He was forced the ground gradually as the mutts kicked and clawed at him. Soon, he was lying flat on the ground as the various forest mutts bit small chunks of bloody skin out of his body. The mutts cleared away gradually, leaving behind an unrecognizable pile of scraps and bones. His remains were unsightly, and the gamemakers cleaned them up quickly.

 _Strapson Irving, District 8 Male (Newcomer); 3rd, Killed by forest mutts, Day 30_

After an entire month, the crowd of forty-eight tributes had been whittled down to a final two. Fortunately, it contained two of the games' most beloved tributes. Zealand was the cream of the crop as far as District 1 tributes were concerned; having wowed the gamemakers in virtually every standard, he had gone on to slaughter a fifth of the tribute group. If he won, he would bring District 1 its second Quarter Quell victor. However, Rimno was the true underdog. He'd spent half of his life slaving away in the microchip factories of District 3, and had been quite a popular competitor in his original games; while he wasn't the most physically powerful tribute in the games, he was clever and sly and extremely intelligent. With nine of the districts rooting for him, it didn't seem impossible that he could take home the victor's crown.

Days 30 and 31 were filled with lots of preparation for the finalists. Zealand was confident he could take down Rimno. His only weakness was that he didn't know about Rimno's handmade taser weapon; he figured Rimno was merely armed with a knife or other weak weapon. Zealand knew the gamemakers were unlikely to drive the tributes toward the cornucopia for the finale. There wasn't any preparation he could do beyond practicing with his hatchet, chopping down an entire circle of trees and wowing the Capitol for the millionth time.

Rimno's sponsors hurriedly sent him a second weapon, a long machete with a razor-sharp edge. While his taser weapon functioned well, his fans didn't want him to be helpless if it was lost, destroyed, or stolen. The pain in his shoulder had faded by this point: now, he could focus on nothing but the tasks at hand. He was determined to force his way out of the arena at literally any cost, and Rimno Kiely would not give into his career opponent. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

On Day 32, Orestilla let the world blaze. Fires started in the north and south: Rimno was in the north, and Zealand was in the south, and the tributes were driven toward each other. Clouds of noxious black smoke rose into the sky, blocking out the sun as the forest was lit by the swelling flames. The finalists spotted each other from opposite ends of a long valley at nine in the morning, and they raced down their respective hills, meeting each other at the valley's lowest point. Both tributes were prepared to kill the other or die trying.

Zealand's first few blows were powerful. The very first swing of his hatchet disarmed Rimno of his machete, sending the weapon flying. Rimno took the risk of turning around and bending over the retrieve the weapon, and he leapt back to full height to see Zealand bearing down on him.

The duel continued for thirty minutes as the fire roared. Rimno took to the tactic of lashing at his opponent's face, slicing Zealand's eye in half in a single swipe. Zealand let out a loud scream as the slimy ball fell to the ground in several small chunks. He then clapped a hand over his empty eye socket. Things were getting reminiscent of the final duel between Katoptris Parker and Haymitch Abernathy back in the second Quarter Quell. However, neither of these tributes were rebels. President Stinn Hawke was pleased that this Quarter Quell would not be a failure.

The duel ended after nearly an hour. The flames had completely closed in on the valley where the boys were dueling: flames were pulsing and roaring ten meters behind Zealand's back. They were both littered with hundreds of tiny cuts and scrapes, and the final blow was dealt as Zealand tossed his hatchet. Rimno's shoulder was cut, his tracker stopped detecting a heartbeat, and the trumpets sounded in declaration of Zealand's victory.

Both tributes were carried into the hovercraft. Stinn greeted Zealand with a hearty welcome to the victor life, while Rimno's seemingly dead body was carried into the freezing-cold room where the corpses of the forty-six other tributes were lying down in neat rows. He was laid on the ground next to the bodies of the other District 3 tributes. After the Capitol team rushed out of the room, Rimno slowly opened his eyes.

If the gamemakers had done more research on Rimno, they would have known where the pain in his shoulder was coming from. Rimno's parents were some of the many District 3 residents who were still rebellious. When the veterans were brought back to life, Orestilla had given each of them a single day to reunite with friends and family who had thought them dead and gone, and Rimno's rebel family had seen that as the perfect opportunity. They'd embedded a small device into his shoulder: a device that could make him appear dead for a short period of time, only to bring him back to life to wreak havoc in the tribute hovercraft.

Rimno slowly stood up, checked his own heartbeat as if to make sure he was alive, then grabbed a loaded gun from a countertop nearby. "This is for Diamond, Haymitch, and Struve," he murmured. Then he sprinted out of the tribute room and shot Zealand straight through the heart. The medical teams immediately began screaming with confusion and panic. Zealand was dead in a matter of seconds, while Rimno stood smugly in the doorway. The Capitol's scientists couldn't believe it. Rimno had been dead and still only a minute earlier.

One thing was certain, however: Rimno Kiely had beaten the system. For him, there would be hell to pay.

 _Zealand Cruxe, District 1 Male (Newcomer); 2nd, Killed by Rimno, Day 32_

 _Rimno Kiely, District 3 Male (Veteran); Victor of the One-Hundredth Hunger Games, the Fourth Quarter Quell, Day 32_

* * *

 _ **AFTERMATH**_

District 3 welcomed their controversial twelfth victor with open arms. Like each of the Quarter Quell victors before him, Rimno returned to his home district to find his friends and family mysteriously gone. President Stinn Hawke was furious that the Quell had slipped through his fingers just when he had it in the palm of his hand, and he raised taxes and work quotas in the technology district for years as punishment. The process of cloning Zealand using a sample of his DNA would have taken months or years, and there was no way it could be done in time for the victor interview or even the victory tour. To their chagrin, the Capitol had no choice but to accept Rimno Kiely as their victor. Rimno lived his entire life in pure hatred of the Capitol; they had made him kill his own mother, and he would never forgive them. He was much like Johanna Mason in many respects, and he hated how dependent on the Capitol he was for food and survival. He donated almost ninety-eight percent of his victory's payouts to the poor of District 3 and to the families of the fallen tributes. Rimno was somewhat lax with rebellion for the rest of his life, but he encouraged many other citizens of District 3 and Panem as a whole to take advantage of the small chinks in the Capitol's armor. These Quarter Quells just kept blowing up in the Capitol's face.

The payouts on his victory were stellar, as 0.2% bet on him.

His victory tour was decent. He was cheered on in spirit by the rebellious outlying districts. District 8 even began cheering for him before the crowd was quieted by peacekeeper gunshots. He was hated most by District 1, where he was ignored and degraded for the entirety of his stay.

Rimno would live to age sixty, dying by assassination around the time of the one-hundred forty-fourth Hunger Games. He would remain completely clean of drugs and alcohol, though he struggled with morphling addiction for roughly a year following his victory. He would never marry, but would enter a deeply committed relationship with a niece of Sickle Salgato's.

* * *

 _ **NEWS**_

Rimno moves into the Victor's Village of District 3, across the street from Chipson's home.

Poplin Amsden marries his girlfriend of six years, Threada Collins.

Dock Elizabeth receives an abortion.

Sycamora Bromley bears twin sons, Lumber and Hatchet.

Discordia Komine, the victor of the twenty-ninth Hunger Games, dies from appendicitis.

* * *

 _ **LIST OF VICTORS**_

1HG: Cordin Frey (#1, District 3)  
2HG: Sapphire Waber (#1, District 1)  
3HG: Molly Toliday (#1, District 4)  
4HG: Amelia Spangler (#1, District 2)  
5HG: Misty Sablone (#1, District 12) _  
_6HG: Olivia Seager (#2, District 2)  
7HG: Flux Stafford (#2, District 3)  
8HG: Brandi Coyne (#2, District 1)  
9HG: Isaac Crandall (#1, District 5)  
10HG: Velvet Farrow (#3, District 1)  
11HG: Mags Flanagan (#2, District 4)  
12HG: Slate Ogston (#3, District 2)  
13HG: Woof Dozier (#1, District 8)  
14HG: Blaze Skalnik (#4, District 2)  
15HG: Dina Wilmarth (#2, District 5)  
16HG: Beatrice Toland (#1, District 6)  
17HG: Amelia Bankston (#5, District 2)  
18HG: Markus Gardd (#2, District 6)  
19HG: Odius Ruttler (#6, District 2)  
20HG: Seeder Kaiser (#1, District 11)  
21HG: Freya Digard (#7, District 2)  
22HG: Gold Carson (#4, District 1)  
23HG: Ashlyn Breston (#3, District 6)  
24HG: Dayta Albrand (#3, District 3)  
25HG: Diamond Griego (#5, District 1)  
26HG: Thor Rosner (#8, District 2)  
27HG: Magnet Lisagor (#4, District 3)  
28HG: Maria Dutra (#3, District 4)  
29HG: Discordia Komine (#9, District 2)  
30HG: Barley Chisolm (#1, District 9)  
31HG: Marlin Coppi (#4, District 4)  
32HG: Wyatt Kerdler (#5, District 3)  
33HG: Molly Soltan (#5, District 4)  
34HG: Grover Handa (#1, District 7)  
35HG: Troy Stiles (#6, District 4)  
36HG: Lana Voltaire (#10, District 2)  
37HG: Lucy Said (#7, District 4)  
38HG: Porter Tripp (#3, District 5)  
39HG: Penelope Turek (#8, District 4)  
40HG: Beetee Latier (#6, District 3)  
41HG: Radiance Clinton (#6, District 1)  
42HG: Technik Hartline (#7, District 3)  
43HG: Dylan Levitt (#9, District 4)  
44HG: Rye Boyum (#2, District 9)  
45HG: Chaff Korsmun (#2, District 11)  
46HG: Nolan Wrack (#11, District 2)  
47HG: Klink Byrae (#4, District 5)  
48HG: Brutus Cordley (#12, District 2)  
49HG: Wiress Freid (#8, District 3)  
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)  
51HG: Lyme Mabbett (#13, District 2)  
52HG: Ruby Rayfuse (#7, District 1)  
53HG: Lily Eckel (#3, District 11)  
54HG: Blight Holzer (#2, District 7)  
55HG: Emily Pollick (#5, District 5)  
56HG: Sally Vasilia (#6, District 5)  
57HG: Mason Kittridge (#14, District 2)  
58HG: Margaret Cartmill (#1, District 10)  
59HG: Tiger Sterne (#8, District 1)  
60HG: Cecelia Rieffel (#2, District 8)  
61HG: Valerie Easton (#15, District 2)  
62HG: Enobaria Rigatti (#16, District 2)  
63HG: Gloss Linden (#9, District 1)  
64HG: Cashmere Linden (#10, District 1)  
65HG: Finnick Odair (#10, District 4)  
66HG: Victor Xhang (#17, District 2)  
67HG: Augustus Braun (#11, District 1)  
68HG: Iuna Mosier (#12, District 1)  
69HG: Alexander Westlake (#2, District 10)  
70HG: Annie Cresta (#11, District 4)  
71HG: Johanna Mason (#3, District 7)  
72HG: Remus Daley (#18, District 2)  
73HG: Apollo Reinold (#4, District 6)  
74HG: Meredith Powell (#4, District 7)  
75HG: Struve Lockman (#19, District 2)  
76HG: Porcelain Wing (#13, District 1)  
77HG: Router Lowell (#9, District 3)  
78HG: Surge Upsdell (#7, District 5)  
79HG: Kasey Slosser (#5, District 6)  
80HG: Tarquinius Orfe (#20, District 2)  
81HG: Talisa Plummer (#12, District 4)  
82HG: Poplin Amsden (#3, District 8)  
83HG: Pixel Watt (#10, District 3)  
84HG: Dock Elizabeth (#13, District 4)  
85HG: Sycamora Bromley (#5, District 7)  
86HG: Bobbin Chern (#4, District 8)  
87HG: Organdy Karat (#14, District 1)  
88HG: Sickle Salgato (#3, District 9)  
89HG: Admired Thompson (#15, District 1)  
90HG: Chipson Harris (#11, District 3)  
91HG: Mars Talbot (#21, District 2)  
92HG: Arnold Scruggs (#3, District 12), Wystella Knapp (#22, District 2), and Robina Caite (#3, District 10)  
93HG: Taj King (#16, District 1)  
94HG: Steer Drudgers (#4, District 10)  
95HG: Diode Cooper (#8, District 5)  
96HG: Pluto Talbot (#23, District 2)  
97HG: Vine Lilard (#4, District 11)  
98HG: Larke Jean (#5, District 10)  
99HG: Poseidon Odair (#14, District 4)  
100HG: Rimno Kiely (#12, District 3)

* * *

 **A/N: Wow. Wow, guys. I was expecting, I dunno, 16k-17k words. But this ended up 22k words. Like, how the heck does that even happen? Double the tributes, the longest games in history. I'm totally exhausted, but this was so worth it. I personally think the intermissions were a nice touch :D**

 **Now that this story is over, I'd just like to say thank you. Several dozen people have come in and left at different points of this long chronology, and I'm so grateful for how hugely it has evolved not only my writing skill but my relations with users on this site. I get messages often with people apologizing for not reading and reviewing in months or years. Please don't feel bad, as this story has been SO much fun to write and post, and I know it's unrealistic to expect everyone to read the whole thing ;)**

 **Nearly two years after writing about a boy from District 3 named Cordin Frey, I can say that "23 Cannons: The Victor's Compendium" is finally complete.**

 **Oh, but what's this? An epilogue? Hmm…**


	102. Epilogue

**FROM: "ORNUM PIXYL" AUTHOR OF 23 CANNONS  
TO: MY FELLOW REBELS**

* * *

It is with a very heavy heart that I write this. I fear 23 Cannons has come to its conclusion. I have spent the last two years constantly on the run from a Capitol, hiding in forest cellars and the basements of those kind enough to protect me. This story of all the terrible things the Capitol has done, as well as all who read it, have been my light in the darkness. For that, I thank you all.

I have heard stories of men and women dying carrying copies of this rebel book across district borders. To my knowledge, the Capitol has banned it in all twelve districts. This was never a surprise; there are many points in this story where I portray the Capitol in a less-than-flattering manner. However, I appreciate the impact this novel has had. Knowledge is power.

I have written this story under the Ornum Pixyl pseudonym, and I apologize for never revealing my true name. It is simply a security concern. Now, I believe I am trapped. I hide in a small cellar on the outskirts of District 10. There are peacekeepers on my tail, helicopters and trucks circling this area.

I fear my time is up. However, to those of you strong and bold enough to continue my mission, I leave you this final word. It is only right that we fight with all of our strength to take down the Capitol. A government such as this defies all nature's laws to the most terrible degree. We must do this for our wives and our loved ones. We must do this for mankind.

One last time, thank you for all of your support. It means to me more than you know.

* * *

 **Ornum Pixyl  
Sent 2:30 AM, August 6**


End file.
